Cerro Negro Permitting & Approvals for Drilling

Great Southern Copper plc (LSE: GSCU), the company focused on copper-gold-lithium exploration in Chile, is pleased to announce that permitting and authorisation for drilling at its Cerro Negro prospect has been finalised with diamond drilling targeting high-grade Cu-Ag mineralisation to commence at the Mostaza mine.

Highlights:

• Permits and authorisations for drilling completed with proposed start date in two weeks
• Drilling contractor appointed and site inspections completed
• Diamond drilling to target high-grade Cu-Ag-Au mineralisation at Mostaza mine testing down-dip and along-strike extensions of the mineralised zone
• Initial plan for up to 5 to 10 diamond and RC drill holes for up to 500-1,000m
• Scout RC drilling continuing at Viuda prospect targeting porphyry type mineralisation

Cerro Negro is situated within the Company's Especularita project which is ideally located close to national infrastructure including main highways, powerlines, and towns. The project is located 170km from the port city of Coquimbo, and 130km from Antofagasta Minerals' copper concentrate port at Los Villos. The area lies at an elevation between 800 and 1200m and is accessible year-round for all exploration and mining activity (Figure 1).

Sam Garrett, Chief Executive Officer of Great Southern Copper, said: "This result concludes many months of hard work by our team in Chile and we are looking forward to getting started with our drilling plans.

"Diamond drilling will initially focus on drilling out the known high-grade copper-silver-gold mineralisation at the Mostaza mine, before expanding along trend to the south where our recent exploration results have confirmed evidence of similar mineralisation at surface.

"The upcoming drill campaign at Cerro Negro builds on the momentum of the recently initiated scout RC drilling at the Viuda prospect. With the drill programme progressing well, we look forward to reporting the results of this work soon."

Drilling Plan at Mostaza:

Phase 1 diamond drilling at Mostaza is planned to test beneath high-grade Cu-Ag mineralisation exposed in the mine pit and reported in historical drilling beneath the pit, infill mineralisation between lenses 1 and 2, and test extension of the mineralisation to the south of lens 2 (Figure 2,3).

The programme will comprise up to 5-10 diamond drill holes totalling up to 500-1,000m. Scout RC drilling may also be employed to target the strike extent of mineralisation further to the south of the Mostaza pit testing the potential for a broader zone of near-surface oxide copper mineralisation.

Planning and construction of drill platforms is in preparation for the mobilisation of the drill rig to site.

Previous work at Mostaza Cu-Ag-Au mine:

Assay results of historical drill holes at Mostaza, including 25 diamond holes (1,025m) plus channel sampling of mine adits were used to report a non-JORC mineral resource estimate of 190,600t of measured and indicated sulphide ore with grades of 1.2% Cu, 80 g/t Ag, and 0.45 g/t Au, plus an additional 63,000t of inferred sulphide resource at depth1.

A review of the historical drilling by GSC demonstrates that high-grade (>1.0% Cu) Cu-Ag mineralisation at Mostaza is open in all directions defining an initial drill target to expand the known orebody along strike and to depth. The review also showed that 4 of the 25 holes failed to reach the high-grade mineralisation target and 16 holes were terminated in lower grade copper (>0.1% Cu) indicating that a lower cut-off grade has potential to better define the mineralisation trend as well as up-scale the size of the Mostaza deposit2.

Results from recent geological mapping and sampling by GSC confirms that the Mostaza mineralisation extends up to 1.5km along trend to the south3. To the east of the Mostaza mine mapping indicates potential for a larger mineralised system up to 400m in width comprising an anastomosing network of structurally-controlled Cu-Ag-Ba rich veins hosted within leached and oxidised (lithocap), high sulphidation altered dacitic rocks.

Update on Scout RC Drilling at Viuda:

Scout RC drilling is continuing at the Company's Viuda prospect targeting porphyry type mineralisation4. To date 5 drill holes have been completed for a total of 714m with down-hole geology indicating pervasive pyrite-albite-clay (PAC) alteration of host rocks is dominant and suggestive of a large-scale porphyry type alteration system.

Samples for the first 3 RC drill holes have been despatched to ALS Laboratories in Santiago.

Figure 1: Location of Cerro Negro prospect, Especularita Project, Chile.

Figure 2: Long section of the Mostaza Mine adapted from the 1981 Historical Mineral Resource Estimate of Jeraldo Mining, showing Lens 1 and 2 and the cross-sections and polygons used for estimation. Mineral resource estimates are non-JORC. The results emphasise that the Mostaza Cu-Ag-Au mineralisation is open in all directions.

Figure 3: Geological cross-section S-00 adapted from the 1981 Historical Mineral Resource Estimate by Jeraldo Mining. Mineralisation remains open at depth beneath the historic drilling intersections. (GSCU has not been able to independently verify the historical channel sample or drill hole assay results).

Forward Looking and Cautionary Statements