Tarachi Gold Corp. released the final metallurgy results for its Magistral Mill and Tailings Project ("Magistral" or "Project") in Mexico. The final stages of metallurgical test work, to support engineering and design of the planned modifications to the existing Magistral Mill, were completed at SGS Lakefield ("SGS") and Base Metallurgy Labs ("Base Met").

Results include the expected copper, silver, gold, zinc and mercury recovery efficiencies under various parameters and composition of final concentrate products. The final testing report was received from SGS on September 30th. The test work completed at SGS is specific to the SART (sulphidation, acidification, recycling and thickening) circuit that Tarachi intends to add to the existing facility at Magistral, which is consistent with the development plan outlined in the Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") (see press release dated Dec.

13th, 2021). The SART circuit is intended to remove copper, mercury and silver from the pregnant leach solution to allow the gold to be recovered downstream in the existing Merrill-Crowe system. Metals precipitated out during the SART process are expected to be collected as a high-grade copper concentrate to be sold as a by-product revenue stream for the project.

Pregnant cyanide leach solution was first produced by leaching 10kg charges of the composite tailings material for 48 hours at 40% solids, pH of 11.5 and a cyanide concentration of 2 g/L NaCN. Two sets of pregnant leach solution were generated, each from a different composite sample. Head assays of the tailings composites are shown in Table 1. Composite material was ground to a target P80 grind size of 75µm. SART testing on the pregnant leach solution was conducted at ambient temperatures with a retention time of 20 minutes.

Individual SART tests were run at various pH levels and NaHS additions to determine optimal levels for copper, silver, zinc, and mercury precipitation. Two-stage precipitation with a higher pH primary stage and lower pH secondary stage was also tested and determined that all of the mercury could be precipitated out in the first stage, to produce a cleaner final copper concentrate in the second stage. The SART test work has demonstrated that up to 99.9% of the copper in Composite A and 98% of the copper in Composite B could be precipitated out of solution in ideal conditions.

Mercury Solubility:- Additional assays on the previous tailings composite heads and tails after cyanide leaching were performed with an average mercury recovery in solution of 22%. This is a significant reduction compared to the 50% mercury-solubility assumed in the PEA. Lower mercury solubility is expected to result in lower Hg content of the final SART copper concentrate and lower smelter penalties.

Solid-Liquid Separation:- Dynamic thickening tests were performed on the tailings composites to determine the underflow densities that could be expected from Magistral's existing thickeners in the counter-current decantation ("CCD") circuit. This test work was conducted at BaseMet. Underflow densities achieved were slightly less than the figures assumed in the PEA, resulting in expected CCD recovery efficiency of 92.6% compared to CCD efficiency of 95.7% used in the PEA.

The net result is a small reduction in global gold recovery to 78.2% compared to 80.7% in the PEA. Some of the project revenue reduction expected from lower total gold production is expected to be offset by lower mercury smelter penalties and higher gold payability with a greater share of gold production in doré.