Silver Elephant Subsidiary Acquires Bisoni Vanadium Project Next To Gibellini
Silver Elephant Subsidiary Acquires
Bisoni Vanadium Project Next To Gibellini
Vancouver, British Columbia , August 24, 2020 – Silver Elephant Mining Corp. (“Silver Elephant” or the
“Company”) (TSX: ELEF, OTCQX:SILEF , Frankfurt:1P2N) announces that its wholly owned subsidiary Nevada
Vanadium LLC (“Nevada Vanadium”) has entered into a binding definitive Asset Purchase Agreement (the “APA”)
with CellCube Energy Storage Systems Inc. (“Cellcube” ) to acquire the Bisoni vanadium project ( Bisoni Project)
situated immediately southwest to Nevada Vanadium’s Gibellini Project.
Subject to the terms and conditions in the APA, Nevada Vanadium is acquiring the Bisoni Project by its parent Silver
Elephant issuing 4 million Silver Elephant common shares a nd paying $200,000 cash to Cellcube at closing.
Additionally, Silver Elephant will make a one-time payment to CellCube of $500,000 worth of Silver Elephant’s common
shares, upon the price of European vanadium pentoxide price exceeding US$12 a pound for 30 consecutive business
days, occurring on or before December 31, 2023. Closing of the acquisition is expected in September 2020 and subject
to the final approval of the Toronto Stock Exchange.
The Bisoni Project is comprised of 201 lode mining claims, along a 13.8km strike that covers an area of 16.5 square km
(1,656 hectares), easily accessed by a graded gravel road extending south from US Highway 50, and is about 25 miles
south of the town of Eureka, Nevada.
Together, the Gibellini and Bisoni Projects are comprised of a total of 934 contiguous claims along a 20.7 km (NE-SW)
strike covering 43.4 square km (4,342 hectares). The large combined land package hosts significant vanadium
resources in the United States, right in the heart of Nevada, a state which is consistently ranked in top 3 of the most
attractive jurisdictions in the world for mining investment in 2017, 2018, and 2019, according to the Annual Survey of
Mining Companies by the Fraser Institute, an independent Canadian policy think-tank.
The current benchmark V2O5 (vanadium pentoxide) price is US$7.10/lb. in China and US$5.50/lb. in Europe according
to Metal Bulletin.
Independently estimated historic resources by Edwin Ulmer and Edwin H. Bentzen III in 2016 for the Bisoni Project are
tabulated below:
Table 1. Bisoni Project historic resource calculated in 2016
Historic Category M tons V2O5 % M lbs Contained V2O5
Bisoni McKay
Indicated 11.88 0.397 94.4
Inferred 7.05 0.427 60.1
Historic resource calculation adopted a 0.2% V2O5 cutoff grade. A qualified person as defined by NI43-101 has not
done sufficient work to classify the historical estimate as current mineral resources or mineral reserves. The Company
is not treating the historical estimate as current mineral resources or mineral reserves.
The May 28, 2018 NI43-101 compliant Mineral Resource Estimate by AMEC for Company’s Gibellini Project is tabulated
below:
Table 2. Gibellini NI43-101 compliant resource calculated in 2018
Category M tons V2O5 % M lbs Contained V2O5
Gibellini
Measured and
Indicated 22.95 0.286 131.3
Inferred 14.97 0.175 52.3
Louie Hill
Inferred 7.52 0.276 41.5
Gibellini resource estimate calculated using various cutoffs. The Gibellini Mineral Resource Estimate is filed as
www.sedar.com. Additional details are included in the Company’s press release dated May 29th, 2018 and outlined in
the QP statement at the end of this Press Release.
The Bisoni Project was drilled in 1970’s by Hecla, and more recently by Stina Resources (now Cellcube) in 2004, 2005,
and 2007.
