TORONTO, Dec. 11, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Dundee Precious Metals Inc. (TSX: DPM) (“DPM” or “the Company”) is pleased to announce a maiden Mineral Resource Estimate of 1.78 million ounces for its 100% owned Čoka Rakita gold project in eastern Serbia, where DPM announced a high-grade discovery in January 2023.
Highlights
- Strong maiden Mineral Resource estimate: Inferred Mineral Resource estimate (“MRE”) of 9.79 million tonnes (“Mt”) at a grade of 5.67 grams per tonne (“g/t”) for 1.78 million ounces of gold. The maiden MRE was completed after only one full year of drilling on the project and is based on approximately 80,723 metres of drilling in 173 holes.
- Higher-grade core of mineralization: The MRE contains a significant portion of gold ounces within a continuous high-grade core of mineralization that amounts to 2.81 Mt at a grade of 10.12 g/t Au for 0.914 million ounces of gold. Once sufficient drilling has been completed to upgrade the Mineral Resource confidence, this higher-grade core has the potential to drive strong economics by accessing higher than average grades during the early years of a mine plan.
- Upside exploration potential: DPM is continuing its drilling program focused on extending the limits of Čoka Rakita, which remains open to the northeast and to southwest, and is also aggressively pursuing additional skarn targets on the Čoka Rakita licence as well as on three additional licences to the north and the south.
- Advancing to a preliminary economic assessment (“PEA”): Based on the favourable size and quality of the MRE, DPM will continue to accelerate the project and expects to complete a PEA on the project in the second quarter of 2024, targeting a throughput rate of 850,000 tonnes per annum.
- Attractive organic growth opportunity: Čoka Rakita benefits from good infrastructure, including nearby existing roads and power lines. The project is located in close regional proximity to DPM’s existing operations in Bulgaria and is a strong fit with the Company’s underground mining and processing expertise, with metallurgical test work demonstrating gold recoveries of approximately 90% by gravity concentration and conventional flotation.
“The initial Mineral Resource estimate marks a significant milestone for DPM’s future growth and confirms Čoka Rakita’s potential as an attractive, high-quality gold project,” said David Rae, President and Chief Executive Officer of Dundee Precious Metals.
“Since we announced the initial discovery only 11 months ago, Čoka Rakita has rapidly grown into a 1.8 million ounce deposit, a remarkable achievement over such a short period of time, and we plan to continue aggressively exploring at Čoka Rakita and the surrounding licences to generate new discoveries.
“We are continuing to accelerate the project through our development pipeline, including advancing a PEA which is targeted for completion in the second quarter of 2024. We are excited by Čoka Rakita’s potential in a region where we have had a presence for many years and where we have developed strong relationships with local stakeholders.”
Maiden Mineral Resource Estimate
The Inferred MRE is comprised of 1.78 million ounces of gold contained within 9.79 million tonnes grading 5.67 g/t Au (Table 1) and assumes an underground mining scenario.
Gold-rich skarn mineralization is hosted within carbonate rich sandstones and conglomerates, located on the hanging wall of a sill-like body and abutting a monzonite intrusive body to the west. The mineralization forms a shallow-dipping tabular mineralized body located between 250 and 450 metres below surface, measuring 650 metres long, up to 350 metres wide, and with variable thickness from less than 20 metres in the margins to more than 100 metres in the core of the mineralized zone. Coarse gold is often observed in areas of intense retrograde skarn alternation and is found mainly in proximity to syn-mineral diorites within the higher-grade core of the deposit. The current MRE has been conducted on the portion of the prospect where gold-rich skarn mineralization occurs.
The drillhole database was handed over as of November 16, 2023. A total of 173 drill holes totalling 80,723 metres were included in the estimation of the Mineral Resource. The current drillhole spacing within the mineralized domains is approximately 30 metres by 30 metres in the core of the system, with an up to 60-metre by 60-metre grid on the periphery. Gold grades within skarn domains have been determined systematically using a screen fire assaying technique, which is preferred for mineralization with coarse gold. Grade capping was applied to composites to limit the influence of anomalously high-grade values.
Mineral resource domains were created within volumes of moderate to intense skarn alteration and guided by economic composites at a 1 g/t Au cut-off value. Detailed lithology and structural models were developed and used to constrain domain extents, as well as to incorporate post-mineralization diorite sills which cut across the mineralization. Block grade estimates have been undertaken for Au, Ag, Cu, S and As using ordinary kriging at a 10mE x 10mN x 10mZ parent block size with sub-celling to honour domain volumes.
