Excellent Gold Recoveries from Testwork at Tabakorole Project, Southern Mali

Altus Strategies Plc (AIM: ALS, TSX-V: ALTS, OTCQX: ALTUF) announces the results of preliminary metallurgical testwork undertaken on composite samples of fresh rock collected from core drilling at the FT Prospect of its Tabakorole gold project (“Tabakorole” or the “Project”) located in southern Mali. Exploration activities at Tabakorole are being funded by Marvel Gold Limited (ASX: MVL) (“Marvel”) under its joint venture (“JV”) with Altus.

Highlights:

• Initial metallurgical testwork on fresh rock samples completed at Tabakorole, southern Mali
• Bottle roll tests on core samples from Diamond Drilling (“DD”) at the FT Prospect indicate:
  • A straightforward, clean and non-refractory ore with low reagent consumption
  • High gold recoveries of 92.7% to 96.6% for grind sizes (P80) of 150 to 75 microns
• Project hosts a mineral deposit for which a Mineral Resource Estimate (“MRE”) has been generated (see Altus’ news release dated 30 September 2020 and titled “Substantial Increase in Gold Resource at Tabakorole Project, Southern Mali”), comprising:
  • 16,600,000 tonnes at 1.2 g/t Au for 620,000 ounces in the Inferred category
  • 7,300,000 tonnes at 1.2 g/t Au for 290,000 ounces in the Indicated category
• 43% of the current MRE is situated within 100m of surface
• MRE is in accordance with the JORC Code, an acceptable foreign code for the purposes of NI 43-101
• 6,300m resource expansion Reverse Circulation (“RC”) drilling programme is underway
• Marvel has earned a 51% interest in the Project and paid Altus US$200,000 in cash
• Marvel has commenced JV stage-3 to earn an aggregate 70% by expending US$3M
• Altus holds a 2.5% Net Smelter Return (“NSR”) gold production royalty on Tabakorole

Steven Poulton, Chief Executive of Altus, commented:

“The results of the preliminary metallurgical testwork on fresh rock from drill core at the FT prospect of the Tabakorole project are excellent. Non-refractory mineralisation with high gold recoveries highlights the potential for a simple, industry standard gold processing flow sheet. Future metallurgical testwork is expected to include potential optimisations of grind size and residence times.

“Our ASX-listed JV partner Marvel Gold has now completed the stage-2 commitments of the JV, including payment of US$200,000 to Altus and earned a 51% interest in the Project. Marvel has already commenced stage-3 of the JV at Tabakorole, which includes the current 6,300m RC resource expansion drill programme.

“Tabakorole currently hosts a significant gold resource which is open along strike in both directions, and at depth. The project is emerging as a significant west African gold deposit and these metallurgical testwork results represent a significant step in advancing the Project. We look forward to updating shareholders once the final results from the current drilling programme are received.”

Tabakorole Metallurgical Testwork

A total of four composite samples were collected from four diamond drillholes completed by Marvel in mid-2020 (see Table 1). The composites were made from the coarse split of diamond drilling samples based on the drillhole locations within the Tabakorole deposit and the head grade assay of the original samples. The composites targeted the current MRE grade of 1.2 g/t Au and ranged from 1.1 to 1.9 g/t Au. All samples were taken in fresh rock as this material represents approximately 90% of the Tabakorole MRE. Initial bottle roll testing is the industry standard first-step to determine gold recoveries from cyanide leaching.

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