EMEX Receive copper, gold & cobalt assay results from prospecting at the Kelchalpe project in Tirol, Austria

Tuesday 7^th November 2023

Ekometall Group Ltd., through its wholly owned Austrian subsidiary Ekometall Exploration GmbH. (EMEX), have received laboratory results from prospecting survey work at its 100% owned Kelchalpe licence area in Tirol, Austria.

Following reconnaissance mapping of the area, 22 rock samples were analysed by ALS in Romania with a 12-day turnaround using ALS methods Au-AA25 fire assay with AAS finish for gold, ME-ICP61 acid digest with ICP-AES finish for a 33-element suite including base metals, and CU-OG62 acid digest with ICP-AES finish for ore grade copper (>1% Cu).

Copper and Gold

The initial results confirm the presence of copper and gold within the mining waste stockpiles and surrounding exposures of the mine. The highest overall result was from float sample EXR0122 which returned 3.52% Cu & 0.2g/t Au. The average copper grade of all analysed samples was 0.8% and the average gold grade was 0.1g/t and 11/22 samples returned >0.5% Cu.

The maps below show selected copper results overlaid onto LiDAR projected models of the historic mine workings at Kelchalpe & Wildalm.

The reported sample grades are higher than those found in the historic literature and were sampled from mining waste, so they loosely support our hypothesis that higher-grade economic zones of Cu-Au exist within the mine which have not yet been exploited or studied fully.

Cobalt

Several samples contained visible secondary cobalt mineralisation with grades of up to 0.15%. As shown in the sample photo below, the primary observed mineral was pink-beige Erythrite, which is often a secondary weathering product of more common cobalt minerals, which we now assume are present surrounding the primary Cu-Au system.

Cobalt mineralisation has never been reported or studied in this area or the regional geological system before and further mapping and field sampling will be conducted to better understand the relationships between Cu, Co & Au in early 2024.

Ekometall Exploration GmbH. Geschäftsführer Severina Ditzov commented:
Cobalt & copper are both essential critical metals in the ‘green transition’ for which Europe does not have a secured supply chain. Identifying more economically viable targets here in Tirol strengthens the case for Austria to become the leading force in Europe’s ‘resource revolution’, supplying environmentally & socially sustainable minerals to the region’s energy, automotive and infrastructure sectors.

Ekometall Group Ltd. CEO Liam Hardy commented:
Our 2023 program was the first systematic regional scale exploration campaign in Austria within living memory and this new set of results from Wildalm demonstrates exactly the kind of opportunity we came here for. In one short recon trip our team found higher grades of copper in waste dumps than were historically reported and added gold & cobalt potential to the project’s rosta.

By combining historic mining data, modern satellite technology and targeted field work we are finding stunning new mineralised targets on every trip to the mountains. EMEX have the right rocks, we have the right team and we are very excited to see what Kelchalpe presents to us when we begin underground sampling and mapping of the ore body as part of our 2024 program.

About the Kelchalpe Project

The Kelchalpe-Kupferplatte deposit presents one of Austria’s most significant copper exploration areas with over 4000 years of mining history and almost continuous production up until the 1970s. In 2023, EMEX doubled its land position here to cover newly identified areas of potential interest and secure the entire accessible district.

The project is only 12km north of the Wolfram-Sandvik operated Mittersill tungsten mine (the world’s second biggest underground tungsten mine) and has excellent existing infrastructure (road, rail & power) nearby.

The key target within the Kelchalpe, ‘Wildalm’, is situated within the municipality of Aurach, on the right slope of the Wieseneggbach valley. Mineralised strike extends below the range of hills located between Laubkogel (1760 meters) and the southern Saalkogel (2007 meters).
The deposit is part of a 3km Fe-carbonate mineral system range that extends from the Kelchalpe, across the Bachalpe, to the Wildalpe, which is all contained within EMEX’s current licence claims.

Technical notes on Geochemical analysis

While a certified analysis by ALS Romania gives confidence in the geochemistry of our samples, and while Ekometall Exploration GmbH. follow best practice operating procedures in the field and during sample preparation, there will always be a limited potential for human, contamination, or data processing errors to occur. Be aware that although these results are considered reliable by our team at this stage of our work, they should not be considered 100% conclusive, or suggestive of any future deposit scale, grade, continuity or valuation.

ALS Romania utilised blanks, certified reference materials, and duplications to ensure their confidence in this data. The full method, from sampling through to receipt of results, is available on request. Should you have any questions about our compliance procedures and sampling methodology, please email the company at Servus@emexploration.at or for independent reporting information, please email Rowan Thorne of Prospex Consulting Ltd. at Rowan@prospexconsulting.com

‘Outcrop’ samples are used with confidence to directly update our workroom and understand our mineralised systems. ‘Float’ results are not included in our overall deposit models and are instead used as a tool to vector our exploration efforts towards areas of metalliferous bedrock, especially in areas where physical outcrop is limited. All samples were also taken in duplicate. Before sending samples to the laboratory, they were scrubbed and rinsed in clean water and air dried.

In this phase of work, all samples are assumed to carry a sampling bias towards the selection mineralised rocks from both float, mine waste and outcrop for analysis. As such these results may not be representative of any wider mineralised system. What they do confirm is that copper and gold samples exist at economic grades within the Kelchalpe district and merit further investigation by our team.

Technical notes from this sampling program

Grab sampling is a common early-stage method of prospecting for metals. Our geologists covered a large area of ground across the region and collected rock samples from, at and around outcrops and historically noted targets and mines.

Our team labelled all samples while collecting as either ‘outcrop’ (also known as ‘rock-chip’ sampling) when they were taken directly from exposed bedrock, or ‘float’ (also known as ‘Boulder’ Sampling’) when they were taken from mine adits, waste dumps, streams, glacial depositional areas, but not from around recent man-made features (roads, buildings, stone walls, etc.) which could have been brought from elsewhere for construction.

Results in this table are reported in PPM, except where otherwise labelled ‘%’. Please refer to this news release’s ‘technical notes’ regarding the collection and analysis of these samples. W, Cd, Bi, U, Th & Be were also analysed, but reported below detection/negligible results for all samples and were thus excluded from this table.
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