Made in America - Visiting Hycroft Mining's Hycroft Mine

• Hycroft Mining holds a genuinely large resource base at its Nevada mine, over 16 million ounces of gold and 500 million ounces of silver, and is now focused on unlocking high-grade silver zones within that broader system.
• Recent drilling at the Vortex and Brimstone zones has intersected visible, high-grade native silver within a breccia-hosted structure, with both targets remaining open at depth and along strike.
• An oxide manganese zone identified to the east in 2023 and 2024 could support a future leach operation, adding a lower-cost opportunity alongside the higher-grade underground targets.
• The site sits close to major infrastructure, including rail within 200 metres of the property, a good access road just 55 miles from town, and proximity to other large operators along the Carlin Trend.
• The company is already fully permitted at the site, giving it a head start on any future expansion, since permit modifications for growth are a routine part of the regulatory process rather than a new approval from scratch.

The Made in America Series

Nevada remains one of the most consistently ranked mining jurisdictions in the world, with a century-plus of continuous mining history and a regulatory environment that companies and regulators alike understand well. For a project like this, sitting within that jurisdiction isn't just a backdrop, it's part of the investment case in its own right. This visit is part of Crux Investor's Made in America series, a tour through Nevada's mining projects, sitting down with the teams building them.

With that context set, here's what we found on the ground at Hycroft Mining's Nevada operation.

Introduction to Hycroft Mining & the Project

Spending time with VP of Exploration Alex Davidson at Hycroft's past-producing Nevada mine, the scale of the opportunity is clear before any specifics come up. Davidson brings roughly 30 years of mining experience, including time at Rio Tinto's Greens Creek operation, roughly a decade at Newmont working on underground projects, including a period as chief geologist at Leeville, followed by a role at the Nevada Gold Mines joint venture before joining Hycroft.

Asked to describe the scale of what the team is working with, Davidson didn't hesitate:

"The opportunity is giant. We've got plus sixteen million gold ounces, plus five hundred million silver ounces in resource."

That broad, low-grade base has historically defined Hycroft, but the team's recent focus has shifted toward something more targeted: the high-grade silver mineralization emerging from the Vortex and Brimstone zones, both of which are showing increasing continuity the more the company drills.

The Vortex & Brimstone High-Grade Discoveries

Vortex and Brimstone represent a genuinely different style of mineralization than what Hycroft has traditionally been known for. Davidson described Brimstone in particular as something new for the property: "Brimstone is a unique beast. It is not what Hycroft has traditionally been known. It's something new, it's something different. So there's a lot of follow-up work to do."

At the core shed, Davidson pointed to breccia-hosted core from Vortex sitting roughly 1,400 to 1,500 feet below surface, with visible native silver clearly present in the rock. He described the zone's overall character directly:

"That's one of the nice things about the Vortex side is it is a robust deposit. It's got some real thickness to it, as well as width. It's a good geometry."

Roughly 20,000 feet of drilling has gone into Vortex so far, with a further 10 holes and close to 15,000 feet completed at Brimstone this year alone. Exploration Manager Justin Davenport, who leads the drilling program, noted that both zones remain genuinely open, with Vortex still extending to the west and Brimstone continuing at depth, giving the company a substantial runway of follow-up drilling ahead of it.

Geological Insights & Core Analysis

Davidson walked through the physical characteristics that define ore in both zones. At Vortex, the key indicator is a broken breccia texture hosting visible silver, along with a distinctive dark banding known as a gangue texture that consistently accompanies the best mineralization. At Brimstone, a greenish alteration mineral called celadonite signals the team is inside the mineralizing system, alongside high-grade black zones that Davidson identified as likely tetrahedrite, a silver-bearing mineral.

Davenport added the structural context behind where the team chooses to drill next, describing an epithermal system with clay alteration near surface that gives way to more competent, silicified host rock at depth:

"The alteration at Hycroft, it's an epithermal system, so the top part of it has a lot of clay alteration in it. And the top part of the holes can be a bit of a struggle, but most of our ore is hosted in a more silicified hard rock. Once we get down about two or three hundred meters, the competence of the rock picks up and gets better."

