Issued on behalf of Nord Precious Metals Mining Inc.
In a silver market trading near multi-year highs, Nord Precious Metals Mining Inc. (TSXV: NTH) (OTCQB: CCWOF) now controls the largest land position in Ontario’s historic Cobalt-Gowganda silver camp and operates the only permitted high-grade silver mill in the district.
On March 31, 2026, Nord closed its acquisition of four mining leases in the Gowganda Silver Camp from Battery Mineral Resources Corp., bringing its total consolidated lease area to 789.7 hectares — a 40% expansion that consolidated three of the five largest past-producing mines in the Gowganda Camp under one roof.
The transaction also delivered a historical Indicated tailings resource of approximately 1,940,000 tonnes grading 47.5 g/t silver — containing an estimated 2,960,000 ounces of silver — the largest disclosed tailings inventory in Nord’s consolidated district portfolio. (This estimate is historical and has not been verified as a current mineral resource; a Qualified Person has not completed sufficient work to classify it as current.)
In April 2026, Nord retained T Engineering Inc. to advance near-term silver recovery from tailings across the expanded Gowganda-Castle land package. The engagement covers process, mechanical, civil, structural, electrical, and automation engineering, plus pilot-scale testing and process validation at T Engineering’s in-house laboratory in Sudbury. With Ontario’s Recovery Permit fast-track pathway in place and TTL Laboratories — the only permitted high-grade mill in the camp — sitting in the same district, Nord is positioning to convert a century-old legacy resource into refined silver.
And behind the near-term tailings story sits something even bigger: a 30,000-metre drill program at Castle East that is already hitting grades belonging to a different era of mining.
89,853 g/t Silver. That’s 2,621 Ounces Per Ton.
In a single 0.30-metre intercept. From a district where historical mining pulled over 600 million ounces of silver out of the ground — before modern exploration techniques even existed.
In February 2026, Nord confirmed that its Phase 1 drill program at Castle East is already hitting the multi-vein geometry its geological model predicted. That model identified 29 discrete vein structures. Previous work had identified five.
Twenty-nine veins. Let that number settle in.
A Silver Discovery Hiding in Plain Sight
The Cobalt-Gowganda-Silver Centre district produced approximately 550 million ounces of silver and 26 million pounds of cobalt between 1904 and 1989. It was one of the richest silver districts on the planet. Then the mines closed, the towns shrank, and the geology sat there — waiting for someone with modern tools to come back and look again.
Nord looked.
At Castle East, the company’s flagship property, drilling has delineated 7.56 million ounces of silver in a historic Inferred resource grading 8,582 g/t Ag — that’s 250.2 ounces per ton — across 27,400 tonnes of material in two sections of the Robinson Zone. (This resource is now considered historical and is not being treated as a current resource by the company; significant additional drilling and modelling would be required before a new estimate can be compiled.)
For context, most primary silver mines in the world operate at grades between 150 and 300 g/t. Nord’s historic Castle East estimate sits at material grading roughly 30 times that average.
And the highest individual intercept on record? 89,853 g/t Ag over 0.30 metres. That is not a typo.
Three Numbers That Tell the Story
Forget the press-release jargon for a moment. Here is what an investor needs to internalize:
- 8,582 g/t — the average grade in the historic Castle East Inferred resource. World-class silver mines run 150–300 g/t.
- 789.7 hectares — Nord’s consolidated lease position after closing the Gowganda acquisition, a 40% expansion that locked up three of the five largest past-producing mines in the camp.
- 1 — the number of permitted high-grade silver mills in the entire Cobalt Camp. Nord owns it.
The 30,000-Metre Campaign Is Underway
In late February 2026, Nord announced it had completed over 2,100 metres of its Phase 1 drill program at Castle East — the first 3,500-metre stage of a planned 30,000-metre campaign. Three holes have been completed. One of them, CS-26-129W2, intersected three distinct mineralized intervals consistent with the multi-vein architecture identified in the company’s 2025 3D geological model. Assay results are pending.
What is already clear: the geology is confirming the model. CEO Frank Basa — who commissioned the 3D structural model that identified all 29 targets — is three holes into the campaign, and the multi-vein geometry is showing up where the science said it would.
The objective has not changed: confirm enough structure to justify a ramp, get underground, and run a bulk sample through Nord’s own mill.
Why Nord Has Something Most Juniors Don’t
Most silver explorers find a deposit, then spend years and hundreds of millions of dollars figuring out how to process it. Permitting alone can take a decade. Nord Precious Metals already owns the mill.
