Golden Minerals Company announced that Barrick Gold Corporation (Barrick) notified the Company it is withdrawal from an Earn-In Agreement (Agreement) on the El Quevar silver project (Salta province, Argentina) which the two parties signed in April 2020. The termination will be effective on April 20, 2024. To date, Barrick has spent more than $6.0 million of work expenditures at El Quevar and has completed a five-hole, 1,300-meter drill program that identified a potential gold prospect in the central Eastern part of Quevar's land package.

That report noted the presence of vuggy silica, which is commonly associated with high sulfidation epithermal gold-silver deposits, in all holes. Final assays confirmed potentially economic gold values in vuggy silica in one of the drill holes. The Agreement offered Barrick the opportunity to earn an undivided 70% interest in the El Quevar project by spending $10.0 million on work expenditures over a total of eight years, which included spending $0.5 million per year in years one and two, $1.0 million per year in years three, four and five, and $2.0 million per year in year in years six, seven and eight.

Additional earn-in terms under the Agreement required Barrick to deliver an NI 43-101-compliant Pre-Feasibility Study describing a potentially profitable operation with mineral resources of not less than 2 million gold equivalent ounces, also within eight years. The Company views the return of the El Quevar project very positively. Quevar's land package now holds a potential gold prospect whose drilling was funded by Barrick.

Meanwhile, most of Quevar's holding costs have been funded by Barrick since April 2020 as well. Golden Minerals intends to further advance the El Quevar project and update its resource, subject to the availability of capital. The Company's focus will be on updating the Preliminary Economic Assessment for the Yaxtche silver deposit and in step-out drilling to follow up on the gold intercept drilled in 2022 by Barrick.