Good day, everyone. Welcome to the Fortitude Gold 2026 third quarter conference call. At this time, all participants are placed on a listen-only mode. If you have any questions or comments during the presentation, you may press star one on your phone to enter the question queue at any time. We will open the floor for your questions and comments after the presentation. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Jason Reid, Chief Executive Officer of Fortitude Gold. Sir, the floor is yours.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Fortitude Gold Corp's 2026 third quarter conference call. Following my comments and associated presentation for those who joined online, we will have a question-and-answer period. Joining me on the call today for the Q&A portion will be Ms. Janet Turner, our Chief Financial Officer. Let me remind everyone that certain statements made on this call are not historical facts and are considered forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties as described in our annual report on our Form 10-K and our other SEC filings, which could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed in or implied by our comments.
Forward-looking statements in the earnings release that we issued yesterday, along with the comments on this call, are made only as of today, November 11th, 2026, and we undertake no obligation to publicly update any of these forward-looking statements as actual events unfold. You can find a reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures referred to in our remarks in our Form 10-K filed with the SEC for the year ended December 31st, 2025.
The third quarter of 2026 highlights include 2,139 gold ounces produced, net income of $2 million or $0.07 per share, $10.3 million net sales, $8.5 million cash balance at September 30th, 2026, $27.3 million working capital at September 30th, 2026, $5.2 million mine gross profit, $3.9 million exploration expenditures, $1,682 total cash cost after by-product credits per ounce sold for Isabella Pearl Mine, $2,882 per ounce total all-in sustaining costs for Isabella Pearl Mine, $1,930 total cash cost after by-product credits per ounce sold for the County Line Mine, $1,985 per ounce total all-in sustaining costs for the County Line Mine, $0.9 million dividends paid, 611 oz of gold rounds/bullion held at September 30th, 2026.
We continue to focus on the extraction of mineral from our Scarlet South and County Line mines while extracting the last of the oxide material from the Isabella Pearl Deep. We are optimistic that the permitting of our Golden Mile project has reached the stage where it could enter the NEPA phase very soon. The NEPA phase's six-month review period moves us another major step toward permitting the mine. Scarlet North analysis indicates that additional drilling and water table review will likely be necessary at some point in the future.
However, given the current permit progress that is happening at Golden Mile, we expect to prioritize Golden Mile over Scarlet North as our next mine permitting priority. We are pleased with the grid power connection at our Isabella Pearl project and are seeing substantial energy savings. We are also pleased that the Isabella Pearl heap leach pad expansion is well underway. Once complete, the heap pad expansion would substantially increase our leach capacity and extend the life of our process operation.
On the exploration front during the quarter, East Camp Douglas drill results include both wide and high-grade gold intercepts. Intercepts included 13.72 m grading 3.58 g per ton gold, 28.96 m grading 2.07 g per ton gold, and 21 m grading 1.43 g per ton gold, among many other excellent intercepts. These results were from three separate areas in the north of the district. We expect our exploration EA permit soon, as its six-month NEPA process nears completion.
Receiving the EA permit would allow us to open up a huge 150 new acres for exploration, as opposed to the 10 ac we currently are restricted to under the two legacy Notice of Intent exploration permits. With the ability to create new drill pads, we want to expand known areas of mineralization and discover new areas. There is also potential to connect some of these mineralized zones together.
Our goal is to discover, delineate, and permit an initial deposit in the shortest timeframe possible. We continue to focus on obtaining all possible permits under the Trump administration, and in case the country moves back into an anti-business, anti-mining administration like we had during the brutal Biden regime. With that, I would like to thank everyone for their time today on this conference call. Operator, if you can open up the lines for any possible Q&A.
Certainly. The floor is now open for questions. If you have any questions or comments, please press star one on your phone at this time. We ask that while posing your question, you please pick up your handset if listening on a speakerphone to provide optimum sound quality. Please hold a few moments while we poll for any live questions.