A break-even cut-off value of 2 g/t Au and a minimum width constraint of 5 metres by 5 metres by 2.5 metres was used to define optimized mineable shapes using Datamine’s Mineable Shape Optimiser (“MSO”). These shapes were subsequently smoothed and used to constrain continuous zones of mineralization for reporting the final Mineral Resource statement.
The application of MSO shapes at the MRE stage provides a robust estimate for the purposes of a PEA, and a higher confidence in the potential for the conversion of Mineral Resources into mineable tonnes and grades for the purposes of a mine plan for the PEA. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. The MSO shapes have been used to ensure Mineral Resources demonstrate reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction.
Material within the reporting MSO constraints (smoothed) was classified as Inferred Mineral Resources according to Mineral Resource confidence categories defined in the CIM Definition Standards for Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves. Data quality and quantity, geological and grade continuity, and confidence in the grade, density and reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction (“RPEEE”) criteria were considered when classifying the MRE. Given the relatively continuous and stratified mineralization style at Čoka Rakita, the Company has reason to expect that the majority of Inferred Mineral Resources could be upgraded to Indicated Mineral Resources with infill drilling.
Table 1: Čoka Rakita Mineral Resource Estimate
| Čoka Rakita Mineral Resource Estimate (Effective date November 16, 2023) |
|||||
| Resource Category | Tonnes (Mt) |
Gold Grade (g/t) |
Contained Gold (K oz.) |
Silver grade (g/t) |
Contained silver (K oz.) |
| Inferred | 9.79 | 5.67 | 1,783 | 1.21 | 382 |
| Total | 9.79 | 5.67 | 1,783 | 1.21 | 382 |
| 1) | The cut-off value of 2 g/t assumes $1,700 gold price, 90% gold recovery, US$79/t operating cost, US$7/t sustaining capital cost, as well as offsite and royalty costs. |
| 2) | Mineral Resources are reported within smoothed MSO shapes generated at a 2 g/t Au cutoff, to ensure Mineral Resources meet reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction. The smoothing process allows for blocks below the cut-off to included within the final shapes in order to emulate the internal dilution that would be experienced during underground mining as per CIM Estimation of Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves Best Practices Guidelines prepared by the CIM Mineral Resource & Mineral Reserve Committee and adopted by the CIM Council on November 29, 2019. |
| 3) | CSA Global are not aware of any legal, political, environmental, or other risk factors that might materially affect the estimate of Mineral Resources. |
Higher-Grade Core of Mineralization
Within the core of the Čoka Rakita deposit is a zone of continuous higher-grade mineralization hosted within intense retrograde skarn alteration. By digitizing an outline of spatially contiguous blocks within the Mineral Resource that have an estimated grade value higher than approximately 5 g/t Au and including internal dilution, the block model reports 2.81 Mt at a grade of 10.12 g/t Au for 0.914 million ounces of gold. Once sufficient drilling has been completed to upgrade the Mineral Resource confidence, this higher-grade core has the potential to drive strong economics by accessing higher than average grades during the early years of a mine plan.
When reported within the smoothed MSO constraints used to report the MRE, the block model sensitivity to cut-off grade is shown in Table 2. This table does not constitute a Mineral Resource statement and is shown to illustrate the grade and tonnage sensitivity to grade cut-off value.
Due to the presence of coarse gold and the confidence level of Inferred Mineral Resources, there is inherent uncertainty in the level of mining selectivity that can be achieved as the cut-off grade is increased. Further drilling, and potentially bulk sampling, is required to assess the short-range grade continuity of the higher-grade mineralization.