TTL Laboratories is the only permitted high-grade milling facility in the entire Cobalt Camp. It is operational. It is permitted. And it sits right in the district where Nord is drilling. That changes the economics of everything.
The company’s path to production does not require building a new processing facility from scratch. It requires confirming enough resource to justify a ramp, extracting a bulk sample, and running it through infrastructure that already exists. Discovery to production — same district, same company, no permitting gauntlet.
The Gowganda Consolidation: A District Comes Together
In January 2026, Nord announced a definitive agreement to acquire four mining leases in the Gowganda Silver Camp from Battery Mineral Resources Corp., immediately adjacent to its existing Castle leases. The transaction closed on March 31, 2026.
The acquisition increased Nord’s total lease area by 40% to 789.7 hectares and consolidated three of the five largest past-producing mines in the Gowganda Camp under one roof. That includes the Miller Lake-O’Brien complex, which alone produced approximately 42 million ounces of silver between 1910 and 1972 — making it the largest past-producing Cobalt-style silver mine outside the Cobalt Mining Camp itself.
The acquired leases also bring with them a historic surface tailings resource: an Indicated estimate of approximately 1,940,000 tonnes grading 47.5 g/t silver, containing roughly 2,960,000 ounces of silver. (This estimate is historical and has not been verified as a current mineral resource; a Qualified Person has not done sufficient work to classify it as current.)
Combined with Nord’s existing Castle and Beaver tailings deposits, the company now controls multiple silver-bearing inventories across the district, with TTL positioned as the central processing hub. The numbers stack up:
- Eight past-production shafts now under Nord control across the Gowganda-Castle district
- The Miller Lake-O’Brien complex alone accounts for 13,500 feet of historic shaft sinking, 155,000 feet of cross-cutting, and 457,000 feet of underground drilling completed between 1936 and 1970
- Thirty-seven documented mineral occurrences within the acquired concessions
Engineering Locked In: T Engineering Joins the Path to Production
In April 2026, Nord retained T Engineering Inc. to advance near-term silver recovery from tailings across the consolidated Gowganda-Castle district land package. The engagement covers process, mechanical, civil, structural, electrical, and automation engineering, plus pilot-scale testing and process validation at T Engineering’s in-house lab in Sudbury.
The company is not talking about production in the abstract anymore. It has a multidisciplinary engineering team scoping tailings storage infrastructure, geotechnical work, and gravity-and-hydromet circuit optimization — right now.
CEO Frank Basa framed the moment plainly in the April 2026 release: the consolidated district’s remaining resources represent a fundamentally different economic proposition at today’s silver prices, and retaining T Engineering positions the company to act on it.
The Recovery Permit Pathway
Ontario is not sitting on the sidelines. The province has built a regulatory framework that effectively rewards operators like Nord. Ministry guidance has confirmed that toll processing arrangements for third-party tailings can be accommodated under Recovery Permits, and that such permits may be issued for processing operations on land the applicant does not own, provided landowner consent is obtained. Ministry officials have described the framework as designed for precisely this type of project.
Nord has received an advanced template and fast-track pathway for its Recovery Permit application. The Cobalt-Gowganda district contains dozens of orphaned tailings deposits accumulated over a century of mining. With TTL as the only permitted processing facility in the district, Nord is positioned to aggregate and process scattered resources that would otherwise remain environmental liabilities.
There is also a track record: TTL’s bullion furnace has previously produced refined silver doré, including a 1,000-ounce silver bar from Cobalt Camp material. The plant has poured silver before. The company has the bar to prove it.
Silver at $80+ — And the Supply Math Doesn’t Work
Silver briefly traded above $90/oz in late February 2026, and as of February 25, 2026 was up over 160% year-over-year. This is not just precious metals momentum. Silver is being pulled from both directions — monetary demand from investors seeking hard assets, and industrial demand from solar panels, EVs, 5G infrastructure, and AI data centers. The Silver Institute has documented structural supply deficits for five consecutive years.
Meanwhile, global silver mine supply has been essentially flat. Major new discoveries are rare. High-grade deposits are rarer still.
Nord is not just a silver story at any price. At these levels, a consolidated district position with a permitted mill, an active 30,000-metre drill program, and engineering-stage tailings reprocessing starts to look like one of the most strategically positioned undeveloped silver assets in North America.
How Nord Stacks Up Against the Silver Developer Peer Set
Most silver developers fall into one of three buckets: explorers with promising ground but no infrastructure, mid-tier producers with mines that grade in the hundreds of g/t, or restart stories that need years of permitting. Nord does not fit cleanly into any of them — which is part of the story.
