Atlas Salt Builds Out Leadership Bench Ahead of Project Financing Decision

• Atlas Salt appointed Mark Stewart as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Corporate Secretary, promoted Robert Booth to Chief Operating Officer (COO), and promoted Andrew Smith to Director of Project Strategy & Execution, effective August 4, 2026.
• Stewart previously led enterprise financial planning and analysis at Teck Resources and held finance roles at Yamana Gold, Barrick Gold, and Aritzia, including the integration of Yamana's US$3.5 billion acquisition of Osisko Gold.
• Booth, a Professional Engineer (P.Eng.) with more than 30 years of experience delivering mine builds for Newmont and Hudbay, now oversees all engineering, construction planning, and site operations as the Great Atlantic Salt Project advances.
• Management describes the appointments as deliberately front-loaded, building the execution team during the current early construction phase rather than during the larger capital-intensive phase still to come.
• The leadership build-out arrives as Atlas Salt advances toward a financing decision for a project with an after-tax net present value at an 8% discount rate of $920 million (NPV8%) and a mine life exceeding 24 years, per the company's 2025 Updated Feasibility Study.

Atlas Salt Inc. (TSXV: SALT | OTCQX: SALQF | FSE: 9D00) is building its execution team now, while construction is still small and manageable, rather than scrambling to hire once a much larger wave of capital hits the Great Atlantic Salt Project. That logic sits behind three leadership moves at the Newfoundland and Labrador project, all effective August 4, 2026: the appointment of Mark Stewart, CPA, CA, as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Corporate Secretary, and the promotions of Robert Booth, P.Eng., PMP, to Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Andrew Smith, P.Eng., ICD.D, to Director of Project Strategy & Execution. Atlas Salt Inc. now adds a dedicated finance executive to a team that, until now, has managed capital allocation alongside engineering and construction responsibilities, while consolidating operational authority under an engineer who has been on site since early in construction.

A Finance Executive Joins a Team That Has Been Running Lean

Stewart arrives with more than 25 years of executive finance leadership across public mining and industrial companies. He most recently served as Director, Enterprise Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) at Teck Resources, and previously held finance roles with Yamana Gold, Barrick Gold, and Aritzia. His prior work includes leading the financial integration of Yamana's US$3.5 billion acquisition of Osisko Gold, operationalizing the divestiture of Barrick's $3.6 billion African assets through an initial public offering (IPO) and listing on the London Stock Exchange, and negotiating a $300 million corporate credit facility.

Site Leadership Formalized Under Booth & Smith

Booth's promotion extends a role he has already been performing on the ground. Known internally as "Bob the Builder," he has more than 30 years of engineering and construction experience across Vale, Hudbay, and Newmont, including more than $1.5 billion in mine builds delivered for Newmont and Hudbay, and has led the project's site activities since early works began. As Chief Operating Officer, he now formally oversees engineering, construction planning, and operational readiness, as well as day-to-day site operations, as the project advances toward drift development.

Smith, who has more than 10 years of experience in underground mine construction and previously headed the project management office at Dumas, will continue to lead project strategy and execution planning while taking on expanded responsibility for refining Atlas Salt's salt marketing and distribution strategy.

Why Management Hired Ahead of the Capital Surge

The alternative to hiring now would be hiring later, once project financing closes and construction spending accelerates sharply, a scenario management views as riskier for a team learning the job under pressure. Chief Executive Officer and Director of Atlas Salt, Nolan Peterson, on the timing:

"The best situation right now is that while we're ramping up slowly by decompressing the schedule, we can hire the people now, put them in place now. They learn the culture of Atlas Salt and start putting processes in place. And then when we get the big capital surge, everybody is ready to take that football and dribble it up the field, right?"

Peterson's framing treats the current, smaller-scale construction phase as a training ground for the team that will need to execute at full speed once the larger capital program begins.

Progress on the Ground Supports the Timing

That sequencing is playing out against tangible on-site progress. Earthworks crews have cleared vegetation and begun subgrade preparation down to bedrock. Terracing and drainage work is underway, and ground conditions are coming in drier than engineers had anticipated, a favorable early sign for the underground drift development still to come. The Town of St. George's has also shifted its approach: rather than reviewing each construction activity individually, it now approves the project's full early works program under a single permit synced with existing provincial approvals. That gives Atlas Salt more than a year of pre-cleared development activity to work through before the next major permitting step, tied to the box cut that will provide drift access.

The Investment Angle: Execution Readiness as De-Risking

For investors, this round of appointments signals something the permitting and financing catalysts already tracked around Atlas Salt do not. Prior updates have measured progress in permits cleared and dollars raised; this one measures whether the organization is staffed to execute once financing closes. A finance executive with public company transaction experience, an operations chief who has already run the site build, and a strategy director focused on commercial planning close the gap between the feasibility study's assumptions and the company's ability to deliver on them, a factor lenders will weigh alongside the numbers themselves.

Project Economics & Financing Context

Those numbers are the backdrop against which the leadership build-out will be judged. The Great Atlantic Salt Project's 2025 Updated Feasibility Study supports an after-tax net present value at an 8% discount rate (NPV8%) of $920 million, a mine life exceeding 24 years, and nameplate production capacity of 4.0 million tonnes per annum, against a pre-production capital expenditure requirement of $589 million. Export Development Canada has issued a letter of interest for up to $150 million in senior debt financing to help fund that capital program. Early works are underway, and permitting is streamlined; the next step is whether Atlas Salt converts a now-complete leadership team into a closed financing package and, from there, into development.

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