Challenger Gold Limited

Hualilan Project (San Juan, Argentina). Mineral Resource (JORC 2012, effective Mar 2023, US$1,900/oz gold price assumption): Indicated 45.5 Mt @ 1.0 g/t Au / 1.3 g/t AuEq = 1.9 Moz AuEq -- no Measured category, so Indicated is the full M+I figure written to ouncesFound. Inferred = 9.6 Mt @ 1.2 g/t AuEq (0.4 Moz, within a US$1,800 shell) + 5.5 Mt @ 2.6 g/t AuEq (0.5 Moz, below the US$1,800 shell) = 0.9 Moz combined, excluded per repo's M+I-only convention. Total resource (M+I+Inferred) = 2.8 Moz AuEq, including a cited 1.6 Moz high-grade core at 5.0 g/t AuEq. A Nov 2023 'Scoping Study' exists (underground-focused starter-pit plan, positive post-tax NPV/IRR, 66% IRR, 7-yr LOM at US$1,750/oz gold per secondary coverage) but the miner's own current description (reflecting the Aug 2026 equity placement and CEO/CFO/Chairman refresh) states a scoping study is 'nearing completion' with a standalone PFS the next planned study -- i.e. the most recently researched status on file treats current-cycle economics as not yet finalized/re-scoped (a larger 2026 PFS targeting a big open pit at the full Indicated+Inferred base is also referenced in secondary coverage as in progress). dcfNpvUsd/irrPct/mineLifeYears are therefore left as checked gaps rather than backfilled from the older, narrower-scope 2023 study, which the current in-progress re-scoping appears to supersede. [Task #537g stage correction, 2026-08-22] RESOLVED 2026-08-22 (Task #537g): raised stage PEA -> PFS (not PRODUCTION, not CONSTRUCTION), and set stageEnteredAt = 2026-05-18. This resolves the stage flag raised (deliberately unfixed) by scripts/backfill-milestone-task537g-batchD.ts. PRODUCTION AND CONSTRUCTION BOTH CHECKED AND REJECTED, despite the already-reported 2 Jun 2026 first gold pour (~500 oz Au + ~6,000 oz Ag via toll milling at Austral Gold's Casposo mill) making PRODUCTION look plausible at a glance. CEL's own ASX Appendix 5B for the quarter ended 30 Jun 2026 (lodged 31 Jul 2026) reports item 1.1 "Receipts from customers" as NIL in both the quarterly and six-month YTD columns (verified by full cash-flow reconciliation: the five populated lines sum to exactly the reported net cash used in operating activities, leaving no room for any receipts line). The companion Quarterly Activities Report states verbatim that the project is "remaining in pre-commercial production phase" and that at quarter end the company held "unsold inventory of 1,543 ounces of gold and 6,670 ounces of silver" -- ounces sold: zero. That is a disclaimer stronger than the Task #516 "not payable metal" test, backed by hard filed numbers, not an inference. The toll-milling campaign (1 May - 30 Jun 2026, 39,342 t) has since concluded and ore haulage paused; no doré sale/offtake/realised-price announcement was ever published. Contrast HSLV (commit bf22b06), where PRODUCTION was justified by US$56.227M of real, SEC-filed, audited revenue -- CEL has zero disclosed receipts. CONSTRUCTION is also factually wrong: no construction has commenced on the standalone development; the company's own framing targets construction readiness in 2027 and standalone production in early 2029, and the 2 Jun 2026 release itself frames the post-raise drill program as accelerating progression TOWARD construction, not evidencing it now. PFS IS CORRECT: a standalone/integrated Hualilan Gold Project Pre-Feasibility Study (Ausenco-led) was released ~18 May 2026 -- 1.5 Mtpa flotation plant plus 8 Mtpa heap leach from a single open pit, 14.25-yr mine life, 1.84 Moz AuEq, post-tax NPV5% US$1.10B / pre-tax US$1.45B at US$3,500/oz gold -- superseding the stale Nov 2023 scoping study previously the most recent study on file. This is distinct from a separate, smaller Toll