Jorge Ganoza sat with Paul Harris at the 2026 Mining Forum Americas in Colorado Springs and put a number on the next two years. Fortuna Mining, he said, is running near 300,000 ounces of gold equivalent this year. The plan is to lift annual gold output by about 60 percent over the next 18 months, toward and above 500,000 ounces. He has said the same shape in public elsewhere. With Séguéla and Diamba Sud, the company is aiming at more than 500,000 ounces in 2028.
That is the idea, and it is the only one. Fortuna does not need a new share issue to get there. It needs the two builds to finish, and the discipline not to buy a third story before they do. The ounces are in the inventory. The projects are in the portfolio. The cash is on the balance sheet. A buyback, a Guyana earn-in, and a room full of investors asking for something exciting are all claims on that same cash. This piece is not a recommendation to buy or sell Fortuna or any other security.
Two builds, one clock
The first build is the flagship. Séguéla, in Côte d'Ivoire, has been in operation since 2023. Ganoza said a 30 percent expansion of mill throughput is backed by exploration success and a larger inventory of resources and reserves. At the asset, he said, output should move from about 160,000 ounces of gold a year to about 200,000. The expansion, he said, is already approved and permitted, and it is advancing. A report in the days around this conference put an approved plant expansion near $109 million, with the higher rate aimed at the second half of 2028. Treat that dollar as a reported figure, not as a line he spoke into Harris's microphone. The direction is his. The plant gets bigger. The ounce target is about 200,000, not a new country.
The second build is Diamba Sud, in Senegal. He put it on a similar clock. Fortuna is in the middle of a final investment decision. The project, he said, should deliver about 160,000 to 180,000 ounces of gold a year by mid-2028. In June 2026 the company published a feasibility study and he called Diamba Sud a high-return, fast-payback mine, expected to be the lowest-cost in the group. The environmental and social study went to the government in September 2025. He said it was approved in July 2026, in less than a year. The exploitation permit was nearly in hand as he spoke. A positive decision, the company has said, would put full construction in the fourth quarter of 2026, after the wet season, with a first pour targeted before the end of the second quarter of 2028. That is a permitted path. It is not yet a plant.
Add the two legs the way he added them, and do not add a third. Séguéla's extra tonnes, plus a new mine at 160,000 to 180,000 ounces, are how a 300,000-ounce platform becomes a 500,000-ounce one. The 60 percent is not a hope that a drill hole becomes a district. It is two schedules. One is a mill already pouring. The other is a permit that still has to become concrete. If either date slips, the 18 months become a slogan. He was clear that both are meant to be derisked on technical, social, and financial grounds. Derisked is not the same word as finished.
The cash is the strategy
Harris asked the question that matters more than the ounce target. Two capital jobs at once can break a mid-size miner. How does Fortuna pay? Ganoza's answer was the balance sheet, not a banker's slide. At the end of the second quarter, he said, liquidity was over $750 million. Net cash was north of $430 million. A published sum around that quarter put liquidity near $757 million and net cash near $435 million. Close enough to treat his round numbers as the ones he is managing to. Operations, he said, are throwing off free cash at a rate of over half a billion dollars a year in this gold-price environment.
Over the next two years he expects to invest about $650 million. That pile is Diamba Sud, the Séguéla expansion, and the exploration budgets. He says the company can fund it from cash flow and cash on hand, keep the balance sheet strong, and still be opportunistic about returns. In the first half of 2026, he said, Fortuna returned over $100 million through buybacks. The debt he described is small. A convertible of $175 million is due in 2029. Even if that is treated as a bill to be covered, he still called the company net-cash positive, on the order of $450 million. The debt, he said, is there to keep the banks exercised and engaged. It is not there because the builds cannot be paid for.
That is a privileged position, and he used the word. In this industry, growth usually means a discovery, a purchase, or a share issue. Fortuna's claim is that it can skip the share issue. The claim is only as good as the cash surviving the $650 million. Half a billion dollars of free cash a year is not a law. It is a statement about this price. He guided 2026, he said, off a gold price around $3,500. The first quarter averaged about $4,800. The second averaged about $4,400. On the day he spoke, gold had given up about $150 an ounce and was down about 3 percent, and he still put the conversation near $4,100. The cash is real at these prices. It is not promised at $3,500, and it is not promised if the builds run long.
A buyback is flexible. A dividend is a habit.
