Jaguar Mineral Resource Soars To 108.0mt @ 0.87% Ni For 938,500 Tonnes Of Contained Nickel Metal

Centaurus Metals (ASX Code: CTM, OTCQX: CTTZF) is pleased to announce a significant increase in both the size and confidence levels of the Mineral Resource for its flagship 100%-owned Jaguar Nickel Sulphide Project in northern Brazil, cementing its position as a Tier-1 global nickel sulphide development project with class-leading GHG emission credentials.

 
• Updated JORC 2012 Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) confirms Jaguar as one of the world’s premier near- surface nickel sulphide development projects, with the Jaguar Global MRE growing to now contain an estimated (see Table 1):

GLOBAL: 108.0Mt @ 0.87% Ni for 938,500 tonnes of contained nickel

• Importantly, the Measured and Indicated component of the Global MRE has increased by over 100% to:

MEASURED & INDICATED: 85.8Mt @ 0.85% Ni for 730,300 tonnes of contained nickel

• The Jaguar deposits start at surface with more than 500kt of nickel metal in the Measured and Indicated Resources categories lying within 200m of surface, making Jaguar an exceptional shallow, high-grade nickel sulphide growth and development opportunity – unique in the global landscape.
• Conversion of the Measured & Indicated Resources to Ore Reserves as part of the DFS is expected to be strong, which provides the opportunity to significantly increase the Project’s scale and mine life from the currently scoped 20,000ktpa of nickel-in-sulphate for 13 years¹.
• The high-grade component, which is estimated using a 1.0% nickel cut-off grade across the total MRE, continues to increase, with around 30% of the high-grade material located within 100m of surface. This will provide the opportunity for high nickel head grades during the project pay-back period:

HIGH-GRADE: 28.6Mt @ 1.51% Ni for 431,800 tonnes of contained nickel

• Recent drill assays from step-out drilling included 42.5m at 1.01% Ni from 496.0m (Hole JAG-DD-22-455) at Jaguar South while in-fill drilling delivered a very high-grade intersection of 4.0m @ 9.22% Ni from 12 metres (Hole JAG-DD-22-384) at Jaguar North.
• The mineralisation remains open both at depth and locally along plunge and strike, with significant potential to continue to grow the MRE.
• The Company is well funded with $47 million cash and no debt (September 2022).

Importantly, the success of the in-fill resource development program completed over the last 12 months has resulted in a 100% increase in the Measured & Indicated component of the Resource to 85.8Mt @ 0.85% Ni for 730,300 tonnes of contained nickel, representing more than 75% of the Global MRE. The Measured and Indicated component of the MRE is set to underpin the Company’s maiden Ore Reserve Estimate and Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) due for completion in mid-2023.

The global MRE at Jaguar has increased by 28% since the previous Resource Estimate that was announced in December 2021 and + 80% since the Company’s maiden Resource was announced in June 2020 (Figure 1).

Centaurus’ Managing Director, Mr Darren Gordon, said the strength of the resource upgrade represented an exceptional outcome and marked a pivotal milestone in the rapid evolution of the Jaguar Project to become one of the world’s premier nickel sulphide development projects with class-leading ESG credentials.

“Delivering another major step-up in the global MRE, including a more than 100% increase in the higher-confidence Measured and Indicated categories to over 730kt of contained nickel, is a fantastic achievement by the entire Centaurus team, and marks the culmination of a huge effort over the past 12 months.

“Importantly more than 600kt nickel metal in the Measured and Indicated categories sit within a US$22,000/t Ni pit shell and as such we expect to see a strong conversion of the Measured and Indicated Resource to Ore Reserves to underpin the DFS that is set for delivery mid-2023.

“This provides a great platform for Jaguar to produce +20,000t of nickel in sulphate per annum for 20 plus years, setting Centaurus on the path to become a top-10 nickel sulphide miner globally.

“It is clear to us that the demand for nickel sulphate is growing rapidly as auto-makers increasingly focus on where they are going to source their Class-1 nickel from and what the emissions footprint looks like for the nickel that is essential to their EV roll-out.

“We are extremely confident that Jaguar can deliver nickel with class-leading ESG credentials, including very low levels of GHG emissions, as a result of the relatively high-grade nature of the ore, the fact that 80% of the power in Brazil is generated from renewable sources and that a value-added nickel sulphate product will be produced on site at Jaguar.

“At the presently assessed level of 4.69 tonnes of CO2/tonne of nickel equivalent, the Jaguar Project will be one of the lowest carbon emission projects in the global nickel industry.

“With the DFS resource now locked away, drilling activities will focus on organic resource growth through systematic step-out and extensional drilling, as well as a move to focus on greenfields drilling to target new discoveries. We are already very close and now more confident than ever that we can deliver an MRE with more than 1 million tonnes of contained nickel metal in 2023, which would be an outstanding achievement for the Company, confirming Jaguar as a truly world-class deposit.”

Continued successful step-out and extensional drilling has contributed to delivering an exceptional 421,000 tonnes of additional contained nickel metal since the Company’s maiden Resource in June 2020, reflecting an impressive track record of defining new resources at the rate of ~165,000 tonnes of contained nickel per annum through a sustained and focused drilling program at Jaguar.

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