Seabridge Gold announced the results of an updated Preliminary Feasibility Study for its 100%-owned Courageous Lake project located in Canada's Northwest Territories. The 2024 PFS all open pit mine plan shows a considerably more sustainable and profitable mining operation than its 2012 predecessor, with reduced initial capital, lower strip ratio, higher grade and smaller mine footprint. The 2024 PFS led by Ausenco demonstrates the production of 2.5 million ounces of gold over the initial 12.6 year life of mine.

A stand-alone analysis of the potential expansion below the 2024 PFS mine plan will be included as a Preliminary Economic Assessment forming a separate part of Technical Report prepared in accordance with NI 43-101, and which includes evaluating the potential extension of the mine. The Report will be filed within the next 45 days. Notable improvements in the 2024 PFS compared to the 2012 PFS include: 73% increase in after-tax NPV5% to USD 523 million from USD 303 million in 2012, 50% reduction in initial capital from USD 1,522 million to USD 747 million, Increased after-tax IRR from 7.3% to 20.6%, Reduced capital payback period from 11.2 years to 2.8 years, Average gold reserve grade increased 19% from 2.2 g/t to 2.6 g/t, Life of mine strip ratio reduced by 39% from 12.5 to 7.58, 38% increase in estimated measured and indicated gold resources from 8.0 million to 11.0 million ounces.

The 2024 PFS was led by Ausenco Engineering Canada ULC, together with the support of Moose Mountain Technical Services, SRK Consulting (Canada) Inc., ERM Consultants Canada Ltd., Tetra Tech Canada Inc., and WN Brazier Associates Inc., all of which are independent of Seabridge Gold. The 2024 PFS open pit mine plan produces 2.5 million ounces of gold over 12.6 years with a Base Case after-tax NPV5% of USD 523 million using the 3-year trailing average gold price of USD 1,850/oz and consensus long term forecast forex of 0.74 USD/CAD. The 2024 PFS mines 33.9 million tonnes of proven and probable reserves at an average grade of 2.61 grams of gold per tonne feeding a 7.5 ktonnes per day processing plant.

The 12.6-year mine life produces 2.5 million ounces at an average annual rate of 201 koz of payable gold per year. Average life of mine cash operating costs are USD 863 per ounce, and all-in sustaining costs are USD 999/Oz. The Courageous Lake property is located 240 km northeast of Yellowknife NWT, Canada and is situated within the Courageous Lake greenstone belt in the Slave Structural Province.

The property is a collection of mineral leases and mining claims that trend north-south along the approximately 54 km length of the CLGB. The property includes the past gold producing properties of the Salmita mine operated by Giant Yellowknife Mines, and the Tundra mine operated by Royal Oak Mines. The project site will be accessed via spur winter road connecting to the Tibbitt to Contwoyto Winter Road that is normally open from late January/early February until the end of March of each year and services the nearby Ekati and Diavik mines.

The 2024 PFS mine plan uses an open pit truck and shovel operation. Mill feed is processed onsite by crushing, grinding and flotation. Flotation concentrate is pressure oxidized and cyanide leached to produce a gold doré.

Waste rock will be generated during the mining of economical ore and will be directly hauled to the co-placement storage facility along with flotation tailings. Flotation tailings will be co-placed with waste rock while neutralized leach tailings will be placed in a separate facility. The Courageous Lake Project includes two deposits: the Courageous Lake deposit, and the Walsh Lake deposit.

Only the Courageous Lake deposit is used in the 2024 PFS. The Courageous Lake Mineral Resource estimate is derived from a database containing 616 drill holes with assays collected from 127,168.61 m of drillcore. Courageous Lake grade interpolation was carried out using both indicator probabilities and relative elevations within 13 mineralized domains to constrain the inverse distance squared interpolations within blocks with dimensions of 5m x 5 m x 5 m. Measured and indicated resources are estimated at 145.2 million tonnes at an average grade of 2.36 grams per tonne containing 11.0 million ounces.

For comparison, the 2012 PFS reported measured and indicated gold resources of 8.0 million ounces contained in 107.3 million tonnes at an average grade of 2.31 grams per tonne. The increase in contained tonnes and grade is a result of the incorporation of drilling completed after the 2012 Mineral Resource Estimate, as well as refinement to the modelling methodology. The Walsh Lake Mineral Resource estimate uses a database containing 92 drill holes with 17,533.7 m of assayed length.

Walsh Lake grade uses Indicator probabilities and inverse distance squared interpolation to estimate the gold grades into blocks with dimensions of 3 m x 3 m x 3 m. Lerchs-Grossman pit shell optimizations were used to define the mine plans in the 2024 PFS. The pit optimizations incorporated estimated costs for mining, processing, tailings management, general and administrative and process recoveries. Waste to ore cut-offs were determined using a gold price of USD 1,400 per ounce.

The 2024 PFS pit was restricted from mining below the base of the permafrost to minimize the ingress of saline groundwater. Estimated proven and probable Mineral Reserves, including mining dilution within the ultimate pit limit uses a Net Smelter Return cut-off grade of CAD 49.66/t milled. Seabridge has conducted seven metallurgical testing programs since 2003.

The selected flowsheet includes a three-stage crushing circuit with the crushed product reporting to the crushed material stockpile. Mineralized material is reclaimed to a grinding circuit consisting of a ball mill circuit operating in closed circuit with a cyclone cluster. Classified material reports sequential stages of rougher flotation, where concentrate is separated from the gangue material and fed to cleaner flotation.

In the cleaning circuit, the concentrate grades are upgraded prior to further size reduction in a regrind ball mill operating in closed circuit with a cyclone cluster. Cleaner tailings combine with rougher tailings for thickening before being discharged to the CPSF. Overflow from regrind cyclones undergoes acidulation and pre-oxidation stages followed by the pressure oxidation circuit to oxidize the concentrate.

The oxidized slurry is leached with cyanide and then washed in six stages through a CCD circuit. The resulting pregnant solution is processed using a Merrill-Crowe treatment by adding zinc powder to precipitate gold and silver. The precious metals precipitate will be smelted on site to produce gold-silver doré bars.

Overall gold recovery is projected at 89.3%.