LONDON, UK: Metals Exploration Plc, a gold producer in the Philippines, has entered into a conditional share purchase agreement to acquire a controlling interest in the YMC Group, which holds an extensive exploration tenement in the prospective Abra area of the Philippines.

The acquisition consideration comprises US$1.6 million cash and the issue of options to subscribe for up to 41 million new ordinary shares of £0.0001 each in the capital of the Company.

The YMC Group holds a highly prospective exploration license covering 16,200 hectares on Luzon, Philippines, approximately 200km north of the Company’s Runruno mine, in the Cordillera region, which is a prolific gold belt in the Philippines, with proven mineral endowment, having produced over 40Moz of gold historically.

Steven Smith, Interim Chairman of Metals Exploration, commented: “Our strategy is to grow MTL within the Philippines and ultimately the broader region, leveraging our established in-country knowledge, experience, and strong technical team.

Our team at Runruno has set the bar for high performance, locally-run and managed operations, and this gives us a significant competitive advantage as we focus on the development of new projects in the country.

The acquisition of the YMC Group is the first step in our progress to a new future for the Company.  The Abra Tenement has the potential to provide an extensive project growth pipeline for MTL, with multiple prospective targets in both gold and copper over a significant area, in a geological region of scale and with historical production.  If we have the exploration success we are targeting, we aim to focus on developing a high-grade, smaller-scale gold production-ready project as soon as possible, in addition to advancing our other targets.

YMC is the first of a number of targets within our purview and we look forward to providing further updates on both our exploration progress and project expansion efforts, as results are obtained.”

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