Dundee Precious Metals Inc. announced the results of a preliminary economic assessment (?PEA?) for its Coka Rakita project in Serbia. The PEA supports an underground mining operation with an 850,000 tonne per annum processing facility and an initial 10-year mine life, and highlights Coka Rakita?s potential to offer meaningful production growth with attractive all-in sustaining costs and very robust economics at a $1,700 per ounce gold price assumption. Based on the positive results of the PEA, the Company is proceeding with a pre-feasibility study (?PFS?) and project permitting activities.

High margin production profile: Annual production expected to average 164,000 ounces of gold (first five full years) with all-in sustaining costs expected to be in the lowest quartile, providing the potential for very strong margins; Robust returns highlight an attractive project at a $1,700 per ounce gold price assumption: After-tax NPV of $588 million with an IRR of 33% and payback after 2.4 years. The project?s economics are even more attractive in today?s gold price environment; Attractive organic growth opportunity leveraging DPM?s mining, processing, and regional expertise: Coka Rakita benefits from established infrastructure, including nearby existing roads and power lines. The project is located in close regional proximity to DPM?s existing operations in Bulgaria and the PEA leverages the Company?s underground mining and processing expertise in terms of mining methods and flowsheet.

The Company has had a local presence in Serbia since 2004 and has developed strong relationships in the region and will continue to proactively engage with all stakeholders as the project advances; Significant exploration potential across four exploration licences: DPM is continuing its scout drilling program focused on aggressively pursuing additional skarn targets on the Coka Rakita licence and the Company?s three additional licences to the north and the south. The PEA contemplates underground mining of the Coka Rakita project with a relatively standard comminution, gravity and flotation flowsheet to treat 850,000 tonnes per annum of material, producing saleable gravity and flotation concentrates. The project is located approximately 35 kilometres northwest of the city of Bor in Serbia, which is a region of the country with a long mining history, is proximal to existing roads and power lines and is approximately 320 kilometres northwest of DPM?s Chelopech mine in Bulgaria, which will allow easy access to existing technical support functions.

The project is also a strong fit with the Company?s underground mining and processing expertise. The PEA is preliminary in nature and includes Inferred Mineral Resource estimates that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as Mineral Reserves, and there is no certainty that the PEA will be realized. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.

The PEA mine plan assumes access from surface through twin declines and a spiral ramp to truck the mined material to surface. Leveraging DPM?s experience and expertise from its underground Chelopech mine, the anticipated mining method is conventional sublevel long-hole open stoping and paste backfill. The PEA is based on a process flowsheet consisting of crushing and grinding to a P80 of 53 µm, followed by gravity concentration and sulphide flotation.

The gravity concentrate will be marketable directly to gold refineries, and the sulphide flotation concentrate will be suitable for processing by smelters in the region. Average payability for the flotation concentrate is expected to be 97.4%, and average payability for the gravity concentrate is expected to be 99.8%, with a combined life of mine weighted average of 98.4%. The PEA demonstrates a mineable Mineral Resource of 7.9 million tonnes above a cut-off grade of 2.5 g/t for an initial mine life of 10 years, with two years of pre-production mine development.

Average life of mine gold production is expected to be approximately 129,000 ounces per year from an average gold head grade of 5.68 g/t. Production in the first five full years is expected to average 164,000 ounces per year from an average gold head grade of 6.70 g/t. As part of the PFS, DPM will be evaluating several opportunities to optimize the mine plan and flowsheet, including optimizing the mine access development schedule to gain earlier access to the high-grade core of mineralization. Additionally, opportunities to enhance the mine plan include optimizing the mine sequencing and mining method parameters to enhance the grade and production profile. The maiden Mineral Resource estimate (?MRE?) for the Coka Rakita project, with an effective date of November 16, 2023 (outlined in the table below) forms the basis of the mine design and schedule for the PEA.

The MRE is based on 81,000 metres of drilling at 30-metre by 30-metre drill spacing in the core of the deposit and up to 60-metre by 60-metre grid spacing on the periphery. In parallel to its exploration and infill drilling activities, DPM is advancing various activities to accelerate the project development timeline, including geotechnical and hydrogeological drilling programs, further metallurgical variability and optimization testwork, as well as several mining, processing and engineering trade-off studies. All of these activities will form the basis of the PFS, which has been initiated by DPM and is expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2025.

As a result of advancing Coka Rakita to a PFS, DPM now expects its 2024 evaluation expenses to be between $30 million to $35 million. This is an increase from the previous guidance of between $10 million and $13 million, which was largely related to the costs of completing the PEA, as well as costs related to geotechnical and condemnation drilling and permitting activities that are expected to occur over the course of 2024.