Abcourt obtains its environmental certificate of authorization for custom milling at the Sleeping Giant Mill

On October 28, 2025, Abcourt Mines announced it has received the environmental certificate of authorization for custom milling at its Sleeping Giant mill. This permit allows the company to process ore from third-party deposits. The company states this provides an attractive alternative for junior miners in the region with deposits too small to justify building their own processing facilities. The objective is to maximize the use of the mill, which has a permitted capacity of 950 tonnes per day (tpd), while the company's own Sleeping Giant mine is projected to supply only 340 tpd, leaving significant excess capacity. This initiative is expected to generate additional revenue streams.

This news is a material positive development for Abcourt. Obtaining the custom milling permit is a significant de-risking event that enhances the value of the Sleeping Giant mill, transforming it from a cost center solely for the mine into a potential revenue-generating asset in its own right.

However, the impact must be viewed in the context of the company's precarious financial and operational state. - Positive: It opens a new, potentially high-margin revenue stream that could utilize the mill's excess capacity (~60%). This could diversify revenue, reduce the company's sole reliance on the Sleeping Giant mine's performance, and improve overall profitability if contracts are secured. It provides a strong talking point for the ongoing financing efforts announced on October 14. - Negative/Neutral Context: This permit does not generate immediate cash flow. The company must now successfully negotiate and secure profitable contracts with other miners, which takes time. Meanwhile, Abcourt is in the critical and cash-intensive ramp-up phase of the Sleeping Giant mine. The Q1 operational update (for the period ending Sept 30, 2025) showed minimal production and sales, indicating the company is still burning significant cash. The year-end financials (ending June 30, 2025) confirmed a state of negative shareholder equity and a history of losses. The company's survival in the short term depends on a successful ramp-up of its own mine and the closing of the recently announced financing, not on potential custom milling contracts.

While positive, this news is an incremental step forward. It improves the long-term strategic value of the company's key infrastructure but does not alleviate the immediate operational and financing risks. The market will likely see this as a positive but will remain focused on the mine's production metrics and the success of the current financing round.

Abcourt Mines Inc. is a Quebec-based gold exploration and development company. Its flagship project is the Sleeping Giant mine and mill, a past-producing asset which the company has been actively restarting throughout 2025. The company also holds the prospective Flordin exploration property. The core strategy is to bring Sleeping Giant into steady production to generate cash flow to fund corporate activities and the exploration and advancement of Flordin. With the new permit, a secondary strategy of third-party custom milling has been added.