Drilling Program At Recently Acquired Punitaqui Copper Gold Mine

VANCOUVER - Battery Mineral Resources Corp. has commenced the first phase of exploration and resource infill drilling at the recently producing Punitaqui mine complex in Chile. Prior to 1998, only limited extraction of high grade copper oxides was undertaken at San Andres by small groups of local miners. In 2000, a Chilean national company La Empressa Nacional de Mineria (ENAMI) developed carried out two underground exploration drives targeting copper sulphides. In 2005, via an option process, San Andres became part of the Punitaqui mine complex.

In 2007, a ground geophysical induced polarization (IP) survey was completed on 250m - 500m spaced lines across the San Andres-Cinabrio area. The results of the IP survey line across the southern end of the San Andres zone identified a strong chargeability anomaly interpreted to represent potential extensions of the copper sulphide mineralization at depth and along strike.

The recently producing Cinabrio copper deposit is interpreted as an Iron Oxide Copper Gold (IOCG) type manto deposit. The known mineralization has a strike length of about 750 meters and the mineralization is between 10 - 30 meters thick. The mineralized horizon thickness is very continuous up to a depth of around 700 meters. Chalcopyrite and minor bornite and pyrite comprise the known deposit mineralogy and the mineralized horizon dips steeply to the east and is sometimes fault-displaced.

Immediately to the southwest of the Cinabrio deposit is San Andres, which is the faulted offset of the top of the Cinabrio orebody. As currently defined, the mineralized zone at San Andres is approximately 10 meters thick and varies from 5m to 30m.

San Andres is a tabular sedimentary horizon within a volcanic sequence. This sedimentary horizon is variably mineralized and has a variable width ranging from 5m - 30m. It consists of an interlayered volcano-sedimentary sequence composed of dark colored laminated and unlaminated shales, volcanoclastic sandstone, conglomerates and breccias and tuff breccias. There is a variable component of syngenetic pyrite. The horizon dips 40 to 50 degrees to the east and is cut-off at depth by the moderately west dipping San Andres fault.

Mineralization consists of veinlets and irregular disseminations in both the fine and coarse-grained clastic rocks and locally within the volcanic rocks above and below the host unit. The host horizon is also cut and offset by other faults with a wide range of orientations. The host sedimentary unit at San Andres is in a north-northwest trending ridge. The surface trace of the mineralized unit crosses from the east side of the ridge in the northern part of San Andres to the western side of the ridge in the southern part. The east dipping host unit is dipping at a shallow angle into the topography in the north and at a very steep angle into the topography in the south. For this reason, the depth of oxidation of the mineralization is expected to decrease significantly in the south.

The current 6,000m resource expansion program will focus on San Andres, which is the "normal" fault-displaced upper portion of the adjacent high grade Cinabrio mine. Cinabrio was last in production by Xiana Mining as recently as April 2020 and previous to that was mined by Glencore for approximately 8 years. The San Andres target has established underground ramp access.

Historic drilling at San Andres has identified copper mineralization over about an 800m strike based on 100m spaced drill sections. The zone extends from surface with potential at depth and along strike in both directions.

Currently two diamond core drill rigs are operating at San Andres with a third rig expected in early August. The San Andres drill program is designed to infill previous drilling and further the resource extensional drilling to the north and the south. The current phase of planned drilling comprises 6,000m in 31 drillholes.

CEO Martin Kostuik, said, "We are pleased announce that our San Andres infill drilling program is now underway with two drills running and a third drill soon to be added. Organizing and commencing a drill program so soon after the close of the Punitaqui acquisition is an impressive achievement. San Andres was an obvious target to launch our program as it is located just 500m southwest of the Cinabrio copper mine and has established underground ramp access. Earlier wide-spaced historic drilling has identified an 800m long zone that is open at depth and in both directions along strike. We believe this resource drilling program has the potential to provide the Company with a second source of copper ore along with existing ore remaining in Cinabrio. The results of the program will be the catalyst for a new Technical Report that will be our road map to near-term copper production at Punitaqui."