South Star Battery Metals Corp

OTCQB:STSBFUnited StatesView on Canadian Exchange

Highlights:
-- Positive National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101") Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") for the BamaStar Mine and Concentrator Plant in Coosa County, AL and a value-add upgrading plant in Mobile, AL. The natural flake graphite concentrate precursor material for the value-add plant will come from South Star's BamaStar and Santa Cruz Mines, which is now in Phase 1 operations in Brazil. First production for BamaStar is planned by 2027. -- Pre-tax Net Present Value ("NPV8%") of US$2.4B with an Internal Rate of Return ("IRR") of 35% and after-tax NPV8% US$1.6B with an IRR of 27%. -- Life of mine ("LOM") gross revenue of US$9.9B as well as pre-tax and post-tax free cashflow of US$6.0B and US$4.3B, respectively. -- 19-Year open-pit mine life with an average concentration production of 47,147 tonne per year ("tpy") and a 2.4x increase in Mineral Resource tonnage, which contains over 1Mt of contained graphite. -- BamaStar Mine and Concentrator Plant is developed in a modular, phased approach using a simple proven flowsheet resulting in an average recovery of 90% and concentrate grades ranging from 94% graphitic carbon ("Cg") for hard rock mill feed to >98% Cg for oxide mill feed. Each of the planned two phases of the Concentrator Plant would produce approximately 25,000 tpy for a combined total of 50,000 tpy of natural flake graphite concentrate. -- The value-add plant is designed using chemical purification technology and standard, commercially available equipment with no intellectual property that can purify to battery grade (> 99.95% Cg). The Mobile, AL Plant is also developed in a phased, modular approach with each of the planned three phases producing 20,600 tpy of upgraded graphite for a total of 61,800 tpy of upgraded products. This amount includes approximately 38,000 tpy of coated, purified, spheronized graphite ("CSPG"). -- 1 Kg of purified graphite was transformed into purified and micronized graphite, as well as CSPG using standard, commercially available, non-proprietary technologies. The CSPG was used to make both CR2032 coin and pouch cells. The successful preliminary electrochemical testing results demonstrated capacity and first-cycle loss performance that is comparable to Tier-1 commercial CSPG products, including potential fast-charge capabilities with stable cycling.