Mr. Gilbert Clark reports

MERIDIAN REPORTS FURTHER ROBUST DRILL RESULTS AT SANTA HELENA & CABACAL DEPOSITS

Meridian Mining U.K. Societas has released further strong intercepts of shallow copper, gold, silver and zinc mineralization at the Santa Helena mine. New results include: 11.7 metres at 1.3 per cent copper equivalent from 27.0 m (CD-351); and 30.7 m at 0.8 per cent CuEq from 6.0 m, including 5.7 m at 1.5 per cent CuEq from 7.0 m and 3.3 m at 1.2 per cent CuEq from 33.3 m (CD-336). These drill holes are targeting a soil geochemical anomaly in the western sector of the deposit, up dip from the historical resource envelope. Drilling continues to expand into open areas of open-pittable resource potential outside of the Santa Helena mine limits. A new satellite anomaly is emerging on the far southeast of the geophysical survey area, defining potential extensional targets, which remain open.

The company's work on the main Cabacal deposit continues to prove up robust intervals of gold and copper mineralization from infill and extensional drilling, with results including a 70.1 m interval grading 0.9 gram per tonne gold equivalent. In addition, the Cabacal deposit's environmental impact study for a maximum 4.5-million-tonne-per-year mine throughput is expected to be submitted this month.

Further drill results remain pending at both Santa Helena and the Cabacal mine area.

Highlights reported today:

• Meridian reports further shallow base and precious metal intercepts at Santa Helena:
  • CD-351 -- 11.7 metres at 1.3 per cent copper equivalent (0.5 per cent copper, 1.4 g/t gold, 7.9 g/t silver and 0.7 per cent zinc) from 27 m, including:
    • 5.4 m at 1.9 per cent CuEq (0.6 per cent Cu, 2.8 g/t Au, 11.0 g/t Ag and 0.4 per cent Zn) from 27 m.
  • CD-336 -- 30.7 m at 0.8 per cent CuEq (0.3 per cent Cu, 0.4 g/t Au, 4.0 g/t Ag and 1.1 per cent Zn) from six m, including:
    • 5.7 m at 1.5 per cent CuEq (0.7 per cent Cu, 1.6 g/t Au, 4.8 g/t Ag and 0.5 per cent Zn) from six m.
• Stepout drilling at Santa Helena expands the across-strike width of mineralization by up to 300 per cent.
• Santa Helena's prospective trend re-emerges into the Alamo trend with new induced polarization anomaly.
• Cabacal infill/extension drilling continues to deliver robust gold and copper mineralization:
  • CD-361 (CCZ) -- 70.1 m at 0.9 g/t AuEq (0.5 g/t Au, 0.3 per cent Cu and 1.2 g/t Ag) from 11.2 m, including:
    • 36.1 m at 1.3 g/t AuEq (0.9 g/t Au, 0.3 per cent Cu and 1.4 g/t Ag) from 38 m;
    • Two m at 7.8 g/t AuEq (7.8 g/t Au and 0.4 g/t Ag) from 45 m;
    • 4.1 m at 2.9 g/t AuEq (0.8 g/t Au, 1.5 per cent Cu and 8.2 g/t Ag) from 69.4 m.
  • CD-333 (SCZ) -- 20.8 m at 1.4 g/t AuEq (0.9 g/t Au, 0.3 per cent Cu and 0.7 g/t Ag) from 43 m, including:
    • Six m at 3.3 g/t AuEq (2.4 g/t Au, 0.6 per cent Cu and 1.3 g/t Ag) from 45.8 m.
  • CD-346 (CNWE) -- 5.2 m at 4.4 g/t AuEq (1.3 g/t Au, 2.2 per cent Cu and 6.1 g/t Ag) from 95.7 m.
• Cabacal deposit's environmental impact study for a maximum 4.5-million-tonne-per-year mine throughput expected to be submitted this month.

True width is considered to be 80 per cent to 90 per cent of intersection width.

Gilbert Clark, chief executive officer, commented: "These strong results from Santa Helena further confirm the Cabacal belt's prospectivity to host multiple open-pittable deposits of base and precious metals. Our drill results are pushing the mineralization's boundaries out further, locally increasing the width of the mineralized footprint up to 300 per cent. The ongoing works on delineating the Santa Helena trend's untested upside has encountered a new open IP anomaly that projects towards the Alamo target area. We are also strongly encouraged by the ongoing drill results on the main Cabacal mine deposit that continues to deliver robust grades of in-pit mineralization. With the pending submission of Cabacal's environmental impact study, the progression for a future granting of Cabacal's preliminary licence in 2024 continues to track well. With a strong treasury, a premium VMS [volcanogenic massive sulphide] belt to develop and a highly motivated team in place, we look forward to delivering further results and updates shortly."

