Steppe Gold Ltd. announced an updated life of mine ("LOM") for the 100% owned ATO Gold Project in Mongolia, comprising a further 1.5 years at the fresh rock expansion ("Phase 2 Expansion"), for a 12 year aggregate mine life. The results reinforce the Company's current Phase 2 Expansion plans with construction already underway, and existing permitting and infrastructure in place. The Phase 2 Expansion is scheduled to start with first concentrates in First Quarter 2025.

The LOM plan includes the ongoing oxide operations which has a further three years to run, for a total of 14 years of mine life, from January 1, 2023. To further enhance the Phase 2 Expansion, The company is working on connecting to grid power, reducing construction and engineering costs, and continuing exploration to support future resources. The company is confident that the ATO Mine will provide significant value to all stakeholders, with an estimated total gross revenue of $2.2 billion over the next 14 years, including the remaining oxide phase, and operating cash flows after stream obligations of $768 million.

ATO Mine Mineral Reserves and Resources: As at August 27, 2022, the ATO gold deposit contains combined proven and probable mineral reserves totaling 29.1 million tonnes ("Mt") at 1.13 g/t gold and 12.43 g/t silver, containing 1.1 million ounces of gold and 11.7 million ounces of silver. The reserves have been classified as approximately 59% proven and 41% probable on a tonnage basis. The mineral reserve within the 2022 reserve pit shell was based on a AuEq cut-off grade of 0.43 g/t AuEq for Fresh material and 0.40 g/t AuEq for Oxide material and revenue of $1,700 per ounce gold, $20 per ounce of silver, zinc price of $2,500/t and lead price of $1,970/t. as the price assumptions.

ATO Project LOM The conversion of the Mineral Resource estimate to a Mineral Reserve estimate followed a conventional approach commencing with determination of the economic pit limits using the Deswik Pseudo Flow optimization software. The approach used to identify the final economic pit limits for ATO was: apply A ROM marginal break-even cut-off grade calculation based on the latest revenue assumptions, cost estimation and metallurgical recoveries determined the economic marginal cut-off of to be 0.40 g/t AuEq for Fresh material and 0.43 g/t AuEq for Oxide material; identify any physical constraints to mining, for example, tenement boundaries, infrastructure, protected zones (flora, rivers, roads and road easements); define mining and processing costs as well as selling prices and costs; define the mining loss and dilution; define processing recoveries for Oxide and Fresh ore (includes beneficiation recoveries as well as leach recoveries); define the pit slope design parameters for each mining area and material type; import all above parameters, including geological model into the pit optimisation software; run pit optimization software to produce a series of nested pit shells at increasing product selling prices; and analyse results and select a preferred pit shell for each mining area for guidance in the pit designing process. The selected ultimate pit outlines (shells) were used to create practical and detailed open pit designs accounting for the siting of in-pit ramps, berms, pumps, and haul roads.

These pit designs then provided the bench-by-bench ore and waste mining inventories for the detailed production schedule that demonstrates viable open pit mining and provides the physical basis for cash flow modelling.