Operator, before we get to the live questions, I do have email questions or several questions I want to get to from Dr. Joshi. Thank you for your questions. Good to hear from you again.
Number one on your question list is, "With Q3 production at 2,139 oz, what is management's realistic expectation for quarterly production in Q4 2026 and the first half of 2027? When might we see more substantial and sustained increase?" Great question. As you know, we have a lot going on with new mines coming online, Isabella Pearl being depleted. We have a lot of variables here, and we are not forecasting our production at this point just because whatever we would forecast would be wrong. We are not going to talk about 2027 as far as forecasts, and we have never given a quarterly outlook. But obviously, the goal is to increase production over time.
Your second question is regards to County Line. County Line contributed 1,075 oz in Q3, a very encouraging result. Can this level of production be sustained or improved? How will the main pit layback at the anticipated higher-grade mineralization affect production during 2027? Great questions. County Line, for those who may not know, has higher grade in the main pit, and then the east pit has some lower grade. We are mining both the high grade and low grade right now, mostly the low grade in the east pit, but we are doing a ramp retreat in the main pit with getting to some high grade. Again, it is very hard to forecast that because it is a function of blending these low and high grades.
The production outlook, though, will be driven by how soon we can get to the Pearl Deep, but we have been very fortunate that we are hitting high grade getting the ramp retreat. The ideal situation is this production over time increases, but as far as those ounces, they are going to vary depending on whether we are pulling more from the lower grade east or more from the deep, and the pit layback is going to take quite some time. So, there will be a point in time which we are just focused on the east pit, which is lower grade.
Again, quarter-on-quarter variability. Number three, Isabella Pearl costs. Your AISC, your all-in sustaining cost at Isabella Pearl increased significantly to $2,882 per ounce in Q3. What were the main reasons for this increase, and should shareholders expect costs to improve as Pearl Deep winds down and Scarlet South becomes the principal mining area?
Costs applied to the heap leach pad in any given quarter or year impact the cost per ounce. The massive waste removal to mine Pearl Deep land on the pad and impact the cost per ounce. The ounces that are produced also drive those numbers. These are among the variables that drive the cost per ounce. As for forecasting future cost per ounce numbers, any estimate I would make would likely be incorrect. Remember that it was never our original plan to mine the Pearl Deep.
We mined Pearl Deep in response to the Biden administration's permit backlog and our limited options at that time. So, great question, but those costs totally vary depending on what inputs. And your fourth question is cash flow and funding. Despite the improved quarterly earnings, operating cash flow for the first nine months remains negative.
When does management expect to achieve consistent positive operating cash flow after allowing for working capital, exploration, development, and expenditures? Is further equity financing likely to be necessary? Again, great questions. Financing is always a possibility, but as you know, we are always focused on trying to keep the tightest capital structure for a producer in our space, and we've done so. As you also know, we're racing to get these new mines into production, having been through the permit backlog, getting no new permits. When Trump got in, we got two new ones. That was never the ideal, but we're trying to get these two new ones up and running. They do take time. We are also just still bouncing back from the previous administration. Your fifth question, Golden Mile and East Camp Douglas.
Could you provide an update to shareholders on permitting timetable for Golden Mile and the exploration permit for East Camp Douglas? In particular, is the company still confident of commencing Golden Mile development in 2027 and significantly expanding East Camp Douglas drilling next year? Great questions again. On Golden Mile, as I mentioned in my comments, we're very close to entering the NEPA phase. This is great because the NEPA phase is about six months. That's their timeframe.
Once it enters that, it's almost like a clock at that point where we should expect it after six months. Once we see that enter, it's go time. We're going to be really focused on planning on building our next mine because that's what we want to see. We want to see NEPA hit, that process go through, and then we should have the permission to build that mine.
