Multi-Metal Development Ltd. announced that they have signed a contract with MineSense Technologies Ltd. of Vancouver to conduct an analysis to confirm that the proprietary ShovelSense technology of MineSense can be successfully deployed to optimize the ore sorting process at CuMo. ShovelSense is a robust system that is installed on existing mining equipment to scan and measure the grade of the material in every shovel bucket. The system uses x-ray fluorescence (XRF) to scan the material in the shovel bucket at the working face.

Decisions can then be made as to whether the material is waste, stockpile and mill feed based on the values obtained. The technology has been successfully used at several mining operations including the large Highland Valley and Copper Mountain mines in British Columbia. The Company will begin gathering a series of bulk samples from the existing core library by producing bucket scale samples for waste, low, medium and high grade from each of the three identified mineralized zones.

The CuMo Deposit is a vein stockwork deposit with the vast majority of the contained metals (Mo, Cu, Ag, Re and W) occurring within very thin veins and veinlets, irregularly spread throughout the deposit. This means that the largest part of potentially mined material will be waste, and a smaller portion will be mill feed. The Company intends to utilize and optimize industry-proven MineSense ore-sorting technology, which is designed to remove a large percentage of the waste before it enters a mill for further processing.

Since a large part of the waste is being removed, ore sorting also substantially improves the grade of the material being fed to a mill. Importantly, the elimination and removal of significant percentages of waste material prior to processing provides the ability to build a significantly smaller mill or concentrator than would be needed without ore sorting, which further translates into potentially material savings in capital and operating expenditures. Stage 1 ore sorting tests have previously established that X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) can be used to identify the grade of mined material at CuMo and thereby eliminate and divert away from the mill significant portions of waste material.

In addition to the grade effect due to the reduction in volume, the corresponding mill size can be much smaller. The 2020 Preliminary Economic Analysis produced by SRK identified a mill of 150,000 tons per day. The Company believes that a mill designed at 25,000 to 45,000 tons per day, using the enhanced mill feed grade, could produce similar amounts of metals as projected by SRK.

This would also lead to a significant reduction in capital and overall operating costs for the project.