Elementos announced a 2023 Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) Update at its Oropesa Tin Project, Spain. The MRE update has achieved its goal of significantly upgrading the Inferred and Indicated Mineral Resource categories, increasing the geological confidence of the deposit. The MRE will be further assessed for conversion to JORC Ore Reserves, via techno-economic modification factors, during Oropesa's Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) which is currently underway and schedule for delivery during Second Quarter CY2023.

The Oropesa Tin Project MRE update was completed by Measured Group, following completion of an 11-hole in-fill drilling program and supersedes the Mineral Resource Estimate previously released in November 2021. The Oropesa property represents a 13km² concession package (Investigation Permit No. 13.050) located approximately 75km northwest of Cordoba and 180km northeast of Seville, within the province of Andalucía, in southern Spain.

Elementos currently holds a 100%^ interest in the Oropesa property with registered title to the property with the Andalucia mining authorities under the Spanish Mining Act through its 100%1 subsidiary Minas de Estaña de España SLU (MESPA). The Oropesa deposit is located within the Espiel Thrust Sheet, at the western margin of the Peñarroya basin, a Carboniferous, trans-tensional basin that formed during the Late Carboniferous Hercynian/Variscan orogeny. The Espiel Thrust Sheet is located between Ossa-Morena Zone and Central Iberian Zone within the Iberian Massif in southern Spain.

The Oropesa project area comprises intercalated sandstones and conglomerates with rare siltstones and shales. The sedimentary units have complex geometries, reflecting an active depositional environment and syn-sedimentary faulting. This geometry has been further complicated by a subsequent phase of deformation involving the re- activation of some basin-controlling faults as strike slip and reverse faults with associated folding of the stratigraphic package, producing upright to locally overturned bedding.

The majority of the tin mineralisation (cassiterite with minor stannite) is replacement style, primarily occurring in granular sandstones at the contacts between the sandstone and conglomerate units. The mineralisation is volumetrically more significant as replacement style within the sandstones, however fault/structurally hosted mineralisation has also been interpreted as occurring within reverse thrust fault zones that bound and occur within the deposit. The tin mineralisation is associated with pervasive leaching of the host rocks, silica alteration and several phases of paragenetically late disseminated to semi-massive sulphides.

The geometry of the Oropesa deposit is primarily the result of two major deformation phases, an initial strike-slip to extensional phase of deformation during basin formation followed by a strong contractional overprint. The initial phase of basin formation produced a complicated geometry characterised by at least two major fault orientations: a basin-parallel, NW striking fault set, the original dip of which is still uncertain, and an oblique N-S striking, fault set with steep to subvertical dips. Both fault sets appear to have been active during basin formation, producing rapid lateral facies changes and the characteristic wedge-shaped stratigraphic packages interpreted from drill hole lithology logging.

Post sediment deposition tectonic activity appears to have been a key mechanism in providing structural conduits for mineralising fluids contemporaneously providing more permeable locations along the sandstone/conglomerate contact zones for the development of the ore body. The geological interpretation of the Oropesa resource is based on the application of progressive analysis of the reported and observed data and the application of strike-slip restraining stepover geometries to the Oropesa deposit (McClay and Bonora, 2001). This model is based on the re-activation of basement structures by sinistral strike-slip movement in a northwest-southeast orientation that results in pop-up structures within the basin that are bounded by steep to shallow dipping reverse faults of similar orientation to the bounding structures but also can occur as pseudo-Riedel sheer structures between the bounding structures.

This model can be used to explain the steeply dipping sedimentary boundaries adjacent to shallow dipping layers, separated by reverse thrust fault zones which are frequently located along the boundary between the sandstones and conglomerates (zones of weakness). The development of the thrust zones along the sedimentary boundaries enhances the permeability of these zones in preparation for the influx of mineralising fluids. This could explain the presence of a large proportion of the mineralisation at Oropesa along these lithological boundaries, albeit significantly deformed.

The thrust planes promote the development of localised overturned folds.