Santa Helena drill program

Santa Helena is a Cu-Au-Ag and Zn VMS deposit located roughly nine kilometres to the southeast of the Cabacal mine. It has over 10,000 m of historical drilling and is one of a series of exploration targets along the 11 km Cabacal mine corridor. The company commenced initial drilling in August, 2023, as part of a verification program, to validate the historical data in line with National Instrument 43-101 requirements, and to initiate scout drilling for resource extensions defined by geophysics. The company's compilation of historical drill data indicated that many past holes were not completely sampled, that reconciliation of surveyed drilled positions and mine workings suggested that the high-grade massive sulphide mineralization was only partially mined, and that extensions of near-surface mineralization to the east were also not integrated into the historical resource calculations. The company has concluded that this historical resource area is considered open.

The company has completed 22 holes to date. Initial results from holes drilled along the main trend for resource verification were very positive, confirming high-grade, massive-to-semi-massive, near-surface mineralization, including:

• CD-311 -- 19.1 m at 1.3 per cent CuEq from eight m:
  • Including 4.9 m at 4.6 per cent CuEq from 22.2 m.
• CD-321 -- 23.1 m at 1.0 per cent CuEq from 6.1 m:
  • Including 3.6 m at 3.3 per cent CuEq from 10 m.
• CD-325 -- 14.9 m at 3.1 per cent CuEq from 26.3 m;
• CD-332 -- 5.8 m at 4.5 per cent CuEq from 32.2 m;
• CD-329 -- 6.8 m at 4.9 per cent CuEq from 38.7 m;
• CD-335 -- 7.2 m at 4.0 per cent CuEq from 35.5 m.

The latest results (see an attached table) have continued to test mineralization in the vicinity of the historical mine area, but drilled to the south-southeast, targeting an area where infill soil sampling by Meridian Mining had returned gold-in-soil assay values up to 953 parts per billion gold, with coincident elevated base metals. This suggested that the folded VMS mineralized horizon was breaching the surface in a position poorly tested by drilling, in an area previously shown as a postmineralization gabbroic intrusion on historical maps.

Initial results have been returned from this position, with further assays pending. New intervals show the presence of significant widths of mineralization at shallow depths outside of the historical resource envelope, and include:

• CD-351 -- 11.7 m at 1.3 per cent CuEq (0.5 per cent Cu, 1.4 g/t Au, 7.9 g/t Ag and 0.7 per cent Zn) from 27 m, including 5.4 m at 1.9 per cent CuEq (0.6 per cent Cu, 2.8 g/t Au, 11.0 g/t Ag and 0.4 per cent Zn) from 27 m;
• CD-336 -- 30.7 m at 0.8 per cent CuEq (0.3 per cent Cu, 0.4 g/t Au, 4.0 g/t Ag and 1.1 per cent Zn) from six m, including:
  • 5.7 m at 1.5 per cent CuEq (0.7 per cent Cu, 1.6 g/t Au, 4.8 g/t Ag and 0.5 per cent Zn) from seven m;
  • 3.3 m at 1.2 per cent CuEq (0.1 per cent Cu, 0.3 g/t Au, 12.1 g/t Ag and 3.5 per cent Zn) from 33.3 m.
• CD-340 -- 24.7 m at 0.5 per cent CuEq (0.2 per cent Cu, 0.5 g/t Au, 2.3 g/t Ag and 0.4 per cent Zn) from zero m;
• CD-349 -- 4.4 m at 0.4 per cent CuEq (0.2 per cent Cu, 0.3 g/t Au, 3.2 g/t Ag and 0.2 per cent Zn) from zero m.

These new intersections extend the cross-strike footprint of the mineralization up to 90 m laterally beyond the historical resource limit -- tripling the extent, with the prior model being limited by data and focused on the known more massive sulphide component of the mineral system. The results enhance the potential of the company's objective to define resource additions supporting a low-strip-ratio satellite open-pit development at Santa Helena, one of many targets along the mine corridor and broader Cabacal belt.

Assay results from the first phase of the program have provided confidence in the historical data and the position of the underground workings. Results emphasize the presence of good widths of high-quality mineralization amenable to evaluation for open-pit extraction. The first results from this next stage in drilling show promise for the potential to add to the mineralization inventory beyond the previously defined limits.

Santa Helena's expanding near-mine exploration corridor

The company has continued its gradient array induced polarization survey over the east-southeastern extensions to Santa Helena, into the Alamo property. This program has outlined a newly defined chargeability corridor, extending 2.0 km from the limit of Santa Helena's historical resource. This geophysical target aligns with gold and base metal soil anomalies defined in past BP Minerals surveys, continuing to add valuable context to this target as an extensional corridor for Santa Helena-style mineralization. Extensions of the survey further to the southeast show a newly emerging chargeability anomaly on the limit of the survey area and remaining open.

