Unigold Inc. announced that the application for the Nieta Sur Exploitation concession has moved to the next stage of review. The Dirección General de Minería (“DGM”), a department of the Ministerio de Energía y Minas (the “Ministry”), has completed their technical review of the application which included public announcements, perimeter verification, landowner reviews, technical and economic evaluations of the project design and basic environmental reviews. The DGM has forwarded the application to the Ministry with a positive recommendation.

This marks a significant step in the permitting process. The Ministry will complete legal reviews and will draft resolutions that will be forwarded to the Executive Branch of Government for final approval. The first step in achieving commercial production at the Candelones oxide deposits is to receive an Exploitation Licence over a portion of the Neita Concession.

The application and supporting documentation were filed with the appropriate government organizations on February 25, 2022. The granting of an Exploitation Licence would give Unigold the sole right to extract metallic minerals from a 9,990 hectare concession area for a 75-year period. This application has successfully passed through all review processes at the Dirección General de Mineria.

The Company expects to continue to work closely with government authorities to expedite the issuance of the Exploitation Licence. Baseline environmental work is substantially complete. Once the Exploitation Licence has been granted, the Ministerio de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales (“MEMARENA”) will confirm and forward the Terms of Reference (“ToR”) for the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (“ESIA”).

The Company will have more clarity on this part of the permitting process by the end of November. The Feasibility study for the Oxide portion of the Candelones deposits is awaiting final pit designs, production schedules and a final cashflow model. The Company will be able to release the results of feasibility level engineering, including updated capital and operating cost estimates, when the engineering teams have completed their work.

Although inflation will undoubtedly impact both operating and capital cost estimates, the PEA utilized Q2/2021 numbers such that the company expects any impact to minimal. Unigold anticipates that the economic results as released in the 2021 PEA can be achieved in the Feasibility Study. The Company expects to release the feasibility study including a resource/reserve estimate for the oxide portion of the deposit in the next four weeks.