Harris wanted to know how the returns policy changes when the ounces arrive and the cash gets larger. Ganoza did not promise a richer dividend. The tool right now is the buyback. He likes it more than a dividend because it is flexible, and the company is entering a capital-heavy phase with two builds. Flexibility, while the concrete is being poured, is the point. A dividend, once started, is a habit the market punishes you for breaking. A buyback can pause. He said Fortuna had already taken a breather in recent months, and that it would be back in the market when the price of its own shares looked like an opportunity. Harris noted that a down day in gold might be such a day. Ganoza did not argue.
He has no target share count. Fortuna has a large float, he said, and the company buys when it sees the chance. It is not engineering a scarce share. That is a useful tell. A company that is shrinking the share count as a strategy is making a different bet from a company that is parking excess cash until the mills need it. He will revisit a dividend. The word was revisit, not schedule. The right time, in his framing, is after the capital phase, not in the middle of it.
Put the half-year buyback next to the two-year build. Over $100 million went out in six months. About $650 million is supposed to go into growth over two years. Both can be true if the free cash keeps arriving near half a billion a year. They cannot both be true if the gold price fades, or if Diamba Sud's capital creeps, or if the buyback becomes a way to look generous while a permit or a wet season eats the schedule. The buyback is a choice. The builds are the reason the choice has to stay reversible.
Sunbird feeds the mill. It does not replace it.
Harris asked about Sunbird, the underground project at Séguéla, and whether it eventually replaces the pits or supports a still-bigger plant. Ganoza's answer was a size, not a dream. Séguéla is the newest mine and the flagship. Discoveries such as Sunbird and Kingfisher are why the expansion exists. Early works for the underground are starting. He put roughly a million ounces in the underground inventory, feeding the open pits rather than retiring them. He expects an underground component inside the expansion. At the start, underground ore would be about a quarter of mill feed. In steady state, Sunbird could be up to about 40 percent. He placed first underground ore around mid-2028. The company has also pointed to environmental approval for that underground as part of the longer plan.
He does not, on today's resources, want a mill bigger than about 2.3 to 2.5 million tonnes a year. That rate, he said, is the optimum for the inventory they have. It still lets them project a mine life close to a decade at the higher throughput. That is where he wants every mine. About ten years of life, based on reserves, not on a story. Sunbird is how the expanded mill stays full. It is not a reason to announce a third expansion before the second one is built.
A million ounces underground is not a million ounces in the till. Underground tonnes cost more to move than pit tonnes. They also change the blend. Forty percent of the mill from one orebody is a concentration of risk as well as a source of feed. The decade-long life is the sentence to test when the next reserve is published. If the higher throughput shortens the life instead of holding it near ten years, the "optimum" was a hope. If Sunbird keeps the life near a decade at 2.3 to 2.5 million tonnes, the expansion has a floor. Either way, the underground is a feeder. The feeder is not a new company.
Guyana is a seed. It is not the 500,000.
Harris then turned to Guyana, where Fortuna has signed an earn-in on a project Ganoza called Quartzstone. The attraction, as he told it, is simple. South America is a region the company already hunts. The rocks are the same family as the greenstone belts Fortuna works across the Atlantic, in West Africa. Same style of control. Same kind of host. He does not like what he called proximology, but he still said Quartzstone sits about 35 kilometres north of Oko West, the G Mining project, in similar geology. Drilling, he said, was due to start in October. In Guyana, he said, a concession arrives with the drill permits. Time to drill is close to zero. In Peru, he agreed with Harris, the same permission can take from six months to two years. Within West Africa and South America, Fortuna will move where the clock is short.
Harris called the earn-in a departure, because it is early. Years sit between a first drill hole and a mine. Ganoza did not deny the years. He explained why he can spend them. The current platform is three operating mines, a life he can project for about a decade, about 300,000 ounces, and free cash he put near half a billion dollars a year. The next 18 months, he said, can deliver the 60 percent from two projects that are already far along. So the question in the boardroom is no longer how to fill 2027. It is what happens in 2029 and 2030. He is in no rush to buy a mine to fill a hole he does not have. Quartzstone, a junior explorer in which he said Fortuna is the largest investor, and some work in Argentina are seeds for the leg after 2029. Speed to cash in a place like Guyana, he said, can look more like Africa than like a slow permit in the Andes. A seed is still a seed. It does not pour in 2028. Diamba Sud is the pour.
Royalties moved the cost. Diesel did not.
