Kharmagtai Water Supply Drilling Program Recommences - Seite 2

The overall program is designed to meet Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) confidence requirements under both the Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves (JORC Code, 2012) and the NI 43-101 Standards for Disclosure for Mineral Projects. SRK Consulting are providing technical oversight.

The Kharmagtai PFS seeks to maximise water recycling through the use of industry best practices including efficient process design, modern tailings dam design and thickened tailings to reduce water loss. The study has benchmarked against similar operations, including other large operations in the South Gobi, and estimates a make-up water requirement of approximately 200 litres per second for a process rate of 15Mpta. This corresponds to Stage 1 in Kharmagtai the Scoping Study / PEA¹ which includes full payback of establishment capital for the project. The Kharmagtai PFS envisages a Stage 1 process rate of 20-26Mtpa using a 2 x 20MW SABC circuit, with Stage 2 following capital payback expanding by 1x or 2x 20MW SABC circuit(s).

The Kharmagtai study is designing for growth up to 40Mtpa processing throughput for Stage 2 expansion; the water resource we are drilling is expected to make sufficient inroads towards meeting this elevated requirement to a PFS standard.

2024 Drilling Program
Drilling and other field work will be conducted in the Zagiin Usnii Khudag (ZUK) basin and designed to upgrade and expand the existing ZUK reserve to meet project water requirements to PFS level confidence. The ZUK basin covers approximately 223 square kilometres, and at its nearest point is approximately 6km northeast from the current Kharmagtai exploration camp.

The planned 2024 program includes 3,700m of drilling to deliver 18 observation bores and 1,350m of drilling to deliver 4 production bores used in pump testing (see Figure 1). Bores will range from 60m to 450m in depth. The order of monitoring bore drilling will change as the field program progresses, including progress of production bore drilling.

The planned 2024 field work program comprises two drilling, installation, and testing components to be carried out in parallel:

• Monitoring piezometer installations and testing in monitoring bores.
• Production bore installation and testing.

Permeability will be tested during the drilling of monitoring bores using a combination of airlift tests, falling head tests and shut-in pressure tests. A final permeability test will be conducted on each hole using the installed monitoring piezometer.