Additional Drilling Programme - Black Cat Gold Prospect in Victoria, Australia

Additional Drilling Programme - Black Cat Gold Prospect in Victoria, Australia

ECR Minerals plc

4 February 2019

ECR MINERALS plc

(“ECR Minerals”, “ECR” or the “Company”)

ADDITIONAL DRILLING PROGRAMME -

BLACK CAT GOLD PROSPECT IN VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA

ECR Minerals plc (LON:ECR), the precious metals exploration and development company, is pleased to announce details of a further gold focussed drilling programme which will shortly commence at the Black Cat prospect within the Bailieston gold project area in the state of Victoria, Australia.

This programme is additional to the drilling which will be taking place at the Creswick gold project and the Blue Moon prospect at Bailieston, which was announced on 29 January 2019.

HIGHLIGHTS:

• A contract has been signed for 450m of rotary air blast (RAB) drilling at the Black Cat gold prospect in the Bailieston gold project area in Victoria, Australia, by ECR’s wholly owned Australian subsidiary Mercator Gold Australia Pty Ltd (“MGA”)
• Black Cat is among the high priority targets identified by the geophysical interpretation and targeting study completed for MGA by Terra Resources in late 2017, and has not been previously drilled
• The prospect is immediately south of ground recently applied for by Newmont Exploration and contains 220m of historical workings along three known lines of quartz reef
• Strong gold-in-soil anomalism in some areas indicates unworked reefs may remain to be discovered, and rock chip sampling of quartz-poor material indicates potential for disseminated gold
• Rock chip samples at Black Cat have returned encouraging grades up to 11.3g/t gold
• RAB drilling is a low cost method well suited to the first pass testing required at Black Cat, and the programme is expected to commence during February 2019

Craig Brown, Chief Executive Officer of ECR Minerals plc, commented: “During my recent trip to Australia we were able to make final arrangements to commence the drilling programme announced last week. The rig engaged for that programme is expected to start work at Creswick in the coming days and will be moved to Blue Moon after the Creswick holes are completed.

In parallel, we will be undertaking an additional gold focussed drilling programme at the Black Cat prospect, which, like Blue Moon, is within our Bailieston gold project area. The Bailieston project is at the epicentre of the current gold exploration boom in Victoria, being located close to the successful Fosterville mine owned by Kirkland Lake Gold. This point is underlined by the arrival of Newmont Exploration in the district with an application for ground immediately to the north of the Black Cat prospect.

The Company is now moving forward with three drill programmes to investigate gold mineralisation at multiple targets across its extensive gold focussed portfolio in the state of Victoria, Australia. ECR is now an active gold exploration business, aiming to deliver on its strategic objective to discover a multi-million ounce gold deposit.

Notwithstanding our active operations we are keen to maintain strict budgetary cost control and it is notable that the use of RAB drilling at Black Cat is a particularly low cost method of exploration and will enable us to gather geological information in an efficient and cost effective manner.

I look forward to updating shareholders further as the Black Cat, Creswick and Blue Moon drill programmes progress.”

COMPETENT PERSON STATEMENT

This announcement has been reviewed by Neil Motton BSc (Hons), MAusIMM (CP), FSEG, a geological consultant to the Company’s wholly owned subsidiary Mercator Gold Australia Pty Ltd with more than 30 years of professional experience. Mr Motton is a qualified person as that term is defined by the AIM Note for Mining, Oil and Gas Companies.

MARKET ABUSE REGULATIONS (EU) No. 596/2014

The information contained within this announcement is deemed by the Company to constitute inside information as stipulated under the Market Abuse Regulations (EU) No. 596/2014 (MAR). Upon the publication of this announcement via Regulatory Information Service (RIS), this inside information is now considered to be in the public domain.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

ECR Minerals plc		Tel: [phone]
David Tang, Non-Executive Chairman
Craig Brown, Director & CEO
Email: [e-mail]
Website: www.ecrminerals.com
WH Ireland Ltd		Tel: [phone]
Nominated Adviser
Katy Mitchell/James Sinclair-Ford
SI Capital Ltd		Tel: [phone]
Broker
Nick Emerson

ABOUT ECR MINERALS PLC

ECR is a mineral exploration and development company. ECR’s wholly owned Australian subsidiary Mercator Gold Australia Pty Ltd has 100% ownership of the Avoca, Bailieston, Creswick, Moormbool and Timor gold exploration projects in central Victoria, Australia and the Windidda gold project in the Yilgarn region, Western Australia.

ECR has earned a 25% interest in the Danglay epithermal gold project, an advanced exploration project located in a prolific gold and copper mining district in the north of the Philippines. An NI43-101 technical report was completed in respect of the Danglay project in December 2015 and is available for download from ECR’s website.

ECR’s wholly owned Argentine subsidiary Ochre Mining has 100% ownership of the SLM gold project in La Rioja, Argentina. Exploration at SLM has focused on identifying small tonnage mesothermal gold deposits which may be suitable for relatively near-term production.

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