We fully intend to build that mine next year in 2027. The exact timeframe we can't give you, but we're very fortunate that that project is in the FAST-41, the government's website. It's actually listed in there under the permitting phase. We're really seeing some positive movement in that regard, and that's why we're focusing on East Camp. This has been a long struggle with East Camp, and anybody who's followed us long enough remembers that we gave our East Camp permit back with the previous Biden administration, only to find out when they left office that they didn't even look at it. So we had to kind of start from scratch with the new administration, but they're moving very quickly, comparatively. We're very excited on East Camp, or excuse me, Golden Mile. That was all about Golden Mile.
As far as East Camp goes, East Camp is also approaching the end of its NEPA. Whereas Golden Mile, we want to get it started, East Camp is at the back end of the six-month process. The exact timeframe on East Camp, again, I can't give you, but we believe it's very soon. Whether it's two weeks, whether it's a month, don't know.
But point being, it's that kind of timeframe at this point from what we see. Once we get that, we will be able to open up instead of the 10 ac, as I mentioned in the conference call, to 150 ac. Al, our VP of Exploration, Allan's done a great job with basically a hand tied behind his back with our limited areas to drill, permitted areas to drill, and finding this in great grade, nice mining width.
It's a district-sized land position, but we're positioning ourselves to have five to seven drills up there once we get this permit in hand, and we'll have 150 ac to go drill. I mean, this will be a game-changer for the property. We're very excited on that. Both of those we think we'll be very focused on in 2027. That'll be exciting time building another new mine and basically doing an exploration program the likes of which we've never done as a company, having possibly seven drills. That'll be excellent. Thank you for all those questions. Operator, are there any live questions? I see that there's several in the written Q&A, but we'll get to some live if there are any. Otherwise, I'll go to the—
Yes, there is one live question coming from John Bair at Ascend Wealth Advisors. Please pose your question. Your line is live.
Thank you. Good morning, Jason. Couple questions
John, how are you?
here for you. I'm doing fine. One question is, in your prepared release, you distinguished between realized prices from Isabella Pearl and County Line. How are you doing that? Is it on different cells on your leach pad then, or timing of ore that's being laid out there? How are you distinguishing that?
Yeah, I'm going to have Janet address this. She'll be probably a little clearer than I would be.
Hi, good morning. As far as you're talking about allocating production, is that what your question is, John?
Well, in the press release, you said, "Realized average gold metal prices in the quarter for Isabella Pearl, $42.85, while County Line averaged $42.58." Not a whole big difference, but I'm just kind of, I'm curious how you're coming. What is the process that is allowing you to differentiate the prices realized as well as your all-in sustaining cost differentials rather large as well? So I'm assuming that—
Yeah, so one of-
—ore from County Line is in one spot on the leach pad and Isabella Pearl's on another. Is that right or not?
No, it's all commingled. We have a monthly allocation based on where we're mining and where the ore is coming from. We're commingling all that ore. On a monthly basis, if we know that we mined Z amount of ounces and we have X and Y for County Line and Isabella Pearl making that up, then that's the monthly allocation. We assume because the ore is very similar as far as the leaching abilities and the timing of that leaching.
We just assume. You obviously have to make a lot of assumptions because you don't know what that ore is, so you have to kind of say, on a monthly basis, if we took X ounces from County Line and Y ounces from Isabella Pearl and put it on the leach pad, that same amount of percentage is going to be coming out as a leach ounce as well. Does that make sense?
Okay, it's sort of a pro rata.
Yeah, it's pro rata. Yeah.
I'll have to think about this a little bit more.
Then it's a lot of timing. It's a lot of timing. As far as the cost, there was a shipment of the slag and the carbon fines that was 100% attributable to Isabella Pearl. That was during the quarter that we sold, and that obviously, it impacts Isabella Pearl and the timing of when we sell those ounces—
Okay.
—and the price, obviously, right? When you're looking at the average cost over the quarter, if earlier in the quarter more Isabella Pearl ounces were sold than County Line ounces were sold, then they would have a higher realized price because in the quarter, the average realized price was higher, right? Because we saw a downturn in prices towards the end of the quarter.
