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Koné Gold Project

CÔTE D’IVOIRE’S NEW GOLD MINE TAKES SHAPE

www.montagegold.com

Koné Gold

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NEW GOLD MINE SHAPE

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s Montage Gold prepares Koné for first production, an accelerated oxide start, owner-operated mining and a growing inventory of higher-grade discoveries are already changing the operation it originally set out to build. There comes a point during the construction of a mine when the conversation begins to change. Concrete pours and equipment deliveries give way to commissioning schedules, mining rates

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and the first tonnes of ore. At Montage Gold’s Koné Gold Project in north-west Côte d’Ivoire, that transition is now under way. The gold room is complete, grid power is live, mining has started and dry commissioning is progressing through an oxide circuit that is expected to deliver first gold in late Q4 2026. More than 13 million working hours have gone into the project so far, while the workforce now exceeds 3,600 employees and contractors, more than 95 per cent of them Ivorian nationals. At the

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“Koné does not depend on spectacular grades. It depends on moving a very large amount of material efficiently.”

centre of the operation sits a processing plant designed to handle 11 million tonnes of ore every year, surrounded by the infrastructure needed to turn what was once a geological proposition into a working mine. For chief executive Martino De Ciccio, however, the interesting thing about Koné is that the project reaching production is already different from the one Montage originally approved. The company has changed its mining model, added an oxide route that brings production forward

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CAM EQUIPMENT: POWERING THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE KONÉ GOLD PROJECT When Montage Gold Corp. broke ground on its flagship Koné Gold Project in December 2024, the ceremony led in the Kani and Dianra departments of northwestern Côte d’Ivoire marked the launch of construction on one of the largest gold developments currently underway in West Africa. Spanning an area of 1,699 square kilometers and targeting first gold production by late 2026, the Koné Gold Project is steadily establishing itself as a defining project for the country’s mining sector, and for the local and regional suppliers contributing to its construction. Among those suppliers is CAM EQUIPMENT, a subsidiary of NOURMONY Holding Group, a diversified Ivorian industrial group. Operating through more than a dozen sectors spanning construction, agribusiness, real estate, hydrocarbons and others, NOURMONY Holding Group has built a footprint that positions its companies to respond to large-scale industrial projects such as Koné. Since December 2024, CAM EQUIPMENT has deployed a fleet of approximately 50 machines (dump trucks, bulldozers, water tankers, excavators, compactors, fuel tankers, dump trucks, graders, and backhoe loaders) to support the major earthwork required to prepare the ground for the project site’s process plant and supporting infrastructure at the site. The contribution extends well beyond equipment supply alone: a team of about 100 employees, including machine operators and dedicated maintenance staff, has been deployed alongside the fleet to ensure its operation throughout the project; a turnkey approach to earthwork rather than a simple equipment rental. This mobilization supported some of the earliest and most critical phases of construction. This operational commitment is accompanied by strict Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE) requirements: CAM EQUIPMENT conducts its earthwork operations in compliance with rigorous standards for workplace safety and environmental protection throughout the entire site. CAM EQUIPMENT’s involvement reflects the strength of the local industrial base mobilized to support

the project’s implementation. The company has an availability rate exceeding 90%, making it Montage Gold’s top-performing subcontractor on the Kani project. As Montage Gold has emphasized throughout the construction process, the Koné gold project is conceived not only as a mining operation but also as a long-term contributor to regional development, from local employment to participation in the supply chain. For CAM EQUIPMENT, participation in the project goes beyond simply equipment supply but extends to the surrounding communities. In 2025, the company donated food supplies to support the Muslim community’s Ramadan observance in the project area. In April 2026, it went a step further by donating medical equipment to the health center serving Gbongogo, in the Dianra subprefecture, one of the localities most directly affected by the Koné development. These initiatives complement CAM EQUIPMENT’s role as an equipment supplier on the project. As Montage Gold reports rapid progress toward first production, CAM EQUIPMENT intends to remain an integral part of this momentum and thus expand its role as the project transitions from construction to operations. Beyond the Koné project, this experience illustrates a broader value proposition: drawing on its fleet of equipment, technical expertise and dedicated teams, CAM EQUIPMENT is positioned to support not only Montage Gold but all mining operators in Côte d’Ivoire across the entire value chain, from infrastructure construction and development through to mining operations. This trajectory reflects the company’s ambition to establish itself as a leading partner across the entire Ivorian mining sector, balancing operational performance, infrastructure development and sustainable social impact. As a trusted partner, CAM EQUIPMENT remains committed to creating value for its customers while making a lasting contribution to the well-being of local communities.