The hard part of the year, Harris said, has been cost, and fuel in particular. Ganoza shrank the fuel scare to a ratio. For every $10 that crude rises, Fortuna's all-in sustaining cost moves about $12 to $14 an ounce. In the scheme of a gold price above $4,000, he does not call that material. The larger hit versus 2026 guidance, he said, is royalties. The guide was built on a gold price around $3,500. Realized prices in the first half were far above that. Royalties rise with the gold price. So do some contractor rise-and-fall clauses in Africa, and the diesel bill. Argentina added a further drag. Macro conditions, he said, have worked against exporters there over the last six months, and he tied a good part of that to the electoral cycle and a lag in the currency.
This is the trap inside a high gold price. The cash flow that funds the $650 million is swollen by the same price that swells the royalty. An investor who looks only at the revenue line will think every extra dollar is free to spend on growth or on buybacks. It is not. A slice of it is a government take that was not in the $3,500 guide. The diesel math says the fuel spike is not the story. The royalty math says the gift and the bill arrive together. Solar is the company's small answer on fuel. Plants already run at Lindero and at Séguéla. Diamba Sud is planned with one too. He said this was always the intent, not a panic about this year's energy prices. Less diesel, and a payback that gets faster when fuel swings. It does not cancel a royalty.
Argentina is a mine, not a blank cheque
Harris asked whether President Javier Milei's push for mining investment, including the RIGI stability regime, gives an existing producer a reason to spend more. Ganoza did not read out a tax brochure. He said the climate has turned, and that the change is dramatic. Fortuna can repatriate funds and service debt and other commitments. That is the operating fact. Looking forward, he is cautiously optimistic, and he is not writing large new cheques on the optimism. The company is investing at the mine and making modest investments outside it. Anything more aggressive, he said, waits on the next electoral cycle. Argentina votes on a four-year clock, shorter than much of Latin America. If Milei, or a successor on his ticket, does not win in 2027, an opposition government could bring capital controls back. He called that a risk, plainly. Measured spending now. Larger deployments only with more clarity.
That is the same discipline as the buyback, pointed at a country instead of a share. Argentina is part of the three-mine platform. It is not the growth plan that gets Fortuna to 500,000 ounces. Séguéla and Diamba Sud are. A cautious cheque in Argentina protects the cash that those two builds need. A victory lap of new Argentine capital, before the 2027 vote, would be the third story. He said he does not want to tell it yet.
The room wants excitement. The plan is two mines.
Harris asked how investor demands have changed as the company has matured. Ganoza said the appetite moves with the metal. Today, he believes, there is a fixation on growth. You have to show it. He has lived other parts of the cycle, when the market would not fund growth at all. He still sees some restraint, a memory of past mistakes, a wish for capital discipline. He also sees the pressure building. Show growth. Do something exciting. His answer is to stay disciplined, and to stay cautious. It is easier, Harris suggested, to hold that line when the internal growth is already 200,000 ounces or more. Ganoza agreed, and he offered the line he wanted remembered. Fortuna controls its growth. The ounces are in the inventory. The projects are in the portfolio. The cash is on the balance sheet.
Control is a verb that expires. It expires if the Séguéla mill slips past the second half of 2028. It expires if the Senegal permit stalls and the wet season eats a year. It expires if the $650 million becomes $900 million. It expires, more quietly, if the buyback, the Guyana drills, and a deal done to satisfy a conference room consume the cash that was supposed to pour concrete. The fixation he described is not a reason to buy a mine. It is a reason the next two years will be full of people telling him to. The catalysts he actually listed were narrower. Milestones on the Séguéla expansion, which is already a construction decision. The Diamba Sud investment decision, once the permit process closes. And the drill bit. About $60 million on exploration this year, and more than 200,000 metres. Drilling is how Sunbird and the next reserve stay true. It is not a substitute for the two plants.
What you can underwrite
You can underwrite the shape of the growth, not the week it arrives. About 300,000 ounces now. About 60 percent more if Séguéla's mill does what he said and if Diamba Sud pours in the window around mid-2028 at 160,000 to 180,000 ounces. The company's own line is more than 500,000 ounces in 2028. That is a target with two projects under it. It is not a forecast of the gold price, and it is not a forecast of a cost.
You can underwrite the funding only while the cash stays net. Liquidity over $750 million and net cash over $430 million, as of the second quarter, plus free cash he put above half a billion a year at these prices, is how $650 million over two years can be paid without a share issue. The convertible, $175 million due in 2029, is small beside that pile, which is why he can call it a way to keep banks awake. If the gold price revisits the $3,500 he used for guidance, rerun the free cash before you rerun the ambition. Royalties already showed that the high price is not pure profit.
