Minotaur gains exposure to historic Victorian goldfields · MINOTAUR EXPLORATION LTD Minotaur Exploration Limited, MEP ASX Release 17 September 2010 Page 1 of 6 247 Greenhill Road,

MINOTAUR EXPLORATION LTD

Minotaur Exploration Limited, MEP ASX Release 17 September 2010 Page 1 of 6

247 Greenhill Road, Dulwich 5065, South Australia A.C.N. 108 483 601 Tel: +61 8 8366 6000 Fax: +61 8 8366 6001 Website: www.minotaurexploration.com.au Email: [email protected] ASX Code: MEP

17 September 2010

The Company Announcements Office Australian Securities Exchange Limited

Minotaur gains exposure to historic Victorian goldfields

HIGHLIGHTS: Minotaur has taken an Option to assess and acquire two historic gold producing areas in Victoria, providing brownfields exploration exposure:

The Mt Tarrengower Prospect within the Maldon Goldfield, adjacent to and immediately west of the township of Maldon in Central Victoria, and

The Golden Mountain Prospect, about 15km north of the village of Bonnie Doon at Lake Eildon, within mining licence MIN 4683.

BACKGROUND:

Minotaur Exploration Limited (‘Minotaur’) (ASX: MEP) has entered into an Option Agreement with

ASX listed Mining Projects Group Ltd (‘MPJ’) (ASX: MPJ) to explore and, at Minotaur’s election, to

subsequently acquire Xplor Pty Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Mining Projects Group.

Companies within the Xplor group own exploration licence EL 4533 (Mt Tarrengower) at Maldon and

mining licence MIN 4683 (Golden Mountain).

MT TARRENGOWER, MALDON:

The Maldon Goldfield produced approximately 1.75 million ounces of gold from quartz reefs at an

average grade of 28 g/t Au, and exploration licence EL 4533 covers the western portion of this

goldfield (Figure 1). The eastern portion is held by Alliance Resources Ltd, which has developed a

decline to access the unmined Alliance South lode on the Eaglehawk Reef, that itself produced

491,000 ounces of gold. EL 4533 contains a number of north-trending quartz reefs that pass beneath

Mt Tarrengower, a prominent regional landmark. The Lisle’s Reef quartz reef structure, located along

the ridge just south of the summit of Mt Tarrengower, was the location of intensive but shallow reef

mining in the 19th Century and contemporary records reveal a historical gold endowment of 1,000

ounces per vertical metre to 60m depth.

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Figure 1: Mt Tarrengower Prospect EL 4533 - Geology and historic reef workings, Location Plan

Minotaur views the Lisle’s Reef zone to be highly prospective and proposes a geological model in

which the reef structures and gold mineralisation are similar to the Parkins Reef system (Figure 1)

which sustained the Oswalds-North British mine workings (Figures 2 & 3) on the eastern boundary of

EL 4533. Oswald operated several shafts from circa 1865–1912 under private ownership and at

closure in 1926 was still mining at approx 15g/t1. Oswald’s shafts produced 355,340 ounces of gold,

at an average grade of 15 g/t, down to 442m (1450 feet depth)2.

1 Report on the Prospectivity of the Parkins (Perkins) Reef Zone, Maldon, Weber GB, August 1998 2 ibid

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Figure 2: Cross Section – Oswald’s North British Mine on EL 4533 showing flat reef structures splaying off

the main vertical quartz ‘feeder’ reef – Parkins Reef

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Figure 3: Long Section – Oswald’s North British Mine development, with mine mineralisation model

transposed onto the spur of Mt Tarrengower, at Lisle’s Reef

The Company believes that Lisle’s Reef has potential for repetitions at depth of the flat-lying quartz

reefs and the ‘vertical feeder’ structure mined from surface, akin to Parkins Reef at Oswald’s mines.

Despite the intensity of surface mining exposures and strike continuity along the ridge spur at Mt

Tarrengower, no modern exploration has adequately pursued the structural setting or mineralisation

model. Minotaur proposes to test the geological model at Lisle’s Reef by drilling diamond core holes

to intersect interpreted repetitions of the flat east-dipping reefs off the interpreted vertical feeder.