Okay. All right. Second question is, how are you addressing the cost of diesel? Is there any operational efficiencies that you can do to either reduce the amount of diesel that you're using? And I'm thinking—
Yeah.
—primarily of the shipping between County Line and bringing it to as well, the leach pad there.
No, good question. So diesel was one of our major costs. It still is a large cost, but it was one of our major costs, and it was one of our focuses to get hooked to the power grid, as you know. We again, spent four years during the last administration, couldn't get that energy permit, and right out of the gate, without even asking, the new administration gave us the permit. So, we finally got hooked to the power grid, and we're seeing probably a range of $70,000-$100,000 savings a month. It's great. If we were having to buy diesel right now.
Now, we still have diesel costs because we have a diesel mining fleet. So we're still impacted by whatever the diesel price is, but that was very important and critical for us to get to the power grid. That's what we fought so hard to finally get that done.
Well, I was thinking more in trucking ore. I mean, if there's any way to minimize the impact of Have you looked into electric vehicles, electric truck kind of thing, or any of that kind of
Yeah, we really haven't. I haven't. No, we're just going to be hit by whatever the diesel cost is, depending on what mine we're mining from. Now, for at Isabella Pearl, you can't get any closer to the process facility. If you're at Scarlet South, you're really close to this. The big impact would be County Line, which is 19 km up the road. There's nothing we can do about that. Having said that, keep in mind we're also gaining on synergies in as much as we're not having to build a whole facility out at County Line. We were able to start the County Line mine for about as cheap as any mine could be built, because all we have to do is truck it down the road. You're not building everything there, another process.
When we extrapolate that out looking forward for Golden Mile, that's a little farther away, so we're not going to be trucking the ore that long distance. This will speak to what you're asking about. We're not going to be trucking the ore. We bought all the equipment, like the built, paid for, sits in our laydown yard. When we get the approval, we'll haul it out, set it up. Then when we process the ore out there, we'll take gold to the carbon phase and just truck the carbon, which is substantially less volume in trucking costs all the way back to our process facility.
That's how we're trying to navigate the efficiencies, if you will. In doing so, we won't be hit by this massive diesel hauling ore directly there. The project wouldn't sustain itself if we were trying to do that. Does that make sense?
Yes, absolutely. And again, having purchased the equipment for Golden Mile well in advance, you probably saved quite a significant amount with inflation.
Yeah, we did. Now, having said that—
Rate raising costs of equipment and stuff for that.
Yeah, yeah.
That probably saved money.
Having done that, though, when we were trying to navigate the last administration's permit backlog and going deeper, et cetera, and then with the overall plan, we needed to use that crusher that we bought for Golden Mile. That's actively being used at Isabella Pearl. So we will need to purchase another crusher out at, for Golden Mile. But that was just optionality and maneuverability to make sure we stay in business during that administration.
Right. Okay. One last question. How many rigs- with that? The spend rate so far with the JV, are you able to share how much has been spent? I mean, I guess I could go in there and take a look at exploration costs. I don't know if we could break it out between East Camp versus other operations.
We have, as far as drill rigs, I assume you're meaning, we have—
Yeah.
—at least four. We have four right now.
Okay.
And we're in position to have as many as seven. It's been kind of challenging to get the rigs, especially with gold rigs are really hard to come by. But we have good relationships with different drill companies, and we're in position to secure seven as our goal. Assuming that happens, we get the permit, we've never had seven drill rigs. So that's where we sit today, about four with the goal to go to seven. As far as spend, for Fortitude Gold, we've done about $1.4 million exploration this year for Fortitude Gold. Not JV, but it's other exploration. If we just look at the JV East Camp, we're $2.6 million for the quarter.
Okay
That's about $3.9 million for the quarter of exploration, which the bulk of it is East Camp Douglas. Yeah, I'm really excited about getting this permit because East Camp, as I've always stated, is home run potential for us. With this JV and with the financial firepower behind the JV, we're in position to put seven drill rigs, really. I mean, this is very exciting for me. This puts us in the position to find one, if not multiple deposits, delineate them quickly.
