Blencowe Resources Plc announced it has received an approval from the Ugandan Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development to export materials from its Orom-Cross Graphite Project to Chinese testing facilities to enable final bulk metallurgical test work to be undertaken in 2023. Blencowe has mandated Jilin Huiyang New Material Technology Company Ltd. to complete this test work in their existing pilot plant facility, which negates the requirement for the Company to build its own bulk testing facility on-site in the near term. Jilin has over 30 years direct experience in graphite processing and has completed similar bulk sample testing for other leading international graphite companies in the past.

This is a key step in the process to pre-qualify Orom-Cross end-products as concentrates through to OEMs in order to ultimately achieve binding offtake contracts for production from the Project. As Ugandan Mining Law does not allow for the export of unprocessed raw materials this approval is a landmark decision by the Government, who fully understand the need and requirement for this testing to occur as a key action for the advancement of Orom-Cross towards first production. Blencowe acknowledges and appreciates the support of the Government of Uganda and the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development in this matter.

The export permits for 100t of bulk raw ore materials and 400 litres of local groundwater will enable the Company to export a representative bulk sample from the initial 5 years of production, which will be used to assess the metallurgical processes on a commercial scale including differing plant components to maximise the grade, recovery and flake sizing from the Project. The addition of the groundwater sample will enable the test facilities to assess the water characteristics in terms of the reagents required under proposed site operating conditions. Works to excavate and transport the bulk samples will begin immediately and will be freighted by sea to China to have the testing completed as quickly as practically possible.

In addition, 150kgs of the same samples will be air-freighted to same Jilin facility more quickly to undergo metallurgical testing and build knowledge before the larger samples arrive. Blencowe has already been able to share significant data with Jilin having previouslycompleted two stages of bench scale metallurgical testing with SGS in Canada and more recently a further round of testing via a small pilot plant in Perth, Australia. This next-level proposed test in China, using their existing infrastructure and experience, will be done on a considerably larger scale, which will give all parties more knowledge of the end concentrates that can be produced on a production scale from Orom-Cross.

It is hoped that this program will initially lead to non-binding MOUs for offtake, and ultimately to binding sale agreements for a substantial portion of the initial 50,000tpa product to be produced from stage one within Orom-Cross. There may also be potential for EPC and funding contracts emanating from this relationship, potentially providing one solution to the CAPEX requirement for initial stage production.