Aris Mining reports results from PFS of Soto Norte Gold Project in Colombia

Aris Mining (ARMN), as required by regulatory disclosures, announces positive results from the recently completed prefeasibility study, or PFS, of its 51%-owned Soto Norte Gold Project in Santander, Colombia. The PFS confirms Soto Norte as a high-quality project with robust economics, low operating costs, and industry-leading environmental and social design features. Importantly, the new study design reduces processing capacity to 3,500 tonnes per day, or tpd, from 7,000+ tpd previously. Project Highlights include: Designed mill capacity of 3,500 tpd, including 750 tpd dedicated to local community miners – a scale that supports investment returns and extends mine life to 22+ years while reducing construction risk; Measured and indicated mineral resources of 39.0M tonnes at 5.55 g/t Au containing 7.0M ounces, or Moz, gold; proven and probable mineral reserves of 20.3 million tonnes at 7.00 g/t Au containing 4.6 Moz gold, supporting a 22-year initial mine life at an owner-mining rate of 2,750 tpd; production of concentrates for export containing 4.3 Moz gold, 18.8 Moz silver, and 84.0M pounds, or Mlb, of copper; average annual gold production of 263 thousand ounces, or koz; and average annual gold production (years 1 to 21) of 203 koz. Projected profitability is: Base case gold price: $2,600/oz, supporting life-of-mine payable gold sales of $10.4B; Initial capital of $625M, including pre-production costs, value added tax and contingency; after-tax NPV5% of $2.7B, IRR of 35.4%, and payback in 2.3 years from the start of operations; low life-of-mine cash costs of $345/oz1 Au and all-in-sustaining costs of $534/oz1 Au.; annual EBITDA averaging $547M over years 2 to 10 and $410M over years 1 to 21.