Fortitude Gold has obtained all permits required for the Scarlet South project in Nevada, US, allowing the company to construct and operate the Scarlet South open-pit gold mine.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and Nevada Department of Environmental Protection have approved the project.
The new mine will be developed at the Isabella Pearl Mine in Mineral County, Nevada.
The Scarlet South open pit project is located approximately 500m northwest of the company’s active Isabella Pearl Mine and is also surrounded by a heap leach pad and adsorption, desorption and recovery processing plant.
Fortitude Gold expects to begin mining at Scarlet South in the coming weeks, further increasing its gold production capacity in Nevada.
The company intends to operate both the Pearl Deep and Scarlet South projects.
This strategy will allow Fortitude Gold to rotate equipment and personnel between the two locations, increasing efficiency while leveraging existing shared processing infrastructure.
The Scarlet South mineralized zone will be hauled adjacent to the Isabella Pearl facility, keeping capital costs low and supporting a faster construction schedule.
It is expected to be the second open-pit gold mine at the Isabela Pearl Property, which hosts 10 kilometers of mineralized trend and several other exploration targets.
With the addition of Scarlet South, Fortitude Gold’s licensed mine portfolio includes the producing Isabella Pearl mine and the newly licensed County Line mine.
All three mines are scheduled to start production in the first quarter of 2026 (Q1 2026).
Jason Reid, CEO and President of Fortitude Gold, said: “It is refreshing that the Trump administration is not only issuing licenses at Scarlet South and County Line, but is also refocusing its attention on the FAST-41 program, which provides much-needed transparency to help expedite the issuance of mining licenses, many of which have been delayed by the Biden-era license backlog.
“With the Scarlet South and County Line permits, we expect to commence mining from three separate mining sites in the first quarter of 2026, with all mineralization being trucked and processed at our Isabella Pearl facility. Our Golden Mile project is included on the BLM’s FAST-41 dashboard to help shareholders track permit progress.”
Fortitude Gold has not yet released a reserve estimate for Scarlet South, but expects mining to continue until 2026.
The company added that both Scarlet South and Scarlet North could be scaled up with additional exploration, which had previously been slowed by a licensing backlog under the previous government.