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and continued drilling throughout construction rather than freezing the geological picture at the point of feasibility. As the physical mine has taken shape, the understanding of the mineral system around it has continued to expand. The 2024 feasibility study was built around a much narrower resource base. By June 2026, Montage had delineated 12 deposits across the project and reported mineralisation at 25 targets. Hundreds of thousands of metres have been drilled since the feasibility study, and that work is now feeding into a new life-of-mine plan. It leaves Koné in an unusual position. The infrastructure nearing completion was justified by the ounces already known when construction began, while exploration is now asking how much more value can be drawn through the same plant.

Making scale work

Koné was always going to be a mine built around volume. The 2024 Updated Feasibility Study established probable reserves of 174.3 million tonnes grading 0.72 grams of gold per tonne,

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containing 4.01 million ounces, and outlined an initial mine life of 16 years. Production was forecast to average 301,000 ounces annually during the first eight years, supported by a processing facility designed for approximately 11 million tonnes of ore each year. Those numbers explain much about the way the project has been designed. Koné’s principal deposit is large rather than exceptionally high grade, which makes the efficiency of the whole operating chain important, from the amount of waste stripped before the ore is reached to the cost of moving each tonne through the process plant. The relatively favourable strip ratio helps, as does metallurgy suited to conventional carbon-in-leach treatment, but the economics ultimately depend on keeping a substantial volume of material moving. De Ciccio tends to describe Koné through three ingredients: geology, infrastructure and people. The geology provides the scale. High-voltage electricity running close to the project and established road access reduce the amount of

MONTAGE GOLD enabling infrastructure that had to be created from scratch. Côte d’Ivoire’s growing mining industry has also produced a deeper pool of local experience than would have existed a decade ago, something reflected in the proportion of Ivorian nationals now working on the development. Power reaches the mine through a new 225kV connection, with the on-site system stepping that electricity down and distributing it across the processing and mine-service areas. For a plant expected to handle millions of tonnes each year, access to grid power is part of the economic architecture of the operation rather than an incidental piece of infrastructure. Lycopodium has carried much of the processplant work from engineering through procurement, construction management and commissioning. Metso, meanwhile, has supplied some of the largest pieces of equipment on the flowsheet, including the 22MW Premier grinding

mill, HRC 2400e high-pressure grinding roll, primary gyratory and cone crushing equipment, high-rate thickeners and, later, the main feeder package across the dry plant. The scale of those machines gives some sense of what Koné is being asked to do. Each year, more than 11 million tonnes of rock must be reduced, classified, thickened, leached and ultimately converted into a relatively small quantity of gold. Availability in the crushing and grinding circuit therefore reaches directly into the production assumptions contained in the mine plan. Industrial Fan Systems has supplied five engineered centrifugal fan systems, including units rated at up to 132kW, among the supporting packages required to bring the wider processing complex into operation. It is one example of how quickly a mine of this size moves beyond its headline equipment into hundreds of smaller systems, each with a specific job inside the whole.

“The question was simple: why make softer ore wait for equipment it did not need?”

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Peder Olsen, Montage’s President and Chief Development Officer, has spent much of the past two years dealing with that complexity. His responsibility has been the physical delivery of Koné: getting equipment ordered early enough, construction packages sequenced correctly and commissioning activities started while parts of the development were still being completed. By early 2026, the oxide sizer had been completed, all 14 CIL tanks had been erected and work across the mill, transmission system, substation and tailings facilities was progressing towards the start-up programme. One of the most important changes to that programme came from looking again at the ore closest to surface.

Starting with the softer material

Koné’s original development timetable assumed that production would follow completion of the wider hard-rock processing circuit. During construction, however, Montage identified an

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opportunity to begin with the softer oxide and transitional ore that sits nearer surface. An additional sizer and conveyor route allows suitable oxide material to bypass part of the hard-rock crushing and HPGR circuit before entering the downstream plant. That adjustment brought the first-gold target forward to late Q4 2026, while completion of the full hard-rock comminution circuit remains scheduled for Q2 2027. For a US$885 million upfront capital programme, the timing has a clear financial consequence. Instead of waiting for every part of the final processing configuration to be completed, Koné can begin producing gold while work continues elsewhere on the plant. Dry commissioning of the oxide route began in July, giving the project team several months in which to work progressively through the electrical systems, conveyors, mill, classification equipment, thickeners, CIL circuit and gold room before first production. The mine plan was also reconsidered during construction. The feasibility study assumed contract mining, but Montage subsequently tendered and compared contractor and owneroperated alternatives before choosing to assemble its own fleet. The decision puts day-today control of the pits directly in the hands of the mine operator and gives the technical team more flexibility as additional deposits are considered for future schedules. Neemba International has been central to that transition, supplying and supporting the Caterpillar fleet through its Côte d’Ivoire operation. Cat 777 haul trucks, 6020 hydraulic shovels, D9 dozers and supporting equipment are being assembled and brought into service locally, backed by maintenance, parts, training and product support. The financial structure behind the fleet is almost as important as the machinery itself. CAT Financial has provided a US$75 million facility covering 85 per cent of eligible fleet purchase costs, together with elements of vendor-managed parts, product support and training. The arrangement allows Montage to build the owner-operated capability

