The Pani Gold Project in Gorontalo, Sulawesi, will become one of the largest primary gold mines in Indonesia. With a total mineral resource of 303.1 million tonnes of ore containing 6.9 million ounces of gold, the Pani Gold Project will be a low-cost, long-life gold mine.

Merdeka owns a 70% effective economic and equity interest in the Pani Gold Project and has invested approximately US$114 million in resource definition, metallurgical testing, and infrastructure implementation since 2022. The company aims to commission the project by the end of 2025, with the first gold production expected in early 2026.

The Pani Gold Project will require a low initial investment of US$250 million for the first phase, which involves building a production facility using heap leach (HL) processing. The production capacity at this stage is expected to reach 7.0Mtpa (million tonnes per year), producing around 140,000 ounces of gold annually.

In the next phase, Merdeka will construct a Carbon-in-Leach (CIL) processing facility by the end of 2028, with a capacity of 7.5Mtpa and an investment of US$633 million. Further expansion is planned in 2031, increasing production capacity to 12.0Mtpa with an investment of approximately US$294 million.

The combined capacity of HL and CIL at 19.0Mtpa during peak production is anticipated to yield up to 500,000 ounces of gold annually.

Based on the results of the Feasibility Study (FS) using conservative assumptions, the Pani Gold Project is projected to be a significant source of income for Merdeka in the future, reaching US$11.4 billion in revenue, with EBITDA of US$7.4 billion over the first 10 years of operation.

The FS results also confirm that the all-in sustaining costs (AISC) averaging US$872 per ounce make this project highly efficient and cost-effective, supported by Merdeka Group’s extensive experience in managing mines using the HL method at the Tujuh Bukit Gold Mine and the Wetar Copper Mine.