Coringa Project Public Hearing and Palito ore sorter commissioning update

/EIN News/ -- For immediate release

            10 February 2020

Serabi Gold plc
(“Serabi” or the “Company”)

Coringa Project Public Hearing and Palito ore sorter commissioning update

Serabi Gold plc (AIM:SRB, TSX:SBI), the Brazilian focused gold exploration and mining company is pleased to announce that the much-awaited Public Hearing for its Coringa Project, successfully took place on 6 February 2020.  In addition, the Company is also pleased to report that commissioning of the newly installed ore sorter at the Palito Complex is now well underway

Coringa Project Public Hearing

The Company is pleased to advise that the Public Hearing for its Coringa Gold Project took place, as planned, in Novo Progresso, Para on Thursday, 6 February 2020.  The meeting had been convened by SEMAS, the state environmental authority for Para and was also attended by representatives from the ANM (the Brazilian national mining authority), SEASTER (State Secretary for Social Assistance, Employment and Income) and SEDEME (State Secretary for Economic Development of Mining and Energy).  The meeting was attended by approximately 600 people and lasted for approximately five hours and passed-off as expected.  The Company believes that the various government bodies, having visited Serabi’s current operations immediately prior to the Public Hearing, formed a positive view of the Company and its proposals for progressing the Coringa Project.

The next steps will be for SEMAS to present a recommendation to the State Environmental Council of Para (“COEMA”), which is the legislative body that will give final approval for the award of the Licençia Previa.  The Company expects that the decision of COEMA will be made within the next two months.

Ore sorter commissioning

Commissioning of the Palito Complex ore sorter is now well underway.  Full-scale trials on the Palito ore have been ongoing since 8 January and representatives from Comex, the manufacturer, have been present on site. The focus has been on passing low grade Palito development ore through the ore sorter, which by its nature is the plant feed that contains most waste rock and is therefore consuming vital plant capacity that could be otherwise used to treat other higher-grade stope ore.  Trials will continue over the next six weeks, including test work on ore from the Sao Chico deposit, which has, to date, not been subject to such intensive testing as the Palito ore.

A video update of the ore sorter in operation can be viewed using the following link:

https://www.brrmedia.co.uk/broadcasts-embed/5e3a8fe1397af40afa52b27e/event/?previewEventId=5e3a8fe1397af40afa52b27e&popup=true

Mike Hodgson, CEO of Serabi, commented:

“After the public concerns and consequent delays that the Brumadinho tailings dam failure brought to many mining companies last year, we are delighted that the Coringa Public Hearing was held on Thursday of last week in Novo Progresso, Para State.  The meeting followed a successful site visit to Serabi’s current operation by the relevant authorities.  The public hearing had originally been scheduled for the first quarter of 2019, but the events at Brumadinho prompted us to review the original plans for dealing with the mine tailings from the Coringa operation, and we concluded that both permitting and funding risks would be greatly diminished if we adopted the technology of using a filtration plant to treat the tailings and then dry stacking the residual material.  We incorporated this change into the Preliminary Economic Assessment that was published in October 2019, together with the updated Environmental Impact Assessment that was submitted to the state environmental authority SEMAS in September 2019.  By switching to this approach, we eliminated the need for a conventional tailings dam altogether.

“I am pleased to report that the five hour long Public Hearing was positive, and the Company feels optimistic, with the comments and concerns of various stakeholders having now been heard, that the various government bodies who will be responsible for granting the Licençia Previa (Preliminary License) left the meeting with a positive view of our plans for Coringa. 

“Moving to operational issues, I was at site at Palito last week and delighted to see our newly installed ore sorter in action.  At Palito we are mining high grade, but narrow orebodies, and despite mining these as selectively as possible, there is still a significant volume of waste rock dilution in the plant feed.  As we are a plant-constrained operation, this creates issues in being able to expand gold production. Working on the principle that “tonnes cost and grade pays”, our focus has been to eliminate the waste from the ore feed before it reaches the milling circuit and the waste that we still cannot practically eliminate through good mining practices can now be significantly reduced through ore sorting. The Palito development ore offers the greatest opportunity and return.  Until now, this development ore has been entering the processing plant as Run of Mine (ROM), consuming vital and critical plant capacity.  Passing this material through the ore sorter first, screens the waste out of this low-grade material and scavenges the ore.  This results in an increase of the feed grade of the ore entering the milling circuit and the rest of the gold recovery plant, whilst also liberating much needed plant capacity, which can be taken up with additional ore feed.  By doing this we believe we can increase the output of the processing plant from the 40,000 ounces that we achieved in 2019 to an annualised rate of over 50,000 ounces.   

The following table summarises the results of the work that we have completed over the past week.  The ore sorter received a total of 1,266 tonnes of ore with an average grade of 1.20 g/t, which was separated into 190 tonnes of ore with an average grade of over 5g/t, with 1,076 tonnes going to waste :

Ore Sorter – Palito	Tonnes	Mass %	Grade Au g/t
Feed	1,266	n.a.	1.20
Product	190	15%	5.17
Waste	1,076	85%	0.50

Serabi Roadshows

Serabi Gold will be attending and presenting at the forthcoming Prospectors & Developers
Association of Canada Convention in Toronto, which is being held between 1 March and 4 March 2020.  The Company’s management will be available at booth IE2533.

