Gold and tin were discovered in the Mt Todd area in 1889 and most early production from the area occurred in the period 1902 to 1914. Regional exploration turned to tungsten in 1913, followed by uranium in the 1950s before returning to gold exploration in the 1970s. The Billiton-Zapopan JV discovered the Batman deposit in May 1988, and commercial production from Batman commenced in 1993. Pegasus Gold made its first investment in the Mt Todd gold project in 1992 and was the sole owner and operator of the site from 1995 until mid–1997. Mt Todd was operated briefly in 1999-2000 by a joint venture comprised of Multiplex Resources and General Gold Resources. Operations ceased in July 2000 and most of the equipment was sold and removed from the site when the project went into receivership.

Vista acquired Mt Todd in 2006 and has invested over US$110 million to advance the Mt Todd gold project. Significant investments have been made in areas related to Vista’s environmental stewardship for the site, drilling, and metallurgical testing. The gold resource of the project has tripled (now almost 9.5 million ounces) with over 60,000 meters of core drilling. Extensive metallurgical testing has been completed to optimize the metallurgical flow sheet and achieve an estimated gold recovery of 91.6%. Vista has also received the approval of all major environmental and operating permits.

The Project offers strategic optionality through development as a large or mid-scale project and has all major operating and environmental permits necessary to initiate development. A feasibility study for Mt Todd was completed in 2022 with project costs updated in 2024 demonstrating strong economics for development of a 50,000 tonnes per day (50 “ktpd”), nominally 17.5 million tonnes per annum, operation.

In view of the substantial investment required to develop Mt Todd as a large-scale project, Vista also completed an internal scoping study in 2023 for a 15 ktpd operation, nominally 5.2 mtpa. A project of this scale offers the potential to provide shareholders with lower exposure to financing, development, and operating risks.

Later in 2024, Vista plans to start a feasibility study targeting throughput in the range of 4 – 6 mtpa, with 150,000 to 200,000 ounces of annual gold production, an initial capital cost of less than $400 million, and a reserve grade of approximately 1 gram gold per tonne. By using contract mining, third-party power generation, and construction practices commonly used in Australia, we believe there is opportunity to maintain high capital efficiency at this project scale. The feasibility study will leverage the extensive work completed for the 50 ktpd feasibility study, preserve the potential for future expansion, and is expected to be completed by mid-2025.