Norwest Minerals Limited announced that the indicated and inferred gold resources at its Bulgera Gold project have increased to 5.1Mt @ 1.2g/t gold for 200,130 ounces. The new resource model includes all the 2021 reverse circulation1 and diamond drill data with many of the holes intersecting wide zones of strong gold mineralisation from 200m to over 500m downdip of the shallow Bulgera open cut. The Bulgera gold resources are complimented by high metallurgical recoveries (up to 98%) and low-cost processing parameters.

Norwest is planning to RC drill below several of the historical near-surface gold zones by targeting mineralisation at 100 vertical metres where gold tenor across the Plutonic greenstone belt is commonly found to increase. The aim is to identify one or more additional gold hosted shear zone being similar to the main lode discovered below the Bulgera open cut. Bulgera Resource Estimate Update: The previous mineral resource estimate for the Bulgera project was announced in April 2020 having a total 2.92Mt @ 1g/t for 93,880 ounces of gold.

Since then, Norwest has completed reverse circulation (RC) and diamond drilling programs that have intersected additional gold mineralization primarily within a high-grade gold lode extending over 500m down-dip of the Bulgera open cut. Total RC drilling across the Bulgera Gold project now stands at 524 holes for 33,731 metres plus 7 Norwest diamond holes for 2,359 metres. RC and diamond drilling completed by Norwest since the previous resource estimate in April 2020 totals 69 holes for 11,138m and has focused primarily below the shallow Bulgera open cut with just 4 deep RC holes drilled below the Mercuri open cut.

Modelling of the entire Bulgera project drill dataset was undertaken by independent resource experts Hyland Geological and Mining Consultants using MineSight software to construct the block model wireframes and run geostatistical and variography calculations. Kriging algorithms were applied to determine block gold grades and resource confidence levels. Details of the gold resource modelling and resource calculations are included in the JORC tables at the end of this announcement.

The gold resources reporting to the lower confidence `Inferred' category reflect the wide spacing of the deep RC and diamond drill holes. Larger distances between drill holes limits the number of the gold assays captured by block search ellipsoids and, as a result, lowers the accuracy of the block's estimated gold grade. This is a primary factor in assigning the Indicated or Inferred confidence category to any given block within the model's mineralisation wireframes.

If drilling is located beyond a block's gold assay search-range then that block will be excluded from the resource tabulation and designated `unclassified'. These `unclassified' blocks are considered key areas requiring infill drilling. Likewise, where blocks are classified as Inferred, infill drilling is necessary to upgrade these areas to the Indicated category.

Metallurgical Test Work Results: Preliminary metallurgical testing was undertaken by ALS Global Metallurgical Services on three Bulgera gold RC samples. The average gold grades for the three samples were 1.74g/t, 4.43g/t and 8.66g/t respectively. Bulgera Diamond Drilling: The 7-hole Phase 1 drilling programme required 953 metres of RC pre-collars and 1,406 metres of HQ diamond core tails.

The main broad mineralised zone was intersected by all 7 diamond holes BDD21001 to BDD21007 extending the interpreted shear zone identified in the RC holes drilled up dip5 to over 500m from the shallow Bulgera open cut.