Richard Young

i-80 Gold: From 50,000 to 600,000 Ounces | Fully Funded Nevada Growth Plan

• Top takeaway His central argument is that the plan is brownfield rather than greenfield: the Lone Tree facility already exists and only worn parts and technology are being replaced, so he puts execution risk well below a normal new build, and he adds the team is fully staffed.
• He says the recap was deliberately over-raised despite shareholder pushback, so the company can build Mineral Point ahead of the Cove and Granite Creek open-pit phase with no further equity; a small revolver may still be needed depending on gold prices, and the senior debt banks were picked partly for their ability to transition into a corporate line of credit.
• He expects a pro-business administration to accelerate Mineral Point permitting by as much as a year, calls it the most valuable project in the portfolio at a stated net asset value of $6-$7 billion against a market cap under $2 billion, and says a decision on swapping the phases is likely in the second half of 2026.
• He argues Mineral Point lowers the cost base as well as adding ounces, pointing to a roughly $1 billion capex, about $1,000-$1,400 per ounce cash costs inclusive of the royalty and silver prices, and a first year of stripping that removes about 90 million tons of waste against 10 million tons of ore.
• From his prior work at Barrick on Granite Creek, he argues previous owners never had bandwidth for marginal assets, supporting his plan to shift from feasibility work in 2026 to exploration at Granite Creek, near the 30 million ounce Turquoise Ridge system, and at Ruby Hill in 2027 and 2028, while deferring a third underground mine until the late 2030s.

i-80 Gold says a fully funded $1.1 billion recapitalization carries Nevada output from roughly 50,000 to more than 600,000 ounces. AISC (All-In Sustaining Cost — what it really costs to produce an ounce) is guided below $2,000 an ounce once Lone Tree restarts. Young argues brownfield projects — existing facilities refurbished instead of built — carry far less execution risk than greenfield builds. Pulling the Mineral Point open-pit heap leach (ore piled on pads and sprayed) forward could lift output to about 500,000 ounces by 2030. Management expects operating cash flow to jump from about $15 million to over $400 million at current gold prices.

Richard Young, President & CEO of i-80 Gold Corp. | Rule Symposium 2026: Rick Rule interviews

• Top takeaway Young argues i-80 is undervalued, contrasting an approximately $1.8 billion market cap with about $10 billion of after-tax NAV from the original preliminary assessments at current metal prices, and says there are further opportunities within the portfolio outside even that figure.
• He says the balance sheet recapitalization completed in the past year left the company fully funded with no need to issue equity, and frames the roughly $2 billion required across the three phases as low capital intensity, with about half for Mineral Point, which he describes as a 20-plus-year mine at roughly 300,000 ounces of gold-equivalent production.
• Young calls the Lone Tree autoclave a strategic advantage competitors cannot easily replicate: refurbishment costs a little over $400 million, completes in Q4 2027, is worth about $1.5 billion on its own, and pays back in under two years by keeping $1,000 to $1,500 per ounce of margin on a facility with a 40-year life.
• He wants to accelerate Mineral Point from the third phase of the plan, saying permitting and construction over the next few years could move the company toward half a million ounces per year as the decade ends, helped by a US administration he describes as business-friendly and binding-friendly.
• Young points to the largest infill and step-out drill program in the company's history, with three feasibility studies for the underground projects and two pre-feasibility studies for the oxide open pits to be completed over the next 12 months, and says he believes the projects will get larger.

Recapitalized without new equity, i-80 Gold carries a market cap under $2 billion against roughly $10 billion of after-tax NAV per prior studies. Management guides production from 50,000 ounces this year to more than 600,000 ounces over a three-phase build-out. An autoclave — a pressure vessel that cooks refractory ore — is being refurbished for $400-plus million, cutting $1,000–$1,500 per ounce of tolling margin. The company's largest infill and step-out drill program in its history feeds three underground feasibility studies and two oxide pit pre-feasibility studies. Owning one of Nevada's only two permitted autoclaves opens a cheap route to stranded refractory deposits other miners cannot process.