Black Iron Progresses Offtake Discussions and Updates PEA

TORONTO, March 02, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Black Iron Inc. (“Black Iron” or the “Company”) (TSX: BKI; OTC: BKIRF; FWB:BIN) management continue to make very positive progress in discussions with steel mills and global commodity trading companies that are showing strong interest to fund a meaningful amount of the expected US$452 million required to construct phase 1 of its Shymanivske iron ore project (the “Project”) in exchange for securing offtake rights. The offtake rights entail purchasing up to the full four (4) million tonnes per annum of ultra high grade 68% iron ore planned to be produced in phase 1 at a slight discount to the daily traded benchmark iron ore price, and an equity ownership stake in the Company. 

A number of the offtake groups have started discussing and proposing commercial terms and structure for a potential investment, while others continue to do deep analysis and due diligence, including asking for follow up site visits to the Project. While several of these groups are based outside of Asia, there are potential offtake and construction investors based in Asia. Due to the coronavirus outbreak, travel to and from Asia has been limited and thus some of these potential offtake groups have been unable to schedule a site visit at this time. Black Iron’s management are highly focused on securing the best deal for shareholders, which entails obtaining the largest amount of investment to fund Project construction for the lowest amount of offtake price discount and Black Iron equity.

As part of the detailed due diligence questions from potential offtake investors, Black Iron has amended the 2017 Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) mine model from its National Instrument 43-101 (“NI 43-101”) Technical Report entitled “Preliminary Economic Assessment of the Re-scoped Shymanivske Iron Ore Deposit" effective November 21, 2017 (the “2017 PEA”). The update in the mine model has resulted in a slightly revised mine life and strip ratio (amount of waste mined per tonne of mineralized material). This has very little impact on the projected Project economics as seen in the summary table below showing results from the amended PEA in which all figures are reported in United States dollars.