In July 2021, the Company completed the execution of a gold stream agreement on the Sierra Antapite mine in Peru owned by the private corporation Sierra Sun Group, through its 100% owned Peruvian company Sierra Antapite S.A.C. Mining Unit (“Sierra Antapite”).

The stream is on gold production from the Sierra Antapite mine at 20% of the gold spot price based on 4.5% of gold production for the first 11,000 gold ounces and 1% thereafter for life of mine. The stream will be registered and secured against the mine. The stream was funded in three tranches; the first tranche of US$5,000,000 was funded in July 2021; the second tranche of US$2,500,000 was funded in September 2021; and the third tranche of US$2,500,000 was funded in December 2021. The mine will use Empress’ investment to increase its processing capacity from 750 to 1,000 tonnes-per-day.

The mine is fully permitted, has all social licenses to operate, and sells dore bars through either Metalor Technologies, a Switzerland-based refiner, or through Procesadora Sudmerica S.R.L, a Peru-based refiner. The cyanidation and Carbon-in-Carbon flowsheet is straight forward, with no need for fine or ultra-fine grinding, no refractory ore and the flowsheet is “off the shelf” technology. Given this is an operating company with a track record, realized results de-risks many operating assumptions and inputs used in production forecasts derived from realized results.