The goal up there is to try to delineate a justifiable mine to put in production as soon as possible, rather than drill it five years, just try to find enough to justify building a mine with all the exploration upside beyond that, but then move it as quickly as possible to production. It's an exciting time, and that's an exciting JV. I think 2027 is very exciting.
But the majority of those, if you get up to seven drill rigs, the majority of those be at East Camp then?
Yes, they will all be at East Camp.
Okay.
We have never had seven drill rigs, so you can imagine the workload that is going to be on our exploration team. We will not have the bandwidth, nor do we want to focus a lot of the capital on all our other properties. Between those two things, we hope to do some exploration for instance, I personally want to hopefully drill in 2027 Prospect Mountain, because that could be the next Isabella Pearl. But beyond that, most all drilling will be at East Camp. That will be the sole focus. And yeah, we are going to be—
Rightfully so.
We've never had an exploration plan like this. Go ahead.
I said rightfully so at East Camp. Yes.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Very good. Thanks for taking the questions and the time. Appreciate it.
Perfect. Thanks, John. Good to talk with you. Let me go to some of these written questions. For those who are joined online, please look at the next slide I forwarded, because it revolves or addresses some aspects of the question I am about to read here from the online portal. "Are you concerned with future permit approvals considering the recent election result? Can we file for and secure more permits now under the current administration of the next two years?"
For those who joined online, I am showing you a slide I prepared in preparation for this possible question. We expected to get this question. What is interesting is, this came from an article Tuesday, November 10th, so it is very current. For those who are not able to see it, I am going to read a lot of it.
A major win for nuclear energy, nearing half of the Senate Democrats joined GOP to advance permitting overall. The Senate voted 73 to 25 on Monday evening to open debate on the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act, the sweeping permit overhaul written by Republicans and Democrats alike," and they name who they are. "Supporters were hoping to get for 15 to 20 Democrats, good for around 70 votes, and the odds of success by this one group said it was 25%-40%. Instead, 51 Republicans and 21 Democrats and one independent voted yes. That is 22 of 47 senators who caucused with Democrats, nearly half backing the bill, backing a bill Trump has endorsed." I am not going to read every one of these bullet points on this slide, but point being, I should read some of them.
Let me do a couple of them because they are good. "Including a limit of no more than two years for federal decisions on environmental approvals and restrains on agencies' ability to withdraw permits." That is good. If they put a limit on how long they can draw out permits to two years, that would be wonderful.
The next bullet point, "Amending the National Environmental Policy Act, the NEPA, which you heard me refer to several times, by reducing the scope of its applicability, i.e., who can sue and on what grounds, accelerating the build-out of transmission lines for enhanced backstop authority gives federal government more authority to approve major lines and helps permitting process much faster." You are getting the point that they are trying to streamline it, they are trying to limit the NGO's ability to sue, and these are all positive things.
What I find really positive, and this just happened, is that both sides of the aisle are coming into play. Greg and I were just talking about this before the conference call, because we are getting quite a few questions about the election and the impact of that, is that even those perhaps on the far left that maybe have more of an anti-mining bent or slant, people are waking up on both sides of the aisle that we cannot ignore metals and how important they are for our way of existence.
There has to be a happy medium, and I think what we are seeing here in this particular discussion that I am showing you here and talking about, that is happening. Even though the election happened the way it did, it is still a positive that both sides of the aisle are coming together.
Now, dovetailing into both of those, another question we're getting is, what about the new governor of Nevada, Governor-elect Aaron Ford? He's a Democrat, and he replaced a Republican, Joe Lombardo. What impact did that have? Well, if you look at his focus, he stated that the economic development agenda includes expanding Nevada's mining-related economy. He is fully aware of how important Nevada and its economy is tied to mining. To underscore that, Greg pulled some interesting numbers for me, just looking at the mining tax revenue. If we look at 2024, the Nevada Mining Association estimates the industry paid $483 million in taxes. In 2025, that jumped to $686 million.
