Bunker Hill Mining Restart Update

TORONTO - Sam Ash, CEO of Bunker Hill Mining Corp., said, “It’s been a busy and exciting summer at Bunker Hill, with impressive progress across all project and technical workstreams including mill demobilization, underground development and the Prefeasibility Study. Given the pace of this development, we look forward to providing our investors with a formal monthly project update going forward.

As part of the restart plan, a decline continues to be driven from ‘5 Level’ (the highest accessible level of the mine) to ‘6 Level’. The decline had advanced approximately 1,100 feet through the end of July, with supporting muck bays and sumps and with a second ventilation fan in the process of being installed. On breaking through to 6 Level the mine plan envisages rehabilitation of pre-existing decline infrastructure that already connects to 8 Level, a substantial time and capital saving, as the next stage of development. Upon completion, this will provide access to mineralization to support mine restart activities.

Upon arrival at the Bunker Hill site, mill equipment is being inspected, laid down and inventoried in accordance with requisite storage conditions for each piece. The previous work of clearing the yard and regaining key real estate is allowing us to place and store equipment outside the areas in which construction will soon begin. Concurrently, a maintenance and renovation program is being derived for the mill equipment.

Other above ground activity has also included a clean-up of the Wardner yard area which will form the base of mining operations for initial production. The Wardner yard will house future dry facilities and surface storage of the growing heavy equipment fleet, which includes two additional underground haul trucks and an electric jumbo drill. This new equipment will be used to further advance the ongoing decline, remove dependencies on single pieces of equipment, and open up the possibility of simultaneous mine development and mining/sale of ore in the pre-start period.

In partnership with Avista, the local electricity provider, the Company is also finalizing plans and procuring electrical components for a major upgrade of the electrical infrastructure at Wardner to allow a transition from diesel generators to the main electricity grid by early Q4 2022.

A pilot water treatment study is nearly complete, which has involved adjustment of multiple parameters during the critical spring freshet period at Bunker Hill Mine. This is the period of the year where both water flows and metal concentrations in the mine’s effluent peak. The result is a significant spike in the metal load of the mine’s effluent that needs to be removed. The testing program modified target pH levels of the plant’s reactor tank at varying influent flow rates using different types of flocculants to determine the performance capabilities of the plant. The plant’s Lamella clarifier removes metals that precipitate from the mine’s discharge water after being treated with lime and flocculant. The testing program documents the conditions under which this system can and did meet water discharge standards. The pilot system was built at approximately 1/20th of the full-scale plant, for which modifications are now underway using the results of the pilot study. The pilot plant, the pilot study and the full-scale system design are all being provided by MineWater LLC.

Mill demobilization is expected to be substantially complete over the coming weeks, followed by the commencement of demolition activities.   The Company remains on track to publish the results of a Prefeasibility Study by the end of the third quarter of 2022, and its overall development timeline remains unchanged. Project progress will be reported on a monthly basis going forward.