TORONTO, Oct. 10, 2023 /CNW/ - New Gold Inc. ("New Gold" or the "Company") (TSX: NGD) (NYSE American: NGD) is pleased to provide an update on promising opportunities for mine life extension at New Afton, with the potential to extend the mine life beyond 2030. The Company also reports encouraging drill results and future exploration plans for the K-Zone and AI-Southeast gold-copper zones and presents a regional outlook on exploration initiatives in South-Central British Columbia, with a plan to strategically leverage New Afton's mill and tailings facilities to further extend the mine life.

Highlights

Potential opportunity to extend C-Zone mine life beyond 2030 with minimal capital investment
Encouraging drill results at K-Zone, a new exploration zone located approximately 200 metres east of East Extension, targeting copper-gold porphyry mineralization. New Afton's exploration strategy includes the development of an exploration drift to accelerate K-Zone exploration drilling
Promising drill results at AI-Southeast with intersection of 40 metres (estimated true width) of 0.56 g/t gold and 1.03% copper mineralization within potassic alteration zone. The Company plans to test down-dip continuation utilizing the upcoming K-Zone underground exploration drift in 2024
Launch of New Gold's regional-scale mineral system and machine-learning driven prospectivity mapping of South-Central British Columbia, and greenfield exploration work programs planned for Little Fort copper-gold porphyry property and Meridian orogenic gold project
Strategic Pipeline for Mine Life Extension

The New Afton Mine is well positioned with a current Mineral Reserves life to 2030 and is currently transitioning to a period of production growth and decreasing costs, which is expected to result in strong cash flow generation over the coming years. With C-Zone entering the production ramp-up phase, the Company is focused on unlocking the long-term potential of the mine. Exploration spending has increased over the past few years allowing the Company to develop a pipeline of Mineral Resources and exploration targets, underpinning a strategic outlook for mine life extension.

At December 31, 2022, New Afton's Measured and Indicated Mineral Resources included 66.5 million tonnes at average grades of 0.71% copper and 0.57 g/t gold1. A priority for New Gold is to convert a portion of these Mineral Resources to Mineral Reserves over the next few years.

New Gold is currently evaluating three of the most promising resource zones for potential conversion to Mineral Reserves; C-Zone, East Extension, and D-Zone (Figure 1). Together these zones contain Measured and Indicated Mineral Resources of 418 million pounds of copper and 509,000 ounces of gold and Inferred Mineral Resources of 85 million pounds of copper and 118,000 ounces of gold1.

Figure 1: New Afton Mine long section looking north (mine grid orientation), showing concept areas for resource to reserve conversion (CNW Group/New Gold Inc.)

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