B2Gold has budgeted US$62 million for exploration in 2025, with “just about half” directed to the Goose project in Canada and the balance spread across Mali and Namibia.
The allocation was outlined by chief financial officer Michael Andrew Cinnamond during the Q&A segment of B2Gold’s Q2 2025 earnings call on August 8, 2025, in response to a question from Clive Thomas Johnson about the company’s exploration spend.
These comments were made in the unscripted Q&A portion of the call, offering a clear window into B2Gold’s operating priorities for the year: commit capital where the payback path is most straightforward, protect plant performance with more brilliant blending, and keep seeding the next set of growth answers.
At Goose—the centrepiece of B2Gold’s growth plan in the Back River district—funds will support resource conversion, step-outs from known mineralisation and target testing around the planned mine footprint.
Concentrating roughly half the global budget at Goose signals management’s priority to turn ounces into mineable reserves and to reduce geological risk ahead of development sequencing.
In West Africa, Cinnamond said B2Gold will continue “ongoing drilling in Mali,” a program that typically blends near-mine step-outs with regional prospects linked to existing infrastructure.
The objective is to identify incremental feed that can be integrated into current operations or to outline discoveries significant enough to alter the medium-term growth outlook.
In Namibia, the company is pursuing extensions of the Antelope deposit and evaluating “potential for surface material” to complement throughput at the Otjikoto mill over the coming years.
As Cinnamond put it, the plant “needs more than just the stockpile to blend the high-grade ore material that we have there.”
The emphasis on blending is an operational tell: balanced feed can support steadier recoveries, protect the circuit and preserve the highest-value ore for optimal windows in the schedule.
Identifying additional near-surface sources around Otjikoto would therefore serve both to enhance metallurgical performance and to increase mine planning flexibility.
Beyond these near-term priorities, B2Gold is also “pursuing new areas” by leveraging experience from Masbate in the Philippines.
That points to early-stage generative work—screening for analogues based on geology and alteration patterns learned at Masbate—within the company’s broader footprint.
Cinnamond stressed this effort is in its infancy, but it underscores that exploration remains a two-track exercise: infill and extensions near plants today, and pipeline building for tomorrow.
Taken together, the US$62 million program is designed to pull several levers at once.
Goose receives the heaviest funding as the growth engine; Mali’s work extends and diversifies the West African pipeline; Namibia’s drilling and near-surface studies aim to stabilise Otjikoto’s throughput and recoveries via better blending; and small-ticket generative activity keeps longer-dated options alive.
For investors, the milestones to watch are straightforward.
At Goose: metres drilled, conversion from inferred to indicated, and any step-outs that expand the mineralised envelope.
In Mali: satellite finds that can be hauled economically to existing facilities, or stand-alone targets with scale. In Namibia, step-outs at Antelope and definition of surface material that meets the metallurgical and scheduling needs of the Otjikoto circuit.
Across the portfolio, the company’s willingness to spend through the cycle reflects a view that exploration is one of the few controllable inputs that can both stabilise near-term operations and unlock longer-term value.
