This is a cleanup project with the added bonus of carbon capture and production of critical metals. The MOU has a term of 1 year, after which, if results prove favourable, the parties are expected to enter into a commercial agreement with respect to the extraction of metals from the waste piles and subsequent carbon capture from the waste product stream. Aurania and Firestone have exclusive access to the site for this evaluation.

RSA have determined that the main dry-stacked tailings pile contains approximately 60 million cubic metres of serpentinite waste rock (Oboni and others, 2011; doi: ). This is material already excavated, milled, and heaped in a pile approximately 250 metres in height. It has been crushed to -10 cm, and the majority of the material is < 1 cm.

A rigorous determination of parameters has not yet been done, and as such, we stress caution; however, with a specific gravity of 2.55 as reported for average serpentinite by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and a volume of 60 million cubic metres, circa 153 million tonnes of waste is considered to be in the waste pile. In a limited reconnaissance sampling program commissioned by Aurania in 2024, Maxime Dupéré (géo. Project Geologist, SGS Canada Inc. - Geological Services) reported an average of 0.15% nickel for the Balangero tailings. This agrees well with the published average of around 0.17- 0.18% (average of over fifty analyses, with minimum and maximum values ​​respectively around 0.1 and 0.3 %) as reported by Prof. Steffano Zucchetti in 1966. Assuming an average grade of 0.15% Ni, the waste pile could contain circa 229,500 tonnes of nickel. There is also a second, older tailings and waste rock pile on the property that is possibly of similar dimensions.

Figure 1: Main tailings pile at the Balangero Mine. Approximate height is 250 metres.

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Figure 2: Appearance of typical mine waste at Balangero.

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This represents a potentially valuable resource which has already been extracted, crushed and dry-stacked. No drilling, blasting or mining will be required in this project. The main target mineral is "awaruite", a natural alloy of nickel and iron (Ni3Fe), with a composition of 77-83% Ni. There is no sulphide component, and this can be considered a "Green Nickel" recovery project. The awaruite nickel mineral was first described by Zucchetti in 1966, who discovered the mineral in magnetic sand, along with magnetite (Fe3O4). Zucchetti worked out an entire flow sheet for the beneficiation and recovery of the awaruite. Though the nickel-bearing awaruite mineral was not recognized at the time, the magnetic sand from the Balangero Mine tailings was used for some months in 1943 as furnace feed to make steel during World War II (Turin archives).

At present, some 450 kg of material taken from 36 sites across the property is being evaluated at STEVAL (Station expérimentale de valorisation des matières premières et des substances résiduaires) [Experimental station for the recovery of raw materials and residual substances] in Nancy, France. This will determine a complete mineralogical characterization of the material, the grain size of awaruite and other valuable minerals for potential recovery, the necessary grind size to liberate the metals, the bond index for crushing the material, and Davis Tube magnetic separation, which splits the sub-sample into magnetic and non-magnetic fractions. The magnetic fraction will then be fused with lithium metaborate/tetraborate flux and analyzed by X-ray fluorescence. These analyses are more representative of the recoverable grade of the waste since most recoverable nickel will be in the magnetic separate (e.g., awaruite), whereas the whole rock fusion/ICP analyses may include non-recoverable nickel hosted in silicate phases. This work is already ongoing.

International consultancy firm SRK has been retained to produce a Scoping Level Review on the Mineral Assets of the Balangero tailings retreatment project. We forecast this will take approximately 6 months to complete. Dr. Chiara Boschi, a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Geosciences and Earth Resources (IGG-CNR, Pisa, Italy), has been retained by Firestone to develop a process for using carbon dioxide from industrial sources to neutralize the contained asbestos in the tailings and fix the carbon permanently in a potentially useful form. Dr. Boschi is a recognized expert and published author on the carbonation of serpentinite and has over 15 years of experience in this regard.

RSA has some twenty years of experience in managing and reclaiming the Balangero Mine site and has been highly successful in reducing the threat of airborne asbestos, so today it is not considered a concern to local communities. It is not economically feasible at the known grades of nickel to consider the reopening of Balangero as a mining operation, and Aurania has no intention in this regard.

Dr. Keith Barron, a director and Chief Executive Officer of the Company, is also the President and a director of Firestone Ventures Inc.

Qualified Persons:
The geological information contained in this news release has been verified and approved by Aurania's VP Exploration, Mr. Jean-Paul Pallier, MSc. Mr. Pallier is a designated EurGeol by the European Federation of Geologists and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects of the Canadian Securities Administrators.

About Aurania
Aurania is a mineral exploration company engaged in the identification, evaluation, acquisition, and exploration of mineral property interests, with a focus on precious metals and copper in South America. Its flagship asset, The Lost Cities - Cutucú Project, is located in the Jurassic Metallogenic Belt in the eastern foothills of the Andes mountain range of southeastern Ecuador.

Information on Aurania and technical reports are available at and , as well as on Facebook at , Twitter at , and LinkedIn at .

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