Dr. Timothy Coughlin reports

ROYAL ROAD REPORTS POSITIVE DRILL RESULTS FROM ITS LUNA ROJA SKARN GOLD PROJECT; NICARAGUA

Royal Road Minerals Ltd. has released interim drilling results from its recently completed 17-hole scout diamond drilling program at its Luna Roja gold project in northwestern Nicaragua.

The Luna Roja project forms a part of the company's strategic alliance agreement (see press release dated Sept. 6, 2017) with Hemco Mineros Nicaragua and is located in the highly prospective Golden Triangle of northeastern Nicaragua, a region characterized by epithermal-style gold veins, skarn and porphyry-style mines that have been in operation since the early 1900s. Hemco Mineros Nicaragua owns and operates the Bonanza gold mine which is located approximately 26 kilometres to the northwest of Luna Roja. Royal Road Minerals is operator of the strategic alliance.

Royal Road and Hemco have completed an initial 17-hole, 2,472 metre, scout drilling program at Luna Roja. This is the first drilling program to be completed on the project. Results have been returned for the first 13 drill holes (see the associated table; intersections are not true widths and the company does not have sufficient information to make a determination of the true widths of the drill hole intersections of the mineralized zone). Significant intersections include:

• LR-DDH-003: 49 metres at 2.8 grams per tonne gold (including 22 m at 5.3 g/t gold);
• LR-DDH-005: 23 m at 2.1 g/t gold;
• LR-DDH-008: 18 m at 2.7 g/t gold;
• LR-DDH-011: 45 m at 1.1 g/t gold;
• LR-DDH-012: 49 m at 2.4 g/t gold (including 18 m at 5.4 g/t gold);
• LR-DDH-013: 80 m at 1.1 g/t gold (including 10 m at 2.8 g/t gold).

The drilling program at Luna Roja aims to test the subsurface extension of surface gold mineralization identified in saw-cut channel samples (see press release dated Sept. 25, 2018) which returned significant intersections including, 40.65 metres at 2.5 grams per tonne, 23.5 metres at 5.1 grams per tonne, 12.0 metres at 7.1 grams per tonne and 5.5 metres at 12.2 grams per tonne gold. These drilling results indicate that gold mineralization remains open at depth (down to 150 m vertical depth, LR-DDH-005) and management believe that potential exists for further gold mineralization in a down-thrown block concealed structurally below mapped marbles and skarnoids to the southeast.

Skarn-related gold mineralization at Luna Roja appears to be associated with breccia, veining and selective replacement of carbonate rocks on the upper limb and in the hinge zone of a northwest-trending, thrust-related, inclined antiform. Early-stage gold-bearing pyroxene garnet skarn occurs along selective carbonate units and aligned along a pressure-solution-cleavage particularly close to the hinge zone of the mapped antiform. Pyroxene garnet skarn is overprinted by a generally higher-grade gold-mineralized, magnetite, carbonate vein and breccia-related skarn. Gold is related with elevated tungsten, zinc and manganese.

Samples of drill core have been shipped to Bureau Veritas Vancouver for preliminary metallurgical testing, in particular head characterization, comminution, gravity, cyanidation and flotation process options, and to provide test data to establish gold recovery and reagent consumptions.

In accordance with the strategic alliance agreement, Royal Road and Hemco have mutually elected to define the Luna Roja project as a designated project area (DPA). Accordingly, the applicable rights and licences for the DPA will be held by a newly formed joint venture company (JVCo), with Royal Road and Hemco each holding an equal 50-per-cent proportionate equity interest thereof. All project costs of the joint venture will be co-financed by the parties based on their respective ownership of the JVCo, which will be subject to dilution. In the event that a party dilutes to a 30-per-cent interest in the JVCo, it will have a one-time option to be exercised within 14 days of being diluted to contribute such amount as is required to reinstate its 30-per-cent interest. If a party's interest in a JVCo is diluted below 15 per cent of the total interest, such party's interest in the joint venture will automatically convert to a 1.5-per-cent net smelter return royalty. Royal Road will be the operator and certain decisions of the operator will be subject to the approval of a management committee consisting of two representatives of each of Hemco and Royal Road. Notwithstanding other provisions of the strategic alliance agreement, the parties, at any time, may mutually agree to determine the appropriate structure and timing for the transfer of interests in the DPA, which may or may not be the formation of a JVCo and to determine the optimal time to form a JVCo, with a view to maximizing organizational and operational efficiencies and determining the best structure with which to hold the DPA.

"These drilling results are a great start at Luna Roja," said Dr. Tim Coughlin, Royal Road's president and chief executive officer. "This discovery is a product of great team work and of an exemplary collaboration with our partners, Hemco-Mineros-Nicaragua. The possibility of extensions to gold mineralization at depth and under faulted cover to the southeast at Luna Roja is enticing. We are also excited to have established our first designated project area and look forward to advancing the Luna Roja project with our partners Hemco Mineros Nicaragua and with the local community, local authorities and other valuable regional stakeholders."

The information in this news release was compiled, reviewed and verified by Dr. Tim Coughlin, BSc (geology), MSc (exploration and mining), PhD (structural geology), FAusIMM, president and chief executive officer of Royal Road Minerals, and a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Royal Road Minerals employees are instructed to follow standard operating and quality assurance procedures intended to ensure that all sampling techniques and sample results meet international reporting standards. More information can be found on Royal Road Minerals website.

Quality assurance and quality control

Diamond drill core is cut in half over one-metre downhole intervals using a core saw. Samples are prepared and assayed by independent and ISO-accredited laboratories of Bureau Veritas Minerals (BVM) and its local subsidiaries. Bagged one-metre samples are collected from site and delivered to BVM sample preparation laboratories in Managua. Samples are prepared using the BVM codes PRP70-250 plus PUL85, where samples are crushed to 70 per cent less than two millimetres, a riffle split of 250 grams is collected and then pulverized to better than 85 per cent passing 75 microns. Prepared sample pulps are then sent for analysis to BVM labs in Vancouver, Canada. Gold is analyzed by fire assay with an atomic absorption finish and a measurement range of 0.005 to 10 parts per million. Samples over 10 ppm gold are reanalyzed by fire assay with a gravimetric finish. Multielement concentrations are analyzed by four-acid digestion and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer. Samples over 10,000 ppm Cu, Zn, Pb or Mn and 200 ppm W, are reanalyzed with four-acid digestion and inductively coupled plasma emission spectrometer (ICP-ES). Commercially prepared standards (gold-copper pulps), blanks (pulps and coarse chips) and field duplicates are inserted into the sample stream by Royal Road Minerals for a total of 15 per cent QA/QC to ensure sample precision. In the case of duplicate analyses of a sample, the average of both analyses is used as the final reported value. Unless otherwise stated, gold grades are not capped for calculation of length-weighted averages.

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