Blencowe Resources #BRES – Approach from Potential Strategic Party in China

Blencowe Resources Plc (“Blencowe Resources” or the “Company”) (LSE: BRES) is pleased to announce it has received an approach from a group in China that has the potential to ultimately provide an offtake, funding and development scenario for its 100% owned Orom-Cross graphite project in Uganda.

Highlights:

• Approach received from a strategic party in China with extensive experience in graphite.
• Potential to provide offtake contracts and project funding solution for Orom-Cross.
• Additional bulk samples to be delivered to China for further off-site testing.
• Pilot plant strategy in Uganda suspended, removing material near-term capital requirement.
• End-product samples as 96% LOI concentrate to be shipped to Chinese and European firms for trials to lift to 99.9995% LOI product for batteries.
• Technical Data Sheets sent to prospective end users to confirm interest and support for Orom-Cross concentrates. Feedback, interest and discussions already underway.

Based on these discussions, the Company has agreed to send a bulk sample of ~100 tonnes from Orom-Cross to China as soon as possible to enable further metallurgical test work to be undertaken by the potential strategic party.  This is subject to the Company receiving necessary permits to move this raw material from Uganda, which are being sought immediately.

Blencowe has already been able to share significant data with the potential strategic party having previouslycompleted two stages of bench scale metallurgical testing with SGS in Canada (30kgs) and more recently a further round of testing via a small pilot plant (130kgs) in Perth, Australia.  This next-level proposed test in China, using their existing infrastructure and experience, would be done on a considerably larger scale which will give all parties more knowledge of the end product that can be produced in an enlarged scenario from Orom-Cross.  It is hoped that this program will initially lead to non-binding MOUs for offtake, and ultimately to binding sale agreements for a substantial portion of the initial 50,000tpa product to be produced from stage one within Orom-Cross. There may also be potential for EPC and funding contracts emanating from this relationship, potentially providing a solution to the CAPEX requirement to production.

Given this interest out of China and the relatively short period to complete this test work over the next 6-9 months the Company has taken the decision to postpone its plans to build an on-site pilot plant facility of 2,000tpa at Orom-Cross. Binding offtake contracts to purchase Orom-Cross graphite would likely remove the need for a pilot plant, as the principal rationale for its implementation was to provide product to would-be offtakers to enable them to assess its viability for their own uses. A direct impact of this decision is that there is no longer a requirement to raise substantial cash (circa US$10M) in the near term via the equity markets to fund the on-site pilot plant.

The Company will continue to keep the market informed of progress on these discussions, as well as further key milestones achieved from the ongoing DFS (please see RNS of 26 September 2022 for further information).

Cameron Pearce, Executive Chairman commented;

“China is currently the most mature graphite market worldwide and entering into an offtake relationship there would be very valuable to us given the highly attractive economics at Orom-Cross, which already has an NPV8 of US$482M based on a 14-year mine life from just 2% of our broader graphite resource as currently drilled out. 

We believe this bulk sample trial will prove highly significant and is potentially a precursor to a full offtake agreement and subsequent project funding, which in turn would enable us to kick start production with a critical mass of product sold to drive profitability and cash flow”.

The graphite market is evolving very quickly and we will see a lot of change ahead as the world drives towards 100 million expected electric vehicles by 2030. The Chinese market remains the largest by far, and will remain so for some time. Establishing a strong and commercial relationship with Chinese partners is therefore decisive and is a natural progression for the Company. Given this positive development we have elected to postpone any decision on a pilot plant on-site until these trials and discussions have reached a conclusion as it is expected a positive result will remove the need for a pilot plant, with the project instead moving straight into full development.  This decision will not only save us considerable cash outlay right now, but potentially expedite the development of Orom-Cross.”

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Background

Orom-Cross Graphite Project

Orom-Cross is a potential world class graphite project both by size and end-product quality, with a high component of more valuable larger coarse flakes within the deposit.

A 21-year Mining Licence for the project was issued by the Ugandan Government in 2019 following extensive historical work on the deposit and Blencowe is now moving into the Definitive Feasibility Study phase as it drives towards first production.

Orom-Cross presents as a large, shallow open-pitable deposit, with a maiden JORC Indicated & Inferred Mineral Resource deposit of 24.5Mt @ 6.0% Total Graphite Content. Development of the resource is expected to benefit from a low strip ratio and free dig operations, thereby ensuring lower operating and capital costs.