The Schwarzwand target is mainly situated on Bundesforste (Austrian National Forestry Service) property, with well-maintained road access. Meetings have been held with local authorities & landowners and all have been supportive of the work, granting us permission to advance, acknowledging the potential benefits to the rural community, should exploration be successful.

The Schwarzwand mine represents one of 4 key exploration targets in the Großarl licence area and was primarily exploiting 5m spaced, concordant, 50-100cm thick veins of quartz-sulphide ore. Average copper grades calculated from historical records (mine maps, production figures) by Günther (1987) for the Schwarzwand mine are 1-1.25%. This was not considered much at the time, yet they were able to keep the business profitable for almost 4 centuries. Reports suggest the deposit remains open and intact in all directions from the historic workings.

The Schwarzwand mine workings are some of the oldest and most important in the Großarl Valley. Mining here is said to have started as early as the year 1010, operating on and off until the 18^th century. The areas first copper and sulphur smelters were also located nearby.

The EMEX field team have successfully identified mineralised zones of chalcopyrite & pyrite (confirmed visually and by preliminary PXRF analysis, pending assay) at Schwarzwand, ahead of schedule and thus, have brought forwards the next phase of the field program, which was originally planned for September.

Soil sampling will follow a 50x50m grid, be tested by PXRF on-site, and sent to ALS in Romania for ICP assay. This is intended to identify the true extent of mineralisation and the structural relationships of metal enrichment outside of the known workings. When combined with historical models, structural mapping and regional geophysical surveys, this sampling should lead us to defining confident drill targets for Q4 of this year.

The below photo of a sample from the Schwarzwand ‘waste’ dumps shows chalcopyrite and pyrite sulphide mineralisation, representative of the prospect.

Ekometall Exploration GmbH Geschäfstführer Severina Ditzov commented:

Being ahead of schedule is an entirely new and novel concept for the exploration industry and can be credited primarily to the support and positive response we’ve had from the Federal & Regional governments, local administration & community to our work. Hüttschlag & Großarl are small, tight communities with some family lines predating even the 11^th century mines, so it is a real honour to be able to partake in the reinvigoration of the local mining industry that fuelled and supported the original foundation of these settlements more than a millennium ago. We would like to thank everybody in the area for their engagement so far.

Ekometall Group Ltd. Managing Director Liam Hardy commented:

The fast identification of mineralised rock units and acceleration of the program by our local team is exciting news and provides the first validation for early shareholders, who showed us support while armed with only a few watercolour maps and shiny rock samples. We have proven this month that Land Salzburg is a more-than-viable jurisdiction for exploration and hope to keep on delivering for all investors and stakeholders as our projects develop both here and Tirol.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if these rocks were in British Columbia or Western Australia, they’d be drilled to Swiss Cheese and mined out by now, so we are uniquely privileged to have staked such a large, prospective land package, with such a treasure trove of historic data, for such valuable critical metals, in such a supportive jurisdiction, ahead of the trend in the ‘New Western Tethyan’ region.

We look forward to sharing more results and data as we approach our next round of financing to drill test the youngest-oldest mining district in Europe.

The image below shows the historic Schwarzwand mine outline in red crosshatching, and the proposed soil sampling grid at Schwarzwand in a black dashed line, overlaid on a recoloured LiDAR basemap.