Saudi Joint Venture Agreement

Tertiary Minerals PLC
30 March 2006



                             Tertiary Minerals plc

                                                                   30 March 2006


                           SAUDI INDUSTRIALISTS SIGN

                            JV AGREEMENT TO EXPLOIT

                        WORLD'S LARGEST TANTALUM DEPOSIT


   • Ghurayyah Deposit Planned To Initially Supply 10% Of World Annual Demand


   • Uranium Content Worth US$12/Tonne In Situ To Be Evaluated In Ongoing
    Studies


   • Soft Loans For US$100m Project May Require Tertiary To Find Only 6.5%
    Funding


Tertiary Minerals plc ('Tertiary' or 'the Company') announces that its Saudi
partners ('the Consortium') have now signed the Joint Venture Agreement for the
US$7 million funding of feasibility studies for the development of the Company's
world-class Ghurayyah tantalum-niobium project in Saudi Arabia.

The Consortium comprises two of Saudi Arabia's leading family companies -
A.H.Algosaibi & Bros. Co. and AlNahla Trading & Contracting Co. Both are
diversified industrial companies with a range of domestic and international
business interests.

The Joint Venture Agreement follows from the Preliminary Agreement announced on
7 December 2005 whereby the Consortium subscribed £500,000 for 5,000,000 new
ordinary shares in Tertiary Minerals plc at a price of 10 pence per share
(representing a 100% premium over the then current market price). As a result of
the Joint Venture Agreement the cost of the Preliminary Feasibility Study,
estimated at US$2,000,000 will be funded US$300,000 by Tertiary, US$850,000 from
an immediate issue to the Consortium of zero-coupon convertible loan notes and a
further US$850,000 immediate direct contribution to the joint venture account
from the Consortium. The loan notes will be convertible to ordinary shares in
Tertiary at any time prior to completion of the Preliminary Feasibility Study at
a price equal to the higher of 15p per share or 80% of the weighted average
market price in the 30 days prior to conversion. The full conversion of the loan
notes would result in the Consortium holding a 15% interest in the enlarged
issued share capital of Tertiary given their existing interests in the Company.
The costs of a subsequent Bankable Feasibility Study, estimated at US$5 million,
will be met 90% by the Consortium and 10% by Tertiary by direct contribution to
joint venture expenses.

Assuming successful completion of these studies a special purpose vehicle,
funded and owned equally by Tertiary and the Consortium, will be incorporated to
develop the Ghurayyah deposit. In arranging financing for construction the
project partners will seek to maximise the benefit of favourable debt funding
available in Saudi Arabia, including that from the Saudi Industrial Development
Fund and the Al Yamamah Offset programme, which could reduce Tertiary's project
equity requirement to as little as 6.5% of the US$75-100 million total capital
costs of the project estimated in the 2003 Scoping Study.

Commenting today, Mr Patrick Cheetham, Executive Chairman of Tertiary said: 'We
are delighted to have entered into this Joint Venture with strong financial
partners who are committed to the project. We are also grateful for the
practical help our partners are giving us with the work programmes already in
progress and look forward to their continued cooperation and to bringing
Ghurayyah successfully into production'.

The work programmes in progress include a 3,000m drill programme to collect a
sample of approximately 80 tonnes for metallurgical processing testwork and to
provide data for resource upgrading. The feasibility studies will also evaluate
the potential value of the uranium and rare-earth minerals that are known to
occur at Ghurayyah. Whilst previous resource estimates at Ghurayyah (Inferred
Minerals Resource of 385 million tonnes) did not include an estimate of the
uranium grade, uranium is known to be present at consistent levels and the
average uranium content of drill samples on which the resource estimate was
based is 133ppm (or 0.3 lb/tonne) U3O8 - a grade which has a current equivalent
in-situ value of over US$12 per tonne of ore. Importantly uranium was recovered
alongside tantalum and niobium in the mineral concentrates produced in previous
testwork. These concentrates also contained 6% Y203 (yttrium oxide) a rare-earth
element used in electronics, the value of which is yet to be evaluated.

Tantalum Background

Tantalum has the ability to store and release electronic charge and its main use
is in the manufacture of capacitors, components that regulate the flow of
electricity in electronic circuit boards. Capacitors are widely used in most
electronic devices, especially mobile phones, digital cameras, DVDs gaming
platforms and laptops.

Being inert, with a high melting point, tantalum is also used in medical
implants and in special alloys for the aerospace industry where demand is
expanding. With the development of China's processing and electronics
industries, demand has recovered to its pre-bubble record levels. Raw material
demand is currently 5,000,000 lbs/year tantalum pentoxide and growing at an
estimated 5-8% per year, after averaging over 8% annual growth in the 1990's.

Major Western raw material processors currently source the majority of their raw
material supply on long-term contracts from Sons of Gwalia's hard-rock mining
operations in Western Australia. Another significant supplier of raw materials
to the market is the U.S. Defence Logistics Agency, which traditionally sells
around 500,000lbs per annum of tantalum pentoxide in concentrates. However, its
stockpile will soon be depleted at current disposal rates.

Ghurayyah Project

Tertiary Minerals plc's Ghurayyah Ta-Nb-Zr-U-REE
(tantalum-niobium-zircon-uranium-rare-earth element) deposit is located in NW
Saudi Arabia, 55km from the Red Sea port of Dhuba. An Inferred Mineral Resource
of nearly 400 million tonnes grading 245 grammes/tonne of Ta2O5 and 2,840
grammes/tonne of Nb205 is defined by drilling of a 900m diameter plug of
mineralised granite, open at depth. The deposit exhibits remarkable grade
continuity, no internal waste, and can be extracted by cheap open-pit mining
methods. The fine-grained Ta and Nb containing ore-minerals can be concentrated
by flotation with good recoveries with subsequent magnetic separation of a
zircon by-product. A number of different processing routes have been considered
for production of marketable products, including a Fe-Nb-Ta alloy. A detailed
economic and technical scoping study suggests the deposit has commercial
potential as a future source of supply of tantalum, niobium and zircon raw
materials and at an extraction rate of 1.5 million tonnes/year would have a mine
life of over 200 years. The extraction of significant contents of uranium and
rare-earth-element has yet to be evaluated.

For further information please contact:

Patrick Cheetham, Executive Chairman, Tertiary Minerals plc. Tel: + 44 (0)
1625-626203
Ron Marshman/John Greenhalgh, City of London PR Limited. Tel: +44 (0)
20-7628-5518

The information in this release has been compiled and reviewed by Mr. Patrick
Cheetham (MIMMM, MAusIMM) who is a qualified person for the purposes of the AIM
Guidance Note for Mining Oil & Gas Companies issued on March 16, 2006. Mr
Cheetham is a Member of the Institute of Materials, Minerals & Mining and also a
member of the Australasian Institute of Mining & Metallurgy. The Inferred
Mineral Resource referred to was estimated by SRK Consulting in November 2001 in
compliance with JORC.



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