Cabral Gold - Permit Granted, 87 g/t Over 9.5m Drilled & First Gold Pour Q4 2026

• Cabral Gold is executing a two-phase district development strategy at Cuiú Cuiú, with a 3,000 tonne-per-day heap leach oxide operation currently under construction and on track to pour first gold in Q4 2026, funded by a gold loan secured from its largest institutional shareholder.
• The Brazilian environmental regulator has granted the LP, the full mining licence, representing the most complex and consequential permitting milestone in the country's mining approval process, removing a significant de-risking hurdle for the project.
• Drilling at the Jerimum Cima target returned 9.5 metres at 87.4 g/t gold including 2.9 metres at 285.5 g/t gold, the strongest result in Cabral's history, suggesting a high-grade structural intersection at the core of a mineralized envelope extending at least 750 metres east-west.
• At current gold prices of approximately $5,000 per ounce and an estimated all-in operating cost of $1,000 per ounce, the phase one operation could generate margins of approximately $4,000 per ounce or more, with initial annual production targeted at around 25,000 ounces.
• The Cuiú Cuiú district hosts at least six known gold deposits across a seven-kilometre soil anomaly, with 50 untested exploration targets remaining, and the company is considering adding a fourth drill rig to accelerate resource growth ahead of a planned resource update later in 2026.

Cabral Gold's Strategy

Cabral Gold Inc. (TSX-V: CBR) is a junior mining company with a 100% interest in the Cuiú Cuiú gold district in the Tapajós region of northern Brazil. The company controls what it describes as an entire gold district, comprising multiple known deposits, recent discoveries, and more than 50 untested targets, within a seven-kilometre gold-in-soil anomaly. Its stated strategy is to develop this district in two clearly defined stages, using the economics of the first phase to fund the exploration ambitions of the second. Alan Carter, President & CEO of Cabral noted:

"We wanted to get off that hamster wheel. We're fortunate our project in Brazil has a very thick weathered cap and that means there's an opportunity to start small and develop the project in two stages."

Phase one is a 3,000 tonne-per-day heap leach operation targeting the oxide and saprolite material that forms a weathered cap of up to 70 metres across the deposit. This approach was selected deliberately: the weathered material requires no drilling and blasting, no ball mills or SAG mills, and minimal crushing, which keeps both capital and operating costs substantially below those of a conventional hard rock mine. The phase two ambition is a central processing hub fed by the growing suite of hard rock deposits across the district.

This architecture, building cash flow first and using it to fund district exploration, is designed to break the cycle of equity dilution that constrains most junior explorers. Carter marked the transition from concept to execution with the construction decision in November 2025, the point at which financing was secured and ground was broken on phase one.

Interview with President & CEO, Alan Carter

Recent Developments & Stock Response

The week of 10 March 2026 produced a cluster of material news for Cabral Gold that the market responded to with notable enthusiasm. The first significant development came with a construction progress update confirming that phase one was 54% complete, on time, and on budget, providing tangible evidence that the company's engineering and project management teams were delivering against schedule.

The second and arguably more consequential development was the granting of the LP, or Licença Prévia, Brazil's full mining licence, on 10th March 2026. The LP is the most complex and time-consuming permitting step in Brazil's mining regulatory framework, involving multiple government agencies, environmental impact assessments, hydrological studies, and public consultations. Cabral initiated the process in 2018 and submitted its environmental impact assessment report in 2020, making the licence award a milestone six to eight years in the making. Carter stated:

"The news regarding the granting of the LP for the full mining license is a massive, monumental step in the permitting. It is the most important step. Anybody that's trying to build a mine in Brazil knows the LP is a big deal."

The third catalyst was the release on 12th March 2026 of drill results from the Jerimum Cima target, including the headline intersection of 9.5 metres at 87.4 g/t gold. Together, these three events created a concentrated news flow that appears to have meaningfully re-rated investor perception of the company's near-term risk profile.

Construction Progress & Financial Insights

The phase one heap leach operation at Cuiú Cuiú was designed by Ausenco, one of the world's largest engineering firms, with a pre-feasibility study published in July 2025. The capital cost for the 3,000 tonne-per-day facility came in at approximately US$37.7 million, a figure that reflects the low-complexity nature of the operation. Financing was secured through a gold loan with Cabral's largest institutional shareholder, closed in November 2025.

At the PFS gold price assumption of $2,500 per ounce, the operation showed a 78% internal rate of return and a 10-month payback period. With gold trading at approximately double that level in early 2026, the financial metrics have improved substantially. The all-in operating cost is estimated at approximately $1,000 per ounce, and with first-year production targeted at approximately 25,000 ounces, the operation could generate meaningful pre-tax cash flow in its first full year. Carter said:

"We should be producing gold at just over about $1,000 an ounce. With a profit margin of about $4,000 an ounce currently, in round figures, that's about $100 million pre-tax."

