Mr. Don Taylor reports

WILDCAT ANNOUNCES POSITIVE METALLURGICAL RESULTS

Wildcat Silver Corp. has completed pilot-plant-scale testing on a simplified metallurgical process for the recovery of silver and gold from the Hermosa manto oxide and Upper silver zone material.

The new process centres on the calcining of the manto oxide material (manganese-hosted silver minerals) followed by traditional agitated cyanide leaching and recovery of silver and gold by standard Merrill-Crowe to produce a silver/gold dore. The calcining is performed in a rotary kiln, which is a similar process used in the cement industry, but at a lower temperature for the manto oxide material. The kiln effectively reduces the manto oxide material, rendering silver available for direct cyanide leaching. The revised process for the manto oxide material greatly reduces the complexity of the planned operation.

Wildcat believes this extensive testing has proven successful as silver recoveries have consistently been above 80 per cent. Silver recoveries in some of the batch kiln tests have exceeded 90 per cent while those in the continuous rotary kiln tests have been up to 86 per cent. Bench and pilot work continues with the objective to further refine kiln operating parameters to maximize silver recovery while minimizing reagent consumptions. Data have also been obtained for other operating processes, including crushing and grinding, solid/liquid separation, and tailings classification.

Currently, minor amounts of copper are also recovered in the leaching process as a copper sulphide concentrate. The company has completed preliminary testwork for treating the leach tails to recover zinc by flotation and manganese by magnetic separation. Metallurgical testwork continues in an effort to further recover copper, zinc and manganese. The recovery of these byproducts would be incorporated into the process should they prove to be economically viable.

The Upper silver zone material, which lies above and adjacent to the manto oxide zone, will be crushed and then combined with the calcined manto oxide material, allowing for a single, grinding, cyanide leach and Merrill-Crowe circuit for all of the material processed. Wildcat has optimized the grind size of the Upper silver zone material and developed a grade/recovery curve for incorporating into future mine modelling activities. Testing has returned silver recoveries of up to 52 per cent.

The recently completed pilot plant testwork was performed by Hazen Research Inc. in Golden, Colo. The pilot plant began operating in June of 2012, processing approximately six tonnes of manto oxide and Upper silver zone material. Further, metallurgical development work continues using a larger direct-fired, pilot-sized kiln to provide parameters for a full-scale commercial operation to support potential prefeasibility and feasibility studies.

The results from this new process in addition to the new resource announced in August, 2012, will be incorporated into the company's revised preliminary economic assessment.

"We view the success of this new process as transformational for Hermosa," said Don Taylor, Wildcat's president and chief operating officer. "We are very excited that we have been able to find a processing alternative based on simplified proven technologies. We believe we have significantly derisked the project's metallurgy and made Hermosa a primarily silver/gold project with the potential for considerable upside to produce byproducts downstream. We are now focused on incorporating these benefits into a revised project model for our upcoming preliminary economic assessment."

Qualified person

The results of Wildcat's metallurgical testing program have been reviewed, verified and interpreted by Christopher Easton, BSc, president of Easton Process Consulting Inc., a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Easton has 23 years of mineral processing and metallurgical engineering experience, and is a qualified professional member in metallurgy of MMSA.

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