Tungsten West plc released the summary of results from its updated and independently reviewed Feasibility Study ("FS") covering recommencement of operations at Hemerdon, demonstrating arobust and economically viable case for the mine. The post-tax NPV5% of the Project is £297 million with an associated IRR of 25%. Conservative assumptions have been made with regards to the ramp up schedule and WO3 and Sn recovery levels used in the financial model leaving considerable upside to metallurgical recoveries and a faster than planned ramp up.

The cumulative free cash flows after expected financing of the Project through the LOM exceed £550 million. As of 1 October 2022, the remaining Project CAPEX, including EPCM fees, is estimated at £31.1 million (excluding contingency.) Pre-operating costs (which include spares inventory, staff overheads, G&A and mining services to prepare the site) are estimated at £19.4 million. Other corporate commitments, including environmental bond payments, and opportunistic land purchases are estimated at £4.4 million, with a further £6 million of deferred consideration for project acquisition included in the forecast cashflow.

In total pre-production expenditure is estimated at £54.9 million. The Company forecasts that the first two years of production will involve a ramp-up in throughput to allow for ongoing process improvements in the initial phase of production. This results in forecast throughput production of 2.0 Mtpa (Year 1), 2.7 Mtpa (Year 2) and 3.5 Mtpa (Year 3 onwards).

As part of the revised operating strategy and staged ramp-up, the Company will benefit from a delayed waste stripping profile which will result in the Project generating positive operating cashflows in the first year of operation. The base case has assumed a long-term cost of power supply of £0.247/kWh based on 100% grid supply. (This compares to £0.115/kWh in the 2021 FS).

Scoping studies on renewable energy projects that have been undertaken demonstrate that power prices can be significantly reduced with initial guidance indicating a long-term power cost of £0.10 - £0.125 kWh for at least 30% of the Project's power needs. As outlined in the Company's announcement of 19th December 2022, Tungsten West has reported an update to the 2021 Hemerdon deposit MRE due to changes in costs and processing assumptions, affecting the breakeven ("BE") cut-off grade ("CoG"). Furthermore, the Company has reported updated changes to the Hemerdon stockpile inventory following depletion of various stockpiles since the 2021 reported MRE.

The 2021 block model estimate has been used to report the updated resource confidence categories due to no material differences in geological interpretation or data used to support the estimation. As outlined in the Company's announcement of 19th December 2022, the Ore Reserves have been estimated using the Mineral Resource block model produced in January 2021. The Ore Reserves were subject to a pit optimisation study conducted by Tungsten West during October to November 2022.

This was followed by detailed pit design, pushback design and LOM plan by the Company and Mining Plus UK Ltd. ("MPUK") in addition to financial modelling. All of the studies illustrated that the Project is robust and also illustrated that there is significant potential upside present. The pit designs were used to generate a LOM production schedule.

To maximise the Project NPV, the Company plans to stockpile the lower grade (but still economic) killas material until completion of the granite mining phase, at which time the killas stockpiles will be reclaimed and fed through the Mineral Processing Facility ("MPF"). The resulting schedule provides a mining life of approximately 27 years. Granite processing will last 17 years and there is a further period of killas processing which lasts just under 10 years after the last granite ore is processed.

The total updated Ore Reserve (Proved and Probable) for Hemerdon is 101 Mt at 0.14% WO3and 0.03% Sn, reported above an Ore Reserve cut-off grade of 0.0742% WO3Equivalent ("WO3Eq") for the granite and 0.0689% WO3Eq for the killas. This Ore Reserve includes 0.6 Mt of existing stockpiles remaining from the previous open pit mining of the Hemerdon granite between 2015 and 2018. Enhancing the role of ore sorting as a fundamental step change in the processing strategy has provided Tungsten West with significant operational flexibility due to the ability to reduce ore sorter weight yields to pre-concentrate ore.

This method reduces the amount of material being processed in the next stages within the MPF and therefore resulting in reduced capital requirements and operating costs. The ore sorter technology has the added benefit of removing much of the iron-rich material from the Run of Mine ("ROM") feed to the MPF enabling the removal of the reduction kiln in the refinery from the flowsheet. This removes approximately 1.3 million litres of diesel consumption per annum.

The upgraded feed grade from the ore sorters both the DMS and Spiral-Table Gravity circuits will enable the Company to achieve higher recoveries in these circuits. Results from an optioneering study on the revised mine plan and processing strategy and mine plan have yielded an optimised solution reducing initial capital and operating costs: The re-design is phased as follows: Years One and Two ("Phase1") - average of 2.4 Mtpa of granite ore and Year Three onwards ("Phase 2") - 3.5 Mtpa of granite ore. The changes to the existing process flowsheet to be implemented at Hemerdon can be categorised into three areas, namely: Front End Upgrades- New Crushing, Screening and Ore Sorting Circuit required for Phase 1; Existing Minerals Processing Facility Modifications- Upgrades to existing plant to accommodate production requirements for Phase 1; and Phase 2 Crushing and Process Plant Expansion- Future upgrades to both Crushing and Processing plants required for increased production rates, envisaged from Year Three onwards.