Infill Drill Program Initiated On The White Pine North Projects

LONGUEUIL - Denis Miville-Deschenes, President and CEO of Highland Copper Company Inc. announced, “The Company has initiated an infill drill program on White Pine North projects in Michigan. We are excited to be back drilling in Michigan as we believe we still have tremendous value to surface from Highland’s key business assets, the Copperwood and White Pine North projects. We are drilling the extension of the historic White Pine mine which had a long history of successful conversion of inferred ore. Similarly, we hope to convert a significant portion of our 97 million inferred resource tonnes. We look forward to providing updates throughout the program.”

The significant capital investment demonstrates Highland’s commitment to advancing its assets including the Copperwood project which has received all required Michigan state permits, and the White Pine North Project, a proven past producer. Copperwood and White Pine North both have significant contained copper resources totaling 4.8 billion pounds in the Measured and Indicated category (182.7 million tonnes at 1.20% copper grade)1, and 3.5 billion pounds in the Inferred category (148.7 million tonnes at 1.08% copper grade). This expenditure will serve to improve the resource quality from a classification perspective.

Highland Coppers’ White Pine North project is the extension of the historic White Pine Mine which operated for approximately fifty years and produced more than five billion pounds of copper. Highland believes that the opportunity at White Pine North is significant, as demonstrated by the 2019 Preliminary Economic Assessment (“PEA”)2. The continuity of the deposit considered in the PEA mine plan represents 3.2 billion pounds contained in the Measured and Indicated category (133.4 million tonnes at 1.07% copper grade) and 2.2 billion pounds contained in the Inferred category (97.2 million tonnes at 1.03% copper grade).

The winter drilling program, currently underway, has the goal of upgrading a portion of the Inferred resources into the Measured and Indicated category. This would increase the usable resource base and mine life for future Feasibility Studies. The initial phase of the program consists of 8 holes representing approximately 8,400 meters of core drilling. The timing of the program will be partially dependent on weather conditions.

Work is also on-going on our key technical studies. The Preliminary Economic Assessment on the combined scenario is progressing well. The PEA will contemplate eliminating considerable infrastructure at Copperwood, particularly the processing plant and tailings storage facilities as defined in the previous stand-alone Copperwood Feasibility Study3. In its place, the PEA will consider processing ore from the two deposits in one central facility located at White Pine North. We expect to issue the results of the combined scenario PEA late in Q1 2023.

Highland is concurrently updating the Copperwood Feasibility Study and expects to publish the results at the same time as the combined scenario PEA.