Alta Copper Corp. announced attractive economics results from the 2024 Optimized Preliminary Economic Assessment ("2024 PEA") at its 100% owned Canariaco Project, a world class porphyry copper project, located 700 km northwest of Lima. The 2024 PEA has been prepared by Ausenco Engineering Canada ULC ("Ausenco"), AGP Mining Consultants Inc. ("AGP") and Whittle Consulting Pty. Ltd. The Cañariaco Project is situated within the Province of Ferreñafe, in the Department of Lambayeque, in northwestern Peru, approximately 700 km northwest of Lima, the capital of Peru, and approximately 102 km northeast of the city of Chiclayo. Current access from Chiclayo to the Cañariaco Project is 150 km along a paved road followed by secondary gravel roads. The project area covers moderate elevations ranging from 2,200 to 3,600 metres ("m") above sea level. The copper deposits are situated on the eastern side of the continental divide and infrastructure will be on the top as well as both western and eastern sides of the divide. The topography varies from steep incised valleys at lower elevations to open grassy highlands at upper elevations. There is sufficient
suitable land available within the concessions and close to the mining areas for the process plant, ancillary infrastructure and comingled waste rock and dry stack tailings facility.
The 2024 PEA contemplates that Cañariaco would be mined using conventional open pit mining equipment followed by crushing, SAG/ball mill grinding and flotation recovery of copper, gold and silver to a copper concentrate. Cañariaco is estimated to have relatively low project capital and operating costs due to proximity to infrastructure and favourable natural setting with key features as follows: Large scale mining and processing operation to process 120,000 tpd/43.8 million tpa with a currently planned 27 year mine life; Conventional drill and blast mining, large scale electric shovels and haul trucks; Conventional crushing, SAG and ball mill grinding followed by flotation recovery of copper, gold and silver to a copper concentrate; Application of best practice process tailings management through comingled waste rock and filtered dry stack tailings storage; Water resources available in project area exceed project requirements; Low Strip Ratio life of mine of 1.33:1; Power supply from existing Northern Peru power grid with connection point only 57 kms from the project; and Project site located only 24 kms from existing paved highway connecting to the Pan American Highway on the west coast. Importantly, the Cañariaco project has low capital intensity when compared to several other global copper projects currently in the development stage. Key project attributes that reduce the capital cost include the following: The mineralized material from Cañariaco Norte and Sur deposits are moderately competent with Axb of 53, and moderately soft rock with an average BWI 12.2 kWh/tonne, which enables high throughput utilizing a single comminution line consisting of one primary crusher, one large SAG mill and two ball mills whereas many projects with comparable throughput require two SAG mills and four ball mills; The region receives significant annual rainfall and adequate fresh water is available at site eliminating the need for a desalination plant and pipeline from the coast; Relatively close proximity to the national power grid reduces the capital intensity of power supply infrastructure; Close proximity to an existing major transportation highway reduces access road construction cost and time; Utilization of trucks to transport concentrate along existing highways to the loadout port eliminates the requirement for a concentrate pipeline; The project site is in a sparsely populated area and there is no requirement for community relocation; and Concentrate loadout through an existing port on the west coast of Peru eliminates need to construct a new loadout facility. The 2024 PEA is based on open pit mining methods with conventional drilling, blasting and material loading with large electric shovels for excavation and haulage to the primary crusher using large capacity haul trucks. Independent and dedicated high-capacity electric conveyor systems will transport plant feed from the primary crusher to the process plant and waste to the comingled waste and dry stack tailings facility. Over the life of the Cañariaco mine, two separate deposits: Cañariaco Norte ("Norte") and Cañariaco Sur ("Sur") will be mined in separate pits, with the bulk of the plant feed coming from Norte. Mining will commence in the Norte pit which will provide 100% of the process plant feed until year 16 at which point mining operations will commence at Sur. Years 17 through 25 will see mining taking place in both Norte and Sur with variable mining rates while maintaining total annual production of 43.8 million tonnes. From year 26 through end of mine life all mining will take place in Sur. The Cañariaco open pit mining operations will have a mine life of 27 years, operating 365 days a year with a life of mine strip ratio of 1.33:1 (including pre-stripping). The mine production plan is based on mining a total of 2.72 billion tonnes of material, comprised of 1.176 billion tonnes of plant feed and 1.548 billion tonnes of waste rock over the life of the mine. Mining operations will supply the process plant at 120,000 tonnes per day or 43.8 million tonnes per annum. During the life of mine operation, annual cash-
flow will vary due to annual and forecast variations in head grade, strip ratio and metal recoveries. The major mining equipment fleet will include nine (9) blast hole drills, five (5) 38 m3 electric shovels, two (2) 33 m3 front end loaders and thirty-eight (38) 290 tonne capacity haul trucks. A fleet of smaller loaders and trucks will be utilized for early mine access development and initial pre-stripping. Electric shovel major maintenance and mobile equipment replacement are carried in the mining costs. The moderate altitude of the Project avoids the need for de-rating of mine haul truck drive systems. The Cañariaco project comprises two copper-gold-silver porphyry deposits where the main copper species are primarily sulphides, predominantly chalcopyrite with lesser amounts of bornite and chalcocite. The Sur deposit also contains molybdenum however the levels did not warrant recovery for this 2024 PEA. Extensive metallurgical testwork programs on samples from Norte have been completed over previous years, providing an extensive metallurgical database for Norte. Resource development at Sur is at a much earlier stage than Norte and accordingly the metallurgical testwork completed for Sur is preliminary. However, the testwork results received to date from Sur are very good and comparable to the results for Norte confirming the amenability of conventional flotation recovery for both Norte and Sur.