I don't think in any world, no matter what side of the aisle, Nevada's going to walk away from that kind of revenue, especially given the economic situation of the world, let alone each state. Am I happy about their election results and the potential to move back to a Biden era of anti-mining, anti-business? No, I'm not, and that concerns me. Let me just address the question. Let me go back to the question of what can we do. We are trying to permit everything we possibly can, and we're in the position to get this Golden Mile permit, hopefully, maybe six, seven months from now, depending on when they start the NEPA process, and then hopefully start building immediately after that. That will help us weather the storm, if you will. In conjunction with that, we're trying to get every possible permit we can.
So great question, and that came from Ronald Darcy. Thanks, Ronald. All right, second question from Peter Mumford. "Very encouraging quarter. A couple quarters ago, you spoke about wage pressures from your equipment operators. Has that stabilized, or is it ongoing?" Peter, I think you might be referring to, instead of equipment operators, just wage pressure in general. Yes, look, it is a fact in this industry that there's not enough people in this industry, and we compete with all our peers for the best possible team. Yes, that is ongoing, and I don't see any relief for that, possibly in the rest of my career. Until we have a bunch of people, a bunch of college students start coming out of college with mining engineer degrees, et cetera, I don't know how this pressure's going to be relieved.
I just don't see a lot of people going into this industry, and anybody who has kids in college or trying to figure out what to do, hey, at least suggest to them, "Why don't you go into mining?" As far as I'm concerned, if you graduate with a mining engineer, you're going to be calling your own shots in the future. So that pressure is still ongoing, and I don't see any relief from that. But great question.
Next question, again from Peter Mumford. "You have a lot of exciting opportunities at your different mines. How are you allocating mining resources among the various properties?" Another great question. As I think you know, and most on the call, but if not, I'm going to just repeat this, the last administration knocked us flat off our horse. We're climbing back on. We have new permits in hand.
We're working to get new permits to build new mines. It's been a slog. It has not been fun. We have to manage our capital and manage our focuses to specific things. Those you heard me talk about today, Golden Mile, that is important we get that permit. East Camp Douglas, get that permit to explore 150 ac and put us in the position to have a company-changing situation where we could find one or more deposits in which that becomes our focus going forward. Obviously, we have all these other properties with all this other potential, and I wish we could have seven drills on the whole thing. We don't have the capital under Fortitude to go do that. We have to focus on it. Everything's been tight. It just is what it is.
We're doing everything possible to get as many permits as possible. We have a great plan with drilling coming up, and so those are our focuses. Boy, there's a lot of questions. We're not going to be able to get to all these today, but the next one, Brian Sugabart. "With the cash balance currently sitting less than $10 million, do you still believe future mining development and exploration will be funded internally with cash flow?" Obviously, that would be the goal. We're not going to be doing a ton of drilling at Fortitude's other properties, as you heard me say, so we're going to save a lot in exploration. We're just going to see. We're just going to see how it goes. Thanks for the question. Next question, Harvey Bolan.
While you wait for permits, is there enough production to support operations and continue dividends?" Great question, Harvey. Our goal is to continue the dividends. That's not easy. That hasn't been easy the whole time either, but I think it speaks volumes that we can continue to pay it through all the difficult years that we lived through. Good question. Thank you.
Next question, Adam Hirsch. "To cross your operations, roughly how many loaded ore trucks, trips are you averaging per day with the expanded leach pad coming online? New crusher capacity, what steps are you taking to increase the amount of ore you move each day?" As far as the crusher, I think I mentioned that we took this much larger crusher that we purchased that was going to go to Golden Mile, and we put it in the circuit at Isabella Pearl.
We have plenty of crushing capacity. That's obviously something we have to replace when we go build Golden Mile, because we're going to leave that crusher there. We're fine on crushing capacity. The ore trips depends on what we're focused on that day. Sometimes we're focused more on Scarlet South, which is only about 500 m away, and sometimes we're focused on County Line, which is 19 km away. That varies. Thanks, Adam, for your question.