Milling PFS (completed 4 Jun 2025: 465,000 wmt, 76.6 koz payable Au + 338.5 koz Ag, ~3% of the 2.8 Moz MRE) which is explicitly ring-fenced from the standalone project and does not set stage. A real mine-construction/development EIA was separately granted for Hualilan (San Juan Province Resolution No. 688-MM-2024, ~1 Nov 2024, first gold EIA granted in San Juan in 17 years) but per the Stage enum's own doc comment ("stage is a claim, not a label -- stage may only go as high as a published, citable study supports"), study rigor is the binding constraint here: the standalone project's capital-allocation studies are only PFS-grade (no DFS/feasibility study completed, no FID made), so PFS is the correct evidence-capped value rather than PERMITTING despite the real permit in hand. stageEnteredAt = 2026-05-18 is the standalone PFS completion release date, pinned to the day via the June 2026 Quarterly Activities Report's own citation ("18 May 2026 Release titled Completion of Hualilan Pre-Feasibility Study"). No MinerConstructionMilestone rows written: the stage-implies-milestone lifecycle gates only trigger at CONSTRUCTION-or-later, and PFS is below that threshold. FLAGGED, NOT FIXED (separate follow-ups, deliberately out of scope for a stage correction): `description` still describes a scoping study as "nearing completion" with a standalone PFS as the "next planned study" -- stale, the standalone PFS actually completed 18 May 2026; dcfNpvUsd/irrPct/mineLifeYears/ouncesFound are not backfilled here even though the completed PFS and confirmed Ore Reserves (per the June 2026 QAR) now make them a real, fillable gap, to avoid the scope-mixing the HSLV review refused; the toll- milling campaign's processed grade (1.4 g/t Au) badly missed the Toll Milling PFS's ~8.7 g/t expectation, which the June 2026 QAR attributes to a resource-model bias from underground channel-sample data used in the top 40m of the Norte/Sanchez pits -- a resource-confidence finding that may bear on the 2.8 Moz MRE and the "1.6 Moz high-grade core" claim in `description`; currentMilestoneLabel (not touched here) names Yohann Bouchard as "interim CEO/COO" but independently re-checked sources give him as COO only with no confirmed CEO change. Sources: Appendix 5B (30 Jun 2026 qtr, lodged 31 Jul 2026) https://announcements.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20260731/pdf/0729s9spvk6dn3.pdf ; Quarterly Activities Report (same filing date) https://announcements.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20260731/pdf/0729s2r62tfcm4.pdf ; standalone PFS https://www.miningweekly.com/article/challenger-confirms-low-cost-startup-to-hualilan-gold-project-2026-05-18 and https://www.panorama-minero.com/en/news/outstanding-pre-feasibility-study-for-the-fully-permitted-hualilan-gold-project ; Toll Milling PFS https://investingnews.com/challenger-announces-completion-of-hualilan-toll-milling-pre-feasibility-study/ ; EIA grant https://www.globalminingreview.com/mining/01112024/historic-environmental-approval-granted-for-challenger-gold-hualilan-project/ and https://mining.com.au/san-juan-grants-first-gold-mine-approval-in-17-years/ ; strategic pivot/toll-milling wind-down https://www.sharecafe.com.au/2026/08/13/challenger-gold-sharpens-hualilan-development-pathway-with-a85m-funding-and-new-leadership/ and https://smallcaps.com.au/article/challenger-gold-refines-hualilan-strategy-with-integrated-processing-plan . Full reasoning: scripts/correct-cel-stage-task537g.ts. [Task #537g numeric backfill follow-up, 2026-08-24] SUPERSEDES the Nov 2023 scoping study framing above. The STANDALONE/INTEGRATED Hualilan Gold Project Pre-Feasibility Study (Ausenco-led) was completed and released 18 May 2026, resolving the "scoping study