Company History

Meridian Minerals was formed in late 2007 as a junior exploration mining company originally focused on gold and copper projects and a portfolio assembled through agreements with Teck Cominco Australia and Mitral Resources. Through an acquisition, the Company became Bellevue Resources in July 2008 and the company name reverted to Meridian Minerals in December 2008 (ASX code change from BVE to MII).

In August 2009 Meridian’s focus changed with the acquisition of the Lennard Shelf Zinc Lead project, through a Tenement Acquisition Agreement with Lennard Shelf Pty Ltd, an Xstrata Zinc/Teck Resources Limited joint venture company. Due Diligence confirmed the project area total resource amount previously classified in accordance with the JORC Code, was 8.2Mt @7.4% Zn and 4.5%Pb (comprising 24,000t of measured resource, 3,039,000t of indicated resource and 5,137,000t of inferred resource).

A $10.5M investment into Meridian Minerals to fund the BFS was made in December 2009 by Northwest Nonferrous Australia Mining (a wholly owned subsidiary of one of China’s top five exploration and mining Bureaus - Northwest Mining and Geology Group Co. Ltd for Nonferrous Metals).

In April 2010, pioneers of zinc manufacturing in India, Binani Zinc Ltd, made a $2M placement of ordinary fully paid shares to advance development of the Lennard Shelf Project. In addition they advanced a EUR €6M Loan Facility to Meridian for the purchase of the Galmoy zinc lead processing plant. Binani Zinc will have first right of refusal over 65% of zinc concentrate produced from the project.

To date, Lennard Shelf exploration drilling by Meridian has been successful, increasing the mineral resource inventory by 48% to 12.1Mt.