Over 500% Increase in Lithium Resource with 287kt of LCE Declared at Bitterwasser

Philip le Roux, the CEO of Arcadia stated: “We’re encouraged by the significant increase in metal content at the Bitterwasser Lithium-in-Clay project, which is now equivalent to a 1% Li2O hard rock resource of 11.6Mt. This resource is within the first twelve metres from surface, open at depth and covers only one of the known fourteen exposed clay pans in the area, so these factors along with the potential for further pans obscured by mobile Kalahari dunes, have the potential to expand the Bitterwasser lithium resource substantially. In addition, the recently announced Cyclone Test Work and early tests around leachability of the ore using environmentally friendly and low cost lixiviants, suggests the potential of feeding a comparatively competitive leach- plant with higher grade material. This will now be investigated through our association with the University of Stellenbosch in producing a bench-scale lithium carbonate product for battery grade use”.

Jurie Wessels, the Executive Chairman of Arcadia stated: With a significant clay mineral resource in hand, combined with the prospect of increasing it over similar geological terrain and early indications of competitive leachability, we are now looking forward to investigating the bench-scale production of a metallurgical lithium carbonate, and, possibly, project economics thereafter. In addition, our work program, which is based on the geological model for Bitterwasser², to explore the vaster potential of the 4,000Km² Bitterwasser basin for lithium brines is progressing well, details of which will be shortly announced”.

Revised Mineral Resource Estimate

The previous JORC Mineral Resource released on 3 November 2021³ has been revised following the Phase 2 drilling program⁴ and comprises an updated JORC Mineral Resource defined over Eden Pan of 85.2 million tonnes @ 633ppm for 286,909t Li2CO3 (LCE) wholly classified in the Inferred Category. This updated resource represents a ~560% increase in resource and 430% increase in metal content.

The updated Mineral Resource estimate is based on 77 auger drill holes and 486 core samples taken (refer to Annexure 1 read with Annexure 2 for drilling results). The Mineral Resource estimate (refer to Annexure 3 hereto for JORC Tables) was based on two groups of resources, namely the Upper and Middle Units, which refers all the material inside the wire frames, and the Secondary Unit which refers to the economic mineralisation material outside the wire frames. A summary of the estimated JORC compliant Mineral Resources for the Bitterwasser Project at various cut-off grades is provided in Table 1 below. The estimate includes all the main mineralised geological domains.