BAAR, Switzerland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Blackstone Resources AG (SWX: BLS;) (“Blackstone”) It is our great pleasure to announce our activities and successes during the first half of 2019. We will then offer our outlook for the business and the broader metal market.

Report for the first half of 2019

• Blackstone Resources delivered strong performance from our business activities during the first half of 2019. A profit of CHF 5,069,416 was recorded, which equates to CHF 0.12 per share.

• Battery tech metals delivered mixed results during the six month period and were highly dependent on the short-term supply and demand backdrop for each metal: lithium fell 10%, cobalt rose 38%, nickel rose 48%, manganese fell 5% and copper fell 6%. Nonetheless, all these metals are supported by robust demand fundamentals, which point to a sharp increase in prices over the next 10 years.

• Blackstone’s gold interests in Peru entered test production and a work programme has now been drawn up to target a final output of up to 349 tonnes per day within 24 months.

• Blackstone has an invested interest in FIRST COBALT. They announced that it was entering into a strategic partnership with GLENCORE in May 2019 to develop its cobalt refinery in Canada.

• Blackstone sold its metal mining interest in Mongolia, which was still at the stage of final exploration. It was sold to a sophisticated investor, where there is an option to repurchase the sold participation until the end of 2022. An off-take and a royalty agreement was also agreed with Blackstone during the transaction. The sale of this participation resulted in a CHF 6.9 million profit, to be recorded for the first half of 2019.

• Blackstone purchased an additional 31.00 % of South America Invest Ltd (SAI) which holds an gold and silver refinery in Peru, which includes some manganese mining interests. Blackstone now owns 50.9% of all the outstanding shares in SAI.

• The company acquired the majority of a series of lithium concessions (approx. 3,000 hectares) in SALAR PAJONALES, Chile through its Chilean subsidiary. These are believed to contain large quantities of lithium brine. It has also therefore commenced a geophysics study to evaluate these concessions.

• The company has teamed up with several strategic partners from Germany, Belgium, Poland and Austria, the United Kingdom and Switzerland to develop its battery technology programme, which it launched at the end of 2018. This research will be further extended through our subsidiary Blackstone Research GmbH, which is located in Erfurt in Germany, together with several universities and the Fraunhofer Institute.

• Blackstone submitted plans for a EUR 200 million research and development programme on battery technology and production facilities to the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi), Berlin with the objective to part fund the project through a subsidy agreement.

• The Trading division successfully entered into a joint venture agreement with an Indonesian mining company, which will export large amounts of minerals with Blackstone.

Outlook for the 2^nd half year 2019 and beyond

• In August, FIRST COBALT, where Blackstone has a invested interest, entered into a USD 5 million loan facility with GLENCORE to complete an advanced feasibility study for engineering, metallurgical testing, field work and the recommissioning and expansion of First Cobalt’s refinery in Canada. There will be an additional investment of up to USD 40 million to produce up to 5,000 metric tonnes of cobalt per year.

• At the end of September, the results from Chile’s geophysics of the SALAR PAJONALES possessions on the lithium reserves are expected to be received.

• Trading activities are expected to increase towards the end of the year, which his expected to contribute to increasing revenue and gross profit.

• A natural price correction has occurred in our publicly-listed invested assets, which is expected to reverse and increase in value in the near future: this is increasing battery metal prices.

• This metal price increase will leverage share prices of public listed companies dealing with battery metals.

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Blackstone Resources AG

Blackstone Resources is a Swiss Holding Company, with its legal domicile in Baar, Kanton Zug and is concentrating on the battery metals market as primary metals. In addition, it sets up, develops and manages refineries used for gold and battery metals. It offers direct exposure to the battery metal revolution that is being driven by the demand of electric vehicles that need vast quantities of these metals. These include cobalt, manganese, molybdenum, graphite, nickel, copper and lithium. Blackstone Resources has developed the new Battery code BBC. In addition, Blackstone Resources has started a research programme on new battery technologies on solid state batteries and its production process.

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