TECK RESOURCES LTD

Exploration & Geoscience

Throughout 2023, we conducted exploration around our existing operations and globally in seven countries through our six regional offices. Expenditures for the year of $86 million, which were focused on copper, zinc and nickel, were lower than expenditures in 2022 of $90 million, primarily due to delays accessing properties to conduct drill programs in Canada, Chile, Peru and Türkiye. These delays were the result of permitting delays as well as additional time taken to negotiate community access agreements.

Exploration and Geoscience plays three critical roles at Teck: discovery of new orebodies through early-stage exploration and acquisition; pursuit, evaluation and acquisition of development opportunities; and delivery of geoscience solutions and services to create value at our existing mines and development projects.

Work continued in 2023 on resource expansion at Quebrada Blanca, where we commenced a large-scale drill program in 2022 to continue to investigate and confirm the extensions of the orebody, which remains open in multiple directions.

Early-stage copper exploration in 2023 focused primarily on advancing projects targeting porphyry-style mineralization in Chile, Peru and the United States, and evaluating new opportunities in South America, Europe, Central Asia and southern Africa. In 2024, we plan to drill a number of early-stage copper projects in Argentina, Chile, Kazakhstan and Peru.

Zinc exploration in 2023 was concentrated on early-stage programs in Australia, Canada, Ireland and Türkiye, and on an advanced-stage project in the Red Dog district in Alaska. In Alaska, Australia and Canada, the targets are large sediment-hosted deposits. In late 2023, the decision was made to terminate our exploration activities in Ireland. In 2024, we plan to continue evaluating early-stage targets on our properties in Australia, Canada and Türkiye, and to continue drilling advanced-stage projects in the Red Dog mine district in Alaska.

In 2023, we initiated early-stage exploration for nickel, with an initial focus on Australia, Canada and the United States. A key element of this program is the complete digitalization of Teck’s historical exploration records — this digitization program will use advanced generative AI tools to drive and inform our evaluation of high-quality nickel prospects, plus copper and zinc prospects, globally. In 2024, work will focus on advancing an exploration alliance in Eastern Canada and evaluating early-stage opportunities in Australia and the United States.

In 2023, we also drilled 86 kilometres across four steelmaking coal operations in the Elk Valley to support our existing operations and extension projects.

Teck’s exploration strategy is underpinned by an agile commercial mindset whereby we manage and refresh a portfolio of commercial opportunities such as retained project royalties and equity in junior exploration companies. In 2023, investments were made in exploration companies with copper portfolios in Canada and Peru, nickel portfolios in Canada, and zinc portfolios in Canada and the United States. Additionally, exploration agreements were signed with exploration companies with projects in Argentina, Australia, Canada, Kazakhstan, Peru and the United States.