TORONTO, July 16, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Blossom Gold Inc. ("Blossom" or the "Company") (TSX: BGAU) is pleased to announce that the reopening of Portal #2 at its Rosebud Project in Pershing County, Nevada, is underway. Blossom's mining contractor, Small Mine Development LLC ("SMD"), began mobilizing on schedule July 7 and is now executing earthworks to reestablish access to the portal opening. It is anticipated that earthworks will be complete and Portal #2 opened the week of July 20. Rehabilitation will be conducted to allow safe access to drill and blast the concrete plug established during closure and reclamation of the portal. Following removal of the plug, SMD will have full access to Decline #2 and will begin the rehabilitation required to establish drill bays for underground, infill drilling of the Rosebud open-pit resource, planned to commence in the fourth quarter of 2026.
"Opening the underground has been a fundamental milestone in Blossom's plans for Rosebud, allowing us the do the resource drilling we would not have been able to achieve from surface drilling under the five acre constraint of our Notice of Intent ("NOI")." said Rick Winters, Blossom's CEO. "This work is authorized under a modification to the Federal NOI received in March as well as a new State of Nevada temporary water pollution control permit ("WPCP"), demonstrating the ability of Blossom's permitting team and quality of our State and Federal regulators in understanding, assessing and approving our plans for the underground at Rosebud. We will continue permitting to allow us to make best use of our existing underground infrastructure and resources."
Graden Colby, Blossom's COO commented, "Small Mine Development is one of the best underground, mining contractors in the business for what we need at Rosebud. We look forward to working with SMD to complete the planned rehabilitation of Decline #2. Their work will also include drill bay development. We expect SMD will conduct bulk sampling for continued metallurgical testing and heap leach optimization. We continue to evaluate our higher-grade underground resources. SMD's involvement enhances our execution planning and tightens our costing for development and bulk sampling. Of course, the most important near-term result is providing critical access by Q4 to test open-pit resource expansion and infill target potential more effectively than surface drilling alone and keep us on schedule for an updated Mineral Resource Estimate in the first quarter of 2027 to support a feasibility study and continued permitting for operations."