MONTAGE GOLD it wanted without placing the full acquisition cost of the fleet into the construction budget at once. As exploration adds more possible sources of ore around the central plant, control over where those machines are deployed becomes increasingly relevant. Higher-grade satellites may eventually alter the sequence of mining, but before any of that material can reach a haul truck it has to be defined with enough confidence to support daily decisions.

From geology to production

Capital Limited began a five-year grade-control drilling contract at Koné during 2026, providing the closer-spaced drilling needed to refine the

boundaries between ore and waste as mining advances. The work occupies a practical place between the broader geological model created during exploration and the day-to-day decisions made by the mining team. MSALABS is establishing and operating the project’s on-site laboratory under another fiveyear agreement. Once production begins, assay turnaround becomes part of the operating rhythm of the mine. Results influence what is sent directly to the plant, what is stockpiled and what is rejected as waste, so shortening the distance between sampling and analysis gives the mining team information while it is still useful. EPC Côte d’Ivoire enters the sequence at the

“At Koné, information has to move almost as efficiently as the rock.”

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“A drill hole becomes a sample, the sample becomes an assay, and the assay becomes a decision made in the pit.” bench. Its five-year explosives and blasting contract began in July 2026 and includes an on-site explosives manufacturing facility, mobile manufacturing units and a dedicated blasting team. Fragmentation created during blasting affects the ease with which shovels can dig the material, how trucks are loaded and what eventually reaches the crusher, linking activity in the pit directly to performance in the processing plant. Orepath is involved at a different level, supporting Montage with mine planning, development strategy and life-of-mine work. Its role has become more complicated as the number of deposits around Koné has grown. The planning exercise now has to consider not only the sequence within the original pits but also the relative grades, stripping requirements,

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haul distances and timing of a broader group of satellite deposits. That changing picture is largely the work of the exploration team led by Executive Vice President Silvia Bottero. Rather than drill every target with the same intensity, Montage has used a staged approach: test the most promising prospects, establish starter resources where the results justify it and then direct infill and step-out drilling towards the discoveries with the strongest combination of grade and scale. While Olsen’s team has been concentrating on building the mine that was approved, Bottero’s has continued to expand the inventory that may one day feed it. That tension between construction and discovery has become one of the defining features of Koné.

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“Koné may carry Montage Gold’s name, but the mine itself is the work of a much wider group of companies.” The companies behind Koné

A mine of this size is built through a collection of specialist packages that only become a single operation when they begin working together. At Koné, those packages stretch from mine planning and grade control to processing equipment, explosives, tailings engineering and fleet support. Lycopodium has provided the engineering and project-delivery framework around the process plant, while Metso’s crushing, HPGR, grinding, thickening and feeder equipment forms much of the mechanical route through which the ore will pass. Capital Limited and MSALABS work much closer to the daily mining decision, providing

the drilling and analytical information used to distinguish plant feed from waste. EPC Côte d’Ivoire’s blasting team then turns those geological decisions into broken rock, and Neemba’s Caterpillar fleet provides the loading and haulage capacity needed to move it. CAT Financial’s equipment facility made the ownermining decision easier to implement without requiring the entire fleet cost to be funded upfront. Beyond the immediate ore-production sequence, Knight Piésold has worked on the tailings and water-storage systems that will remain part of the site for the life of the operation, while

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“Every new deposit around Koné raises the same question: does this ore deserve space in the plant?”” Mineesia has contributed to the environmental work underpinning development of the project. CAM Equipement SA is also a confirmed Koné supplier, adding Côte d’Ivoire-based mining and construction-equipment capability to the supply base around the mine. Ultra Marine has supplied an EX600 aluminium workboat for the K1 Mining zone, and Industrial Fan Systems has delivered its package of five engineered centrifugal fans. Corlay forms part of the operating supply network around a project whose owner-operated fleet creates a continuing requirement for fuel, lubricants and heavyequipment consumables. These contracts span very different values and disciplines, but their significance changes

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once construction gives way to production. The emphasis gradually moves away from the companies erecting the plant and towards those supplying the services and consumables needed every week: laboratory analysis, explosives, replacement parts, fuel, lubricants, maintenance and technical support. A new mine may be opened by a construction team, but it is sustained by an operating supply chain.

