The Montauban Project is ESGold’s flagship gold-silver development asset located in Québec, Canada. The project is designed as a fully permitted tailings-to-cash operation, recovering gold, silver, and mica from historic mine tailings while advancing district-scale exploration potential across the surrounding Montauban mining camp.
The project is advancing toward near-term gold and silver production and is supported by completed infrastructure, strong Preliminary Economic Assessment economics, and a newly defined geological model indicating a much larger mineralized system beneath the historic mine footprint.
Expanded land position to 485 claims covering approximately 244 km² (24,414 hectares)
Montauban combines near-term production from historic tailings with district-scale exploration upside, creating a development pathway that can generate cash flow while expanding the broader mineral system.
The Montauban project is located in Montauban Township in Portneuf County, Québec, approximately:
• 80 km from Québec City
• 60 km from Trois-Rivières
Québec consistently ranks among the most attractive mining jurisdictions globally due to political stability, transparent permitting frameworks, and extensive infrastructure.
Low-cost hydroelectric power
Existing road access
Proximity to skilled mining labour
Established mining infrastructure
Montauban is built around ESGold’s tailings-to-cash model, which converts historic mine waste into revenue-generating mineral production.
Historic operators left large volumes of tailings containing recoverable gold, silver, and mica. ESGold’s processing facility is designed to extract this remaining value while stabilizing and neutralizing legacy mine waste.
The model creates a self-funding development strategy..
This approach reduces reliance on capital markets and allows exploration to be funded through internal revenue.
Significant infrastructure has already been installed at Montauban, with commissioning activities now underway.
20,000 sq ft modular processing facility
1.3 km hydropower service line
All-weather road access
Fully permitted construction & operations
On-site laboratory and gold room
Processing plant rated for 1,000 tonnes per day
The mill building has been completed, with equipment installation, integration and commissioning activities now underway.To date, ESGold has invested more than $20 million into developing the Montauban project.
The Montauban processing facility utilizes a Merrill-Crowe recovery circuit, a proven and widely used precious metals processing method.
Mica is separated earlier in the process, creating an additional by-product stream.
Screening and separation
Grinding
Cyanide leaching
Clarification & de-oxygenation
Merrill-Crowe precipitation
Doré production
The 2025 PEA demonstrates strong project economics driven by low capital requirements and favorable operating costs.
ESGold has completed its expanded Phase 2 Ambient Noise Tomography (ANT-2) survey and updated property-scale 3D geological model at Montauban.
The integrated geological interpretation now covers approximately 70 km² and combines 1,637 drillholes, 1,707 regional multi-element samples, lithology, historical assays, structural interpretation, regional mapping and geophysical data.
ANT-2 used 200 three-component geophone stations and provides useful geological constraint from approximately 86 metres to 1.2 kilometres below surface.
Key observations include:
• Southern and eastern project corridors identified as priority areas for further evaluation
• Northern ANT-2 area remains comparatively under-tested
• Integrated geological, geochemical and geophysical data can now be systematically ranked to guide future exploration targeting
A 5,000-metre surface diamond drilling program across 29 proposed holes is currently underway, focused primarily on the historic Montauban mine area.
Historic mining operations left multiple underground pillars containing high-grade mineralization that have not been evaluated using modern exploration methods.
| Zone | Tonnes | Au (g/t) | Ag (g/t) |
|---|---|---|---|
| North Zone | 274,500 | 2.80 | 15 |
| South Zone | 114,473 | 6.10 | 94 |
| Total | 388,973 | 3.76 | 38.33 |
These zones highlight the potential for additional high-grade mineralization within the district.
Following the new geological model, ESGold expanded its land position to secure structural trends extending beyond the original project boundary.
The Company now controls:
Environmental remediation is a central component of the Montauban project.
The operation is designed to process historic tailings while stabilizing and neutralizing legacy mine waste.
Key ESG benefits include:
Processing historic mine tailings left by earlier operations
Neutralizing and stabilizing
mine waste
Reducing environmental
contamination risk
Repurposing processed tailings into construction materials
Supporting local employment with approximately 30 jobs created
ESGold’s development plan follows a two-phase strategy.
Bring the Montauban tailings operation into production and establish recurring cash flow.
Near-term project milestones include:
To date, ESGold has completed major development milestones:
Over $15M invested into project development
All major permits secured
Commissioning activities commenced
Resource verification completed
Metallurgical testing completed
Integrated 3D geological model completed
Land package expanded following modelling results
Montauban combines near-term gold production with district-scale exploration potential.
