Central Nevada Gold Moves to Restart Mule Canyon

A privately held company called Central Nevada Gold is working to bring a shuttered Nevada gold mine back into production. Mining.com reported this week that the company has acquired the past-producing Mule Canyon mine from Newmont and is now pushing the project through studies and permitting toward a construction decision.

At a glance

• What is happening? Central Nevada Gold is advancing pre-feasibility work and permitting at the Mule Canyon gold mine, aiming for a construction decision.
• Where is it? Lander County, Nevada, in the Argenta Mining District about 14 miles southeast of Battle Mountain.
• What is the timeline? The company is targeting a production decision in 2027, with a new resource estimate expected in the coming months.
• What is the catch? The mine has been shut since 2000, its processing facilities were never fully built, and Nevada regulators still list Newmont as the permit holder.

Where is Mule Canyon and why did it close?

Mule Canyon sits in the Shoshone Mountain Range, between the Reese River Valley and Whirlwind Valley, in the same general belt of central Nevada that includes the Carlin, Battle Mountain, and Getchell gold trends. Gold Fields discovered the deposit in 1986. After a chain of ownership that ran through Hanson PLC and Santa Fe Pacific Gold, Newmont brought Mule Canyon into production in 1996.

Over roughly five years, the mine produced about 500,000 ounces of gold at an average grade of 3.8 grams per tonne, with metallurgical recovery near 94%, according to Mining.com’s reporting. Low gold prices forced a shutdown in 2000, and only two of the six known mineralized zones had been mined by then.

A 2026 fact sheet from the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection fills in what has happened since: the site was originally designed for both milling and cyanide heap leaching, but the milling facilities were never built and are no longer authorized under the mine’s closure permit. The regulator’s record describes the property today as six small open pits, five holding pit lakes, plus waste rock storage areas, a shop building, and lined ponds, all under permanent closure status.

What is Central Nevada Gold planning to do?

According to Mining.com, the company is led by chief executive Simon Griffiths and executive director Fraser Buchan, both with prior leadership roles at gold producers including Andean Precious Metals and OceanaGold. The company says mine planning and economic studies are underway, and that it has made progress on the project’s permitting path, pointing to an existing plan of operations, water rights, and grid power already in place at the site.

That is a meaningful head start for a restart project. It is also not the same as having a finished permit or financing in hand. The Nevada fact sheet still names Newmont USA Limited, not Central Nevada Gold, as the permittee on record, a reminder that ownership changes at a mine site work through a separate regulatory process before a new operator holds the permit outright.

What has to happen before Mule Canyon reopens?

Three things stand between today and a restart: a new resource estimate that reflects current drilling and gold price assumptions, a completed pre-feasibility study, and formal permit transfer and updates through Nevada’s regulators. The company has pointed to 2027 for a production decision, not a restart date, so any actual mining is further out still.

Why does a Nevada restart matter to the tour?

Nevada already produces roughly three-quarters of the country’s gold, anchored by the Carlin Trend a short drive from Mule Canyon. Our Nevada state report covers how that trend, and the districts around it, built Nevada into the center of American gold mining. The gold entry in our Strategic Metals Glossary explains why a metal known for jewelry is just as essential in the electronics that depend on a corrosion-free, reliable connection.

Mule Canyon will not move the needle on that story until it clears permitting and finds financing. Mining Our Future will track the company’s promised resource update as it comes.