nearing completion / standalone PFS the next planned study" language that was stale on this row. PFS CONFIGURATION: a single open pit feeding a 1.5 Mtpa flotation plant plus an 8 Mtpa heap leach circuit; 14.25-year life of mine; start-up capital US$232M excluding contingency (equivalently US$203M including US$35M contingency, plus US$64M pre-production mining, i.e. ~US$267M all-in -- the two published framings reconcile exactly). ECONOMICS at a US$3,500/oz gold price (silver US$58.33/oz, zinc US$2,976/t): post-tax NPV at a 5% discount rate US$1,101M, pre-tax NPV5% US$1,450M, payback 2.25 years, post-tax LOM free cash flow US$1,982M; at ~US$4,600/oz spot the post-tax NPV rises to US$1.9B. Figures taken from CEL's own June 2026 Quarterly p.1 ("Pre-tax NPV5 of US$1,450M and post-tax NPV5: US$1,101M") rather than the US$1.1B rounding in secondary coverage; note the quarterly's p.8 restatement carries an obvious typo ("US$1,01M"). LOM AISC US$1,618/oz payable gold (US$1,354/oz over the first 2.5 years; ~US$1,473/oz owner-operator case) -- recorded here, NOT written to aiscValue, which is a producer-realised-cost field rather than a study projection. Metallurgical recoveries: 94.4% Au bulk flotation, 92.0% sequential flotation, 69.7% heap leach; LOM weighted average Au 84.8%, Ag 59.1%, Zn 33.7%. PRODUCTION TARGET 1.84 Moz AuEq over the 14.25-year LOM = 1,673 koz gold + 6,394 koz silver + 74 kt zinc (>105 koz AuEq in each of Years 1-2, then 12 years averaging 135 koz AuEq p.a.); CEL states this inconsistently as 1.824 Moz on p.1 and 1.84 Moz on pp.8-9. NOTE CAREFULLY: 1.84 Moz AuEq is a LIFE-OF-MINE PRODUCTION TARGET, not a resource or reserve, and is deliberately not written to ouncesFound or any other metric field -- per the playbook's standing rule against conflating LOM production ounces with a resource figure. ORE RESERVES NOW EXIST, confirmed by the June 2026 Quarterly Activities Report ("detailed in the May 18th ASX release"): maiden Ore Reserves containing 1.5 Moz Au, 7.7 Moz Ag and 170 kt Zn. ouncesFound has been moved 1,900,000 -> 1,500,000 accordingly: the superseded 1.9 Moz was the Indicated (= full M+I, no Measured category) AuEq figure from the MRE effective Mar 2023, while 1.5 Moz is contained GOLD METAL in a May 2026 PFS-supported JORC Ore Reserve -- more current, higher-confidence (reserves convert only from Measured and Indicated material, so no Inferred can leak in), and unit-clean on a GOLD row rather than a blended AuEq. This follows the settled repo precedent in scripts/backfill-economics-docs-batchA-task317.ts, where BOTH ouncesFound writes took the Ore Reserve over a larger disclosed M+I (ORE: 2,143 koz reserve vs 4,515 koz M+I; MI6: 2,500 koz maiden Probable reserve vs 6.2 Moz updated MRE -- a near-exact structural analogue, being an ASX PFS delivering a maiden Ore Reserve alongside a bigger MRE). It is a DOWNWARD revision, taken because the figure is better, not bigger. The Ag and Zn reserve co-products are recorded here and deliberately not blended into the stored number. The Mar 2023 MRE total (2.8 Moz AuEq incl. 0.9 Moz Inferred) remains on file above for context, and remains subject to the open block-model-bias flag raised by the stage correction. OPEN FLAG ON THE RESERVE FIGURE ITSELF: no located source publishes the reserve tonnage, grade or Proved/Probable split -- only contained metal. CEL's own quarterly cross-references its reserve table with a broken link (rendering literally as "refer to Error! Reference source not found.") and the 18 May 2026 ASX release could not be retrieved (ASX platform, marketindex, listcorp, markitdigital all 403/404). CEL's numbers also do not reconcile: 1.5 Moz contained at the stated 84.8% LOM gold recovery yields ~1.27 Moz, not the stated 1,673 koz recovered -- ~1.97 Moz contained would be needed, implying the production target draws on material outside the Ore Reserve (which independently reinforces that 1.84 Moz AuEq is not a deposit figure). 