Centaurus Metals : Jaguar Taking Shape as a Globally Significant Nickel Project

AUSTRALIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE ANNOUNCEMENT

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27 July 2022

JAGUAR TAKING SHAPE AS A GLOBALLY SIGNIFICANT NICKEL PROJECT AS ESSENTIAL PROJECT MILESTONES ARE DELIVERED

In-fill drilling and flotation testwork complete, updated MRE on track, DFS advancing well

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In-fill drill program now complete with updated Mineral Resource Estimate on track for the end of Q3 2022.

Based on the current MRE of the Jaguar deposits and recent pit optimisation work used to design the in-fill drill program, the pits are coalescing into one with a strike extent of 3km, up to 1km width and depths that extend to over 300m while maintaining a low strip ratio of approximately 7.5:1.

Flotation testwork now complete, with over 50 bulk flotation tests completed to produce over 400kg of concentrate ready to use as feed for pilot plant testing of the planned pressure oxidation circuit.

The delivery date for the Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) has been reviewed by Ausenco and the Company and is now targeted for the end of March 2023, in part due the expansion in the overall Project design flowing from the significantly larger Jaguar Resource base and project footprint and in part due to delays in being able to start the pilot program as originally scheduled.

A Final Investment Decision (FID) remains on track for the end of Q3 2023, after relevant environmental approvals have been secured.

In addition to the main nickel sulphate product from Jaguar, by-product credits are planned to be delivered from a copper cathode recovery circuit and separate zinc and cobalt mixed sulphide precipitates.

Foundation geotechnical investigations and sterilisation drilling of major infrastructure areas (IWL, Waste Dumps and Process Plant site) have been completed with, importantly, no economic mineralisation intersected in the sterilisation work.

New Core Shed being built on site at Jaguar capable of holding 280,000m of drill core.

Plant nursery established to assist with the Company's revegetation efforts for the creation of fauna corridors around the project area.

Enrolment process for a 1,500-person construction training program has commenced and has been received very well by the local community.

Vale royalty on the production of nickel sulphate agreed at a rate of 0.55%. The royalty rate, should the Company ever produce a nickel concentrate product, will remain at 0.75% as established under the original agreement to acquire the Jaguar Project.

Experienced London-based nickel marketing executive, Mr Robert Aird, appointed as Head of Nickel Sales on consulting basis.

• Centaurus remains well-funded with $60 million in cash and no debt.

Centaurus Metals (ASX Code: CTM) is pleased to provide an update on the progress of the Jaguar Nickel Project Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) and project development initiatives, with the latest work continuing to clearly demonstrate the enormous scale of the project.

Australian Office

Centaurus Metals Limited

Level 2, 1 Ord Street

West Perth WA 6005

AUSTRALIA

Brazilian Office	ASX: CTM
Centaurus Brasil Mineração Ltda	ACN 009 468 099
Avenida Barão Homem de Melo, 4391	[e-mail]
Salas 606 e 607 - Estoril	T: [phone]
CEP: 30.494.275, Belo Horizonte MG
BRAZIL

AUSTRALIAN SECURITIES EXCHANGE ANNOUNCEMENT

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Commenting on the DFS progress, Centaurus Metals Managing Director, Mr Darren Gordon, said: "The Jaguar Project is continuing to reveal its world-classcredentials with each package of work that we complete. With in-filldrilling now complete and a significant amount of work already well advanced for the Definitive Feasibility Study, the broader project development is now really beginning to gather speed.

"What is continuing to shine through at Jaguar is the sheer scale of the Project. It is not too often in a mining project that you get to develop a mine plan where the open pits are likely to extend over 3km along strike, be up to 1km wide and extend to depths of over 300 metres while still maintaining a low strip ratio of approximately 7.5:1.