Carter attributes the project's unusual capital efficiency to the physical characteristics of the ore. The saprolite and oxide material is free-digging, requiring no explosives, and does not need the energy-intensive crushing and grinding circuits that define conventional hard rock processing. The material is at surface, accessible immediately, and the process is essentially a combination of excavation, agglomeration, and heap leach recovery. This simplicity underpins both the low capital cost and the low operating cost that define the phase one economics.

High-Grade Discoveries & Exploration Plans at Jerimum Cima

The Jerimum Cima target sits approximately three kilometres east-northeast of the Central gold deposit and 3.5 kilometres northwest of the MG gold deposit. Prior to the most recent drilling, it had returned results including 45.6 metres at 4.5 g/t gold and 49 metres at 2.0 g/t gold from primary intrusive rock, along with oxide intercepts from surface trenching. These results were encouraging but did not distinguish the target from others across the district.

Drill hole DDH372, released on 12th March 2026, changed that characterisation. The hole returned 9.5 metres at 87.4 g/t gold from 173.8 metres depth, within which a 2.9 metre interval graded 285.5 g/t gold, representing approximately nine and a half troy ounces per tonne. The intersection is interpreted to occur at the junction of the main east-west trending mineralized zone and a northwest-trending cross fault, a structural setting consistent with high-grade gold traps observed in similar deposit types globally.

"We have never encountered drill results of this magnitude. It is becoming increasingly clear that we have an important discovery at Jerimum Cima which is not currently part of the existing resource base."

The company notes that the high-grade zone in DDH372 is likely continuous with a zone intersected by drill holes 30 metres to the west and 80 metres to the east. This implies the high-grade core extends at least 110 metres along strike, is open at depth, and is surrounded by a broader mineralized envelope up to 200 metres wide and at least 750 metres long east-west. Drilling is ongoing, with the company indicating it will intensify focus on the Jerimum Cima target in response to the results.

Funding & Future Exploration Strategies

Cabral is currently operating with two distinct teams on site: a construction workforce of approximately 300 people focused on delivering the phase one heap leach facility, and a dedicated exploration team running three diamond drill rigs simultaneously across multiple targets. The parallel execution of construction and active exploration is unusual in the junior mining sector, where resource allocation constraints typically force exploration to pause during project construction. Carter explained:

"We've got three rigs running right now and there'll be exploration results coming out every few weeks. We're in the process of reconsidering how aggressive we are and how many rigs we have operating."

The company is considering adding a fourth drill rig, a decision accelerated by the Jerimum Cima results and by pressure from both the exploration team and sections of the shareholder base. The existing three rigs are active across Jerimum Cima, the MG deposit, and the interpreted structural link between the Central deposit and the PDM discovery to the north, meaning exploration newsflow is expected to continue at a regular cadence over the coming months.

The broader funding question, how a company of this scale gets after a district of this potential, is the strategic problem the phase one cash flow is designed to solve. If the operation performs at or near its modelled economics, the resulting free cash flow provides a non-dilutive funding mechanism for multi-rig exploration, resource drilling, and eventual feasibility work on the phase two hard rock operation, without requiring further equity issuance.

Geological Insights & Regional Structures

The Cuiú Cuiú gold district sits along the Tocantinzinho regional fault system, a major crustal structure that extends for at least 100 kilometres through the Tapajós gold province of northern Brazil. Carter notes that this structure controls multiple gold deposits, including Cuiú Cuiú and Tocantinzinho, the latter of which is currently Brazil's third-largest open pit gold mine. Carter was involved in the discovery of Tocantinzinho approximately 20 years ago, giving him direct geological context for the regional setting. Carter noted:

"The soil anomaly we have at Cuiú Cuiú is seven kilometres compared with one kilometre at Tocantinzinho. I think Cuiú Cuiú is going to continue to surprise people."

The rocks at Cuiú Cuiú are approximately two billion years old, intrusive in character, and were formed at a time when the South American and West African cratons were joined. The gold deposit styles observed at Cuiú Cuiú are geologically analogous to deposit types found in West Africa, formed during the same tectonic event in comparable host rocks. The district's gold-in-soil anomaly spans seven kilometres, compared with the one-kilometre anomaly that defined Tocantinzinho.

The company has been using drone-borne magnetics to improve structural resolution across the district's untested targets. The method allows for lower-altitude flying than conventional helicopter or fixed-wing surveys, producing higher-resolution magnetic data that better defines the structural controls on mineralization. Combined with the company's 50-plus untested targets and boulder fields returning up to 90 g/t gold at surface, the geological framework suggests the current resource base of approximately 1.2 million ounces is a starting point rather than a ceiling.

Future Prospects & Closing Thoughts

The next six months represent a period of concentrated execution for Cabral Gold. On the construction side, the company is targeting commissioning in Q3 2026 and commercial production in Q4 2026, with the 54% completion figure and an on-time, on-budget status suggesting the schedule is achievable barring unforeseen disruption. The Brazilian rainy season has not materially affected the timeline to date. Carter stated:

"Which targets we focus on is a change in landscape. There's a lot to do here. These recent results from Jerimum Cima have certainly focused the mind."