This announcement is inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulation 596/2014.

The person who arranged for the release of this announcement on behalf of the Company was Clive Line, Director.

Enquiries:

Serabi Gold plc
Michael Hodgson	Tel: +44 (0)20 7246 6830
Chief Executive	Mobile: +44 (0)7799 473621
Clive Line	Tel: +44 (0)20 7246 6830
Finance Director	Mobile: +44 (0)7710 151692
Email: contact@serabigold.com
Website:  www.serabigold.com
Beaumont Cornish Limited Nominated Adviser and Financial Adviser
Roland Cornish	Tel: +44 (0)20 7628 3396
Michael Cornish	Tel: +44 (0)20 7628 3396
Peel Hunt LLP UK Broker
Ross Allister	Tel: +44 (0)20 7418 8900
James Bavister	Tel: +44 (0)20 7418 8900

Copies of this announcement are available from the Company's website at www.serabigold.com.

Neither the Toronto Stock Exchange, nor any other securities regulatory authority, has approved or disapproved of the contents of this announcement.

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

The following is a glossary of technical terms:

 “Au” means gold.

 “assay” in economic geology, means to analyse the proportions of metal in a rock or overburden sample; to test an ore or mineral for composition, purity, weight or other properties of commercial interest.

“development” - excavations used to establish access to the mineralised rock and other workings

“DNPM” is the Departamento Nacional de Produção Mineral.

“grade” is the concentration of mineral within the host rock typically quoted as grammes per tonne (g/t), parts per million (ppm) or parts per billion (ppb).

“g/t” means grams per tonne.

“granodiorite” is an igneous intrusive rock similar to granite.

“igneous” is a rock that has solidified from molten material or magma.

“Intrusive” is a body of igneous rock that invades older rocks.

“on-lode development” - Development that is undertaken in and following the direction of the Vein

 “mRL” – depth in metres measured relative to a fixed point – in the case of Palito and Sao Chico this is sea-level.  The mine entrance at Palito is at 250mRL.

“saprolite” is a weathered or decomposed clay‐rich rock.

“stoping blocks” – a discrete area of mineralised rock established for planning and scheduling purposes that will be mined using one of the various stoping methods. 

“vein” is a generic term to describe an occurrence of mineralised rock within an area of non-mineralised rock.

Assay Results
The assay results reported in the table within this release are those provided by the Company's own on-site laboratory facilities at Palito and have not been independently verified.  Serabi closely monitors the performance of its own facility against results from independent laboratory analysis for quality control purpose.  As a matter of normal practice the Company sends duplicate samples derived from a variety of the Company's activities to accredited laboratory facilities for independent verification. Based on the results of this work, the Company's management are satisfied that the Company's own facility shows good correlation with independent laboratory facilities. The Company would expect that in the preparation of any future independent Reserve/Resource statement undertaken in compliance with a recognised standard, the independent authors of such a statement would not use Palito assay results but only use assay results reported by an appropriately certificated laboratory.

Qualified Persons Statement
The scientific and technical information contained within this announcement has been reviewed and approved by Michael Hodgson, a Director of the Company. Mr Hodgson is an Economic Geologist by training with over 26 years' experience in the mining industry. He holds a BSc (Hons) Geology, University of London, a MSc Mining Geology, University of Leicester and is a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining and a Chartered Engineer of the Engineering Council of UK, recognising him as both a Qualified Person for the purposes of Canadian National Instrument 43-101 and by the AIM Guidance Note on Mining and Oil & Gas Companies dated June 2009.

Forward Looking Statements
Certain statements in this announcement are, or may be deemed to be, forward looking statements. Forward looking statements are identified by their use of terms and phrases such as ‘‘believe’’, ‘‘could’’, “should” ‘‘envisage’’, ‘‘estimate’’, ‘‘intend’’, ‘‘may’’, ‘‘plan’’, ‘‘will’’ or the negative of those, variations or comparable expressions, including references to assumptions. These forward looking statements are not based on historical facts but rather on the Directors’ current expectations and assumptions regarding the Company’s future growth, results of operations, performance, future capital and other expenditures (including the amount, nature and sources of funding thereof), competitive advantages, business prospects and opportunities. Such forward looking statements reflect the Directors’ current beliefs and assumptions and are based on information currently available to the Directors. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward looking statements including risks associated with vulnerability to general economic and business conditions, competition, environmental and other regulatory changes, actions by governmental authorities, the availability of capital markets, reliance on key personnel, uninsured and underinsured losses and other factors, many of which are beyond the control of the Company. Although any forward looking statements contained in this announcement are based upon what the Directors believe to be reasonable assumptions, the Company cannot assure investors that actual results will be consistent with such forward looking statements.

ENDS