Ascendant Resources Inc. announced exceptional results of its maiden Preliminary Economic Assessment (“PEA”) for the Lagoa Salgada VMS project located on the Iberian Pyrite Belt (“IPB”) in Portugal. The PEA is based upon the Company’s current Mineral Resource Estimate for the North Zone reported in the recently released National Instrument 43-101 Technical Report with an effective date of September 5, 2019, and demonstrates the potential viability of mining the Measured, Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resources of the North Zone only. It outlines a robust and compelling economic assessment for Lagoa Salgada as it assumes a two-stage underground mining development scenario, with single trackless ramp access, transverse sub-level open stoping method with pastefill. Ventilation and secondary escape ways are planned through raise-bored holes to surface. Milling rates of 2,700 tonnes per day in a standard process circuit is anticipated, with primary crushing, grinding, flotation and leaching of tailings to produce concentrates including lead, zinc, copper and tin, as well as gold and silver doré. There is ample opportunity for extensive expansion from future exploration work to define additional resources to extend the mine life or increase the scale of the outlined operation. This maiden PEA provides an initial economic assessment for the Lagoa Salgada project in the North Zone only. The Company intends to expand the current PEA with additional exploration work in the North Zone in 2020. While the North Zone currently demonstrates a robust standalone mining scenario, there remains much room for additional resource growth and a potential operational scale increase, as the deposit remains open along strike and at depth. The Central and South Zones, excluded from the PEA, remain a highly prospective source for future resource growth, as very limited drilling has been performed to date, yet these zones have already achieved a significant resource-to-drilling ratio with the identification of high-grade copper-rich massive sulphide mineralization, warranting further follow-up drilling. Results from the PEA supports the Company’s investment thesis for acquiring the Lagoa Salgada project as it demonstrates a long-term, economically viable project with the potential to generate significant increased value and is demonstrating the characteristics of a high-quality asset. With historic exploration work indicating low-risk, near-term growth potential, the Company is confident in the ability to improve the economics of this initial PEA through resource growth, optimization and improved recoveries with additional metallurgical work. The Company will perform additional metallurgical testing in parallel with its future exploration and development programs. Mining: The mine design is based on a single decline access from surface at a 12.6% gradient. Decline access is via a 30-meter deep boxcut. Stopes are accessed from level access drives in the north and the south of the deposit. Interlevel spacing varies between 24 meters and 35 meters. All mineralized material and waste development is mined with a 4.5 meter by 4.5 meter end profile. Ore and waste will be hauled to surface using 30 tonne trucks. The deposit is planned to be mined using transverse sub-level open stoping with pastefill at a production rate of approximately 1 Mtpa. Crosscuts will access the deposit with drives developed laterally across the mineralization. Drives in mineralization will be placed 12.5 meters apart along strike, with stopes approximately 25 meters to 35 meters high, 12.5 meters wide and 25 meters in length. Stope heights in the Gossan tend to be generally less, approximately 20 meters high. A slot will be cut at the end of the mineralization and consecutive rings blasted in a retreating fashion over the full stope length back to the crosscut. Uphole drill rings from the existing drives in the Massive Sulphide will be drilled to extract the mineralization from the overlying Gossan deposit. Ventilation and escape raises will be raise-bored from surface. The mine life of 9 years is based on a 2,700 tonne per day mining rate. Mine life is based on average head grades of 2.44% Zn, 2.85% Pb, 0.34% Cu, 0.16% Sn, 0.75 g/t Au, 69.8 g/t Ag. Unplanned dilution due to the extraction of the stope was assumed to be 8% for the Gossan zone and 5% for the Massive Sulphide zone. Mining recovery of 90% was assumed for the Gossan and 93% for the Massive Sulphide. Approximately 55% of tailings (up to 540,000 tpa at a dry bulk density of 1.4) will be placed underground as paste fill to meet an annual demand of 400,000 m3 of void and the remaining tailings placed in the dry stack TSF. The paste plant will have an annual utilisation of just below 50% for the mine the balance being taken up in producing paste for the dry stacked tailings. Paste fill will be transported underground using a combination of pumping and gravity via boreholes and high-pressure pipelines to the stopes. Metallurgy and Processing: The company has completed initial scoping level metallurgical study with Empresa de Perfuração e Desenvolvimento Mineiro, S.A. (EPDM), Portugal, Grinding Solutions Ltd. (GSL), UK, and Wardell Armstrong (WAI), UK in 2019. These non-optimized results indicated that conventional polymetallic process flowsheet is capable of recovering copper, lead, zinc, gold and silver. The flotation tailings will be leached for additional gold and silver values. The oxide ore can be leached to recover precious metals. The leach residue can be sulphidized to recover oxide lead. The final tailing has sufficient tin values and can be recovered by flotation. The projected recoveries and concentrate grades in the table below are estimated for the project based on extensive experience working with polymetallic ores. Additional testing is planned to confirm the concentrate recoveries and grades.