Ivanhoe Electric Inc.

The Santa Cruz Copper Project is an undeveloped greenfield project where Mineral Reserves have been identified for two deposits: Santa Cruz and East Ridge.

The Santa Cruz deposit is located approximately 480 to 940 m below the surface. Based on the mineralization's geometry and supporting geotechnical data, transverse underground longhole stoping has been selected as the most suitable mining method. Mining will be conducted in blocks, with ore being extracted from the bottom upward within each block while utilizing paste backfill to provide ground support. A sill pillar will be maintained between the blocks. The paste backfill is designed to be strong enough to allow adjacent filled stopes to be mined without requiring additional pillars.

The stopes for the Santa Cruz deposit will have varying widths of 12 to 18 m and lengths ranging from 10 to 17 m, depending on the geotechnical domain, zone, and mining sequence (primary or secondary). The levels in the mine are spaced 30 m apart. The Verde zone is a subdomain within the Santa Cruz deposit, and the production stopes in this area will be accessed from the Santa Cruz mine levels, featuring standard dimensions of 20 m (height) x 15 m (width) x 20 m (length).

The East Ridge deposit is situated to the north of the main Santa Cruz deposit, approximately 310 to 790 m below the surface. It consists of multiple tabular lenses and will be mined using a hybrid approach that combines longhole stoping and the drift-and-fill method, depending on the geometry of the orebody in each zone. At East Ridge, longhole stopes will measure 15 m (height) x 10 m (width) x 8 m (length), accessed via longitudinal entries. For zones using the drift-and-fill method, the drifts will have dimensions of 5 m (height) x 5 m (width), with variable lengths determined by the local rock mass condition. Mining will begin with a drift sized at 5 m (height) x 5 m (width), followed by paste backfill and curing before the development of the next adjacent drift in the orebody.

Mine access will be provided through a single tunnel boring machine (“TBM”) decline from the surface. Ore will be transported from the stopes by load-haul-dump (“LHD”) equipment to an orepass system, which will transfer the ore from a chute to a conveyor system. The conveyor system will transfer the material to surface. Main intake and exhaust raises will be developed to ensure the mine workings are adequately ventilated. The combined production target for the Santa Cruz and East Ridge deposits is approximately 20,000 t/d at peak production and approximately 14,000 t/d life of mine (“LOM”).

The Santa Cruz Copper Project encompasses three mining zones: Santa Cruz, Verde, and East Ridge. The Santa Cruz zone is the primary production area and is structurally divided into northern and southern regions.