(Kitco News) Fury Gold Mines is heading into its Eau Claire prefeasibility study with a clear target in mind. CEO Tim Clark says investors want to see the Quebec gold project top 100,000 ounces a year, and he hopes higher gold prices and this year’s drilling can get it there.
“I think the number that everybody wants us to get to is over 100,000 ounces a year in production,” Clark told Kitco Mining on Oct. 29. He stopped short of a forecast. “We just won’t know for another couple months, when we get the engineering plans back from our engineering company.”
Eau Claire and the nearby Percival deposit hold 1.16 million ounces in the measured and indicated categories at 5.64 grams per tonne gold, plus 723,000 inferred ounces. Fury’s September 2025 preliminary economic assessment outlined about 76,000 ounces a year over 11 years at all-in sustaining costs of US$1,140 an ounce. It showed an after-tax net present value of US$554 million at a 5% discount rate and a 41% internal rate of return at US$2,400 gold. Clark said the mine design used US$2,200 gold and the resource US$2,000, which left material out of the plan that today’s prices could bring in. “There are going to be new blocks hopefully pulling in,” he said. That matters for the study’s value, adding, “The more ounces that go in the PFS, obviously the higher valuation analysts are going to give to the overall project itself.”
The PFS is planned for the first half of 2027 and will follow an updated resource that draws on this year’s conversion drilling. On Oct. 26, Fury reported that hole 26EC-131 returned 14.95 g/t gold over 4.25 meters true width, about 60 meters up-dip from a historical intercept, in an area classified as inferred. The Phase 2 program of about 25,000 meters had reached 21,857 meters in 46 holes, with assays back for 26. Citing his geologists, Clark said, “We’re not cut off in any direction on Eau Claire, and that’s good news.” Fury is also working on a memorandum of understanding with the First Nations community in the area, he said.
He leans on the site’s infrastructure as much as its grade. “We’ve got hydroelectric power that runs through the property. We have to drive over the spillway to get into the property,” Clark said. With an airport nearby too, describing the project as “plug and play.” Metallurgical results due before the PFS will also show whether ore could be toll milled at another plant, an option that carried a higher IRR than the base case in the PEA.
Clark, who built his career in capital markets, is not worried about funding. Fury holds about 5.8% of Contango Silver and Gold, a stake he values at US$40 million to US$50 million, and it raised about C$20 million in flow-through funds after the PEA. “It’s easier to raise money when you have money,” he said. Later he put it more bluntly: “Raising money is not my major concern.”
He does see larger miners circling. Agnico Eagle is Fury’s largest shareholder at about 6%, Clark said, and Dhilmar, which bought the nearby Éléonore mine from Newmont, holds about 4%. Producers generating billions in free cash flow will eventually buy whole districts to fight rising costs, he argued, and it will only take one deal to start a wave. “You got the boys on one side and the girls on the other, and all you need is one guy to have the courage to go over there. Next thing you know, everybody’s buying.”
Fury has signed more confidentiality agreements with potential suitors recently than in years. “We’ve signed more in the last six months than we have in the last five or six years,” Clark said. “Tells you something.” Major producers have also asked to tour the project. “We’re getting calls to come on and visit our property from big producers,” he said. “No one’s taken a swing yet, but it’s going to get interesting.”
Agnico has also funded the past two years of exploration at Committee Bay, Fury’s project in Nunavut. On Nov. 3, Fury reported that all five infill holes at the Three Bluffs deposit hit the target shear zone. Hole 26TB158 returned 3.88 g/t gold over 17.82 meters true width, including 18.78 g/t over 3.30 meters. Hole 26TB161 returned 0.77 g/t over 98.60 meters, the widest interval drilled there to date. Three Bluffs holds 524,000 indicated ounces at 7.85 g/t and 720,000 inferred ounces at 7.64 g/t under a 2023 estimate. Clark said its last resource was calculated at US$1,600 gold, and an update will follow Eau Claire’s, with five more holes still pending.
Clark called Committee Bay one of the “big company assets” Fury should eventually partner on or sell, though not cheaply. “You don’t want to have a fire sale when the market’s bad,” he said. In the meantime, Quebec has his attention. “Eau Claire is going to be a mine.”
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