"Given the increased scale of the Project and COVID-related delays in starting the pilot testwork program, we have
agreed with Ausenco that the DFS will now be targeted for delivery at the end of March 2023, rather than the end
onlyf 2022 as originally conceived. This will provide additional time to complete all the DFS work to a very high
standard, without compromising the overall delivery schedule for the Project.
"We are still targeting a Final Investment Decision at the end of Q3 2023, once all environmental approvals have
been secured, paving the way for us to deliver the world's next significant green nickel project."
MINERAL RESOURCE ESTIMATE (MRE) UPDATE
useThe December 2021 Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) comprises 80.6Mt @ 0.91% Ni for 730,700t of contained
nickel (Table 1), with the Indicated component of the Resource being 43.4Mt @ 0.92% Ni for 397,000t of contained
nickel, representing 54% of the Global MRE.
The Company has now completed Resource development in-fill drilling across all the Jaguar and Onca Deposits at
the Jaguar Project. Drilling was designed to upgrade all Resources within a constrained US$22,000/t nickel price pit
shell limit into the higher- confidence Indicated category.
Further in-fill drilling to upgrade Indicated Resources into Measured has also been completed to provide additional
c nfidence in the MRE that will underpin the early stages of mining and nickel production. The in-filldrill results
continue to support the current geological model and demonstrate the continuity of the mineralisation both
down-dip and along strike.
The Company is targeting more than 500,000t of contained nickel in the Measured and Indicated categories of the
n xt MRE, planned for the end of Q3 2022, which will underpin the Jaguar Project Definitive Feasibility Study
(DFS) and initial Ore Reserve Estimate. With the completion of the in-fill drilling, the drill rigs have now moved to
Resource growth focused step-out and extensional drilling as well as new discovery greenfields drilling.
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MINE ACTIVITIES
Geotechnical Investigations
Geotechnical logging of selected exploration drill core, subsequent modelling of major geotechnical domains and
drilling of a geotechnical drill program have been completed to support open pit wall design. Samples from the drill
core representing differing lithologies were collected and sent to the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG)
for strength testing.
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An additional drill program including four short holes designed to test the rock mass conditions in the upper levels
of the Jaguar South Pit Southern Wall was completed in early July.
Results have shown the rock conditions for the pits to be generally good to very good. Localised zones of weak
rock mass conditions associated with biotite alteration will require local management but are spatially constrained
and their location and extents are well understood.
Open pit wall and underground stope designs for the DFS will be finalised in the next 2-3 weeks.	2
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Mine Design and Scheduling

Open pit optimisations, designs and strategic schedules have been undertaken on the current MRE using a range of nickel prices from US$17,500 per tonne to US$22,000 per tonne.

onlyThe largest shells based on the US$22,000 per tonne nickel price were used for infrastructure layout to limit the potential for interference between infrastructure and potential future mine expansions. These shells were also used to design the MRE in-filldrill-out program to maximise the conversion of Inferred Resources to the Measured a d Indicated categories for the next MRE update at the end of Q3 2022.

A conservative pit shell based on a US$17,500/t nickel price was selected for mine planning work. It is interesting to note however that in a number of areas within the deposits, the optimisation shells bottom out on the base of the December 2021 MRE model and were therefore constrained by the depth of drilling. As noted above, new step- out drilling has commenced now that the in-fill drill program has been completed.

useThe open pits designed on the current MRE now extend over a continuous strike length of 3km along the strike extent of the Jaguar Deposits. The separate pits identified in the Scoping Study have coalesced into a single pit (Figure 1) up to 1km wide and with depths that extend to over 300m. The Onça pits remain as two separate pits with over 1.5km strike length, with Onça Preta now up to 245m deep. The overall project strip ratio remains low at approximately 7.5 to 1.

Scheduling of open pit and underground operations has confirmed mining rates and sequences required to personalmaximise value within processing and waste dump development constraints, and these will form the basis of contractor pricing ahead of the mine planning to be used in the DFS. Detailed schedules and information packages

for contractor pricing will be sent to contractors in August. For

PROJECT LAYOUT

The Project layout for Jaguar has been evolving during the DFS work, especially with the growth in scale of the MRE and corresponding increase in optimised pit shells. The current planned layout for the Project is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 - Project Layout at Jaguar