The team has also identified a distinct east-west structural control at Brimstone, which is now guiding a systematic, step-by-step drilling approach: confirming the structure's exact position with each hole before offsetting the next one, rather than drilling several holes at once on an unconfirmed model.

Exploration Upside: Manganese & Beyond

Beyond the two high-grade zones, Hycroft is also exploring lower-grade, oxide-hosted opportunities to the east of its traditional resource. Standing at a manganese zone defined by a handful of drill holes in 2023 and 2024, Davidson explained the potential it represents: "We're seeing there's an oxide opportunity that would facilitate potentially facilitate a leach operation," extending the resource base beyond what has historically been considered part of the pit.

Davenport reinforced just how much upside remains in the broader system, given the property's forty-year mining history focused almost entirely on heap leach and oxide material near surface:

"Nobody's really got into all of the sulfide mineralization that's in front of us. And so there's a tremendous opportunity."

Infrastructure & Accessibility

Hycroft sits within easy reach of Nevada's established mining infrastructure. Davidson pointed out that the property is just 55 miles from town over a well-maintained access road, with a rail line running within 200 metres of the site and power lines already in place nearby. The company also benefits from proximity to other large operators, including Nevada Gold Mines' operations and the broader Carlin Trend to the east, both a source of skilled labour and a sign of the district's continued relevance.

That local labour pool matters directly to how the company staffs its exploration program. Every member of the drilling and geology team lives locally in nearby Winnemucca, a detail Davidson pointed to as a deliberate choice:

"These are all local people. Everybody lives in Winnemucca, our little town. It's good to find this kind of resource. We like to work locally."

Team & Project Management

Alongside Davidson, Exploration Manager Justin Davenport brings over 20 years of Nevada experience, including 15 years at Newmont and a role running the geology team at Nevada Gold Mines' Turquoise Ridge operation before joining Hycroft three years ago. Davenport was direct about what drew him to the project specifically:

"There is interesting things that say there's more to it than just one broad low-grade system. And getting the opportunity to really dial in on that... having the support to do that to solve a problem is fun."

Kris Daniels, Health and Safety Superintendent emphasized a safety and culture-first approach to running the exploration team, describing his role less in terms of policing compliance and more as providing the information and support that lets people make good decisions on their own: "Safety is the service industry where my job is to provide as much of the material as possible to make sure that everybody can make a good decision." With the team currently running two core rigs and one RC rig, and plans to add further core rigs before year end, that culture will need to scale alongside the drilling program itself.

Permitting & Environmental Management

Assistant General Manager and Environmental Manager Michael Bozarth outlined the site's current regulatory position, noting that Hycroft's exploration areas carry the same active permits as its main mine site, with no separate approval needed for the current work. Asked what day-to-day compliance looks like, he pointed to transparency and consistent reporting as the foundation of the company's approach.

On the environmental side, groundwater protection is the clear priority in a state where water is the most closely managed resource. Bozarth described the ongoing monitoring program directly:

"We have a monitoring program for all around site for groundwater, we have wells everywhere. On a quarterly and semi annually basis, we go and we sample those... to ensure that there's no contamination."

Being fully permitted already also sets the company up well for whatever comes next, since expanding an existing permit through modifications is a routine, well-understood process in Nevada mining rather than a fresh approval.

Conclusion & Future Outlook

The visit to Hycroft left a clear impression of a large, historically low-grade resource now being reinterpreted through the lens of genuinely high-grade discoveries at Vortex and Brimstone. Davidson was clear about where the company's near-term focus sits: continuing to push both zones deeper and further along strike, while establishing continuity between the high-grade material already defined and what may lie further west and at depth.

With drilling continuing to shape a new geological model for the system, an oxide manganese opportunity adding further optionality to the east, and a site that is already fully permitted, Hycroft is positioned to update its economic studies as the high-grade story becomes better defined. As Davidson put it, describing how quickly the picture could change:

"There's an opportunity to bring high grade forward, which changes the whole mining scenario. So we'll be doing new PEA studies so on and so forth."

For investors, the combination of a large existing resource, a genuinely new high-grade discovery, and a fully permitted site gives Hycroft a distinctive set of near-term catalysts to watch.

FAQ's (AI-Generated)