Directorate Changes

12 July 2016

Strategic Minerals plc

("Strategic Minerals" or the "Company")

Directorate changes - Appointment of UK Director

Strategic Minerals plc (AIM: SML; USOTC: SMCDY), the diversified mineral development and production company, is pleased to announce the appointment of Mr Peter Wale as Non-Executive Director, with immediate effect.

Mr Wale has over 20 years of diverse investing experience. After obtaining a degree in Business Economics & Accounting at Reading University, Mr. Wale worked in equities trading for both Japanese and American investment firms, including Fidelity Investments, where he was a Pan-European small and mid-cap equities trader. He was most recently a partner and senior equities trader at a global hedge fund, Habrok Capital LLP, which he left in March this year but he remains an active investor.

The Directors of Strategic Minerals believe that Mr Wale's appointment and experience, particularly as an investor in resources companies, will support the execution of Strategic Minerals' strategy, including its recent involvement in the Redmoor tin/tungsten project in Cornwall.  

Mr Lyle Hobbs has informed the Board that, due to an escalation of his other business interests and the appointment of Mr Wale, he has decided that it is an opportune time for him to step down from the Board of the Company, with immediate effect.

Strategic Mineral's Managing Director, John Peters, said:

The Board wishes to thank Mr Hobbs for his contribution to the Company, especially with regard to the re-organisation that he helped institute in 2014. It also wishes to welcome Mr Wale onto the Board and believes that, as our current second largest shareholder and an experienced investor, he will bring considerable commercial and corporate acumen to the Board.

Regulatory disclosures

Mr Peter Verdun Wale, aged 46, is or has been a director of the following companies over the past five years:

Mr Wale currently owns 43,864,000 ordinary shares in the Company, equivalent to 4.11% of the Company's total issued share capital. 

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Notes to Editors

Strategic Minerals Plc is an AIM-quoted, diversified mineral development and production company with projects in the United States of America and Australia. The Company is focused on acquiring and developing cash generative, high quality projects that meet local market demand for commodities and utilising this cash flow to undertake value added exploration. 

In September 2011, Strategic Minerals purchased its first cash generating asset; the Cobre magnetite tailings dam project in New Mexico, USA which it brought into production in 2012 and which continues to provide a revenue stream for the Company. The portfolio was expanded in January 2016 with the acquisition of shares in Central Australian Rare Earths Pty Ltd, which holds tenements in Western Australia and the Northern Territory that are prospective for nickel sulphides, platinum and rare earths. Strategic Minerals has completed drill-testing of the highest priority nickel sulphide targets within the tenements, having successfully intersected nickel sulphide. In May 2016, the Company also entered arrangements to buy up to 50% of the Redmoor tin/tungsten exploration project in Cornwall, UK.