Historic 2005 drill result highlights include:
BMK 05-01 - 98.5 meters grading 0.46% V2O5 from surface, including 36.0 meters grading 0.76% V2O5
BMK 05-02 - 98.1 meters grading 0.53% V2O5 from near surface, including 40.2 meters grading 0.88% V2O5
BMK 05-03 - 105.2 meters of 0.49% V2O5.
Compiled historic results are tabulated below:
Table 3. Historic Bisoni-McKay drilling results
From (m)
To (m)
Interval (m)
Approx true
width (m)
V2O5 (%)
Hole No. DDH BMK 05-01
0.0 22.9 22.9
79.2
0.25
22.9 62.5 39.6 0.3
62.5 98.5 36.0 0.76
0.0 98.5 98.5 0.46
Hole No. DDH BMK 05-02
7.0 36.3 29.3
n/a
0.29
36.3 64.9 28.7 0.29
64.9 105.2 40.2 0.88
7.0 105.2 98.1 0.53
Hole No. DDH BMK 05-03
4.0 25.3 21.3
n/a
0.27
25.3 130.5 105.2 0.49
These drill results are “historic” as defined by NI43-101 and have not been independently verified. Truth widths unknown
except where indicated in Table 3.
The host rocks carrying vanadium mineralization at both the Gibellini Project and Bisoni Project belong to the same
Gibellini facies of the Woodruff Shale Formation.
There exist several highly prospective exploration targets in between and around the Gibellini and Bisoni McKay
deposits (the two are 14km apart) along the northeast - southwest corridor such as the Big Sky prospect, the Middle
Earth prospect and the North East prospect (from Gibellini Project) and BMK and BR zones(from Bisoni Project) all with
outcropping surface vanadium mineralization that could pot entially ultimately lead to additional vanadium mineral
discoveries.
Relevant maps can be viewed at www.nevadavanadium.com.
Gibellini Permit Status and Timeline
Nevada Vanadium recently announced the publication of the Notice of Intent (NOI) to prepare an Environmental Impact
Statement for the Gibellini Project on July 14th, 2020, thus initiating the 12-month process to the issuance of Record of
Decision to permit Gibellini for production in accordance with Secretarial Order 3355 (see Company’s press release
dated July 17th, 2020).
The publication of the NOI follows the final Mine Plan of Operations (MPO), Project Enhanced Baseline Reports (EBRs)
and Pre-Planning Supplemental Environmental Reports that were accepted by Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
Battle Mountain District prior to the start of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analysis.
The MPO includes the construction, operation and closure of the Gibellini Project, which is an open pit mining operation
and heap leach process facility to extract and recover an average of 10 million pounds of vanadium pentoxide annually,
132 million pounds of vanadium pentoxide over the life of the Gibellini Project.
About Vanadium
On June 2, 2020, US Department of Commerce p ublished the following as i t initiates Section 232 i nvestigation into
imports of vanadium:
“Vanadium is a metal used in production of metal alloys and as a catalyst for chemicals across aerospace, defense,
energy, and infrastructure sectors. Designated a strategic and critical material, vanadium is used for national defense
and critical infrastructure applications. Examples include aircraft, jet engines, ballistic missiles, energy storage, bridges,
buildings, and pipelines. Vanadium is a key component in aerospace applications due to its strength-to-weight ratio, the
best of any engineered material. U.S. demand is supplied entirely through imports.
Vanadium is utilized in our national defense and critical infrastructure, and is integral to certain aerospace applications,”
said Secretary Ross. “We will conduct a thorough, fair, and transparent investigation to determine whether vanadium
imports threaten to impair U.S. national security.”
The Gibellini Project is scheduled to become the first primary vanadium mine in the United States at the end of 2023.
Qualified Persons
The technical contents of this news release have been prepared under the supervision of Danniel Oosterman, VP
Exploration. Mr. Oosterman is not independent of the Company in that he is employed by the Company. Mr. Oosterman
is a Qualified Person (“QP”) as defined by the guidelines in NI 43-101. The Qualified Person for the Gibellini estimate is
Mr. E.J.C. Orbock III, RM SME, a Wood employee. The Mineral Resources have an effective date of 29 May, 2018 and
filed on SEDAR on June 25th, 2018 and is available under the Company’s profile at www.sedar.com. Mineral Resources
are reported at various cut-off grades for oxide, transition, and reduced material.