Table 2: Čoka Rakita Mineral Resource Grade Tonnage Sensitivity Tabulation
| Čoka Rakita Inferred Mineral Resource Grade Tonnage Sensitivity | |||
| Cut-off (g/t) |
Tonnes (Mt) |
Gold Grade (g/t) |
Contained Gold (Moz.) |
| 0 | 9.79 | 5.67 | 1.78 |
| 1 | 9.51 | 5.81 | 1.78 |
| 2 | 8.55 | 6.28 | 1.73 |
| 3 | 6.42 | 7.54 | 1.56 |
| 4 | 4.55 | 9.22 | 1.35 |
| 5 | 3.46 | 10.72 | 1.19 |
| 6 | 2.76 | 12.02 | 1.07 |
| 7 | 2.26 | 13.28 | 0.97 |
| 8 | 1.86 | 14.55 | 0.87 |
| 9 | 1.56 | 15.72 | 0.79 |
| 10 | 1.32 | 16.85 | 0.71 |
| 1) | Mineral Resources are reported within smoothed MSO shapes generated at a 2 g/t Au cut-off, to ensure the mineral resources meet reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction. All blocks that fall within that constraint are reported within the MRE. Accordingly, the cut-off value of 0 g/t corresponds to the MRE statement. |
Exploration Potential
DPM is planning an aggressive exploration program for 2024 including:
- Approximately 30,000 metres of infill, hydrological and geotechnical drilling, with the goal of re-classifying the current Mineral Resource to the Indicated Mineral Resource category. This also includes infill drilling to test the extents of Čoka Rakita, which remains open to the northeast and to southwest; and
- 55,000 metres of additional exploration drilling at existing skarn targets and to test for manto-like copper-gold skarn identified across four licences held by DPM, including Čoka Rakita, Potaj Čuka, Pešter Jug, and Umka.
Exploration and evaluation expenditures for the above drilling programs, PEA and related technical work is expected to be US$30 to US$35 million in 2024, which will be updated in early Q1 2024 as part of the Company’s detailed 2024 guidance and updated three-year outlook.
Attractive Organic Growth Opportunity
With a sizeable maiden MRE and significant additional exploration potential, Čoka Rakita is an attractive organic growth opportunity that DPM will be prioritizing for advancement.
The project is located approximately 35 kilometres from the city of Bor in Serbia, 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 a strong fit with the Company’s underground mining and processing expertise, with metallurgical testwork demonstrating gold recoveries of approximately 90% by gravity concentration and conventional flotation.
As previously reported on November 15, 2023, metallurgical testwork confirmed the viability of a combined gravity concentration and flotation circuit at different target grades (Table 3).
Table 3: Summarized Metallurgical Test Results
| METCRA23-01 | METCRA23-02 | METCRA23-03 | |
| Feed grade (g/t) | 3.12 | 5.3 | 10.4 |
| EGRG recovery (%) | 55.6 | 49 | 61.8 |
| Gravity + flotation recovery (%) | 87.5 | 88.5 | 91.2 |
| Bond ball mill work index (kWh/t) | 13.4 | 13.2 | 13.3 |
| Abrasion Index | 0.123 | 0.138 | 0.154 |
Next Steps
In parallel to its exploration and infill drilling activities, DPM has advanced activities to accelerate the project, including initiating geotechnical and hydrogeological drilling, the next phase of metallurgical testwork, evaluating locations for potential site infrastructure, as well as stakeholder engagement and permitting activities.
The Company has already commenced certain scoping level activities and expects to complete a PEA on the project in the second quarter of 2024, targeting a throughput rate of 850,000 tonnes per annum.
The next phase of metallurgical testwork will focus on the variability at Čoka Rakita to ascertain the metallurgical and comminution performance of the different subtypes of mineralization present, including testing on more copper-rich areas of the prospect.
Permitting preparation activities are underway, with good support and engagement from key regional and national authorities.
Stakeholder Engagement
Consistent with its approach across all operations and projects, DPM seeks to build and maintain strong partnerships with local communities and governments. 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.
Planning for the project will be highly focused on ensuring responsible environmental management and social development in-line with industry best practices. DPM is committed to working closely with local communities around the Čoka Rakita project to understand and support local development opportunities, with a focus on maximizing benefits of the project for Serbia.
Figure 1. Cross section through the block model of Čoka Rakita, showing blocks coloured by Au g/t. Section line 4895859mN with 30 metre window clipping, looking north.
Figure 2. Tilted slice along high-grade skarn mineralization displaying new drilling intercepts and the ongoing infill drilling at Čoka Rakita.
View the interactive 3D model on VRIFY, which will provide a more accurate representation of the spatial position of the drillholes, available at: https://vrify.com/decks/14641
Figure 3. Overview map of Čoka Rakita exploration licence outlining the progress of the scout drilling campaign, including ongoing holes.
Figure 4. Overview map of tenements and regional targets around Čoka Rakita.
Technical Information and Technical Report Filing
The MRE for Čoka Rakita and other scientific and technical information which supports this news release was prepared by DPM with review and guidance at various stages provided by Maria O’Connor, MAIG (Membership ID: 5931), Technical Director Mineral Resources, Environmental Resources Management (ERM, trading as CSA Global) in accordance with Canadian regulatory requirements set out in National Instrument 43-101 Standards for Disclosure for Mineral Projects (“NI 43-101”). Maria O’Connor is a Qualified Person (“QP”) for Mineral Resources as defined under NI 43-101 and is independent of the Company.
