Eldorado’s Skouries Pours First Concentrate After Years of Delays

Eldorado Gold announced on 8 September 2026 that its Skouries mine in northern Greece has produced its first copper-gold concentrate, ending years of construction and starting the ramp-up toward one of the company’s most consequential production targets.

The moment matters more than a routine operational update. Skouries spent years trapped in permit disputes, arbitration, and care-and-maintenance limbo before the 2021 Amended Investment Agreement with the Hellenic Republic cleared a legal path back to construction.

The 2021 Amended Investment Agreement with the Hellenic Republic resolved the permit disputes and arbitration that had held Skouries in care-and-maintenance limbo, establishing the legal and commercial framework under which the current construction programme was authorised and funded.

That history is what makes first concentrate different from an ordinary commissioning checkpoint. It is the point at which a long-contested project begins converting into actual output.

This piece covers whether the Q4 2026 commercial production target is credible, what still stands between first concentrate and full output, and what the Skouries ramp-up means for Eldorado’s broader growth profile alongside its second new mine, McIlvenna Bay in Canada.

All processing circuits are running. Now comes the hard part.

The plant at Skouries is fully alive. According to Eldorado’s 8 September 2026 news release, every key processing system is now operational.

That includes the full production chain:

• Crushing
• Grinding
• Flotation
• Tailings
• Concentrate thickening

First ore reached the crusher in July 2026, and first copper-gold concentrate followed on 8 September 2026. Commercial production is targeted for Q4 2026.

The Skouries plant commissioning process through mid-2026 involved sequential circuit activation across crushing, grinding, and flotation systems, with each stage requiring sign-off before the next could advance, a sequencing discipline that explains why July ore introduction and September first concentrate are separated by roughly two months rather than days.

“First concentrate at Skouries marks the transition from construction to production at one of our most important growth assets,” said George Burns, Chief Executive Officer of Eldorado Gold, in the company’s 8 September 2026 news release.

The site is running now, and it has the feedstock to keep running. Eldorado’s ore stockpile exceeds 4.6 million tonnes at or above reserve grade, enough to sustain more than seven months of processing during ramp-up. That buffer means the plant does not depend on fresh mining to keep producing concentrate while it scales.

One item, though, keeps this milestone from being fully clean: the mine is running on temporary power.

Grid connection: where things stand as of September 2026

Permanent high-voltage energisation from Greece’s transmission authority, ADMIE/IPTO, has not yet occurred. All 12 transmission towers and conductors are complete, and the substation has passed independent testing, as confirmed in Eldorado’s 30 July 2026 Q2 results release. What remains is final inspection, testing, and metering by the grid authority.

Management originally expected connection by the end of August 2026. As of the 8 September 2026 update, that target had slipped, with September now the revised expectation.

To keep commissioning moving regardless of grid timing, Eldorado deliberately installed roughly 36 MW of supplemental onsite generator capacity. That means grid connection is not a production stopper. It is a cost factor. Prolonged reliance on diesel generation adds expense that investors should factor into Q4 2026 expectations, which is exactly why the grid timeline, not the plant itself, is the variable most worth watching.

What it cost to get here: Skouries’ capital escalation in context

Getting Skouries to first concentrate was not cheap, and the number moved several times along the way. The original investment framework rested on a project capital estimate of roughly US$920 million.

On 5 February 2025, Eldorado lifted that figure to approximately US$1.06 billion, alongside an additional US$154 million in accelerated operational capital, with about US$705 million of capital remaining to reach commercial production as of 31 December 2024.

Then on 30 April 2026, the estimate rose again to roughly US$1.315 billion in project capital, an increase of about US$155 million on the prior figure. Accelerated operational capital climbed to approximately US$260.0 million. Both numbers were confirmed in the 30 July 2026 Q2 results release.

The move from US$920 million to US$1.315 billion is a 43% increase on the original framework, a pattern familiar across large mining developments rather than a project-specific failure. For you, the takeaway is simpler: capital costs are the denominator of any return calculation. The cost base against which Skouries’ future cash flows will be measured has shifted substantially from the project’s original economics, and that reset is the context you need before judging whether the production profile justifies the outlay.

Capital cost overruns in mining projects of Skouries’ scale are well-documented across the industry, driven by factors including ground condition variability, equipment lead times, and scope changes during permitting delays, which is why a 43% increase from the original framework, while significant, fits a pattern that analysts apply across large mine developments rather than treating as project-specific failure.

From construction story to production growth: what Skouries delivers at full capacity

Set the complexity aside for a moment, because the scale of what Skouries delivers is the payoff. At full capacity, the mine is expected to produce approximately 140,000 ounces of gold and 67 million pounds of copper annually over a 20-year mine life.

That is a two-decade, dual-commodity asset, and it more than doubles Eldorado’s copper exposure while adding meaningful gold ounces to an already diversified base. The company’s existing producing assets span the Lamaque Complex in Quebec, the Kışladağ and Efemçukuru mines in Turkey, and the Olympias mine in Greece.

