Phase One Metallurgical Program For Gabbs Project

VANCOUVER - P2 Gold Inc. reported that the Phase One Metallurgical Program for its gold-copper Gabbs Project has been completed. Gabbs is located on the Walker-Lane Trend in west-central Nevada approximately 145 miles by paved road from Reno, Nevada. The Phase One Metallurgical Program included testing for the potential recoveries of copper and gold from oxide mineralization by sequential leach using heap leach or conventional milling. The test work showed that gold and copper can be recovered by both process options, with extractions averaging 97.2% for gold and 95.2% for copper when the sample is ground to 100 microns.

P2’s Phase One Metallurgical Program focused on the oxide mineralization as the current Inferred Mineral Resource for Gabbs assumes zero recovery of oxide copper mineralization. By confirming that viable options for the recovery of copper from the oxide mineralization do exist, the Company believes that oxide copper can be included in future estimates of the Mineral Resource and considered for recovery in the Preliminary Economic Assessment planned for 2022/23. This is potentially significant as approximately 143.3 million pounds of oxide copper are defined, but not included in the Gabbs Inferred Mineral Resource.

For the Gabbs Phase One Metallurgical Program, the Company submitted two separate 36-kilogram composites to Base Metallurgical Laboratories in Kamloops, BC for analysis. The two composites were collected from surface locations within the Sullivan Zone. As an initial assessment of the heap leach potential of the Sullivan Zone oxide mineralization, bottle roll tests were conducted using five-kilogram and 10-kilogram crushed charges of material that were placed in a bottle with leach solution and rotated intermittently for one minute and then allowed to rest for 59 minutes each hour. The tests were run for eight days to recover copper in an acid leach cycle, after which the solution was drained, the material rinsed and the pH adjusted in preparation for an eight-day bottle roll gold leach cycle using cyanide.  Separate tests were run using ½ inch and ¼ crush of the feed material to determine how recoveries were affected by crush size. As expected the samples that were crushed to ¼ inch had improved incremental recoveries of approximately 15% to 25% and 4% to 7% for gold and copper, respectively.

As an initial assessment of the milling potential of the Sullivan Zone oxide mineralization, two-kilogram charges of sample were ground to 100 microns (0.1 millimeters). Residual sulphide mineralization and 65% to 75% of gold were recovered into a rougher flotation concentrate ahead of the sample being acidified to recover the oxide copper mineralization in a 48-hour leach cycle. The sample was then drained, rinsed and pH adjusted and after that leached for gold for an additional 48 hours.

A Gabbs Phase Two Metallurgical Program is being planned using samples from the current drill program. The program is expected to use drill core from two-diamond drill holes to provide samples for bottle roll and column tests of the oxide and transition zones. In addition, assay rejects from the Gabbs Phase One Drill Program will be used to provide samples for test work on the sulphide mineralization. The results of the Phase Two Metallurgical Program are expected to be used in the planned Preliminary Economic Assessment.