Agnico Eagle Provides Update on 2024 Exploration Results and 2025 Exploration Plans

13 February 2025

TORONTO, Feb. 13, 2025 /CNW/ - Agnico Eagle Mines Limited (NYSE: AEM) (TSX: AEM) ("Agnico Eagle" or the "Company") is pleased to provide an update on year-end 2024 mineral reserves and mineral resources, exploration activities at mine sites and select advanced projects in 2024, and the Company's exploration plans and guidance for 2025. The Company's exploration focus remains on extending mine life at existing operations, testing near-mine opportunities and advancing key value driver projects.

"I would like to commend our exploration team for their performance in 2024, which set a record in terms of safety and completed our ambitious exploration program at lower costs than planned. Through our optimization of drilling productivity and innovation efforts, we successfully reduced costs by approximately 8%. The exploration program continued to yield exciting results at our key mines and pipeline projects, which drove the replacement of our mineral reserves and the increase in our inferred mineral resources by nearly 10%, primarily from additions at Detour Lake, Canadian Malartic and Hope Bay," said Guy Gosselin, Agnico Eagle's Executive Vice-President, Exploration. "Our 2025 exploration program is the continuation of this effort to define the full potential of our operating assets, aiming to extend the life of mine at existing operations and advance the assessment of the potential of our pipeline projects to support the Company's vision for future growth," added Mr. Gosselin.

Highlights from 2024 include:

  • Gold mineral reserves increase to record level – Year-end 2024 gold mineral reserves increased by 0.9% to 54.3 million ounces of gold (1,277 million tonnes grading 1.32 grams per tonne ("g/t") gold). The year-over-year increase in mineral reserves is due to good mineral reserve replacement at LaRonde, Macassa, Meliadine, Amaruq, Odyssey, Kittila and Fosterville, updated mineral reserves at Upper Beaver and the initial declaration of mineral reserves at Wasamac. At year-end 2024, measured and indicated mineral resources were 43.0 million ounces (1,167 million tonnes grading 1.14 g/t gold) and inferred mineral resources were 36.2 million ounces (451 million tonnes grading 2.49 g/t gold)
  • Upper Beaver – A technical evaluation was completed at Upper Beaver during the fourth quarter of 2024, bringing the mineral reserves to 2.77 million ounces of gold and 54,930 tonnes of copper (23.2 million tonnes grading 3.71 g/t gold and 0.24% copper) at December 31, 2024
  • Detour Lake – The Company's exploration program continued to attempt to de-risk the Detour Lake underground project in the western plunge of the main orebody hosting the producing open pits. Conversion drilling continues to increase underground indicated mineral resources, reaching 1.87 million ounces of gold (27.7 million tonnes grading 2.10 g/t gold) at year end. Underground inferred mineral resources continued to grow in 2024 below and to the west of the open pit, and totalled 3.68 million ounces of gold (59.3 million tonnes grading 1.93 g/t gold) at year end. The preparatory groundwork for the exploration ramp is progressing on schedule. Surface diamond drilling is expected to continue mineral resource conversion in 2025 and the drill program will be augmented by underground drilling from new underground drill stations as they become available
  • Odyssey – Successful exploration over the past year has continued to extend the limits of the East Gouldie inferred mineral resource laterally to the west and to the east. Recent drilling continues to grow mineralization in the recently discovered Eclipse zone, between the East Gouldie deposit and the Odyssey South zone, within close proximity to the planned underground infrastructure. Diamond drilling will continue in 2025 with over 20 drill rigs active on surface and underground to further assess the full potential of the Odyssey mine area and throughout the Canadian Malartic property package. Inferred mineral resources increased by 37% (1.2 million ounces of gold) year over year at the East Gouldie deposit to 4.6 million ounces of gold (61.2 million tonnes grading 2.32 g/t gold). The Odyssey mine now hosts a total of 5.55 million ounces of gold in proven and probable mineral reserves (52.6 million tonnes grading 3.28 g/t gold), 3.2 million ounce of gold in measured and indicated mineral resources (52.9 million tonnes grading 1.90 g/t gold) and 9.7 million ounces of gold in inferred mineral resources (138.8 million tonnes grading 2.18 g/t gold)
  • Wasamac – As part of the "fill-the-mill" strategy at Canadian Malartic, a technical evaluation was completed at Wasamac during the fourth quarter of 2024 that resulted in updated mineral reserves of 1.38 million ounces of gold (14.8 million tonnes grading 2.9 g/t gold) at December 31, 2024. This is the first declaration of mineral reserves by the Company at Wasamac since its acquisition from Yamana Gold Inc. in 2023
  • Hope Bay – Exploration drilling in 2024 totalled more than 119,000 metres and focused mainly on mineral resource expansion and conversion of the Madrid deposit following the strong drilling intercepts obtained at the Patch 7 zone during the fourth quarter of 2023. Results from 2024 are being integrated into the technical evaluation of Hope Bay, which is expected to be completed by year-end 2026. Successful drilling in 2024 following the discovery of high-grade mineralization in the Patch 7 zone has led to a significant increase in indicated mineral resources and inferred mineral resources. An initial indicated mineral resource estimate was declared as at December 31, 2024 for Patch 7 of 0.9 million ounces of gold (4.3 million tonnes grading 6.64 g/t gold) while the inferred mineral resources have grown to 0.8 million ounces of gold (4.4 million tonnes grading 5.40 g/t gold). In 2025 exploration will continue to test the Madrid deposit including the Patch 7 zone to expand and upgrade mineral resources
  • Exploration guidance – In 2025, the Company expects to spend between $290 million and $310 million for capitalized and expensed exploration and between $215 million and $235 million for exploration project expenses, studies and other corporate development expenses. The Company's exploration focus remains on extending mine life at existing operations, testing near-mine opportunities and advancing key value driver projects. Priorities for 2025 include continued drilling of the Detour Lake underground project, assessing the full potential of the Canadian Malartic property, supporting regional synergies in Abitibi and exploring Hope Bay