About Nevada Vanadium
Nevada Vanadium, as a wholly owned subsidiary of Silver Elephant Mining Corp (OTCQX: SILEF, TSX: ELEF), is
developing the Gibellini Project – the only large-scale, open-pit, heap-leach vanadium project of its kind in North
America. Located in Nevada, Gibellini is currently undergoing project engineering and permit development. Further
information on Nevada Vanadium can be found at www.nevadavanadium.com
About Silver Elephant
Silver Elephant is a mineral exploration company. Further information on Silver Elephant be found at www.silverelef.com.
SILVER ELEPHANT MINING CORP.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD
Ron Espell
For more information about Silver Elephant, please contact Investor Relations:
+1.604.569.3661 ext. 101
[email protected] www.silverelef.com
Neither the Toronto Stock Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the
Toronto Stock Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
Some statements in this news release are about future events and performance. Such statements are based on current
estimates, predictions, expectations, or beliefs. The subjects of the statements include, but are not limited to (i)
construction of a mine at the project and related actions; (ii) estimates of the capital costs of constructing mine facilities,
bringing the mine into production, and sustaining the mine, together with estimates of the length of financing payback
periods; (iii) the estimated amount of future production, of both ore mined and metal recovered; and (iv) estimates of
the life of the mine and of the operating and total costs, cash flow, net present value, and economic returns, including
internal rate of return from an operating mine constructed at the project. All forward-looking statements are based on
Company’s or its consultants’ current beliefs and assumptions, which are in turn based on the information currently
available to them. The most significant assumptions are set forth above, but generally these assumptions include: (i)
the presence and continuity of vanadium mineralization at the project at the estimated grades; (ii) the geotechnical and
metallurgical characteristics of the rock conforming to the sampled results; (iii) infrastructure construction costs and
schedule; (iv) the availability of personnel, machinery, and equipment at the estimated prices and within the estimated
delivery times; (v) currency exchange rates; (vi) vanadium sale prices; (vii) appropriate discount rates applied to the
cash flows in the economic analysis; (viii) tax rates applicable to the proposed mining operation; (ix) the availability of
acceptable financing on reasonable terms; (x) projected recovery rates and use of a process method, which although
well-known and proven with other commodity types, such as copper, has not been previously brought into production
for a vanadium project; (xi) reasonable contingency requirements; (xii) success in realizing proposed operations; and
(xiii) assumptions that the project’s environmental approval and permitting is forthcoming from county, state, and federal
authorities. The economic analysis is partly based on Inferred Mineral Resources that are considered too speculative
geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as Mineral
Reserves, and there is no certainty that any economic assessment based on these Mineral Resources will be realized.
Currently there are no Mineral Reserves on the Gibellini property. Although the Company’s management and its
consultants consider these assumptions to be reasonable, given the information currently available to them, they could
prove to be incorrect. Many forward-looking statements are made assuming the correctness of other forward -looking
statements, such as statements of net present value and int ernal rates of return. Those statements are based in turn
on most of the other forward-looking statements and assumptions made herein. The cost information is also prepared
using current values, but the time for incurring the costs is in the future and it is assumed costs will remain stable over
the relevant period.
These factors should be considered carefully, and readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking
statements by the Company or its consultants. The Company and its consultants believe that the expectations reflected
in the forward-looking statements contained in this news release and the documents incorporated by reference herein
are reasonable, but no assurance can be given that these expectations will prove correct. In addition, although the
Company and its consultants have attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual actions, events, or
results to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause
actions, events, or results not to be as anticipated, estimated, or intended. The Company and its consultants undertake
no obligation to publicly release any future revisions of the forward-looking statements that reflect events or
circumstances that occur after the date of this news release or reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except
as expressly required by law.