Cadence Minerals provided a progress update for its flagship Amapá Iron Ore Project ("Amapá Project"), including an expedited operational licensing and re-rating of its tailings storage facility. While the Amapá Project was operating, it held all the necessary permissions to mine, process, transport and ship some six million tonnes of iron ore annually. However, many of these licenses lapsed after it ceased operations in 2014.

Cadence has been working alongside the team at the Amapá Project to obtain these licenses and permissions. To date, the company is reinstated and extended the railway concession to 2046 (completed in December 2019) and been granted a change of control over the wholly owned port in November 2021, which ensured the federal licenses could be maintained. TheAmapá Project owns the requiredMining Concessions; however, it must obtain a Mine Extraction and Processing Permit ("Mining Permit") to begin operation.

To obtain this permit,the Amapá Projectmust obtain an LI and, when constructed, an Operational License LO from the Amapá State Environmental Agency. Before the suspension of mining, the Project had numerous LOs across the mining, rail, and port operations. These LOs expired between 2013 and 2018.

In 2022, theAmapá Projectbegan regularising the expired environmental permits and started consultation with the Amapá State Environmental Agency and the relevant state authorities. TheAmapá Projectrequested that the requirement for a full environmental impact study be waived. This request for a waiver was on the basis that the previous LOs were granted on an operation that is substantially the same as is currently planned and remains applicable to future operations.

The fieldwork for the LI's will begin as soon as possible with current expectations that it will be able to submit the required reports for the mine and rail in the second quarter of 2024 and the reports for the port in the second quarter of 2024. TheAmapá State Environmental Agency will then review the application for the LI's, and it anticipate that these licenses will be granted in 2024. This timeline is substantially shorter than expected on a greenfield site, where the impact study and associated approval can typically take between 24 and 36 months, while theAmapá Project could achieve this in 12 to 16 months.

One of Cadence's initial investment criteria into theAmapá Project was the safety and stability of the TSF. As such, before entering into the investment agreement with its joint venture partners, it carried out a TSF review by an internationally recognised consultant group and were satisfied with the structure and stability of the TS. Nonetheless, given the lack of reporting and maintenance from 2014 onwards, the TSF at the Amapá Project was considered a high risk.

The work carried out since 2019, including maintenance, reporting, drilling and compliance, has meant that the Amapá Project TSF is approaching the lowest risk rating for operating TSF. The intent is that the TSF will continue to improve its risk rating. This will be achieved by completing a dam break study, installing video monitoring on the TSF, and ongoing inspection and remediation of various TSF-associated infrastructure.