Mr. Peter Evensen reports

SCANDIUM INTERNATIONAL MINING ANNOUNCES GRANT OF NEW MINING LEASE AT NYNGAN SCANDIUM PROJECT

The Department of Primary Industrials and Regional Development -- NSW Resources has granted a mining licence to Scandium International Mining Corp.'s wholly owned subsidiary, EMC Metals Australia Pty. Ltd. (EMC), for its Nyngan scandium project in New South Wales. Mining lease No. 1893 (Act 1992) (ML 1893) was granted in satisfaction of mining lease application No. 531 (Act 1992) on Oct. 7, bringing an end to an application review process spanning more than nine years.

The grant of ML 1893 (Act 1992) represents a major milestone for the Nyngan scandium project and provides the regulatory certainty required for the company to advance continuing dialogues regarding strategic partnerships, offtake contracts, and in due course financing the project and taking the final investment decision (FID).

"This mining lease marks the culmination of extensive technical, environmental and regulatory work, and we express our appreciation to the department for its assistance and co-operation during the application review process. It really could not have come at a better time as Western countries and companies are now focusing on the supply of critical metals including scandium," said Peter Evensen, chief executive officer. "With this mining lease now in place on the entire deposit, the company is well positioned to progress towards construction and eventual production in line with the project's design parameters." EMC intends to update its defined feasibility study (DFS) in due course to reflect capital and operational efficiencies as well as potential to high-grade and customer requirements."

The current DFS:

• Is designed as a small surface mining operation, recovering approximately 75,000 tonnes of limonite ore from the resource per year;
• The average limonite scandium head grade to the mill facility over 20 years is 409 parts per million (before potential high-grading initiatives);
• The project development and commissioning schedule includes a one-year construction period, and a total 24-month ramp-up period to reach nameplate capacity of 75,000 tons per year ore throughput and approximately 38,500 kilograms of scandium oxide product per year, grading 98 to 99.9 per cent Sc2O3.
• The 20-year mine life of the name plate capacity will use less than 20 per cent of the entire mineral resource estimate.

Mr. Evensen continued: "The benefits of scandium have been known for several years, however, until now there has not been a reliable and abundant potential supply source of scandium outside of China and Russia or dependent on other commodity prices as a byproduct.

"In the past 12 months, the Western world has made it a strategic priority to develop robust critical mineral supply chains that are not dependent on a single nation as a pinch point.

"My view, same as when the Evensen family first invested in the company in 2014, is the Nyngan scandium project along with our peers in New South Wales provides the most economic primary source of supply of scandium to that robust supply.

"The shovel-ready Nyngan scandium project is prepared to meet western demand for scandium in existing use cases as well as emerging use cases being developed including semiconductors, solid-state batteries and defence applications."

ML 1893 (Act 1992) has been granted for an initial term of 21 years until October, 2046, upon which time the operator of the project can apply for renewal and supersedes the underlapping mining lease No 1792 (Act 1992), enhancing EMC's ability to develop the project across its full mine footprint design.

Located 20 kilometres west of Nyngan township in New South Wales, the Nyngan scandium project is positioned to become the world's first primary scandium-mining project. Scandium is a high-value metal with a growing market demand and is classed as a critical mineral by the Australian, Canadian and United States governments.

The development of the project also presents a significant opportunity for New South Wales to become a world leader for investment in sustainable mining of critical minerals.

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