- Vizsla Silver (TSX: VZLA | NYSE: VZLA) — Mexico’s Panuco district. Resource grades in the high hundreds of g/t silver-equivalent. Strong drill story, but no in-house processing infrastructure and a multi-year construction decision still ahead.
- AbraSilver Resource (TSX: ABRA | OTCQX: ABBRF) — Argentina’s Diablillos project. Larger overall ounce count than Nord’s Castle East historic estimate, but lower grade and a permitting/construction timeline measured in years, not quarters.
- Discovery Silver (TSX: DSV | OTCQX: DSVSF) — Cordero in Mexico. One of the largest undeveloped silver projects globally by contained ounces, but a bulk-tonnage, lower-grade story with significant capex still required to build.
- Dolly Varden Silver (TSXV: DV | OTCQX: DOLLF) — Golden Triangle of British Columbia. Higher-grade than most peers, but earlier-stage than Nord on the production-pathway side, with no owned mill in district.
- Aya Gold & Silver (TSX: AYA | OTCQX: AYASF) — Already producing from the Zgounder mine in Morocco. A useful reference for what a high-grade silver producer looks like once it is running — and a reminder of what Nord is trying to become.
The pattern: most peers either have grade or infrastructure or a path to near-term production. Nord is trying to put all three into the same story — high historic grade at Castle East, the only permitted mill in the camp, and a tailings-reprocessing pathway already in engineering. None of this guarantees success. It does mean the comparison set is unusually thin.
(Nord’s grade and ounce-count references above are based on the 2020 Castle East historic Inferred estimate, which is not being treated by the company as a current resource. Investors should evaluate each peer on its own current technical disclosures.)
The Critical Minerals Angle Most Investors Are Missing
Silver is the headline. But the Cobalt Camp does not just produce silver. Cobalt, nickel, copper, and other battery metals occur naturally alongside silver in this district — and silver, cobalt, copper, and nickel are all designated critical minerals in Canada and/or the United States. Nord’s Re-2Ox hydrometallurgical process, validated at pilot scale through SGS Lakefield, is designed to handle the complex silver-cobalt ores that made this camp famous — and recover battery-grade cobalt sulphate in the process.
The macro backdrop matches the moment:
- The Government of Canada has earmarked billions for critical minerals development
- Ontario’s Critical Minerals Strategy (2022–2027) specifically targets cobalt and nickel as priority metals
- The province’s “One Project, One Process” framework is designed to halve mine permitting timelines
- In December 2025, Ontario officially launched a $500 million Critical Minerals Processing Fund through Invest Ontario
Nord sits at the intersection of every one of these policy tailwinds — operating in Ontario, producing silver and cobalt from the same ore body, with existing permitted processing infrastructure already in place.
Meet the Team Behind the Drill Bit
Frank J. Basa, P.Eng. — Chairman, President, and CEO. A Qualified Person under NI 43-101, Basa provides direct technical oversight of the Castle East program. He is not a figurehead CEO reading from a script. He is the engineer signing off on the drill results.
The company maintains a lean structure focused on one thing: converting the consolidated Castle-Gowganda district position into a producing asset using the infrastructure it already controls.
What Comes Next
- Phase 1 drilling continues toward the 3,500-metre target, with assay results from the first three holes expected in the coming weeks
- Successful confirmation of modelled vein structures supports expansion of the 7.56 Moz historic Castle East resource
- T Engineering scope advances toward pilot-scale testing and circuit design for tailings reprocessing
- Recovery Permit application progresses on the Ministry’s fast-track pathway
- Underground ramp decision based on Phase 1 results, unlocking deeper drilling and bulk sample recovery
- Bulk sample processing through TTL Laboratories — the pathway to near-term silver production
- Ongoing evaluation of cobalt and nickel recovery through the Re-2Ox process
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How does an 89,853 g/t intercept actually compare to a normal silver mine?
A: World-class primary silver mines typically operate at grades between 150 and 300 g/t. The 89,853 g/t intercept — 2,621 ounces per ton over a 0.30-metre interval — is roughly 300 to 600 times that range. Single intercepts are not the same as average resource grades, but Nord’s broader historic Castle East Inferred estimate of 8,582 g/t is itself approximately 30x typical primary-mine grades.
Q: Why does the mill matter so much?
A: Permitting a new processing facility in a major mining jurisdiction can take a decade and cost hundreds of millions. Nord already owns TTL Laboratories — the only permitted high-grade milling facility in the entire Cobalt Camp — and TTL has previously poured a 1,000-ounce silver bar from district material. The infrastructure question is largely answered before the company drills the next hole.