Your next question, again from Adam, "How have the partnerships on the two new properties helped advance those projects so far?" Partnerships on the two new properties. I think it is one new property is what I think you mean, and that's with Hawthorne, the JV. We are very excited that Hawthorne shares our view on what East Camp can be, and it's gone great.
You have heard me talk about having. We have four drills, all of which I think are up there right now, and positioned to get seven. It is going very well. Next question, again from Adam. "Looking at 2027, what major equipment purchases and other capital spending do you expect Fortitude itself to fund mine, all in process?" Equipment purchases will be the crusher, as I mentioned, and some liner, heap liner. As John and I, John who had, I am very glad that we purchased the process. We had it designed, engineered, built, and it sits in our laydown yard. I would pause to think what that would cost if we built that today. It would be a heck of a lot more. I am glad we did that.
That would be the major purchase if we had to do anything at Golden Mile, but we have already done it. We still have some purchases ahead of us, but the big one is out of the way. The next one, Timothy Paul. "Is the County Line ore placed on the pad converting to gold at a slower pace than Isabella Pearl? I noticed that the inventory figure has grown significantly, $70 million approximately. Should one assume that you have determined that gold processing will require longer term?" These are all great questions. Every ore has a different recovery curve, a metallurgical recovery curve, meaning what timeframe that takes to pull the ore out.
It gets quite complicated when we are blending ore, putting it on the pad, a pad that has numerous levels, and then on each level is a checkerboard, if you will, call those cells, and we put each cell under drip for various times and alternate them, because that is the best way to pull gold out. You do not just constantly keep it under drip. You take it off drip, put it back on. There are so many. A heap leach pad has a life of its own. Then you get a hard rain, and then it changes the makeup of it, and it modifies for a minute and then comes back to stabilization.
I am just giving you some insight that it is pretty difficult to put your finger on it and say, "Hey, this is the exact what is happening." What I can tell you is the residual leach takes a while. We get this first initial bump, and then the residual leach takes a while, and can take years. That is just part and parcel of the heap leach. Operator, are there any more live calls before I keep moving on?
Nope, there are no live questions at this time.
Okay. There is a couple more right in. Let's see if we can get to them all. Let me refresh here. All right. The next one is from Adam Hirsch. "You mined about 90,000 tons per month on average in Q3. What is the biggest constraint today on getting above 100,000 tons a month mined and stacked on the heap leach pad? Is it getting more ore out of the pits, having enough crews and trucks to move it, or capacity at the crusher?" It is not crusher or leach pad capacity.
The biggest constraint, well, there is a couple of them, because again, this question applies to three different mines, right? Isabella Pearl Deep, Scarlet South, and County Line. Each one you could answer for these, but I am not going to go into every single one of them. It would take too long. Let me just talk about County Line. County Line, as far as its situation is, we have in the bottom of the pit some high grade, and then on a peripheral pit called the East Zone, we have lower grade.
There is more higher grade at the bottom, but we have to move a tremendous amount of waste. It is juggling between all three of those. We are mining low grade, we are mining some high grade in the bottom, we are doing a ramp retreat, we are doing a pushback. To try to answer your question, it all varies based on what is happening at that particular week, what is happening in that particular quarter. The mining is often what is the gating factor. For the County Line pit, the main pit, it is space. It is not that big of a pit, and you have to cycle, you have to drill, blast, haul out.
There is only so much you can do in a given timeframe. The mining cycle impacts it. It is very dynamic, but good questions. I hope I answered some of those. Listen, this conference call was much longer than I thought. Let's call it here. If I didn't get to your question, please call Greg and I if you didn't get the answer you wanted. Call us. We are happy to talk to you directly. With that, we will close out the call. Thank you for your time. We will talk to you next quarter.
Thank you, everyone. This does conclude today's conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time, and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.