Altus Strategies Plc (‘Altus’ or the ‘Company’) announces an exploration update for its 100% owned, 322 sq. km Tigray-Afar Cu-Ag-Au project (the ‘Project’) in northern Ethiopia.

Highlights:

• Recently discovered hard rock artisanal copper workings at the Asagara prospect
• Semi-continuous copper mineralisation up to 5.58% Cu mapped for 2.0km at Asagara
• Gold grades from grab samples up to 13.5 g/t Au returned from Agamat prospect
• Further mapping and sampling planned at Agamat

Steven Poulton, Chief Executive, commented:

“The discovery of hard rock artisanal copper workings at the Asagara prospect is highly encouraging, with sampling returning grades up to 5.58% Cu. Further channel sampling will be undertaken across the outcrop to assess the potential widths of mineralisation in order to direct a trenching programme planned for Q1 2018. The gold potential of the Agamat prospect (located 8km southwest of Asagara) has not yet been systematically explored, despite high grade gold grab samples up to 13.5 g/t Au and the presence of shearing. The next phases of work will include mapping of the mineralised structures to define targets for channel sampling. We look forward to updating shareholders with the progress from these programmes in due course.”

The following figures are visible in PDF format by following the link below: http://altus-strategies.com/site/assets/files/4282/exploration_update_on_tigray-afar_cu-au_project-_ethiopia.pdf:

– The location of the Company’s projects in Northern Ethiopia is shown in Figure 1.
– An overview of the Asagara copper prospect is shown in Figure 2.
– An overview of the Agamat gold prospect is shown in Figure 3.
– Photos from the Asagara copper and Agamat gold prospects are shown in Figure 4.

Asagara Copper Prospect

Mapping and prospecting during the third quarter of 2017 has identified two areas of newly developed artisanal copper workings. Groups of up to 50 miners have been reportedly excavating copper oxide mineralisation. Secondary copper sulphide minerals have also been identified in hand
specimen. Rock chip samples collected by the Company from the workings have returned grades up to 5.58% Cu.

Geological mapping at Asagara has identified semi-continuous oxide copper mineralisation over a strike length of 2.0km over widths of up to 20 and a parallel zone of 0.6km strike length which is up to 15m wide. The prospect remains open to the north and to the south. Scout channel sampling by the Company has returned grades including 8m @ 0.56% Cu, starting and ending in mineralisation and 5m @ 0.77% Cu. Channels were limited to areas of outcrop, no trenching was undertaken as part of this programme due to extensive soil cover. The next stage of work by the Company will be to extend the current channel samples through trenching to determine the true width of mineralisation.

Agamat Gold Prospect

Previous work at the Agamat prospect has identified a zone of shearing, from which rock chip samples have included grades of 13.5 g/t Au, 9.5 g/t Au and 7.7 g/t Au have been returned. The Agamat prospect is associated with a significant VTEM anomaly striking north-south for approximately 5km. To the south of the VTEM anomaly are gossanous outcrops within a tectonised zone up to 60m wide. Visible gold and intense carbonate-silica-pyrite (+/- gold) alteration have been observed within this zone. The next stage of work by the Company will be to extend the mapped shear zones, with the aim of undertaking a systematic channel sampling programme.

Project Location

The Tigray-Afar licence is located along the border of the Tigray and Afar provinces in northern Ethiopia, 45km north of the regional centre of Mekele, 65km north of Africa’s largest wind energy project at Ashegoda and 580 km north of the capital Addis Ababa. Mekele has a population of 65,000 and strong communication links, being served by a daily flight to and from Addis Ababa, a main road which runs from Addis Ababa to Asmara in Eritrea and is only 50km from the planned railway connection to Djibouti.

Geological Setting

The Project is situated within prospective Proterozoic volcano-sedimentary terrains that form part of the Arabian Nubian Shield. These rocks host a number of notable mineral deposits in the region, including the Bisha and Asmara VMS copper-gold deposits in Eritrea, approximately 250km north of the Project as well as the Sukari gold deposit in Egypt and the Jabal Sayid copper-gold project in Saudi Arabia.

About the Tigray-Afar Project

The Project area was selected by the Company on the basis of the presence of a major regional shear zone, coincident with locations of anomalous copper occurrences defined by Ethiopian Geological
Survey in the 1980s. The project hosts the ‘Italian Pit’, an 80m long and up to 15m wide historical open pit copper mine, believed to have been worked by the Italians during the 1930s.

Four distinct copper-silver prospects have been defined to date at the Project with grades of up to 22% Cu and 102 g/t Ag from surface sampling. Rock chip channel results have include 28m at 0.75% Cu, 31m at 0.50% Cu, 4m at 3.22% Cu & 6m at 1.46% Cu. Drilling at Tigray-Afar has returned grades of up to 1.53% Cu over 15.5m and 1.22% Cu over 11.9m. At least two stacked shallow dipping manto-style reefs of mineralised metavolcanics, with a cumulative width of at least 40m have been discovered a the Slater prospect. Mineralisation is associated with intense silicification and epidotisation and is accompanied by strong foliation textures and brecciation, in common with typical manto-style ore bodies in South America.

The Agamat Cu-Ag-Au prospect located in the north of the Project area and hosts copper mineralisation coincident with axial planar shearing, along fold hinges and which appears to show a general association with specular haematite, pyrite and/or quartz veining proximal to the fold hinges. Surface grades of up to 8.7% Cu, 99 g/t Ag and 13.5 g/t Au have been returned. Diamond drilling at the prospect has returned a best intersect to date of 0.70% Cu over 28.15m.