Annual Meeting of Shareholders

Minco Exploration PLC (“Minco Exploration”, “Minco”, or the “Company”), reports that it held its Annual Meeting of Shareholders (AGM) in Dublin, Ireland on 20 August 2024.

All resolutions proposed at the AGM were unanimously approved and passed by the required majorities. See details in the Results of Voting section below.

Patrick Downey, John Kearney, and Michael Power were re-elected as directors at the Meeting, joining Garth Earls, Terence McKillen, and Peter McParland who continue as directors for the remainder of their respective terms.

UHY Farrelly Dawe White Limited were re-appointed as the Company’s Auditor.

General authorities were granted to the directors to allot securities up to a maximum aggregate nominal amount equal to the nominal value of the authorised but unissued ordinary share capital of the Company and to disapply pre-emption rights in connection with issues of equity securities.

 

Update on Operations from John Clifford, Minco’s Director – Exploration

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Following the formal business of the Meeting, Minco’s Director – Exploration, John Clifford, provided shareholders with an update on recent operations:

“In my remarks today, I will focus on Minco’s two principal exploration projects – Rapla and Slieve Dart.

As we reported last year, in Minco, we have been reassessing our business model to determine how best to add shareholder value. In doing this we are mindful of our corporate relationship with a mining equipment and internationally-recognized mining services provider. Thus, we consider that, while maintaining our interest in the blue-sky potential of our exploration portfolio, adding advanced project opportunities that could be fast-tracked through pre-feasibility and onwards to production might offer another attractive option for our shareholders.

With that strategy in mind, we applied for licences over some 75km² of prospective ground in along what is known as the Lisheen Galmoy trend, sometimes referred to as the Rathdowney trend, in the Rapla area of County Laois, adjacent to the former Galmoy Mine, which Shanoon Resources is planning to reopen. In fact, Rapla is just 6 km distant from the Galmoy and 15km from the Lisheen orebodies.

Three new prospecting licences were issued to Minco in April of this year and are valid for a 6-year term, subject to the expenditure of €200,000 during the first 2 years, with a minimum of €10,000 in each of the 3 licences. Title can be maintained through the subsequent 4-year period by the expenditure of a further €500,000 to fund a Preliminary Economic Assessment of the Project.

The mineralization at Rapla was first discovered in the early 1990’s in the same rocks as the Galmoy and Lisheen orebodies.

Since then, the Rapla area has been explored by a number of different operators. The target of their exploration was for another Lisheen. Drilling programs were completed which identified mineralization over a strike interval of almost 4km at a depth of 550 – 650m. The drill tests were widely spaced. In fact, the best intercept from the programs, 7.4m @ 14.59% Zn+Pb, is untested for over 600m to the east and west. One of the Lisheen or Galmoy ore zones could easily fit into that space.

As you will be aware from recent press coverage, permitting to allow the reopening of the Galmoy Mine is at an advanced stage. We believe that this is an extremely positive development and one which could provide a synergistic opportunity for Minco in the medium-term.

With that in mind Minco has applied for drilling permits for 10 holes. When those permits are issued, the first two holes will test the ground around the best intercept that I have just mentioned, with the siting of follow-up holes dictated by results.

Our second core project is Slieve Dart in County Galway This is being explored in a joint venture with Boliden Tara Mines, with Minco acting as Operator. In respect to the 2024 programme, Boliden elected not to participate and is diluting their interest. We expect that, upon completion of the current program, Minco will have increased its interest to about 53%, with Boliden holding the other 47%.

Earlier this year, we completed a drill test to the north of the village of Clonbern. The hole drilled to a depth of 462 meters was sited to further validate the interpretation of the 2019 seismic traverse. It succeeded in that objective. While the hole has added greatly to our understanding of the geology, it did not intersect mineralization.

As part of the follow-up to that drilling, and indeed the previous hole drilled in 2022, we have re-interpreted the geology in the light of the new data. This has resulted in us focussing our attention on the south-eastern part of the license block and surrendering one licence in the north-western part of the area.

Minco also contributed 50% of the funds for the initial 2-year program over 5 licences held by Boliden on the eastern extension of this prospective strike. Application has been made seeking Ministerial approval to incorporate these licences into the existing joint venture, which will then cover 12 licenses.

As a result of our increasing understanding of the geology we have identified multiple potential mineral controlling structures in this part of the licence block, with a combined prospective strike length of 50 – 60 km.

There are 6 further targets warranting drill test along the seismic traverse. However, while all of these are geologically valid, it would be a coincidence of the highest order if the seismic traverse, the location of which was dictated by the existing road network, would cross over an orebody. Therefore, there is no reason to think that these 6 targets are the best that might exist along the 50 – 60 km of prospective strike. We need to use another tool to prioritize the best targets.

During the past year we have conducted a number of studies to test the potential of several low-cost methods. Results are still being evaluated. We will keep working on this.

Next week we are convening a meeting with a group of experts, including members of the Boliden exploration team, to review all the results to-date from the project and to get their advice on how to best prioritize further drill testing of this highly prospective area.