1.5 Moz is written as the only contained-reserve number CEL publishes, corroborated independently, and the conservative direction -- but RECHECK against the actual 18 May reserve table when it becomes obtainable. irrPct REMAINS NULL AS A GENUINE CHECKED GAP: every located source gives the IRR as PRE-TAX only (Mining Weekly verbatim: "after-tax net present value (NPV) of $1.1-billion, with a payback period of 2.25 years and pre-tax internal rate of return (IRR) of 45%"; 83% pre-tax at ~US$4,600/oz), and no post-tax IRR was found anywhere. irrPct is an after-tax-convention field, so per the CVV/THX precedent a pre-tax figure is left unwritten rather than mixed in; revisit when the full ASX PFS release or the DFS discloses a post-tax IRR. This is the STANDALONE/INTEGRATED Hualilan Gold Project PFS (Ausenco-led, released 18 May 2026), NOT the separate, smaller Toll Milling PFS completed 4 Jun 2025 (465,000 wmt at 6.2 g/t Au / 35 g/t Ag for 76.6 koz payable Au + 338.5 koz Ag, post-tax NPV US$50.5M at US$2,500/oz), which covers ~3% of the MRE and is explicitly ring-fenced from the standalone project. The generically-titled panorama-minero.com article "Challenger Gold Publishes Hualilan Prefeasibility Study Results" is about the TOLL MILLING PFS, not the standalone study -- its US$50.5M NPV was checked and discarded during this pass. Sources: https://www.panorama-minero.com/en/news/outstanding-pre-feasibility-study-for-the-fully-permitted-hualilan-gold-project ; https://www.miningweekly.com/article/challenger-confirms-low-cost-startup-to-hualilan-gold-project-2026-05-18 ; https://smallcaps.com.au/article/challenger-gold-refines-hualilan-strategy-with-integrated-processing-plan ; June 2026 Quarterly Activities Report https://announcements.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20260731/pdf/0729s2r62tfcm4.pdf . Full reasoning: scripts/backfill-cel-pfs-task537g-followup.ts. [Task #537g resource-bias follow-up, 2026-08-24] RESEARCHED: the June 2026 QAR's admitted Norte/Sanchez block-model bias ("the channel sample data used in these two areas appears to have biased the block model") was investigated for materiality against this row's cited 2.8 Moz total resource and 1.6 Moz / 5.0 g/t AuEq high-grade core (description). VERDICT: both more likely unaffected than not, but confidence differs materially between the two figures. (1) 2.8 Moz total: CONFINED, not materially affected -- HIGH CONFIDENCE. Norte+Sanchez toll-milling pits total only 233kt/57.5koz Au (~2% of 2.8Moz; full toll-milling Ore Reserve is 427.5kt @ 7.0g/t AuEq = 96.2koz AuEq, 3.4% of 2.8Moz), and the standalone PFS structurally DEPLETES these specific blocks from its resource statement (QAR Table 3: "PFS Hualilan MRE depleted for planned Toll Milling mining"; Toll Milling PFS: material below 1.9 g/t Au "will be classified as ore for the larger stand-alone LOM operation") -- the biased blocks are mechanically excluded, not merely asserted unaffected. Both the 31 Jul 2026 QAR and the 13 Aug 2026 ASX release reaffirm "the existing 2.8Moz AuEq Mineral Resource" plus the standard JORC continuous-disclosure statement. (2) 1.6 Moz / 5.0g/t high-grade core: LEANS CONFINED -- MODERATE CONFIDENCE, on company self-assessment rather than independent zone-level verification. CEL's own 30 Apr 2026 Quarterly Activities Report (an EARLIER, fuller disclosure of the same issue) states grade reconciliation in the upper Sanchez/Norte benches "underperformed by approximately 50%," attributes it to channel-sample data in the top 30-40m, tested interim block models (channel data removed -> 35% negative grade reconciliation; channel composites top-cut to 5g/t Au -> within 10%), and concludes verbatim: "the impact of channel sampling bias is shown to be limited to the toll milling pits, and it does not materially affect the broader resource base" (https://announcements.