Tanzanian Royalty Exploration Corporation

Buckreef Gold Mine Pours Gold

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Feb. 8, 2016) - Tanzanian Royalty Exploration Corporation (TSX:TNX)(NYSE MKT:TRX) (the "Company") is pleased to announce that its 55% owned Buckreef Re-Development Gold Project ("the Project") in the Republic of Tanzania has successfully completed its first gold pour.

Key Highlights Include:

Gold Pour. First gold has been poured from the pilot Carbon-in-Column process plant at the Project. The timing and amount of the pour of gold was not a decision of management but was done in response to a request made by the Deputy Minister of Energy and Minerals of Tanzania. As a show of reasonable willingness to cooperate on this non-contract item, we did what we preferred not to do - pour prematurely to proper market price. It is the opinion of management that in time the gold price will rise to at least $800 higher than it was at the time of the pour.

Plant construction/commissioning. The pilot CIC process plant is in the process of being de-commissioned and assimilated into a more flexible CIL process plant designed with an initial through put of 45,000 tonnes of mineralized material per month. The Company is in the process of completing a Feasibility Study (FS) with a view to targeting full-scale commercial gold production starting in the second half of this year. .

Civil Works. All civil works and steel erection site plans of the Buckreef Gold Mine CIL Plant Site have now been completed. Phase one of the Tailings Storage Facility ("TSF") penstock line will utilize the existing pilot heap leap pads that have sufficient storage for 18 months of operations. Work on actual construction of the CIL plant is scheduled to resume on phase two after the wet season.

Commenting on the Buckreef Gold Project's gold pour, James Sinclair, President and Chief Executive Officer of Tanzanian Royalty Exploration Corporation, said: "This is a significant milestone for Buckreef Gold Mine, the Company and the Republic of Tanzania as a whole, and is a culmination of a tremendous amount of hard work by the Company's employees and contractors through what have often been difficult and adverse conditions."

A photo gallery of the first gold pour at Buckreef Gold Mine is available below: (http://www.tanzanianroyalty.com/operational-updates/)

Other Highlights:

• Five major mineralized zones identified with as significant resource identified. According to the most recent 43-101 Technical Report Measured and Indicated Resources amount to 60 million tonnes @ 1.26 g/t Au which contain approximately 2.4 million ounces of gold. There are also several Exploration Targets which have some resources in the Inferred Resources category and some resources not yet classified which could amount to approximately 25 to 35 million tonnes at approximately 1.08 to 1.20 g/t Au that could contain approximately 800 thousand to 1.0 million ounces of gold. As the 43-101 Report notes, these Exploration Targets require additional drilling to upgrade resources to the Measured and Indicated categories. The potential quantity and grade is conceptual in nature, there has been insufficient exploration to define a mineral resource and it is uncertain if further exploration will result in the target being delineated as a mineral resource.