Ardea Resources Limited (Ardea) advises of the purchase of additional mining tenure for its Kalgoorlie Nickel Project (KNP) to expand the project footprint.

The purchases relate to $1,800,000 for 1,549ha at the southern boundary of the Bulong Taurus nickel laterite deposit and $10,000 pursuant to a sale agreement clause in respect of the conversion of the Lady Charlotte Exploration Licences to a Mining Lease. The Bulong tenure is located 35km east and Lady Charlotte 65km northwest of Kalgoorlie.The KNP Kalpini Hub includes the Bulong Taurus nickel laterite resource with an Inferred resource of 14Mt at 0.84% nickel and 0.051% cobalt for 119kt of contained nickel and 7kt of contained cobalt.

The resource and host ultramafic rocks effectively extend to the Mining Lease northern, eastern and western lease boundaries. The southern boundary contains the historic Great Ophir underground gold mine and battery sand dump, so is not available for laterite mine infrastructure. The Bulong Taurus acquisition provides continuity of tenure and access for the full Bulong nickel laterite resource containing 54Mt at 0.88% nickel and 0.053% cobalt for 477kt of contained nickel and 29kt of contained cobalt. It is intended that the gold rights for the Taurus acquisition will be transferred to the Ardea gold spin-out, Kalgoorlie Gold Mining Limited (KalGold) (ARL ASX announcement, 31 May 2021).

The KNP Goongarrie Hub requires drill-sterilised ground along the eastern contact of the laterite pits as infrastructure sites. Lady Charlotte was originally acquired for this purpose but 'wildcat' drill holes during the last 12 months have consistently intersected high grade gold mineralisation (ARL ASX announcement 26 May 2021).

Ardea Managing Director, Andrew Penkethman, noted: 'A key element of the current Ardea KNP Feasibility Study programs is the provision of mine infrastructure sites.

At both Lady Charlotte and Bulong Taurus, there is considerable gold endowment in adjoininginfrastructure locations, which requires careful management. Assuming the KalGold IPO proceeds as planned and the Bulong gold rights are acquired by KalGold, the Taurus-Great Ophir prospect area in particular represents a high-quality asset with known high grade gold mineralisation at surface.

Great Ophir Gold Mine at Taurus

In compiling historic Geological Survey of WA reports on the Taurus mining centre, Ardea noted encouraging gold drill intercepts and accordingly completed ground truthing of the old report gold intercepts around the Great Ophir workings. The drill collars were located within their approximate report locations and rock chip samples of the target workings returned assays of up to 118g/t Au (ARL ASX announcement 20 August 2020).

A separate lode structure that had not been subject to historical mining was identified during field mapping and returned a channel sample result of 52.4g/t Au (ARL ASX announcement 20 August 2020).The Great Ophir lodes have a steep southerly dip and are located adjacent to Ardea's southern tenement boundary. Acquisition of this new tenure will enable drill targeting of down-dip and down-plunge gold mineralisation at the Great Ophir Deeps.

Any Bulong Taurus laterite mine mullock dumps would need to be located south of the gold mine line of lode

Other gold workings

In addition to Great Ophir and its deep extensions, the new tenure contains several historic gold occurrences, including Central and Turnpike that have been the focus of historic exploration efforts. Active mining of gold from alluvial, not a part of the acquisition agreement, is also ongoing, highlighting the gold prospectivity of the underlying host rock sequence.

Contact:

Andrew Penkethman

Tel: +61 8 6244 5136

About Ardea Resources

Ardea Resources Limited (ASX: ARL) is an ASX-listed resources company, with a portfolio of 100% controlled West Australian-based projects, focussed on: Development of the Kalgoorlie Nickel Project (KNP) and its sub-set the Goongarrie Hub, a globally significant series of nickel-cobalt and Critical Mineral deposits which host the largest nickel-cobalt resource in the developed world at 826Mt at 0.70% nickel and 0.046% cobalt for 5.8Mt of contained nickel and 384kt of contained cobalt (ARL ASX announcement 15 February 2021)located in a jurisdiction with exemplary ESG credentials.

Advanced-stage exploration at compelling nickel sulphide, Critical Minerals and gold targets within the KNP Eastern Goldfields world-class nickel-gold province, with all exploration targets complementing the KNP nicke development strategy.

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