On the exploration side, the Jerimum Cima results have reset expectations for what is possible within the district and focused attention on a target that is not yet in the resource base. Further drilling at Jerimum Cima is expected to define the extent of the high-grade zone and the broader oxide cap above it. Meanwhile, ongoing drilling at MG and the Central-PDM corridor should continue to generate newsflow and may support a material expansion of the global resource estimate when Cabral updates its figures later in 2026.

The convergence of near-term production, a transformative permitting milestone, and a high-grade exploration discovery is rare in the junior mining sector. Whether Cabral can convert these catalysts into a sustained re-rating will depend on the quality and consistency of the results that follow, and on its ability to execute phase one production on the schedule and economics the pre-feasibility study modelled.

The Investment Thesis for Cabral Gold

• Phase one heap leach production is targeted for Q4 2026, with the operation 54% complete, on time, and on budget, reducing construction execution risk materially.
• The all-in operating cost of approximately $1,000 per ounce against a gold price above $5,000 implies substantial margin, with a 10-month payback modelled at $2,500 gold now materially compressed.
• The LP full mining licence has been granted, removing the single largest permitting risk for the project and providing regulatory clarity for both the heap leach operation and the longer-term district development.
• Jerimum Cima represents a high-grade discovery not yet in the resource base, within a district that already hosts at least six deposits and 50 untested targets, offering exploration upside that remains largely unquantified.
• The two-phase strategy is designed to make phase two self-funding, using oxide cash flow to support multi-rig exploration without requiring equity dilution, which distinguishes Cabral's capital structure outlook from most junior peers.
• The global resource of approximately 1.2 million ounces was last updated in 2022 and does not reflect discoveries since then, meaning the forthcoming resource update in late 2026 could represent a significant re-rating catalyst.

Cabral Gold enters the second quarter of 2026 in a position that is meaningfully different from where it stood twelve months ago. The company has secured its most important permit, demonstrated construction execution against plan, and produced its strongest ever drill result from a target outside the existing resource base. Each of these elements addresses a specific investor concern: permitting risk, construction delivery risk, and the question of whether the district contains enough gold to justify a large-scale hard rock operation. None of these questions are fully answered, but the evidence base has shifted perceptibly. The critical test now is whether phase one delivers gold in Q4 2026 at the cost structure the PFS modelled, and whether continued drilling at Jerimum Cima reveals a deposit with the scale and continuity that the initial results hint at. If both conditions are met, Cabral's investment proposition will be substantially stronger by year-end.

Macro Thematic Analysis

Gold's move above $5,000 per ounce in early 2026 reflects a confluence of structural factors that appear durable rather than cyclical. Central bank demand has been running at historically elevated levels since 2022, with emerging market institutions systematically reducing dollar exposure in favour of physical gold reserves. Simultaneously, retail and institutional investment demand has accelerated, driven by persistent concerns about fiscal sustainability in major developed economies, geopolitical fragmentation, and the broader re-emergence of gold as a monetary anchor in multi-polar reserve discussions.

For junior mining companies in the development and near-production phase, this price environment is transformative. Projects that were marginal at a lower gold price become highly economic at current pricing, and projects that were already economic experience a compression of payback periods and a step-change in free cash flow generation. The practical effect for companies like Cabral Gold is that the financial case for building mines has rarely been stronger, while the cost of capital, still elevated by historical standards, remains the primary constraint on development timelines.

The Tapajós region of Brazil sits within one of the world's most prolific gold provinces, and the district-scale nature of the Cuiú Cuiú project positions Cabral within a category of assets that major and mid-tier gold producers are actively seeking to acquire or joint-venture. With global gold reserves declining at producing companies and replacement costs rising, district-scale exploration projects with multi-million-ounce potential are attracting increasing strategic attention. The combination of near-term cash flow from the heap leach operation and a growing exploration pipeline at Cuiú Cuiú positions Cabral at an intersection of operational credibility and exploration optionality that is increasingly scarce in the junior sector.

TL;DR

Cabral Gold is a junior miner with a 100% interest in the Cuiú Cuiú gold district in northern Brazil, a region historically associated with one of the largest gold rushes in human history. The company is executing a two-stage strategy: a low-capital, heap leach oxide operation now under construction and 54% complete, targeting first gold pour in Q4 2026 at an all-in cost of approximately $1,000 per ounce, followed by a larger hard rock district development. Recent drilling at the Jerimum Cima target has returned 9.5 metres at 87.4 g/t gold, the strongest result in the company's history, pointing to a high-grade core within a broader mineralized system. With the critical LP full mining licence now granted, construction on time and on budget, and exploration results continuing to build, Cabral appears positioned at a meaningful inflection point.

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