SSR Mining lifts Marigold reserves 43% to 4.63 million ounces under a 20-year plan

SSR Mining Inc. set out a 20-year life of mine plan for its Marigold gold complex in Nevada on October 13, 2026, with 4.63 million ounces of proven and probable reserves, average annual production of 231,000 ounces from 2027 to 2031 and a base-case after-tax net present value of $3.33 billion at consensus gold prices. The filing is a technical report summary, not a quarterly earnings report: the Form 8-K carries the study and a news release and no third-quarter financial statements.

The Marigold plan has an effective date of May 1, 2026 and reflects 15 years of active mining followed by heap leach rinsing, which stretches production to two decades.

Fifteen years of mining, twenty years of production

The plan maps five mining areas: the main Mackay pit, the North Mackay pits, the Valmy pits, the New Millennium area and Buffalo Valley. Average annual gold production is 231,000 ounces from 2027 to 2031, 201,000 ounces through 2040 and 169,000 ounces over the full 20 years. From 2027 onwards the release puts life-of-mine output at 3.2 million ounces at an average all-in sustaining cost, a non-GAAP measure, of $2,005 an ounce sold; measured from 2026, it states 3.34 million ounces at $2,062 an ounce sold. Rod Antal, executive chairman, said: "Importantly, over the next five years we expect Marigold will average more than 230,000 ounces of gold production annually, aligned with the prior TRS expectations".

Reserves at a $2,200 gold price, with Buffalo Valley added

Marigold's reserves rose to 4.63 million ounces from 3.2 million ounces at the end of 2025. The company said: "This new mine plan increases Mineral Reserves by 43% as compared to year-end 2025 while Indicated and Inferred Resources remain essentially unchanged". Reserve estimates use a gold price of $2,200 an ounce, and resources outside reserves use $2,500 an ounce, both far below the consensus prices in the cash-flow model: $3,948 an ounce on average over the mine life, stepping down to a long-term $3,710 an ounce from 2031. Buffalo Valley holds 700,000 ounces of reserves in its first life-of-mine plan and is expected to reach first production in 2029, while the existing Marigold pit complex accounts for 3.52 million ounces.

Capital, recovery and the cash-flow build

Total life-of-mine capital is $1.39 billion: $542 million of growth capital, $669 million of sustaining capital and $175 million of reclamation. The growth slice includes $265 million for mining equipment expansion and $220 million for Buffalo Valley development, with the remainder going to heap leach pad expansion and supporting infrastructure. Peak fleet size is 45 haul trucks, mining rates reach about 380,000 tonnes per day, the life-of-mine strip ratio is 5.3:1 and gold recovery is 72% from an average stacked grade of 0.44 grams per tonne. Operating costs are put at $16.78 per tonne of stacked ore. The release's summary bullets state an after-tax net present value at a 5% discount rate of $3.3 billion at consensus prices and $3.8 billion at spot prices; the technical report summary's own base case is $3.33 billion.

Price sensitivity, shrinking resources and the missing quarter

The sensitivity table shows the after-tax net present value at $1.61 billion with gold prices 20% below the base case and $5.06 billion with prices 20% above it, against $3.33 billion in the base case. Resources moved the other way: measured and indicated resources outside reserves slipped to 1.66 million ounces from 1.8 million ounces at the end of 2025, and inferred resources fell to 290,000 ounces from 500,000 ounces. Mineral resources are not reserves, and the release repeats that there is no certainty any part of them will ever be converted. With the CC&V mine in Colorado, SSR Mining reports 7.3 million ounces of U.S. reserves, 6.5 million ounces of measured and indicated resources and 2.3 million ounces inferred, which the release says makes it the third largest gold producer in the USA.

Beyond Marigold, the filing stays silent

The Form 8-K filed October 13, 2026 carries the technical report summary as Exhibit 99.1 and the news release as Exhibit 99.2, filed under Items 7.01 and 8.01. It contains no third-quarter 2026 results, no revised production or cost guidance and no reserve or resource update for the assets outside Marigold. The one full-year figure it repeats is unchanged: 2026 output of 450,000 to 535,000 gold equivalent ounces. SSR Mining said it planned more than 10 kilometres of drilling on brownfield targets during 2026, and the release notes that residual heap leaching is modelled to run to 2045.

What the study buys the company is time and optionality rather than near-term output: a Nevada asset that was already past three decades of mining is re-planned into the 2050s, funded by $542 million of growth capital that has to be spent before the production arrives, and leveraged to a gold price the plan itself assumes will fall from $4,637 an ounce in 2026 to a long-term $3,710 an ounce.