Saints Nickel Project – Resource Update

Auroch Minerals Limited (ASX:AOU) (Auroch or the Company) is pleased to announce that a new Mineral Resource Estimate has been completed for the Saints Nickel Project (Saints; Auroch Minerals 100%) in Western Australia.

Highlights

• New JORC (2012) Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) has been successfully completed for the Saints Nickel Project, resulting in 911kt @ 2.3% Ni for 21kt of contained nickel metal¹
• Significantly, the new MRE represents a 15% increase in the average nickel grade and an upgrade in the confidence level in comparison to the previous JORC (2012) MRE, with two- thirds of the Saints Resource now in the Indicated Resource category
• The completed MRE will form the base for mine design and optimisation studies to commence which, with completion of the ongoing metallurgical testwork, are the final work streams required to complete the Saints Scoping Study

The updated MRE for the Saints Nickel Project is summarised in Table 1 below:

Table 1 – Saints Mineral Resource Estimate (1% Ni Cut-off Grade) - August 2022

Note: Rounding may cause some computational discrepancies

The updated Saints MRE was based on infill diamond drilling completed earlier this year and significantly increases the confidence level of the Resource, with two-thirds of the contained nickel metal being upgraded to the Indicated Resources category.¹

The infill drilling also enabled a tighter control on the modelling of the mineralised zones, which successfully increased the average nickel grade by 15% when compared to the previous JORC (2012) Saints MRE (1.05Mt @ 2.00% Ni for 21.4kt of contained nickel metal), whilst effectively maintaining the amount of contained nickel.^2&3

Auroch Managing Director Aidan Platel commented:

“The updated MRE for the Saints Nickel Project is a fantastic outcome for the project and for the Company. The main focus of the infill drilling and subsequent MRE update was to upgrade a significant portion of the nickel resource from Inferred Resources to Indicated Resources, in order to increase the confidence level in our financial modelling for the Scoping Study. The MRE update has very successfully done that, with two-thirds of the contained nickel now in the Indicated Resources category.

The fact that we were able to increase the average nickel grade by 15% exceeded even our expectations, and really highlights the high-grade nature of the nickel sulphide mineralisation.

The new MRE will now form the basis for the mine design and optimisation studies. With the metallurgical testwork nearing completion and looking great, we are drawing closer to completing what we believe will be a very positive Scoping Study for the Saints Nickel Project!”

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