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20260430/pdf/06z34fl3xjn82h.pdf). That is a direct company statement covering the resource base as a whole, of which the 1.6Moz core is a subset -- real supporting evidence for confined. But it is self-assessed, with no published zone-by-zone ounce breakdown to verify it independently, and the company's OWN later (June 2026) QAR still hedges specifically on Norte/Sanchez: "predicting near-surface higher-grade zones in the Norte and Sanchez pits has proven more complex than initially modelled"; "Validation of the block model robustness [at the larger scale]" is listed as underway, not complete. The 29 Mar 2023 MRE announcement names Norte and Sanchez as two of at least six zones feeding the 1.6Moz/5.0g/t cutoff figure (Sentazon, Muchilera, Magnata Manto, Magnata Fault Zone, the main Norte Manto, the Sanchez Fault Zone), with no zone-level split ever published -- so Norte/Sanchez's exact contribution to the core remains unverifiable independently of the company's own reconciliation study. CEL's own May 2026 standalone PFS no longer presents a 5.0g/t core figure at all (nearest analogue uses a different AuEq basis/cutoff -- not a like-for-like comparison). No resource restatement or dedicated block-model-review announcement has been published as of 2026-08-24 (last CEL ASX lodgement checked: 13 Aug 2026); the June 2026 QAR states an updated toll-milling assessment is expected "during the current quarter" -- recheck after that lands. `description` left UNCHANGED: no confirmed new resource figure exists to restate the 1.6 Moz core to (not confirmed wrong, and the balance of evidence favors unaffected), and the 2.8 Moz figure is independently confirmed unaffected so there is nothing to change there either -- this caveat belongs in technicalReportNote (backing/interpretive detail), not as a rewrite of a cited headline figure. Sources: June 2026 QAR (31 Jul 2026) https://announcements.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20260731/pdf/0729s2r62tfcm4.pdf ; earlier, fuller reconciliation disclosure, Mar-2026-qtr QAR (30 Apr 2026) https://announcements.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20260430/pdf/06z34fl3xjn82h.pdf ; Toll Milling PFS (4 Jun 2025) https://investingnews.com/challenger-announces-completion-of-hualilan-toll-milling-pre-feasibility-study/ ; standalone PFS (18 May 2026) https://www.miningweekly.com/article/challenger-confirms-low-cost-startup-to-hualilan-gold-project-2026-05-18 ; 13 Aug 2026 ASX release "Challenger Gold sharpens Hualilan development pathway" https://www.sharecafe.com.au/2026/08/13/challenger-gold-sharpens-hualilan-development-pathway-with-a85m-funding-and-new-leadership/ . Full reasoning: scripts/_task537g_cel_resource_bias_findings.md. [Task #537g JORC disclosure-tension follow-up, 2026-08-24] A direct-fetch pass on the primary ASX PDFs (18 May 2026 PFS Completion + JORC Table 1, and the 30 Apr 2026 QAR) surfaced a disclosure-integrity gap the prior resource-bias pass (commit 6552a37) did not have those primary documents in hand to catch. THIS DOES NOT OVERTURN that pass's verdict (2.8 Moz total CONFINED at high confidence, 1.6 Moz high-grade core LEANS CONFINED at moderate confidence) -- it is a narrower, additional caveat about how much weight to put on the PFS's own resource-compliance statement. FINDING: the 18 May 2026 PFS Completion announcement's