Ssr Mining Inc. (SSRM) · Oct 13, 2026 · Other events

SSR Mining announces Marigold mine plan with 20-year life

20-year mine plan — 4.6Moz reserves; 15 years active mining plus five years leach drawdown

SSR Mining’s Marigold mine plan adds reserves, Buffalo Valley production and a 20-year operating horizon—but relies on higher gold-price assumptions.

SSR Mining is using Marigold as a core U.S. operating asset while expanding production around it through fleet upgrades, Buffalo Valley and the recently acquired CC&V mine. Earlier 2026 guidance already said Marigold’s near-term production profile was broadly unchanged and that Buffalo Valley could be folded into a refreshed mine plan, so the direction was partly known; the new information is the scale and economics of the completed plan.

The asset’s mine life and reserve base are materially larger than the prior plan. The new TRS supports 4.63 million ounces of reserves, 15 years of active mining and 20 years of total production, versus the prior Marigold TRS’s 2.2 million ounces and nine years of active mining. 〔0〕

The main business improvement is duration, not a near-term production surprise. SSR says Marigold should average 231,000 ounces annually from 2027 through 2031, which is aligned with the prior TRS expectations rather than a clear near-term beat. The bigger change is that the mine now has a much longer production runway, with Buffalo Valley adding 0.7 million ounces of reserves and scheduled first production in 2029. 〔1〕

The reserve increase is real, but the economics are highly gold-price sensitive. The filing attributes the expansion partly to infill drilling and reserve conversion, but the TRS also raises the reserve-price assumption from $1,700 per ounce at year-end 2025 to $2,200. The technical report explicitly says that this price change was the most significant driver of the reserve increase, so the 43% headline growth should not be read as purely geological improvement. 〔2〕

The plan requires a meaningful execution program before the growth is fully bankable. SSR plans $542 million of growth capital, including $265 million for mining equipment, $57 million for heap-leach expansion and $220 million for Buffalo Valley. Buffalo Valley is not yet permitted, and its economics depend on completing the permitting process, constructing a separate heap-leach facility, extending power infrastructure and managing a more variable recovery profile than Marigold. The filing’s own technical report flags ROM-recovery extrapolation as a risk at Buffalo Valley. 〔3〕

The economics improve substantially even after the added investment, but costs are also higher. At consensus gold prices averaging $3,948 per ounce, the plan generates $3.334 billion of after-tax NPV at a 5% discount rate and $273 million of average annual after-tax free cash flow during active mining. However, the reported $2,062 per-ounce AISC is much higher than the prior plan’s $1,213 per ounce, reflecting the deeper, higher-strip-ratio mine plan, larger fleet and expanded infrastructure rather than a simple low-cost expansion.

Bottom line: This is a meaningful upgrade to Marigold’s long-term business profile, turning a relatively short-lived mine into a multi-decade U.S. asset and adding Buffalo Valley as a second operating phase. The near-term production story was largely known; the genuine surprise is the much longer reserve-backed runway, with permitting, capital execution and higher gold-price assumptions carrying the main qualifications.

What to watch next

Buffalo Valley permitting and 2027 fleet expansion

Original filing on SEC EDGAR

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