Further Drilling Target

Tertiary Minerals PLC 29 August 2000 TERTIARY ACQUIRES DRILLING TARGET FOR PLATINUM GROUP METALS, NICKEL & COPPER * Geology Resembles Known Finnish Platinum-Palladium Deposits * Drill target already defined A further expansion of its mineral project portfolio is announced today by AIM-listed Tertiary Minerals plc, which is adding platinum group metals (PGMs), nickel and copper to its existing exploration targets of zinc, silver, tantalum and caesium. 'When the company listed only nine months ago it had six projects ranging from grass roots prospects to one at the drilling stage,' says Executive Chairman Mr Patrick Cheetham. 'It now has 11 projects including four that are at, or very close to, the drilling stage.' 'This progress and diversification since the company was listed in November 1999 - which also includes completion of one drilling and a number of geochemical sampling programmes - have been achieved on private funding and total expenditure of just £260,000,' he points out. The latest addition to Tertiary's portfolio is an exploration permit to search for PGMs, nickel and copper at Kukkola in northern Sweden, near the Finnish border. The permit covers a specific geophysical anomaly which the Company intends to drill test as soon as possible. The target, an untested, coincident, electrical conductor and magnetic anomaly at least 500m long, was defined in a 1980's exploration programme carried out by a Swedish State prospecting company. Tertiary intends to test the possibility that the geophysical anomaly is caused by a significant body of pyrrhotite - a magnetic and conductive sulphide mineral commonly associated with economic PGM-nickel-copper deposits. The anomaly is associated with the Kukkola layered mafic-ultramafic complex, one of a number of similar complexes stretching in a belt through Finland and Russia on the margin of the Archaean Craton. In Finland and Russia these are known to host deposits of PGMs. Although outcrop is poor within the permit area, the target is believed to lie in the Archaean basement immediately below the Kukkola Complex and, as such, its setting is broadly analogous to the 'offset' platinum mineralisation associated with the Portimo complex in Finland which is currently being targeted by a joint venture between South African Gold Fields Ltd and Outokumpu Oyj of Finland. The permit also covers a pipe-like body of gabbro within the Archaean basement that may have been a 'feeder' zone to the main Kukkola Complex. Feeder zone intrusions are attractive targets for world-class deposits of nickel, copper and PGMs such as the intrusions at Voisey's Bay in Canada and Russia's Norilsk. Tertiary has also applied for an exploration permit at Flinten in south central Sweden where PGMs are a grass-roots target in a small layered intrusive Complex. Further Information: Patrick Cheetham, Executive Chairman, Tertiary Minerals plc. Tel: 01625 626203 Ron Marshman or Ken Gooding, City of London PR. Tel: 020 7628 5518