West Avoca, Co. Wicklow Sampling Update

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IMC Exploration Group plc (“IMC” or the “Company”)

IMC Update Exploration Target for West Avoca Spoils

Highlights

• Updated report increases tonnage in West Avoca spoil heaps.
• Exploration Target in West Avoca estimated at 3,500-4,000 oz gold.
• Sampling planned to upgrade West Avoca Exploration Target to Inferred Resource.
• Inferred Resource of 19,800 oz gold previously reported for East Avoca.

Introduction

IMC Exploration Group Plc (IMC), the London-listed gold and base metals explorer in Ireland, is pleased to report the following update based upon a reassessment of tonnages contained in the West Avoca spoil heaps.

IMC commissioned Trove Metal Ltd (Trove) to review the tonnages contained in the mineralized spoils of the West Avoca Exploration Target as described by CSA Global (CSA) in the 2019 Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) report on the Avoca Historic Mine Site Project, Ireland (reported 11th September 2019).  The  2020 Trove report considers the West Avoca Exploration Target in isolation. This is in addition to the CSA MRE report for East Avoca (Inferred Resource of 19,800oz gold). 

Trove has entered into an agreement with IMC to establish an environmental clean-up operation to remove metals from the existing mine waste at the Avoca site.

IMC plans to carry out further sampling on the West Avoca Exploration Target in 2020 to allow an Inferred Resource to be calculated at West Avoca*. 

The 2020 Trove Report

The 2020 Trove report reassessed and recalculated the likely tonnes contained in five defined areas of West Avoca, four of which are represented by surface spoils (S1-4) and one area of backfilled spoils (U1). 

The CSA Exploration Target tonnage estimate for the West Avoca spoils specified a range from 130,000 to 180,000 tonnes.  The 2020 Trove report, with areas and topography of the spoil heaps better defined through detailed assessment of lidar measurements, has calculated that 385,042 tonnes are present.  The depth measurements of the spoils are based on conservative estimates of the vertical extent of each stockpile and range from 2.0m to 4.7m.  A tonnage factor of 1.6 was used.

Stockpile	Area (m2)	Volume (m3)	Tonnes
S1	6,483	30,800	49,280
S2	5,008	20,031	32,049
S3	4,279	17,116	27,386
S4	19,918	59,754	95,606
U1	56,475	112,950	180,721
Total	92,163	240,652	385,042

Table 1.  Updated tonnage estimates for West Avoca spoils

(Trove Metal Ltd).

Minimal grab sampling and analyses have been undertaken on four of the five areas at West Avoca.  The results are tabulated below.

Stockpile	Sample ID	Au g/t	Ag g/t
S1	WA 02	0.51	4.2
S2	WA 01	0.33	3.5
S3	WA 04	0.35	8.0
S4	WA 03	0.27	6.9
U1	Not Sampled

Table 2.  Grab sampling at West Avoca (Trove Metal Ltd).

CSA provide a grade range of 0.3 – 0.6 g/t Au for the West Avoca spoil heaps Exploration Target.  Using the lower estimate of 0.3 g/t Au (which is also the grade of the JORC-compliant CSA MRE in East Avoca) an Exploration Target in the region of 3,500-4,000 oz Au is reasonable for West Avoca using the updated tonnage estimate in the 2020 Trove report.

These re-estimated values for the number of tonnes likely to be present (and associated gold content) will benefit from more detailed exploration, specifically detailed sampling at regular lateral and vertical intervals to firm-up the Exploration Target into an Inferred Resource.

*As an Exploration Target under the JORC (2012) code the estimates for West Avoca contained in the Trove report cannot be included as a resource as the potential quantity and grade is conceptual in nature, and that there has been insufficient exploration to estimate a Mineral Resource. 

The CSA MRE

In September 2019, IMC published an MRE on its Avoca Historic Mine Site Project, Ireland spoils and tailings project located in Co. Wicklow, Ireland. The JORC-compliant MRE report shows, inter alia, significant grades of extracted and crushed gold (1,871,000t at 0.3g/t Au), copper (1,871,000t at 0.14% Cu) and lead (1,871,000t at 0.42% Pb) in the spoil heaps on the East Avoca part of the site.

Mineralogical testing is ongoing, and it is also anticipated that this will confirm that a sizeable quantity of gold and metals will be recoverable at low cost, given that the material has already been extracted and crushed.  IMC, Trove and CSA believe there are reasonable prospects for the eventual economic extraction of the Mineral Resources.

This release has been approved by EurGeol Professor Garth Earls PGeo, FSEG, who is an independent consulting geologist and a Competent Person as described in the JORC 2012 reporting code.

Eamon O’Brien, Chairman, commented ‘The MRE for our spoils and tailings project in East Avoca, Co. Wicklow is hugely significant with the gold estimate alone coming in around 20,000oz.  As demonstrated in the updated report by Trove Metal Ltd on the Exploration Target at West Avoca, there is further potential to increase this by up to 4,000oz gold within the Avoca area.  This additional work will commence in the coming weeks.  As you will be aware gold has recently reached an all-time high of over $2,000 per oz.  This is significant news for IMC and its shareholders.’

Dublin, 8^th September 2020

REGULATORY ANNOUNCEMENT ENDS.

Enquiries:

Keith, Bayley, Rogers & Co. Limited
Graham Atthill-Beck: [phone] / [phone] / [e-mail] 
Brinsley Holman: [phone] / [e-mail] 

IMC Exploration Group plc
Kathryn Byrne: [phone]