Ross Overall, Director, Corporate Technical Services, of the Company, who is a QP, as defined under NI 43-101, and Paul Ivascanu, General Manager, Exploration of the Company, have reviewed and approved the contents of this news release.
A technical report for the Čoka Rakita gold project, prepared in accordance with NI 43-101, will be filed under the Company’s profile on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca within 45 days of this news release. Readers are encouraged to read the technical report in its entirety, including all qualifications, assumptions, exclusions and risks that relate to the Mineral Resource.
The MRE and related information in this news release may not be comparable to similar information made public by U.S. companies, subject to the reporting and disclosure requirements under the United States federal securities laws and the rules and regulations thereunder.
About Dundee Precious Metals Inc.
Dundee Precious Metals Inc. is a Canadian-based international gold mining company with operations and projects located in Bulgaria, Namibia, Serbia and Ecuador. The Company’s purpose is to unlock resources and generate value to thrive and growth together. This overall purpose is supported by a foundation of core values, which guides how the Company conducts its business and informs a set of complementary strategic pillars and objectives related to ESG, innovation, optimizing our existing portfolio, and growth. The Company’s resources are allocated in-line with its strategy to ensure that DPM delivers value for all of its stakeholders. DPM’s shares are traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (symbol: DPM).
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Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains “forward looking statements” or “forward looking information” (collectively, “Forward Looking Statements”) that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Forward Looking Statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the use of forward looking terminology such as “plans”, “targets”, “expects”, “is expected”, “budget”, “scheduled”, “estimates”, “forecasts”, “outlook”, “intends”, “anticipates”, “believes”, or variations of such words and phrases or that state that certain actions, events or results “may”, “could”, “would”, “might” or “will” be taken, occur or be achieved, or the negative of any of these terms or similar expressions. The Forward Looking Statements in this news release relate to, among other things; the estimation of Mineral Resources and the realization of such mineral estimates; expectations with respect to updating the Inferred Mineral Resources to Indicated Mineral Resources with infill drilling; targeted annual throughput for the PEA; timing for a PEA; planned drilling and exploration program and the timing and success of such activities, planned metallurgical test work; upside potential, opportunities for growth and expected next steps; expected benefits of existing infrastructure and DPM’s existing underground expertise; potential gold recoveries; and the price of gold, copper, and silver, and other commodities. Forward Looking Statements are based on certain key assumptions and the opinions and estimates of management and the QPs, as of the date such statements are made, and they involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any other future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the Forward Looking Statements. In addition to factors already discussed in this news release, such factors include, among others, risks relating to the Company’s business, including possible variations in ore grade and recovery rates; uncertainties inherent to the conclusions of economic evaluations and economic studies; changes in project parameters, including schedule and budget, as plans continue to be refined; uncertainties with respect to actual results of current exploration activities; uncertainties inherent to the estimation of Mineral Resources, which may not be fully realized; uncertainties inherent with conducting business in foreign jurisdictions where corruption, civil unrest, political instability and uncertainties with the rule of law may impact the Company’s activities; the impact of the conflict in the Ukraine and health emergencies, including resulting changes to the Company’s supply chain and costs of supplies; product shortages; delivery and shipping issues; closures and/or failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; employees and contractors become infected with pathogens or being affected by the war; lost work hours; labour force shortages; fluctuations in metal and acid prices, toll rates and foreign exchange rates; limitation on insurance coverage; accidents, labour disputes and other risks of the mining industry; delays in obtaining governmental approvals or financing or in the completion of development or construction activities; actual results of current and planned reclamation activities; opposition by social and non-government organizations to mining projects and smelting operations; unanticipated title disputes; claims or litigation; cyber attacks and other cybersecurity risks; as well as those risk factors discussed or referred to in any other documents (including without limitation the Company’s most recent Annual Information Form) filed from time to time with the securities regulatory authorities in all provinces and territories of Canada and available on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca. The reader has been cautioned that the foregoing list is not exhaustive of all factors which may have been used. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events or results to differ materially from those described in Forward Looking Statements, there may be other factors that cause actions, events or results not to be anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that Forward Looking Statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. The Company’s Forward Looking Statements reflect current expectations regarding future events and speak only as of the date hereof. Unless required by securities laws, the Company undertakes no obligation to update Forward Looking Statements if circumstances or management’s estimates or opinions should change. Accordingly, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on Forward Looking Statements.
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