Vanadium Resources Ltd. announced that it has appointed highly experienced mining executive and financier John Ciganek, as Chief Executive Officer effective from 9 January 2023 (Effective Date). Mr. Ciganek will remain as a Non-Executive Director until the effective date. Mr. Ciganek will replace Mr. Eugene Nel, who has stepped down as Chief Executive Officer from the 9 December 2022, fulfilling his mandate of successfully steering the Company in completing its Pre- Feasibility Study (PFS) and Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS).

It is expected that Mr. Eugene Nel will apply for a position in VR8's Owner's Team, which will take the Steelpoortdrift Project through the required initial workstreams to get the project shovel-ready, and then to nameplate production and beyond. Prior to his Executive appointment, Mr. Ciganek was an Independent Non-Executive Director of the Company. Mr. Ciganek brings a wealth of mining, project funding, development and operational expertise to VR8.

He is a qualified Mining Engineer, holds a Master of Business Administration and has more than 30 years of mining and finance experience. His experience spans working in open pit and underground mining operations, project development, project finance (both on the banking and client side), offtake agreements, M&A and equity capital markets. Through his career to date, Mr. Ciganek has been involved with successfully raising debt and equity funding in excess of ~AUD 5 billion for various clients.

His previous roles included Principal and Director of Euclase Capital, Executive Director of BurnVoir Corporate Finance, Senior Banks Engineer and Risk Executive at Commonwealth Bank, Senior Mining Engineer at Hargraves Resources, Senior Mining Engineer at Reynolds Yilgarn Gold and Senior Mining Engineer at Comalco /Rio Tinto (previously CRA). As Non-Executive Director of VR8 since December 2020, the transition to Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer will be a natural progression for John and a benefit to the Company, as his skill sets are expected to guide the Company through the final stages of securing project debt financing, offtake arrangements, strategic partners and equity raising activities to reach final investment decision (FID). Mr. Ciganek joins VR8's experienced management team, whom have been responsible for completing a DFS over the Steelpoortdrift Vanadium Project, that demonstrated outstanding project economics including a post-tax NPV of USD 1.2 billion (AUD 1.9 billion) with robust margins, rapid payback of 27 months and strong IRR of 42% post tax 1.