Commencement of Work on Copper Licences

Botswana Minerals plc (AIM:BMIN; BSE:BMIN) is pleased to announce the commencement of its first phase work programme over its highly prospective copper licenses in Ngamiland, North West Botswana where the Company holds significant ground in the underexplored north-eastern part of the Damara Belt. The immediate objective is to refine and rank the most promising targets across the licence package and define the geophysical priorities which will lead to identifying drill targets.

Highlights

• 7,074 km² district-scale copper and polymetallic position in north-west Botswana.
• Highly prospective ground under thin cover within the Damara Belt.
• AI-led targeting aimed at identifying concealed mineral systems.
• Phase 1 to define the highest-priority targets across the licence package.
• Objective to identify geophysical targets for future drilling.

The Company's recent £1.15 million fundraising is to be used to advance its copper-focused exploration programme in North West Botswana to turn high-priority anomalies into drill targets. Phase 1 is the first operational step.

Ngamiland is important because it combines district scale, geological prospectivity with concealed discovery potential. The licence package lies within a recognised metallogenic corridor that extends into Namibia's Otavi Mountainland which is prospective for copper and associated polymetallic systems beneath the shallow Kalahari cover. Although this cover has historically limited conventional exploration, it also creates an opportunity for modern data-led exploration methods, which BMIN is deploying. These methods can detect mineral systems with little or no surface expression.

Phase 1, using our Planetary AI Xplore platform, will integrate historical company data, regional geological information, datasets from contiguous areas of Namibia, satellite-derived alteration data and available government geophysical data. This will sharpen prospectivity mapping, rank targets, eliminate lower-priority ground, and define the survey types and grids required for focused follow-up field work in Phase 2.

Meanwhile, discussions around a potential Joint Venture with interested parties continue.

The output of Phase 1 will be a technically ranked portfolio of opportunities and a defined geophysical targeting framework. Subsequent field programmes and drill targets can be generated with greater confidence.

John Teeling, Chairman of Botswana Minerals, commented:

"Our objective is to identify significant copper deposits in Botswana where we have 25 years of operational experience. Our AI work has allowed BMIN to target and obtain highly prospective copper ground.

The next phase is to integrate more data into the model to refine potential drill targets. Further data processing and tighter definition of targets is expected to lead to a higher chance of success in future drilling programmes".

This release has been approved by James Campbell, Managing Director of Botswana Minerals plc, a qualified geologist (Pr.Sci.Nat), a Fellow of the Geological Society of South Africa, a Fellow of the Southern African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Metals and Mining (UK) and with over 40 years' experience in the diamond sector, specifically focusing on exploration, resource assessment and mining.