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	PROCESS FLOWSHEET & METALLURGICAL TESTWORK PROGRAMS
	Comminution
	Comminution testwork and modelling have shown a wide range of grinding power requirements for different parts
	of the deposits. Jaguar South, the largest deposit, contains the hardest ore with a Ball Mill Work Index (BWI) of
	17.4kWhr/t, whilst Jaguar North is the softest with a BWI of only 10kWhr/t. Consequently, the comminution circuit
	capacity will vary greatly depending on feed blend. A minimum design throughput of 2.7Mtpa on the hardest ore
	has been set for the comminution plant design in the DFS. This throughput is consistent with the Scoping Study1
	released in May 2021 though it is expected that the softer (lower BWI) ore will be able to feed through the plant
	at higher throughput rates once in operations.
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	With this understanding, process flowsheet development and equipment sizing for the comminution circuit have
	b en agreed with Ausenco. The flowsheet will include single-stage crushing with a jaw crusher followed by SAG
and Ball Mill for grinding with pebble crushing. Preparation of process design criterion and engineering packages
	for vendor pricing has commenced.
	Flotation
	Process flowsheet development and equipment selection for the flotation circuit, inclusive of flash flotation, has
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	been completed with Ausenco in preparation of vendor packages for pricing. The flowsheet provides for a
	conventional nickel flotation circuit. The Jaguar ore requires a rougher-scavenger design only to produce a bulk
	nickel-copper-zinc-cobalt sulphide concentrate, with no requirement for cleaning or regrind.
The flotation test work required for the design of the flotation flowsheet is now complete, with over 50 bulk
flotation tests completed to produce over 400kg of concentrate ready for pilot plant testing of the planned
pressure oxidation circuit.
	The time taken to collect this bulk sample has, however, been longer than anticipated. The difficult operating
c nditions created by buoyant metals markets, challenging global logistics for the movement of samples and COVID
absenteeism has placed pressure on our laboratory service supplier, leading to delays in the completion of the
metallurgical testwork program. These delays have slowed the planned start of the pilot plant test work.
METSIM Process Modelling
There has been a significant amount of development of the METSIM process model (which models reaction
chemistry through the hydrometallurgical circuit) and alignment with the results of the batch and batch-continuous
autoclave testwork. The model, being completed with the assistance of Ausenco, is being used to define the
personalautoclave operating conditions for the pilot stage test program and, from there, to simulate hydrometallurgical
conditions with minor variations in feed characteristics and operating conditions.
Pressure Oxidation
Preparations for the pilot pressure oxidation test program have been significantly advanced, testing various
	perating conditions and reagent addition rates to define the pilot program test conditions. In concert with this
work, development of the METSIM process model has also been significantly advanced with good correlation
achieved between the reaction chemistry model to actual batch and batch-continuous test results.
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Final pre-pilot batch and batch-continuous testwork, as well as final refinement to the METSIM model, is nearing
completion to allow the final pilot flow sheet and reagent addition rates to be locked down for the pilot program.
Once we have completed this last remaining testwork, the pilot testing can commence with this now targeted for
mid-August.
	1 Refer to the Value-Add Scoping Study released to the market on 31 May 2021 for full details of the Production Target and the material	4
	assumptions underlying the Study. All the material assumptions underpinning the Production Target continue to apply and have not	Page
	materially changed.

Figure 2 - Ore Sorting - Nickel Sulphide x Mass Recovery

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The pilot test will run for an 8-week period, with multiple phases of work, which will culminate with the delivery of nickel sulphate and other final products as well as assist in providing the design criteria for Ausenco to use in the development of the overall process flowsheet for the DFS.

onlyOre Sorting

Composites of Jaguar South and Jaguar Central ore, the open pits containing the majority of the mineralisation at Jaguar, were tested at Steinert Australia's facilities in Perth (see composite sample information in Table 2). Results using a combination of induction and x-ray sensors were very encouraging with very low nickel losses and good separation of ore from non-mineralised material.

The ore composites were crushed to -50mm and then screened to remove the -12mm material. The coarse fraction, with a feed grade ranging from 0.4 to 0.7% nickel, was passed through the sorter in two passes, firstly with the useinduction sensor then the "tail" again passed through an x-ray sensor. Nickel sulphide recoveries of 85-98%were achieved in the ore sorter process with the mass pull varying from 40 to 60%. Nickel in the ore sorter waste stream

was very low grade at 0.02 to 0.11%.

Figure 2 below illustrates the recent DFS ore sorter nickel sulphide recovery in relation to mass recovery when compared to the initial scoping study sighter testing. The results show that the recent bulk testing (over 700kg of sample was tested) produced superior results over the scoping study testing, with much higher nickel recoveries achieved with lower mass recoveries.

personalForThe successful separation of waste from mineralisation through the ore sorter continues to support the use of this technology in the Project's processing flowsheet to both upgrade ore and to reject waste dilution from feed to the processing plant. The clear benefit from ore sorting is to minimise non-mineralisedmaterial from displacing ore from the comminution and flotation circuits whilst also elevating the feed grade to the plant.

Further work will be required to quantify the benefits to a DFS level of confidence, and the Company will continue to pursue options to achieve this confidence level through the remainder of the DFS.

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