Resource World Magazine

D E C E M B E R / J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 9 www.resourceworld.com 51 SilverCrest Metals reports Mexican bonanza grades SILVERCREST METALS INC. [SIL-TSXV; SILV-NYSE American] reported further Phase III drill results for its 100%- owned Las Chispas property in Sonora, Mexico. As planned, the first seven in-fill drilling results are from the Babicanora Vein including Area 51 and Babicanora Central zones. Results for the first five holes from Area 51 show higher grades and greater vein widths overall than previ- ously reported for nearby drill results. The most significant result for this release is the best intercept (grade x thickness) since commencement of the exploration program in February 2016. Hole BA18-96 intersected 9.9 metres (true width) grading 14.4 g/t gold and 2,132.4 g/t silver, or 3,212 g/t AgEq. Also noteworthy are holes BA18-94 at 3.5 metres grading 33.06 g/t gold and 2,092.1 g/t silver, or 4,570 g/t AgEq and BA18-95 at 11.1 metres grading 3.99 g/t gold and 580.2 g/t silver, or 879 g/t AgEq. Refer to company press release for the most significant drill intercepts. The planned in-fill program is designed to upgrade the current inferred resource at Las Chispas by improving the drill density to approximately 25-metre centres for confirmation of continuity, grade and thickness of the vein. Although these in-fill holes are within the high-grade footprint of the updated resource announced on September 19, 2018 titled "SilverCrest Expands Las Chispas Inferred Resource 4.3 Million Tonnes at 3.68 g/t Au and 347 g/t Ag, or 623 g/t AgEq for 87 Million oz AgEq; Includes 1.6 Million Tonnes at 1,091 g/t AgEq for 56 Million Oz AgEq", they were not yet part of the resource. n MINING thought they had a good deposit didn't have the funds to advance it. They did stud- ies and feasibilities, a lot of metallurgy and nothing really justified the investment. I think the smallest project was around $200 million capex and the largest was around $2 billion. The juniors that were in that space at the time didn't have the capacity to raise those funds. And all of them were going to build a plant that only makes concentrate. They always depended on sending the concentrate to China," said Mugerman. Mugerman explained, "We developed our own technology. We spent five years developing it. We started in 2013. In 2014, came the task of demonstrating how it worked. We spent two more years advancing and modifying it. In 2017, we took the best portions of that technology and modified it a bit more and came up with a new method which today we call ISR," (Innord Separation of Rare Earths). "Look at our progress over the last three years," said Mugerman. "In 2014 we were at a very small scale with very low concentrations. We went from 0.003 grams of rare earths in solution to today where we operate at over 100 grams per litre concentration. In terms of the size of the reactor, in 2014, we used to operate in a very small chamber of 30 millilitres. We went to 50 and then we went to 2,500 (2.5 litres) and today we are at 20 litres. The objective for next year is to jump to 200 litres." The primary goal is to successfully scale-up the separation process and to circumvent intrinsic environmental issues of solvent-based techniques. "In a 20-litre reactor we process 7 kilograms of feed. Our feed is always 25% to 30% of rare earths. A 20-litre reactor will give you around 2 kilograms of rare earths at a time, said Mugerman. The company has received several grants and investments from both federal and provincial governments. The most recent, announced a month ago for $350,000, is for R&D purposes. Mugerman said, "We already started identifying some rural areas that might be ideal locations for setting up an initial refining facility." The facility would pro- cess used rare earth magnets. The high-grade magnetic feed would come from two sources. Waste from magnet manufacturing facilities would be one source of feed. The second feed source would be recycled magnets from products like hard drives, wind turbines, electric vehicles etc. ISR technology would effectively create a circu- lar economy of rare earth magnets. The facility would produce four elements: Praseodymium (Pr), Terbium (Tb), Neodymium (Nd), and Dysprosium (Dy). "That's the beauty of the application," said Mugerman. "From beginning to end we end up with four products and those four products are marketable versus having 15 elements, a portion of which it is much harder to find a demand for. We will extract the cobalt as well and purify it to battery grade." "We are expecting it will cost us less than $100,000 to build a 200-litre unit next year," said Mugerman." GéoMégA will eventually develop their large Montviel rare earth property in Québec with the expectation that they will be able purify their product at their own facility. n Mugerman said over 90% of REEs are processed in China as there are no processing plants in North America. He said, "At GéoMégA that is what we are doing. We are developing rare earth processing capacity."

• Cover