GOLDEN MOUNTAIN, TALLANGALOOK:

Just 170 kilometres by road from Melbourne and 15 kilometres north of Bonnie Doon village on the

north shore of Lake Eildon, the long abandoned Tallangalook field was the scene of frenetic gold

dredging and hard rock mining in the years 1863-1901. The Golden Mountain deposit is a sediment

hosted gold system on the southern contact of the Strathbogie Granite, with an alluvial and hard rock

gold mining history to a depth of about 60m, up until the 1920’s. Production records from the Golden

Mountain area vary, however 430,000 ounces from alluvials and 11,022 ounces from hard rock were

compiled (Griffith 1976, EL551). Production grade from rock was estimated at an average of 3.0g/t

(Duketon Goldfields NL Annual Report 1996).

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Mining lease MIN 4683 covers 190 hectares and includes the three main Golden Mountain open pit

mines of Meade’s, Voltiere’s and Woolf’s workings, 200m south of the granite contact. The project

area has been the subject of numerous drilling campaigns and resource studies since 1935. These

have established that the mineralisation is amenable to conventional CIL extraction, but the

lithological and structural controls on gold grade distribution are not well understood. Gold is finely

disseminated within the host hornfelsed sediments, rather than as coarse gold in quartz, as is

generally observed in Victoria. The mineralised material is non-visual and, not being quartz

associated, created challenges for historic miners to keep development in payable ore. Exploration in

the 1950’s and 1980’s defined mineralisation in a gold enriched corridor of some 230m in length,

150m in width and up to 300m in depth3.

Past drill testing of the deposit was intense in the area of the main lodes, on lines 20m apart and

spacings of 10m to 15m. Visionary Earth Science generated an updated geological model in 1998

whereby geological domaining was addressed and a resource estimate completed4. A 2 hole

diamond drilling program for 417 metres was completed in 2009 by Xplor’s then joint venture partner,

Tinka Resources Ltd, to confirm the validity of historical assay data. This has enabled further

resource evaluation by CSA Global, the results of which are pending.

Minotaur’s assessment of the project will commence with a review of the comprehensive library of

past exploration data in an endeavour to improve our understanding of the structural setting of

mineralisation and identify structural controls.

OPTION AGREEMENT:

Mining Projects Group has granted Minotaur an Option to explore and assess the prospectivity of

these tenements until 30 June 2011, in return for payment of a non-refundable Option fee of $35,000.

Minotaur has committed to expend, in the current financial year, $165,000 on exploration at Mt

Tarrengower and an additional $35,000 at Golden Mountain. Subject to the results of that work

Minotaur may elect by 30 June 2011 to acquire the share capital of Xplor for the payment of

$115,000 pursuant to a Share Purchase Agreement. Minotaur will also pay $25,000 for the

achievement of a JORC compliant resource estimate for the gold mineralisation at Golden Mountain

and issue new shares in Minotaur to the value of $75,000 (calculated on the volume weighted

average price over the 30 day period preceding sale conclusion).

The total acquisition cost of the Xplor group will thus be $225,000 in cash and shares, assuming

Minotaur proceeds to completion. A 2% NSR is payable up to a maximum of $1.3 million on gold

produced from EL 4533.

3 Tinka drills 70m grading 1.6g/t at Golden Mountain, Tinka Resources Limited (TSX: TK), 11 March 2009 4 Resource Estimate for the Golden Mountain Project, Visionary Earth Science report for Duketon Gold NL,

January 1998, Job No V160

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For further information contact:

Andrew Woskett (Managing Director) or Tony Belperio (Exploration Director)

Minotaur Exploration Ltd tel: +61 8 8366 6000

email: [email protected]

Information in this report that relates to Exploration Results, Mineral Resources or Ore Reserves is based on information compiled by Dr A. P. Belperio, who is a Director and full-time employee of the Company and a Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. Dr A. P. Belperio has a minimum of 5 years experience which is relevant to the style of mineralization and type of deposit under consideration and to the activity which he is undertaking to qualify as a Competent Person as defined in the 2004 Edition of the “Australasian Code for Reporting of Exploration Results, Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves”. Dr A. P. Belperio consents to the inclusion in the report of the matters based on his information in the form and context in which it appears.

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Minotaur gains exposure to historic Victorian goldfields · MINOTAUR EXPLORATION LTD Minotaur Exploration Limited, MEP ASX Release 17 September 2010 Page 1 of 6 247 Greenhill Road,