Looking briefly now to our other projects.

Follow-up of the untested geophysical target at our wholly-owned Milltown Project in County Clare has been temporarily deferred to allow us to focus our efforts on Rapla and Slieve Dart. We plan to revisit this opportunity in the coming year.

You will recall that Minco is in Joint Venture with Boliden in licence areas at Tatestown and Kells, in County Meath. Because of their location relative to Tara Mine, Boliden retains operatorship of these areas.

At Tatestown, Minco is maintaining its 20% interest and is in the process of increasing our interest in the Kells licence to 75%. Now that the Tara Mine is reopening, we look forward to renewed activity on these areas which have untested targets in rocks similar to those hosting the Tara orebodies.

We will continue on this path and hope to be able to report progress on this initiative in the coming months.”

 

Remarks of Chairman John F. Kearney

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Following the exploration update, the Chairman, John F. Kearney, made some remarks:

“Thank you, John, for that encouraging update on Minco’s exploration activities.

These are difficult times for mineral exploration in Ireland. Interest in funding of grassroots projects is at an all-time low, not just in Ireland but globally. Stalwarts of the Irish exploration scene over the past decades are reducing their programs here and transferring their attention to other parts of the World. The much-heralded European Critical Raw Material Act, which came into effect in May with a vision to revitalized European mining, will have no impact on the exploration sector. More recently, a combined initiative between the European Union and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to inject €50 million into the exploration for critical and strategic raw materials will be limited to companies operating in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Tunisia, Türkiye and Ukraine. This is part of the EBRD’s Junior Mining Programme €150 million framework facility for equity and quasi-equity investments in early-stage mining companies in the EBRD’s countries of operations.

The simple fact is that exploration funds need to be expended in areas that have the potential for discovery and not just in jurisdictions dictated by politics or NIMBY considerations.

Unlike the United States, the European Union does not include Zinc is its list of critical raw materials. This ignores the fact that zinc is the fourth most used metal on earth and is indispensable in a vast range of consumer and industrial products, playing an essential role in literally thousands of products across the healthcare, agriculture, manufacturing and industrial sectors.

Minco’s purpose is to discover and develop a world-class mineral deposit and its corporate strategy is focused on exploring for zinc in Ireland, both on its own behalf and in joint venture with Boliden Tara Mines.

We believe in Ireland’s potential and we continue to progress our exploration projects. Three of these projects are in joint venture with Boliden Tara Mines and we are progressing the other two on our own.”

 

Annual Meeting of Shareholders – Results of Voting

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Shareholders holding a total of 20,976,898 Ordinary Shares were represented in person or by Proxy at the Meeting, representing 26.94% of the 77,868,716 outstanding Ordinary Shares.

ELECTION OF DIRECTORS AT ANNUAL MEETING

All of the nominees for re-election as director: Messrs. Patrick Downey, John Kearney, and Michael Power were unanimously re-elected as directors.

Director	Votes For	% of Votes For	Votes Against/Abstain
Patrick Downey	20,976,898	100%	Nil
John Kearney	20,976,898	100%	Nil
Michael Power	20,976,898	100%	Nil

 

RE-APPOINTMENT OF AUDITORS

UHY Farrelly Dawe White Limited were re-appointed as Auditors for the current year and the directors were authorized to fix the remuneration of the Auditors, with 20,976,898 Ordinary Shares voting in favour and no votes against.

SPECIAL BUSINESS

Shareholders also approved the following items of Special Business, as set out in the Notice of Meeting:

1. Authority to allot shares, with 20,976,898 Ordinary Shares voting in favour and no votes against, and;
2. Disapplication of Statutory Pre-emption Rights, with 20,976,898 Ordinary Shares voting in favour and no votes against.

 Qualified Person:

Technical information in this news release has been approved by EurGeol John A. Clifford, P.Geo, Minco’s Director – Exploration and “Qualified Person” as defined under the 2017 Pan-European Reporting Standard.

 

ABOUT MINCO EXPLORATION PLC

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Minco Exploration PLC is a mineral exploration company focused on mineral exploration in Ireland, where Minco holds Prospecting Licences which are considered highly prospective for the discovery of zinc-lead mineralization.

The Licences are operated by Minco or in joint venture with Boliden Tara Mines. Minco is participating (20%) in a joint venture with Boliden (80%) on Licence 1440R (Tatestown), which lies immediately adjacent to Boliden’s large 130 million tonnes Tara zinc-lead mine at Navan. Minco is also participating in a joint venture with Boliden on Licence 3373 (Kells), contiguous to the west of Licence 1440R, where Minco can earn up to a 75% interest; and in a joint venture with Boliden on a block of Prospecting Licences in County Galway (Slieve Dart) where Minco has earned a 50% interest. Minco also holds a 100% interest in an additional new Licence covering the Milltown mineral prospect in County Clare.

Additional information about the Company is available at www.MincoExploration.com.

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