You can underwrite the capital return as optional. Over $100 million of buybacks in the first half is a fact about the past. It is not a dividend policy. He prefers the buyback because he can stop. Believe him, and then watch whether he does stop if the builds need the money. A pause is a sign of the discipline he described. A larger buyback in the middle of two African constructions is a sign that the conference room won.
You can underwrite Sunbird as feed. About a million ounces. Up to about 40 percent of the mill in steady state. A plant sized at 2.3 to 2.5 million tonnes so the life stays near a decade. You cannot underwrite it as a third expansion. You cannot underwrite Quartzstone, or a drill program that starts in October, as part of the 500,000. Those are the 2029 question. He said he is in no rush. The rush would be the tell that the two builds are not enough.
You cannot underwrite Argentina as a growth engine. You can underwrite a mine that is being run, with modest extra spending, while a 2027 election sits on the capital-control question. You cannot underwrite "lowest cost" at Diamba Sud as a number until the feasibility figures you rely on are the ones in the study, not the ones in a sentence. He said he expects it to be the lowest-cost mine. Expectation is not a cost report.
What would make this reading wrong
The reading is wrong, in his favour, if both builds hit the 2028 window, the $650 million holds, the balance sheet stays net cash, and the life at Séguéla stays near a decade at the higher rate. Then the 60 percent was a construction job, and the talk of discipline was unnecessary because the schedule behaved. Shareholders would still have been right to watch the cash. They would have been wrong to doubt the two projects as the whole plan.
The reading is wrong, against him, if Diamba Sud's permit or its wet-season start slips a year, or if Séguéla's extra tonnes arrive without the ounces. A 30 percent mill and a move from 160,000 to 200,000 ounces are not the same sentence if the grade does not cooperate. It is also wrong if the royalty-heavy cost base, the Argentine currency lag, and a lower gold price cut the free cash below what the two builds require, and the company issues shares after saying it would not. The share issue would retire the central claim.
The reading is wrong, on the seeds, if Quartzstone or another early asset is hurried into the 2028 story, or if a large Argentine cheque is written before the election he himself flagged. He said those are for after 2029, and only with more clarity. A press release that breaks that order is the third story. It would mean the fixation won.
The idea, once
At Colorado Springs, Jorge Ganoza told Paul Harris that Fortuna is near 300,000 ounces of gold equivalent and can grow annual gold output about 60 percent over 18 months, toward more than 500,000 ounces in 2028. The path is a mill expansion at Séguéla, in Côte d'Ivoire, from about 160,000 ounces toward about 200,000, and a new mine at Diamba Sud, in Senegal, at about 160,000 to 180,000 ounces by mid-2028, if the final investment decision is taken. He would fund about $650 million over two years from cash flow and cash on hand. Liquidity was over $750 million. Net cash was over $430 million. A $175 million convertible sits out at 2029. Buybacks, not a dividend, are the return tool while the builds are underway. More than $100 million went out that way in the first half. Sunbird is underground feed for the existing mill, not a new company. Guyana and a cautious Argentina are seeds for 2029, not substitutes for the pour. Royalties, not diesel, are the cost surprise. Investors want excitement. He says the company already controls its growth.
Control means the cash stays with the two builds. A share issue is what he says he does not need. A third story is how a company that does not need one ends up short anyway.
A note on sources and limits
Ganoza's comments on ounces, timelines, liquidity, free cash, the convertible, the $650 million, buybacks, Sunbird, Quartzstone, royalties, fuel, Argentina, and investor pressure are from his interview with Paul Harris of Kitco at the 2026 Mining Forum Americas in Colorado Springs. The Diamba Sud feasibility study, the environmental approval, and the line about growing to more than 500,000 ounces in 2028 are from the company's June 2026 study announcement, as reported at the time. The second-quarter liquidity and net-cash figures that sit near his round numbers are from published accounts of that quarter. The Séguéla expansion cost cited in passing is from a report in the days around the conference, not from the interview itself. Names garbled on the tape are corrected here, including Ganoza, Fortuna, Séguéla, Diamba Sud, Sunbird, Lindero, Milei, and RIGI. The junior explorer he called a seed is left unnamed because the tape did not make the name reliable.
Nothing here is investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any security. Free-cash figures depend on the gold price, royalties, and costs. A feasibility study is not a built mine. Permits can stall. Underground ounces are not pit ounces. Readers should read the study, the permit record, and the filings, and should speak with a licensed adviser before any decision.