own JORC Table 1 states verbatim "Two previous JORC Resource estimates have been made with similar methods... No production records are available to provide comparisons" and "Grade continuity is variable in nature in this style of deposit and has not been demonstrated to date... No production data is available for comparison." This directly conflicts with CEL's own 30 Apr 2026 Quarterly Activities Report, lodged 18 days EARLIER, which discloses exactly such a comparison: actual mined ore reconciled against the block model, with grade reconciliation in the upper Sanchez/Norte benches "underperformed by approximately 50%." The JORC Table 1 channel-sampling section reads as carried over near-verbatim from the March 2023 MRE announcement, with no acknowledgment of the bias the company had already reported to the ASX three weeks earlier. This is not new evidence the resource itself is wrong -- it is a gap in the PFS's own compliance disclosure, which was already stale on this point when published, and is a real reason to weight that document's resource-side risk framing more skeptically pending CEL's promised updated assessment. SUPPORTING CONTEXT: the PFS's own Mineral Resource is not simply the March 2023 MRE reused -- it was updated with "the same techniques as the previous MRE," then depleted for toll-milling and restated at a new 0.06 g/t AuEq cutoff, totaling 2,735,422 oz AuEq (Indicated 1,932,540 oz + Inferred 669,033 oz in-shell, plus a small below-shell tail). No effective date is stated in the 93-page release, and it states plainly "The Mineral Resource estimate has not been independently audited or reviewed" -- related to, but not the same construction as, the March 2023 2.8 Moz / 0.30 g/t cutoff figure this row actually cites. Ore Reserve (JORC Table 7): Proved = nil across every stream; Probable = 62,861 kdmt @ 0.75 g/t Au for 1,514 koz Au (Heap Leach 581 koz, Bulk Flotation 701 koz, Sequential Flotation 232 koz), 7,728 koz Ag, 170 kt Zn -- confirms ouncesFound=1,500,000 already on file (commit 82a7bda); no correction needed there. An independent materiality cross-check from the 8 Nov 2023 Scoping Study (same March 2023 MRE, different mine-plan vintage): in-pit inventory (0.30 g/t AuEq cutoff) puts Norte Manto + Sanchez domains at ~1.80 Mt / ~173 koz Au against a total in-pit 55,138 kt @ 1.3 AuEq = 2,289 koz Au, roughly 7.6% of in-pit contained gold -- a different, larger base than the ~2-3%/3.4%-of-2.8Moz figures already on file (which used the smaller actual toll-milling PFS pit tonnages), not directly substitutable with those, but pointing the same direction: Norte+Sanchez is a small minority share of Hualilan's contained gold under every basis checked so far. "Norte" and "Sanchez" do not appear anywhere in the Ausenco PFS Summary Report itself, and appear in the 93pp PFS Completion release only in the tenement schedule and a top-cut table row -- consistent with, not contrary to, the depleted/excluded finding already on file. No stage, ouncesFound, dcfNpvUsd, or mineLifeYears change results from this pass. Re-check together with the resource-bias follow-up once CEL's promised updated toll-milling assessment or any restated MRE is published. Sources: 18 May 2026 PFS Completion + JORC Table 1 https://api.investi.com.au/api/announcements/cel/b19cd39c-497.pdf?apiKey=9d0a333c-0f66-4fbe-ab60-7056969e6c2d (ASX platform 403'd this document on this pass; company investor-portal mirror used instead, verified live immediately before this write) ; 30 Apr 2026 QAR https://announcements.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20260430/pdf/06z34fl3xjn82h.pdf . Full reasoning: research transcript retained by the dispatching session (Task #537g resource-bias investigation, 2026-08-24).