The company is pausing the geophysical program at Santa Helena for a period, to allow geological and geochemical reconnaissance to advance and support the prioritization of potential new exploration drill targets.

Cabacal project development and resource definition program

The company continues with drilling and project development studies at Cabacal. A phase of hydrogeological drilling has been completed as part of the program for environmental licensing. Some drilling has focused on testing the lateral limits of the resource in the Cabacal northwest extension (CNWE), with further results pending.

Intersection highlights from recent results from infill drilling include:

• CD-361 (CCZ) -- 70.1 m at 0.9 g/t AuEq (0.5 g/t Au, 0.3 per cent Cu and 1.2 g/t Ag) from 11.2 m, including:
  • 36.1 m at 1.3 g/t AuEq (0.9 g/t Au, 0.3 per cent Cu and 1.4 g/t Ag) from 38 m:
    • Two m at 7.8 g/t AuEq (7.8 g/t Au and 0.4 g/t Ag) from 45 m;
    • 4.1 m at 2.9 g/t AuEq (0.8 g/t Au, 1.5 per cent Cu and 8.2 g/t Ag) from 69.4 m.
• CD-333 (SCZ) -- 20.8 m at 1.4 g/t AuEq (0.9 g/t Au, 0.3 per cent Cu and 0.7 g/t Ag) from 43 m, including:
  • Six m at 3.3 g/t AuEq (2.4 g/t Au, 0.6 per cent Cu and 1.3 g/t Ag) from 45.8 m;
• CD-346 (CNWE) -- 5.2 m at 4.4 g/t AuEq (1.3 g/t Au, 2.2 per cent Cu and 6.1 g/t Ag) from 95.7 m.

CD-361 locally included some unexpected heavily disseminated coarse chalcopyrite mineralization at shallow levels (1.9 m at 2.0 per cent Cu, 0.1 g/t Au and 5.7 g/t Ag from 11.2 m), within the broader mineralized halo, in areas historically not sampled in past BP programs. This is extending again the near surface upside of the deposit largely ignored by the historical program.

The company's environmental consultant, Sete Solucoes e Tecnologia Ambiental, is finalizing the environmental impact study for submission to statutory authorities, expected to be presented this month. This represents an important step in advancing the permitting with studies supporting an expanded production scenario beyond preliminary economic assessment assumptions of up to 4.5 million tonnes per year.

About Meridian Mining U.K. Societas

Meridian Mining is focused on:

• The development and exploration of the advanced-stage Cabacal volcanogenic massive sulphide gold-copper project;
• Regional-scale exploration of the Cabacal VMS belt;
• Exploration in the Jauru and Araputanga greenstone belts (the above all located in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil).

Cabacal is a gold-copper-silver-rich VMS deposit with the potential to be a stand-alone mine within the 50-kilometre VMS belt. Cabacal's base-metal- and precious-metal-rich mineralization is hosted by volcanogenic-type, massive, semi-massive, stringer and disseminated sulphides within deformed metavolcanic-sedimentary rocks. A later-stage gold-overprint event has emplaced high-grade gold mineralization.

Technical notes

Samples have been analyzed at SGS's laboratory in Belo Horizonte. Samples are dried, crushed with 75 per cent passing fewer than three millimetres, split to give a mass of 250 g to 300 g, and pulverized with 95 per cent passing 150 mesh. Gold analyses are conducted by FAA505 (fire assay of a 50 g charge), and base metal analyses by methods ICP40B and ICP40B_S (four-acid digestion with ICP-OES finish). Visible gold intervals are sampled by metallic screen fire assay method MET150-FAASCR. Samples are held in the company's secure facilities until dispatched and delivered by staff and commercial couriers to the laboratory. Pulps and coarse rejects are retained and returned to the company for storage. The company submits a range of quality control samples, including blanks as well as gold and polymetallic standards supplied by Rocklabs, ITAK and OREAS, supplementing laboratory quality control procedures. Approximately 5 per cent of archived samples are sent for umpire laboratory analysis, including any lotes exhibiting quality assurance/quality control outliers after discussion with the laboratory. In BP Minerals sampling, gold was analyzed historically by fire assay and base metals by three-acid digestion and ICP finish at the Nomos laboratory in Rio de Janeiro. Silver was analyzed by aqua regia digestion with an atomic absorption finish. True width is considered to be 80 per cent to 90 per cent of intersection width. Assay figures and intervals are rounded to one decimal place.

Qualified person

Erich Marques, BSc, MAIG, chief geologist of Meridian Mining, a qualified person as defined by NI 43-101, has reviewed and verified the technical information in this news release.

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