This morning, SGNL announced it has received conditional approval for the Environmental Assessment (EA) for the Goldboro Project in Nova Scotia. The Company was advised by the Nova Scotia Minister of Environment and Climate Change that the Goldboro Project has been approved in accordance with the Environmental Assessment Regulations, subject to the terms and conditions outlined in the EA. This is a major milestone for the Company, and it has come over 12-months ahead of schedule.

The Company is currently reviewing the terms and conditions and is also reviewing all comments provided by rightsholders and community stakeholders. From a first glance, we do not see any conditions that wouldn’t be expected in an environmental approval. This approval now allows Signal to commence site-specific processes including the Industrial Approval and Crown Land Lease and Mining Lease applications.

With environmental permits being approved before expectations, we are moving our modelled first production date from Q2/25 to Q4/24 which resulted in our valuation for the Goldboro Project increasing. We are maintaining our BUY rating and increasing our 12-month target of $2.10/share (previously $2.00/share) for SGNL.

Goldboro Feasibility Study Highlights:

NPV ahead of our expectations. In the previously reported feasibility study, SGNL reported an after-tax NPV5% and IRR for the open pit portion of the mine of $442M and 31.7% (at US$1,760/oz Au), respectively. When including the underground portion of the operation our model reports an NPV5% of over $807M (at US$1,800/oz Au).

A sizeable open pit operation with an average production of 100 Koz/yr. The project will have an open pit mine-life of 11 years with an annual production of 100 Koz/yr. In reality, with the underground operation included, the annual throughput should be ~120 Koz/yr with further growth upside.

A straightforward project with low operating costs. The project shows a low AISC of US$849/oz and operating cash costs of US$773/oz.

Reasonable capex and a fast payback. The capex for the project start-up is $271M, down $15M from the PEA. Capex for the underground will be funded through operating cash flow in the first six years of the operation. The after-tax payback period for the project is reported to be just 2.7 years.

Resource over 3Moz Au. In this study, SGNL reported an updated resource of over 3.1 Moz Au and 2.6 Moz Au in the measured and indicated category. We believe that ultimately after several years of additional drilling during operations, the resource should be over 5.0 Moz of Au.