GOLD MINERAL RESERVES

At December 31, 2024, the Company's proven and probable mineral reserve estimate totalled 54.3 million ounces of gold (1,277 million tonnes grading 1.32 g/t gold). This represents a 0.9% (0.47 million ounce) increase in contained ounces of gold compared to the proven and probable mineral reserve estimate of 53.8 million ounces of gold (1,287 million tonnes grading 1.30 g/t gold) at year-end 2023 (see the Company's news release dated February 15, 2024 for details regarding the Company's December 31, 2023 proven and probable mineral reserve estimate).

The increase in mineral reserves at December 31, 2024 is the result of the replacement of 1.5 million ounces of gold from operating assets. In particular: Fosterville, Macassa (including Amalgamated Kirkland ("AK") and Near Surface), Meliadine, Amaruq and LaRonde achieved a combined average mineral reserve replacement of 70% as a result of successful exploration and conversion drilling.

Some pipeline projects also significantly contributed to the global mineral reserve increase. At Upper Beaver, the completion of a technical evaluation during the fourth quarter of 2024, following the positive preliminary economic assessment completed in June 2024 (see the news release dated July 31, 2024), resulted in new mineral reserves containing a total of 2.77 million ounce of gold. The year-over-year new mineral reserve addition at Upper Beaver represents 1.37 million ounces of gold. At Wasamac, initial mineral reserves of 1.38 million ounces of gold were declared in December 2024. The progress in mineral reserve development at Upper Beaver and Wasamac is the result of efforts by the Company to leverage regional synergies following the recent transactions to consolidate the Kirkland Lake camp and the Malartic camp at Canadian Malartic and advance the "fill-the-mill" strategy.

Mineral reserves were calculated using a gold price of $1,450 per ounce for most operating assets, with exceptions that include: Detour Lake open pit using $1,400 per ounce; Amaruq using $1,650 per ounce; Pinos Altos using $1,800 per ounce; and variable assumptions for some other pipeline projects, including Wasamac using $1,650 per ounce. For detailed mineral reserves and mineral resources ("MRMR") data, including the economic parameters used to estimate the mineral reserves and mineral resources and by-product silver, copper and zinc at mines and advanced projects, see "Detailed Mineral Reserve and Mineral Resource Data (as at December 31, 2024)" and "Assumptions used for the December 31, 2024 mineral reserve and mineral resource estimates reported by the Company" below.

The ore extracted from the Company's mines in 2024 contained 3.78 million ounces of gold in-situ (64.9 million tonnes grading 1.81 g/t gold).

The Company's gold mineral reserves as at December 31, 2024 are set out in the table below, and are compared with the gold mineral reserves as at December 31, 2023. Data in this table and certain other data in this news release have been rounded to the nearest thousand and discrepancies in total amounts are due to rounding.

 
 

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