#POW Power Metal Resources – UK Government Critical Minerals Strategy Paper

Power Metal Resources plc (LON:POW) the London listed exploration company seeking large-scale metal discoveries across its global project portfolio notes the publication today by the United Kingdom’s Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (the “Government”) released a policy paper entitled “Resilience for the future: The UK’s critical minerals strategy” (“Policy Paper”) which may be viewed below through the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-critical-mineral-strategy/resilience-for-the-future-the-uks-critical-minerals-strategy

The Policy Paper sets out the Government’s strategy and outlines a number of objectives (pages 4-5) as well as a new approach towards critical minerals supply chains of which the following are particularly notable from the Company’s perspective:

–  Champion London as the world’s capital of responsible finance for critical minerals (further information page 30 of the Policy Paper).

–  Support UK companies to participate overseas in diversified responsible and transparent supply chains (page 22).

–  Boost global environmental, social and governance performance (“ESG”), reducing vulnerability to disruption and levelling the playing field for responsible businesses (page 26).

–  A cohort of minerals with high criticality for the UK is outlined which includes cobalt, lithium, rare-earth elements and tungsten as well as the Critical Minerals Expert Committee’s first watchlist which includes Nickel. Power Metal is currently exploring for all of these critical metals within safe, mining-friendly jurisdictions (page 8).

Paul Johnson, Chief Executive Officer of Power Metal Resources plc commented:

“We are encouraged by the Government’s public recognition of the need for a more thought- provoking strategy towards the development of secure critical minerals supply chains.

As a UK listed resource exploration and development company, Power Metal is working across multiple exploration and development projects in North America, Africa and Australia seeking large scale metal discoveries, with a particular focus on district scale opportunities.

We note the inclusion of tungsten within the cohort of minerals with high criticality for the UK (page 8). This aligns with the United States Geological Survey’s inclusion of tungsten on their critical minerals list published in February 2022¹ and further demonstrates the importance of our 83.13% owned subsidiary Golden Metal Resources plc, with its flagship Pilot Mountain Project – focused on the tungsten commodity in mining friendly Nevada, USA.

Golden Metal is in the final preparatory stage of a planned listing on the London capital markets, and we agree that London has the potential to be a major global centre for international resource exploration and development finance. For this reason, Power Metal is planning to list its various resource project packages in London.

The resilience of critical mineral supply chains is becoming an important consideration for many governments around the world. However, as acknowledged in the Policy Paper, there is a need to act responsibly and strongly embedded ESG policies need to be at the forefront of this fundamental shift. Power Metal recognises this and will soon be publishing its ESG Policy which will be applied to all our operations.  The ESG Policy will codify what we are commonly doing in practice today as a responsible organisation and will make further enhancements to our internal ESG mindset, with real qualitative and quantitative ESG targets.”

Note

¹ https://www.usgs.gov/news/national-news-release/us-geological-survey-releases-2022-list-critical-minerals

For further information please visit https://www.powermetalresources.com/ or contact: