Berkeley Eng Regulatory News (BKY)

BERKELEY ENERGIA LIMITED

NEWS RELEASE | 2 July 2018 | LSE/ASX: BKY

Salamanca mine continues to receive strong stakeholder support

Berkeley Energia would like to thank the Government of Castilla y León for their continued support for the Salamanca mine, as evidenced by their decision last week to reject a resolution from opposition groups requesting that Berkeley's €250 million investment be halted.

This decision reinforces the support the Company received on 13 June 2018 when over 200 members of Salamanca's business community came together in support for Berkeley Energia's investment, which will create 2,500 jobs in a region which has lost over 120,000 people over the past five years.

Berkeley Energia enjoys a good relationship with its key stakeholders, recently the Company met with the Portuguese Minister of the Environment, the Hon. Mr. D. João Pedro Matos Fernandes, who understood the importance of the investment to the region and confirmed that the Portuguese government had not taken any steps to stand in the way of the mine.

To date, the Company has received over 22,500 job applications with 400 of those coming from villages surrounding the project and of those, over 110 from Villavieja alone, which represents 25% of the population of the village.

Managing Director and CEO, Paul Atherley, said:

"There is a huge amount of support for the Salamanca mine, which is located in a region experiencing some of the highest levels of youth unemployment in the European Union.

Earlier this year the Minister of Economy and Finance for Castilla y Leon, Pilar del Olmo, heralded the investment that the Company is making in the region, commenting that the Salamanca mine will bring 'a generation of direct employment.'

Development of the mine will stimulate the return of services such as schools, petrol stations and transport to the local villages and will help to bring back some of the 25,000 mainly young people who left the area last year to look for employment.

If young people want to stay and take on the meaningful careers that are created by economic development, they will get married and hopefully have families which will rejuvenate once-thriving local villages.

We are incredibly proud of our investment and the rejuvenation it will bring to the local community.

We of course recognise that aspects of any project will generate opposition and we have a responsibility to accommodate genuine concerns raised ensuring that our investment meets the very highest environmental and community standards.

We welcome this scrutiny that will help rank the Salamanca mine among the very best mines in the world and a source of pride throughout Spain."

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