A further step forward in developing the high-grade Lobo target with JV Partner

Bluebird Merchant Ventures Ltd, a gold company primarily focused on bringing historic mines back into production, is pleased to announce that E-Green Management & Environmental Consultancy Corporation (‘E-Green’) has been appointed to undertake the Preparation of the Environmental Impact Study (‘EIS’) and Application of an Environmental Compliance Certificate (‘ECC’) for the Lobo high-grade gold mining opportunity within the Batangas project area in the Philippines (‘Lobo’ or ‘the Project’).

The Project is being developed in tandem with the Company’s local Joint Venture (‘JV’) partner, which is fully funding the Project’s advancement to production decision, including the EIS. The JV has already received the Certificate of Approval from the Mines and Geosciences Bureau (‘MGB’) for its Two-Year Community Development Plan and the Project has two 25-year Mineral Production Sharing Agreements (‘MPSA’) in place. The EIS, along with a Declaration of Mining Project Feasibility are the two key outstanding compliance permissions for the Project.

Under the terms of the of Agreement, E-Green, a Philippines focussed environmental consultancy based in Quezon City, has committed to enact the following, which is estimated to take in the region of 12 months:

• Public Scoping to present the proposed project and EIA process to the stakeholders particularly the general public and provide an open forum to gather project related issues and concerns.
• Enact baseline data studies and methodology for the Project including land surveys, site assessments, pedology, terrestrial ecology, hydrology and hydrogeology, climate and meteorology, air quality and noise analysis, demographic and socio-economic profiling, and public analysis.
• Submit a code compliant EIS.
• Facilitate public hearings to present the results of the EIS to the stakeholders provide an open forum to gather the remaining issues, concerns, and clarifications.

Bluebird CEO Colin Patterson said, “The appointment of E-Green by our JV company to conduct the EIS is a positive step forward for the advancement of activities at Lobo in the Batangas Gold Project area, one of three high grade gold projects in our portfolio. Our local partner, which is funding all work including permitting to a production decision in return for 60% of the Project, believe that this is the most important activity currently for the Project to be advanced.  It has already been instrumental in securing the Community Development Plan underlining the importance of having local partners and we look forward to reporting the milestones as the work progresses.”

The Lobo licence area covers 1,164-hectare. The mineral resources are associated with a linear, steeply dipping, epithermal lode with high grade ‘shoots’ of mineralisation.  Multiple high grade target areas have been identified and include the South West Breccia (‘SWB’), West Drift, Japanese Tunnel, historic Lobo copper mine, Camo, Acacia, Pica, Balisong and Ulupong prospects.  Lobo has an initial Probable JORC Compliant Ore Reserves of 171,000 tons at 6.6 g/t for 36,000 ounces of gold excluding silver credits based primarily on the SWB area of the licence that can be mined in the first 18 months of any operation.  There is an Indicated resource of 82,000 oz au that is perceived as easily convertible.

Additionally, the Lobo licence area has multiple epithermal and high-grade targets already identified for resource expansion with 15km of identified mineralised structures with results across the nine identified targets yielding excellent results. These include 2.1m @14.4g/t Au and 3m at 12.1g/t at West Drift, which already has an Indicated and Inferred resource of 350,000t at 3 g/t Au, 8.35m at 18.3 g/t Au and 6.0m at 31.2 g/t Au located immediately west of the SWB Extension, 19m surface channel sample with intersections of 19m grading 9.8 g/t Au at Ulupong and trenching at Limestone Target yielded 3.5m at 25.9 g/t Au including 1.5m at 56.8 g/t Au.