Trading Statement

Tertiary Minerals PLC
25 March 2002



                             TERTIARY MINERALS PLC

        TERTIARY ADVANCES ON THREE FRONTS AFTER TOPPING UP ITS TREASURY

  • Team Departs for Saudi Arabia to Oversee Metallurgical Sampling
  • Drilling Started at Rosendal Tantalum Project in Finland
  • Drill target work in progress at Norwegian Platinum Prospect

Aim-listed exploration company Tertiary Minerals plc is moving ahead on three
fronts in Saudi Arabia, Finland, and Norway following its recent successful
share placement that topped up its treasury to approximately £500,000 cash. The
company expects to receive another £1.5m of funding before the end of November
as warrants are exercised. It announces today that:


  • A Tertiary team starts metallurgical sampling work this month in Saudi
    Arabia where the company was recently awarded a five year exclusive
    exploration licence over the world's largest known tantalum deposit at
    Ghurayyah in the north west of the country. The team is headed by Mr Hugh
    Stuart, Tertiary's senior geologist, who joined the company last year from
    Ashanti Gold Fields where, among other achievements, he was exploration
    manager for the Geita project in Tanzania, work that established 10m ounces
    of gold resources in three deposits. Metallurgical test work is scheduled to
    begin on Ghurayyah ore in May.

  • Drilling to infill and extend existing resources has started at Tertiary's
    promising Rosendal tantalum industrial minerals project in south-west
    Finland where a scoping study has already shown it could be economically
    developed.

  • The company is carrying out a geophysical survey on its platinum group
    metal prospects in the Finnmark district of northern Norway where previous
    work by the Norwegian Geological Survey returned wide intervals of palladium
    /platinum mineralisation. Targets defined by the work will be drilled during
    the coming months.

Further Information:

Patrick Cheetham, Tertiary Minerals plc Tel: [phone]; Mobile: [phone]

John Greenhalgh/Ron Marshman, City of London PR Ltd Tel: [phone]



                      This information is provided by RNS
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange
              ZKZGZZM