Skouries is central to Eldorado’s stated aim of increasing production by roughly 40% by 2027. It is not doing that alone.

McIlvenna Bay’s parallel ramp-up

McIlvenna Bay, Eldorado’s copper-zinc-gold-silver mine in Saskatchewan, is ramping up at the same time. Its milestone sequence has run just ahead of Skouries:

McIlvenna Bay first concentrate, produced on 7 June 2026, came roughly three months ahead of the corresponding Skouries milestone, giving Eldorado sequenced commissioning experience across two separate metallurgical flowsheets within a single calendar year.

• First copper concentrate on 7 June 2026
• First zinc and pyrite concentrate in July 2026
• All flotation circuits producing
• More than 400,000 tonnes of material ready for processing
• Commercial production targeted for Q3 2026

The project was 97% complete as of 30 June 2026, with a nameplate capacity of 4,900 tonnes per day. A Natural Resources Canada news release on 2 September 2026 confirmed the operation is tracking toward Q3 2026 commercial production and noted Eldorado is exploring options to lift processing capacity.

Two new mines ramping simultaneously is the operational inflection analysts have been describing. Jefferies, cited on 21 August 2026, views Skouries as “largely de-risked” from a construction standpoint and characterises Eldorado as shifting from a construction story toward production and free-cash-flow growth in 2027. What that means for you is straightforward: Eldorado’s 2027 production and revenue profile will look materially different from its 2025 baseline, and the timing of commercial production at both mines is the central variable in that growth case.

What still has to go right before Q4 commercial production

The Q4 2026 target is credible, but it is not automatic. Here are the four factors that will shape whether it holds, ranked by how directly they bear on the timeline.

1. Grid connection. ADMIE/IPTO energisation was originally targeted for end-August 2026, revised to September, and still pending as of 8-9 September 2026. A further slip prolongs diesel reliance and adds cost, and could compress the ramp-up window.
2. Ramp-up execution. Staged ramp-up at a large polymetallic mine involves metallurgical fine-tuning, equipment reliability, and concentrate quality optimisation, any of which could delay or compress the climb to nameplate capacity.
3. Greek regulatory environment. Greece’s history of permitting disputes with Eldorado remains in the background, though the 2021 Amended Investment Agreement and subsequent approvals are broadly regarded as having improved regulatory clarity.
4. Commodity-price conditions. Weaker gold or copper prices while Skouries is still absorbing capital would pressure margins; strong prices would magnify its contribution once commercial production is reached.

The bullish counter-case is grounded in engineering, not optimism. The ore stockpile exceeding 4.6 million tonnes provides more than seven months of processing buffer. The roughly 36 MW of supplemental generation means grid connection is a cost factor, not a production stopper. And major construction is confirmed complete.

Jefferies, in a note cited on 21 August 2026, described Skouries as “largely de-risked” from a construction standpoint.

The demand backdrop adds a further reason the ramp-up is closely watched. S&P Global projects global copper demand rising from roughly 28-29 million tonnes in 2025 to approximately 42 million tonnes by 2040, with a potential supply shortfall of around 10 million tonnes by 2040 if new mines are not accelerated. Against that, a new copper-gold source in a stable OECD jurisdiction carries weight.

The projected copper supply shortfall by 2040, estimated by S&P Global at around 10 million tonnes if new mine development is not accelerated, is the macro-level context that elevates a project like Skouries beyond a company-specific production milestone into a meaningful contribution to a structurally undersupplied commodity market.

The read for you is this: the grid delay is a genuine cost risk, but the stockpile and generators mean Eldorado has engineered a buffer that makes Q4 commercial production the base case rather than an optimistic stretch, provided September energisation resolves as expected.

Q4 2026 is the proof point. Here is what to watch.

Two observable indicators will confirm or challenge the Q4 2026 commercial production target between now and year-end. The first is grid energisation by ADMIE/IPTO, expected in September 2026. The second is the processing rate trajectory through Q3 2026 as the plant scales toward nameplate throughput.

Everything else is secondary. Track those two, and you are tracking the question that matters.

What separates Skouries from a project that has just broken ground is the combination now in place: first concentrate produced, a fully operational plant, and a pre-built ore stockpile of more than 4.6 million tonnes. That positioning is why analysts treat the Q4 target as achievable rather than aspirational.

If Eldorado hits it on schedule, Skouries’ commercial production completes a strategic transformation that began with the 2021 Amended Investment Agreement, delivering a 20-year copper-gold asset, roughly 140,000 ounces of gold and 67 million pounds of copper annually, from a jurisdiction that spent years in regulatory conflict. That single data point will either validate or complicate the 40% production growth case analysts have built around the company, which makes the next quarterly update the moment the question gets answered.

This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. Investors should conduct their own research and consult with financial professionals before making investment decisions. Past performance does not guarantee future results. Financial projections are subject to market conditions and various risk factors, and forward-looking statements are speculative and subject to change based on market developments and company performance.