Dundee’s High-Stakes Gold Play Heats Up in British Columbia

TORONTO, ON – July 07, 2026 – Dundee Corporation is doubling down on its conviction in Canadian gold, officially launching a major exploration campaign across Westhaven Gold Corp’s highly prospective Spences Bridge Gold Belt (SBGB) properties in southern British Columbia. The move, part of a strategic CDN$85 million earn-in agreement, ignites a multi-pronged program designed to both expand and de-risk what many believe could be the region's next significant gold camp.

The company announced today that field crews have begun prospecting, geological mapping, and soil sampling at the Shovelnose and Prospect Valley properties. More significantly, a fifth drill rig is now being mobilized to the flagship Shovelnose property. This rig will spearhead a new 15,000-metre exploration drilling program aimed at uncovering new discoveries, running concurrently with an ongoing 35,000-metre infill drilling program designed to upgrade and expand the known South Zone deposit.

This aggressive, dual-track approach underscores a clear strategy: prove up the existing resource to bankable feasibility while simultaneously hunting for new, district-scale discoveries. For Dundee, a mining-focused holding company known for its strategic, long-term plays, this represents a pivotal step from passive investor to hands-on project developer.

“We are excited to see exploration activity underway across the Spences Bridge Gold Belt,” said Jonathan Goodman, President and CEO of Dundee Corporation, in a statement. “The combination of district-scale exploration, and continued advancement of engineering studies and resource work, provides multiple opportunities to unlock value while improving our understanding of the broader potential of these assets.”

A Strategic Bet on a Generational Opportunity

Dundee’s deep financial involvement is the engine driving this accelerated timeline. The work is fully funded under the first phase of the earn-in agreement finalized in February 2026, where Dundee committed a minimum of CDN$30 million. This capital injection allows Westhaven to execute a 50,000-metre drill program in 2026 alone—a scale of work that industry insiders note would be nearly impossible for a junior explorer to finance on its own in the current market.

This partnership is a classic example of Dundee’s merchant banking model in action. Led by Goodman, a veteran of the mining industry, the firm targets what it views as a “generational opportunity” in undervalued gold equities. Rather than merely writing a cheque, Dundee’s strategy involves deep technical engagement and deploying capital directly into the ground to de-risk assets and shepherd them toward production. The Westhaven deal allows Dundee to earn up to a 60% direct interest in the projects, marking a strategic shift toward more direct project ownership and potential future operatorship.

This level of commitment was secured only after extensive due diligence, with sources close to the company confirming that Dundee’s in-house technical team rigorously re-evaluated the project's geology and resource potential before signing the transformative deal.

Unlocking the Potential of the Spences Bridge Gold Belt

The geological prize is the Spences Bridge Gold Belt itself, a 110-kilometre-long, northwest-trending belt of volcanic rocks that has long been considered underexplored but highly prospective for the kind of high-grade, low-sulphidation epithermal gold deposits that can become company-making mines.

Westhaven’s Shovelnose project is the most advanced asset in this portfolio. A 2025 Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) already painted a compelling picture of a robust, high-margin underground mining operation. The study projected an 11-year mine life producing an average of 56,000 ounces of gold and 313,000 ounces of silver annually. With an estimated after-tax Net Present Value (NPV) of CDN$454 million and a remarkable Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of 43.2% (at US$2,400/oz gold), the project’s economics are robust. The initial capital expenditure was pegged at a manageable $184 million, with a payback period of just over two years.

The ongoing infill drilling program is designed to bolster the confidence in these numbers. Today’s results continue to confirm the continuity of high-grade mineralization within the South Zone deposit. Highlights include drill hole SNR26-83 intersecting 9.85 metres grading 8.30 g/t gold and 11 g/t silver, and hole SNR26-92 hitting 11.46 metres of 4.59 g/t gold and 43 g/t silver. These results build on previously announced intercepts from this year, such as a stunning 8.12 metres grading 47.56 g/t gold.

While the infill program solidifies the known asset, the new exploration program targets the tantalizing “blue sky” potential. At Shovelnose, work will follow up on geophysical surveys and reconnaissance sampling that identified new target areas with geological signatures similar to the high-grade South Zone. At the Prospect Valley property, located 30km away, crews are chasing the source of historic high-grade quartz float samples—boulders found on the surface that returned values up to 43.34 g/t gold, higher than anything drilled on the property to date. Locating the bedrock source of these samples could unlock an entirely new mineralized system.

From Drill Core to Feasibility

The concurrent drilling programs are part of a methodical, multi-stage process to advance the project toward a production decision. The 35,000-metre infill program at the South Zone is methodically drilling the deposit at tight 25-metre centres. The data from these holes is crucial for converting inferred resources to the higher-confidence indicated and measured categories, which will form the basis of an updated mineral resource estimate.

This updated estimate is a cornerstone for the Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS), which is already underway and targeted for completion in the second half of 2027. A positive PFS would be a major de-risking event, providing a much more detailed engineering and economic plan for the mine and paving the way for eventual project financing and construction.

The 15,000-metre exploration program serves a different, but equally important, purpose. By testing new targets across the vast land package, Dundee and Westhaven are betting that Shovelnose is not an isolated deposit but part of a much larger mineralizing system—a potential multi-deposit mining camp. Any new discovery made through this program would add significant value and could materially change the scope and scale of the entire project.

This dual-pronged strategy is a sophisticated approach to value creation. It provides a clear path to near-term development with the known South Zone deposit while preserving the immense upside potential that first attracted prospectors to the Spences Bridge Gold Belt. With drills turning and studies advancing, the partnership between Dundee’s capital and Westhaven’s assets is rapidly turning the potential of southern British Columbia into a tangible reality.