Canadian company discovers more high-quality gold in Serbia – Mine to open as soon as 2028?

The Canadian company Dundee Precious Metals (DPM) announced this week that it had made high-grade copper and gold discoveries in new locations, near its Čoka Rakita project in the Žagubica area.

It reported results from drilling at the high-grade copper-gold Dumitru Potok and Frasen prospects, located approximately one kilometer north of the Čoka Rakita project: 63 meters at 1.74% copper, 2.18 g/t of gold and 9.04 g/t of silver.

The press release says that the next steps entail continued drilling program to pursue additional potential skarn and manto-like stratabound targets through scout and target delineation drilling campaigns on the Čoka Rakita, Potaj Čuka and Pešter Jug licenses.

– We are excited by the exploration potential of the high-grade copper-gold Dumitru Potok and Frasen discoveries – David Rae, President and Chief Executive Officer of Dundee Precious Metals, said and added:

– These new results highlight the high-grade nature of what we are seeing from our exploration activities and confirm the large-scale potential for further high-grade copper-gold mineralization at Čoka Rakita and the surrounding licenses.

In December last year, the Canadian company announced the initial estimate of mineral resources of as much as 1.78 million ounces of gold (slightly over 50 tons).

Preliminary economic assessment shows cost-effectiveness of mine opening

Even before these new discoveries, the preliminary economic assessment showed that the opening of a mine in Čoka Rakita would be cost-effective for the company.

In May, the Canadian company announced the preliminary economic assessment for its Čoka Rakita project. As said, the PEA supports an underground mining operation with an 850,000 ton per annum processing facility and an initial 10-year mine-life. The mine would produce 129,000 ounces of gold a year.

The estimated after-tax net present value, with a 5% discount, amounts to USD 588 million with an internal rate of return of 33%. The net present value is the estimated current value of the future revenues minus the costs that arise throughout the mine’s life-cycle. The estimate shows that opening a mine in Čoka Rakita is cost-effective for the company.

The preliminary economic assessment assumes start of construction in mid-2026 with first production of concentrate targeted for the first half of 2028. The initial project capital costs are expected to be approximately USD 381 million.

DPM’s stock skyrockets this year

DPM’s stocks are traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange. According to the data from the Bloomberg Terminal, the price of DPM’s stock has been rising in the past year, especially since the discovery of high-grade gold and copper in Čoka Rakita, the preliminary economic assessment and the new discoveries near Čoka Rakita this Wednesday.

On Friday, the price of gold reached a record level. The price of gold increased on Friday by 0.5% to RSD 2,570 per ounce, so it is on its way of recording a weekly gain of nearly 3%.

DPM and Čoka Rakita

DPM is a Canada-based international gold-mining company, which buys, explores, develops, mines and processes precious metals. It is carrying out projects in Ecuador, Bulgaria and Serbia.

The company has been present in Serbia since 2004. As the Ministry of Mining and Energy of Serbia told Bloomberg Adria earlier, the company has their permit for explorations in the territories of Petrovac na Mlavi, Bor and Majdanpek.

Čoka Rakita is located in the municipality of Žagubica, around three kilometers southeast of the Timok gold project, which also belongs to this Canadian company, and where explorations were put on hold by the company following the discovery in Čoka Rakita.

A large gold site was discovered in that area at the end of 2022.

DPM Avala doo Beograd

Dundee Precious Metal

DPM

David Rae

Čoka Rakita

Dumitru Potoko

Fransen

Potaj Čuka

Pešter Jug

Žagubica good sites

Žagubica copper sites

estimate of mineral resources in Žagubica

opening of mine in Žagubica

mine Žagubica

DPM stock

gold mining

mining of precious metals