Azarga Metals Corp. announces the positive findings of an updated preliminary economic assessment ("PEA") for the development of its wholly owned Unkur Copper-Silver Project in the Zabaikalsky administrative region of Eastern Russia. The mining method selected for the PEA is open-pit mining followed by underground mining, based upon owner mining of ore and waste. The initial mine plan has been designed on a higher-grade sub-set of the 2021 Mineral Resource, comprising 16.1 million tonnes of oxide mineralization at a grade of 0.61% copper and 44g/t silver and 35 million tonnes of sulfide mineralization at a grade of 0.58% copper and 38g/t silver constrained for open pit and underground mining. The annual production rate from an open pit will average approximately 2.75 million tonnes of ore per year, with a maximum of 3.5 million tonnes in Year 2 and 3. This is identical for Base and Open Pit Only Scenarios. The overall LOM waste to ore (i.e., strip) ratio from open pit is projected to be 8.87:1. However, it should be noted that much of the overburden is unconsolidated moraine material that will not require blasting. The annual production rate from an underground operation will average 2 million tonnes of ore per year. It is applicable to Base Scenario. WAI prepared additional scenarios to mine both oxide and sulfide mineralization from the open pit. These scenarios are linked to different processing options and require much higher capital expenditure with negative impact on NPV and IRR of the project, albeit remaining economic for potential consideration. Preliminary metallurgical test work on a bulk sample demonstrated that most economically viable extraction of copper and silver from oxide mineralization can be achieved using a SART circuit in heap leach, accepted as a Base Scenario in the PEA. The PEA also considered a SART process in agitated leach and sequential SX-EW process in agitated and heap leach. The latter three options provide higher recoveries from oxide mineralization for both copper and silver. Although remaining economic, they require much higher capital expenditure as well as much higher operating costs, elongating the payback period for the project by additional 2 years, with lower NPV and IRR. The Base Scenario assumes the proposed SART process plant will be based on heap leaching operation that will provide an average silver recovery of 77.3% and an average copper recovery of 58.8%, taking most recent tests and process efficiencies into account. The SART process is estimated to produce a high-grade copper and silver concentrate and to recycle cyanide that can be returned into the SART process. The sulfide mineralization can be treated using conventional hydrometallurgical processing methods. Production of sulfide concentrate will be based on conventional gravity and flotation processing, with an average silver recovery of 82.7% and an average copper recovery of 89.1% Tailings from the process plant will be pumped to a tailings management facility.