Silvercorp Metals Inc. reported additional high-grade intercepts from its 2021 exploration program at the TLP mine. Extensive exploration drilling and tunneling are ongoing at the TLP mine and all other mines in the Ying Mining District, Henan Province, China. From June 1 to December 31, 2021, 43,573 metres ("m") from a total of 276 diamond drill holes, including 218 underground holes and 58 surface holes, were completed at the TLP mine.

Assay results for 270 holes have been received, with 202 holes intercepting mineralization. The Company also received assay results for 35 holes pending from the previous drilling program at the TLP mine from October 1, 2020 to May 31, 2021 disclosed in the Company's news release dated June 1, 2021. Currently, there are 13 rigs drilling at the TLP mine.

The strategy of the drilling program is fourfold: 1) drill above or beneath the stopes that were previously mined but stopped due to more variation in grades, thickness and attitudes of the vein structures than previously modeled to easily obtain ore; 2) drill for high-grade silver-lead-zinc veins within the resource area; 3) drill for silver-lead-zinc veins in the resource area at higher elevations near the surface where there are limited drill holes from previous drilling programs; and 4) drill for high-grade silver-lead-zinc veins at the northwest side of the resource area to expand the resources. Most holes drilled during the period targeted blocks of known silver-lead-zinc veins in production areas that were previously missed due to limited drilling or tunneling, changes in the strikes and dips, and/or pinch-swelling of the pay-zones in the veins. The high-grade intercepts are mainly associated with the southwest-striking T15 series, T16 series, T17W, T11, T20, T21, T30, T3 series, T4 series, T5 series, T1, and T2, and the north-northwest-striking T14 series, T22, T28, and T31 series.

Drilling discovered additional splay and parallel vein structures T16E3, T4E, T4W, T5E2, and T5a. This drilling has resulted in a significant amount of upgraded resources for near-term mine planning and production. Since access tunnels are already in place, the upgraded high-grade resource blocks can quickly be converted to reserves and mined.

Drilling intersected two types of gold mineralization in gold-silver-lead-zinc veins and gold veins, respectively. The former is thought to be formed by gold mineralization in the vein structures which was then overprinted by silver-lead-zinc mineralization with quartz-sericite alteration. Most of this type of gold mineralization occurs at elevations between 700 m and 760 m. The latter mineralization is predominantly composed of gold with no or low silver-lead-zinc mineralization in shear structures associated with quartz-ankerite alteration at higher elevations above 830 m. Surface and underground diamond drilling tested certain blocks near the surface in the central and northeast parts of the TLP resource area, and intersected high-grade silver-lead-zinc veins T1, T2, T3 series, T4, T5, and T20.

The surface holes also intersected thick mineralization in T2 and T3. Surface hole ZKTDB0605, for instance, intersected vein T3 with a true width of 7.44 m. The purpose of this drilling is to extend the resources to higher elevations within the current resource area. The aforementioned drilling also discovered T5E2, a splay and parallel vein to T5.

At the northwest side of the resource area, drilling intersected high-grade silver-lead-zinc vein T33, and its parallel vein T33W3. This drilling is to support the Company's strategy to expand the resources laterally. A total of 6,982 m of exploration tunnels were developed at the TLP mine during this period.

The exploration tunneling, comprised of drifting, cross-cutting and raising, was driven along and across major mineralized vein structures to upgrade the drill-defined mineral resources, and to test for new parallel and splay structures. Drill cores are NQ size. Drill core samples, limited by apparent mineralization contacts or shear/alteration contacts, were split into halves by saw cutting.

The half cores are stored in the Company's core shacks for future reference and checks, and the other half core samples are shipped in securely sealed bags to the Chengde Huakan 514 Geology and Minerals Test and Research Institute in Chengde, Hebei Province, China, 226 km northeast of Beijing, the Zhengzhou Nonferrous Exploration Institute Lab in Zhengzhou, Henan Province, China, and SGS in Tianjin, China. All three labs are ISO9000 certified analytical labs. For analysis, the sample is dried and crushed to minus 1 mm and then split into a 200-300 g subsample which is further pulverized to minus 200 mesh.

Two subsamples are prepared from the pulverized sample. One is digested with aqua regia for gold analysis with atomic absorption spectroscopy ("AAS"), and the other is digested with two-acids for analysis of silver, lead, zinc and copper with AAS. Channel samples are collected along sample lines perpendicular to the mineralized vein structure in exploration tunnels.

Spacing between sampling lines is typically 5 m along strike. Both the mineralized vein and the altered wall rocks are cut by continuous chisel chipping. Sample length ranges from 0.2 m to more than 1 m, depending on the width of the mineralized vein and the mineralization type.

Channel samples are prepared and assayed with AAS at Silvercorp's mine laboratory ("Ying Lab") located at the mill complex in Luoning County, Henan Province, China. The Ying lab is officially accredited by the Quality and Technology Monitoring Bureau of Henan Province and is qualified to provide analytical services. The channel samples are dried, crushed and pulverized.

A 200 g sample of minus 160 mesh is prepared for assay. A duplicate sample of minus 1 mm is made and kept in the laboratory archives. Gold is analysed by fire assay with AAS finish, while silver, lead, zinc and copper are assayed by two-acid digestion with AAS finish.

A routine quality assurance/quality control ("QA/QC") procedure is adopted to monitor the analytical quality at each lab. Certified reference materials (CRMs), pulp duplicates and blanks are inserted into each batch of lab samples. QA/QC data at the lab are attached to the assay certificates for each batch of samples.

The Company maintains its own comprehensive QA/QC program to ensure best practices in sample preparation and analysis of the exploration samples. Project geologists regularly insert CRMs, field duplicates and blanks to each batch of 30 core samples to monitor the sample preparation and analysis procedures at the labs. The analytical quality of the labs is further evaluated with external checks by sending approximately 3-5% of the pulp samples to higher level labs to check for lab bias.

Data from both the Company's and the labs' QA/QC programs are reviewed on a timely basis by project geologists.