Montage Gold keeps Côte d'Ivoire's Koné mine on track for Q4 gold pour

Montage Gold Corp has told shareholders that construction of its Koné gold project in Côte d'Ivoire is running on budget and on schedule, with first gold pour through the oxide circuit still targeted for late in the fourth quarter of 2026. In its first-quarter activities report, the Toronto-listed developer said 2.3 million construction hours were worked between January and March, taking the cumulative total since the project broke ground to more than 10.4 million hours without a change to the completion timeline.

Tanks up, mill delivered

Physical progress at the site has been visible. All 14 carbon-in-leach tanks have been erected, along with piperack and grid-mesh walkways, while the oxide ore sizer and the delivery of the ball mill to site have both been completed. Montage said roughly $545 million of capital has now been committed, representing about 63% of the total upfront capital expenditure required to build the mine. Construction of the harder rock comminution circuit, which will process sulphide ore once the oxide reserves near surface are depleted, remains on track for completion in the second quarter of 2027.

Koné is being built in the Bounkani region of northern Côte d'Ivoire and is expected to become one of the country's largest gold mines once fully ramped up. Montage's updated feasibility study projects average annual production of more than 300,000 ounces during the first eight years of operation, with a mine life of at least 16 years.

Why it matters

Côte d'Ivoire has become one of West Africa's busiest gold construction sites, with Koné joining Perseus Mining's Yaouré underground expansion and a wave of junior-led projects competing for contractors, power and skilled labour. A large new mine reaching first production on schedule would add materially to the country's export earnings and formalise employment in a region where artisanal gold panning has long been the main economic activity alongside cocoa farming.

Montage has continued to spend on exploration alongside construction, drilling 115,000 metres in 2025 against a 90,000-metre budget, and has allocated a further $16 million for roughly 99,000 metres of drilling in 2026, split between the main Koné deposit and the nearby Wendé property. The company has framed the extra drilling as an early step toward extending mine life beyond the current 16-year plan, though no updated resource has yet been published from that work.

What happens next

The next major milestone is completion of the hard-rock comminution circuit in mid-2027, which will allow Koné to process higher-grade sulphide ore beneath the oxide cap. Until then, the project's near-term test is simply hitting the promised Q4 2026 pour date, a deadline the company has so far defended even as some peers elsewhere in the region have slipped.

Sources

• Junior Mining Network: Montage Gold continues to rapidly advance its Koné Project with first gold pour expected in late Q4-2026, 14 May 2026
• Montage Gold Corp: Montage Gold Reports on its Q1-2026 Activities, 14 May 2026

Photo: Small-scale gold mining activity in northern Côte d'Ivoire. African Hope, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.