A mine surrounded by new possibilities

The exploration programme has altered the geological picture around Koné considerably. By June 2026, Montage reported approximately 1.7 million ounces of indicated resources within its higher-grade satellite deposits at an average

MONTAGE GOLD grade of 1.51g/t gold, together with another 0.8 million ounces inferred at 1.34g/t. Across the wider project, measured and indicated resources had grown to around 6.3 million ounces, with approximately two million ounces more classified as inferred. Those grades are significant because the central Koné orebody provides something different: scale. The large deposit supports the processing infrastructure and long operating life, while the satellites give the mine planners the possibility of introducing higher-grade material into parts of the schedule if enough of those resources can ultimately be converted into reserves. Petit Yao illustrates how location enters that calculation. The deposit lies approximately seven kilometres east of Koné and close to infrastructure already being developed for the mine. Gbongogo Main lies farther away but is connected to the central operation through a 38.1-kilometre dedicated haul road. Other discoveries including Gbongogo South, ANV and

Koban North add further possibilities to a mine plan that looked considerably simpler when the feasibility study was completed. None of these deposits earns a place in the production schedule simply by existing. Mine planners still have to consider grade, strip ratio, metallurgy, haulage cost and the opportunity cost of using finite capacity in the 11Mtpa plant. A higher-grade discovery may look attractive in isolation and still prove less valuable if the tonnes are expensive to reach or displace material that delivers better economics elsewhere. That is why the forthcoming life-of-mine plan is likely to be one of the most revealing documents Montage produces after first gold. It will begin to show how much of the exploration success surrounding Koné can actually be converted into production and whether the central plant develops into a processing hub for a wider group of deposits. De Ciccio has spoken about the possibility of the broader Koné system eventually reaching

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a substantially larger mineral endowment. The ambition is clear, although the current resource and reserve figures remain the appropriate measure of what has actually been defined. What is more immediately relevant is that Montage chose to continue drilling aggressively during construction rather than waiting until the mine had entered production. Its financing structure helped make that possible. The package assembled around Wheaton Precious Metals and Zijin provided enough funding for the build while allowing exploration expenditure to continue alongside it. The consequence is that the mine approaching first gold already has a different geological inventory

from the one management was looking at when the development decision was made.

What comes after first gold

First gold will give Koné a visible milestone, but it will also begin a more demanding period in which assumptions made on paper are tested against an operating mine. The oxide circuit has to establish stable throughput and metallurgical recovery, the owner-operated fleet must achieve the availability assumed in the mine plan, gradecontrol drilling and laboratory turnaround need to keep pace with production, and the hard-rock comminution circuit still has to be completed and commissioned in Q2 2027.

“The mine is almost built. Its future is still being drilled.”

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MONTAGE GOLD

The remaining construction programme will also be watched closely. As of August 2026, approximately US$714 million had been committed against the US$885 million upfront capital estimate, leaving the final stage of construction and commissioning to determine where the completed project ultimately lands against budget. Beyond those immediate questions lies the more interesting one. Koné was approved as a large, long-life mine on the strength of a resource base that has since grown considerably. The processing plant, power supply, water systems, workshops, laboratories, haul roads and mining fleet are now largely in place, while exploration continues to add possible sources of ore around them. Some of those discoveries will make it into future mine plans and some may not. The next few years will decide which of them can be mined economically, how much higher-grade material can be introduced into the processing schedule and whether the infrastructure built for Koné ultimately serves a broader group of deposits than originally envisaged. That is what makes the project interesting at

the point when most construction stories would normally begin to settle down. Koné is close enough to first production for the mine to have become tangible, but its longer-term shape is still being worked out. First gold is targeted for late Q4 2026. By then, Montage will have answered the question of whether it can build Koné. The questions that follow how efficiently it can operate it, how much of the surrounding resource can be brought into the mine plan and how far the project can grow around the infrastructure already in place may prove more interesting still.

MONTAGE GOLD - 885 Georgia St W, Vancouver, BC V6C 3E8, Canada

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Montage Gold - 885 Georgia St W, Vancouver, BC V6C 3E8, Canada

 +16045122959 www.montagegold.com

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