Q: What did Nord actually buy in the Gowganda acquisition?
A: Four mining leases from Battery Mineral Resources Corp., totalling 225 hectares immediately adjacent to Nord’s existing Castle leases. The acquisition expanded the consolidated land package by 40% to 789.7 hectares and brought in three of the five largest past-producing mines in the Gowganda Camp, plus a historic 2.96 Moz silver tailings estimate and four additional past-production shafts. The deal closed March 31, 2026.
Q: Is there a current NI 43-101 resource on Castle East?
A: No. The 2020 estimate of 7.56 Moz at 8,582 g/t Ag is a historical resource and is not being treated as current by the company. Significant additional drilling and modelling would be required before a new estimate can be compiled. The current 30,000-metre Phase 1 drill program is part of the work intended to support a future updated resource.
Q: What is the role of cobalt in this story?
A: The Cobalt Camp is named for a reason. Silver and cobalt occur together in the district’s geology. Nord’s Re-2Ox hydrometallurgical process — pilot-validated through SGS Lakefield — is designed specifically to handle the complex silver-cobalt ores and recover battery-grade cobalt sulphate. With cobalt designated a critical mineral in both Canada and the U.S., this gives Nord a second commodity exposure on the same ore body.
Q: How is Ontario’s regulatory environment different from elsewhere?
A: Ontario has launched a “One Project, One Process” framework designed to halve mine permitting timelines, plus a $500 million Critical Minerals Processing Fund through Invest Ontario (December 2025). Ministry guidance has confirmed that Recovery Permits can accommodate toll processing of third-party tailings. Nord has received an advanced template and fast-track pathway for its Recovery Permit application.
Q: Who is behind the drill bit?
A: Frank J. Basa, P.Eng. — Chairman, President, CEO, and the Qualified Person under NI 43-101 signing off on Castle East results. He commissioned the 3D structural model that identified the 29 vein targets and provides direct technical oversight of the program.
The Setup
A 30,000-metre drill program already hitting the multi-vein structures its model predicted. A historic resource grading 8,582 g/t silver in a district that produced over 600 million ounces. A 40% expansion of the lease package consolidating three of the five largest past-producing Gowganda mines and 2.96 Moz of historical tailings silver. The only permitted high-grade mill in the camp — one that has already poured a 1,000-ounce bar. A multidisciplinary engineering firm now scoping tailings reprocessing. A CEO who is also the Qualified Person. Silver near multi-year highs. Supply falling short.
29 veins. One company. The drills are turning.
For the latest updates, visit nordpreciousmetals.com and follow Nord Precious Metals on the TSXV under the symbol NTH.
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Sources
[1] “Nord Precious Metals Intercepts High-Grade Silver in 3,500-Meter Phase I Drill Program,” Newsfile Corp., February 24, 2026. https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/285001/
[2] Nord Precious Metals Mining Inc. — NI 43-101 Technical Report, Mineral Resource Estimate for Castle East, Robinson Zone, effective date May 28, 2020. Authored by M. Rachidi, P.Geo., Ph.D. of GoldMinds Geoservices.
[3] “Test Work from Beaver Mine Tailings Produces Commercial High-Grade Silver Concentrate,” Nord Precious Metals, 2025. nordpreciousmetals.com
[4] “Gowganda Silver Camp Consolidated with Strategic Acquisition for Potential Near Term Silver Production,” Nord Precious Metals, January 5, 2026. nordpreciousmetals.com
[5] “Path to Production Outlined Following Gowganda Acquisition,” Nord Precious Metals, January 13, 2026. nordpreciousmetals.com
[6] “Engineering Support Retained for Tailings Reprocessing at Castle Mine Project,” Nord Precious Metals, April 8, 2026. nordpreciousmetals.com
[7] Silver spot price data, February 25, 2026 ($90.52/oz). Fortune / USAGOLD. fortune.com
[8] Silver price year-over-year performance (+162.45%). Trading Economics, February 2026. tradingeconomics.com
[9] Ontario’s Critical Minerals Strategy 2022–2027, Government of Ontario. ontario.ca
[10] “Ontario’s New Mining Framework Aims to Halve Approval Timelines,” Investing News Network, October 2025. investingnews.com
[11] Canada’s Critical Minerals Strategy — 30% Critical Mineral Exploration Tax Credit, International Energy Agency. iea.org
[12] “Canadian Federal Budget Promises Billions for Mining,” Mining.com, November 2025. mining.com
[13] Nord Precious Metals Mining Inc., corporate website — About page. nordpreciousmetals.com/about