Libertad Mine & Mill

Overview

The Libertad Mine and Mill is located approximately 110 km east of the capital of Managua and operates as a key processing hub in Equinox Gold’s hub-and-spoke strategy in Nicaragua. Currently the mill is fed by ore trucked from the Limon, Pavon and Eastern Borosi gold mines, as well as ore mined near the mill at the Jabali underground mine.

The Libertad Mine area has been explored and mined sporadically for more than 150 years, and in production continuously since 2009. The Libertad exploitation concession spans 10,937 hectares and was granted for a 40-year term beginning in 1994. Two adjacent exploration concessions—Buenaventura and Cerro Quiroz—add an additional 4,600 hectares to the land package. Equinox Gold continues to advance a multi-rig drill program targeting resource expansion and new discoveries across the concessions.

Operating Data (Nicaragua)

Equinox Gold’s Nicaragua assets operate as a “hub-and-spoke” model with multiple open-pit and underground deposits processed at two processing mills. As such, all of the Nicaragua mines are reported as one operating unit, and the data below include production from both the Limon and Libertad mills.

Processing

The Libertad processing plant has a nameplate capacity of 2.25 million tonnes per annum and recovers gold at rates of approximately 94% to 95%, processing both spent ore and run-of-mine (ROM) ore. With more than one million tonnes of excess annual milling capacity, Libertad is positioned to process ore from multiple regional sources within a 400 km radius, providing strategic flexibility and lowering overall unit costs.

Mining

The Libertad exploitation concession covers an area of 10,937 hectares and was granted by Ministerial Decree for a 40-year term in 1994.

Ore from the open-pit Pavon Mine is trucked approximately 300 kms on paved highways from the Libertad processing facility.

The 176 km² Eastern Borosi land package is a low-sulphidation, epithermal district that hosts numerous high-grade, gold-silver vein systems and both open-pit and underground resources including the Riscos de Oro, East Dome, Blag and La Luna deposits, in addition to the now-operating Guapinol/Vancouver open-pit mine.

Exploration

In Nicaragua Equinox Gold has an extensive, ongoing, multi-prong approach to all exploration activities. The Company is advancing a resource expansion and discovery drill program with multiple drill rigs operating across the Libertad concession.

The Pavon Mine is located within the Natividad and Las Brisas exploration concessions totalling 31.5 km². Surrounding the Eastern Borosi project is a large 7,281 km² land package prospective for porphyry, skarn and epithermal vein deposits, which include the Primavera and Cerro Aeropuerto deposits, both of which contain an Inferred Mineral Resource.

The Libertad project also comprises the Buenaventura and Cerro Quiroz exploration concessions, which are contiguous with the Libertad exploitation concession and cover a total of 4,600 hectares.