Dr. Diane Nicolson reports

AMARC AND FREEPORT COMMENCE EXTENSIVE DRILLING A JOY COPPER-GOLD DISTRICT, BRITISH COLUMBIA

Extensive core drilling has commenced at Amarc Resources Ltd.'s 100-per-cent-owned Joy copper-gold (Cu-Au) district in north-central British Columbia. The program's goal is the discovery of porphyry Cu-Au deposits by wide-spaced drilling over eight large drill-ready sulphide mineralized systems clustered along a number of emerging mineralized trends. These trends resemble the four-kilometre-long northeast mineralized trend in the Kemess mining district, located immediately adjacent to the south of the Joy tenure. Owned by Centerra Gold, the Kemess mining district includes the Kemess North, Kemess Underground and Kemess East porphyry Cu-Au deposits.

The current program is fully financed by Freeport-McMoRan Mineral Properties Canada Inc., which is earning-in to the Joy project. Amarc continues as operator.

"We are very excited that the 2024 drilling program is fully under way at the Joy Cu-Au district with two drill rigs," said president and chief executive officer Dr. Diane Nicolson. "Our drilling and district-wide geological, geophysical and geochemical programs at Joy over the past two years are culminating in this discovery focused drilling program, which was designed in collaboration with the Freeport team."

Key deposit scale drill targets

• Northwest Gossan (NWG). Is a new and exciting porphyry Cu-Au target that has never been drill tested. NWG is located at the northwest extremity of a possible 15 km mineralized trend that extends southeast toward the Gap and SWT targets. NWG is characterized by several layers of intriguing technical evidence that indicate proximity to a porphyry Cu-Au system (see Amarc release May 2, 2024). The targeted sulphide system is outlined by a substantial 3.7-square-kilometre induced polarization (IP) anomaly (greater than 14 mV/V (millivolts per volt)) with coincident Cu, Au, Mo (molybdenum) and Ag (silver) anomalies outlined in soils and rocks. Initial drill testing of NWG will focus primarily on a 1,500 m long and 500 m wide internal zone of higher (greater than 20 mV/V) IP chargeability.
• PINE trend. Drilling is also planned to advance important scale sulphide mineralized targets along this northeast-striking 15 km trend, including at the at the PINE deposit (six square km), Canyon discovery (five square km), Twins deposit target (seven square km) and SWT target (three square km) as defined by induced polarization (IP) chargeability anomalies.
• PINE deposit target. Is characterized by a strike extension of Cu-Au mineralization of over 1,700 metres, encountered from near surface to depth. This extent will be further tested this season laterally and to depth, following up on drilling intercepts such as 204 m of 0.42 per cent CuEq (copper equivalent) (0.18 per cent Cu, 0.41 g/t Au and 2.3 g/t Ag) and 105 m of 0.40 per cent CuEQ (0.13 per cent Cu, 0.47 g/t Au and 2.3 g/t Ag) (see Amarc release March 2, 2023).
• Canyon deposit target. Is where Amarc's initial drilling discovered significant new porphyry Cu-Au mineralization. Extensions to the mineralization at this largely overburden covered target are currently being drill tested. Discovery drill hole intercepts included, for example, 96 m of 0.51 per cent CuEq (0.39 per cent Cu, 0.18 g/t Au and 2.6 g/t Ag), within 296 m of 0.39 per cent CuEq (0.30 per cent Cu, 0.14 g/t Au and 1.7 g/t Ag) (see Amarc release March 2, 2023).
• Twins deposit target. Initial widely spaced exploration drilling completed by Amarc at this prospective target encountered widespread porphyry Cu-Au mineralization in drill holes, including 27 m of 0.29 per cent CuEq (0.12 per cent Cu, 0.30 g/t Au, 1.2 g/t Ag) and 204 m of 0.11 per cent CuEq (0.04 per cent Cu, 0.14 g/t Au, 0.4 g/t Ag) (see Amarc release March 2, 2023). Further drilling is under way to test the significant exploration potential for another Cu-Au deposit discovery.
• SWT target. Drilling is planned at SWT to investigate the source of porphyry Au-Cu mineralization from six samples of near source float, five of which grade from 1.73 to 14.4 g/t Au with 0.07 to 0.24 per cent Cu and the sixth sample grading 0.28 g/t Au and 0.02 per cent Cu.
• MEX trend. Drilling is also planned at the South MEX and More MEX targets within the north-northeast trending six km MEX trend. South MEX is a greater than 1.9 square km open target. Drilling will follow up on an initial hole that intersected anomalous concentrations of Ag-Au(-Cu) (see Amarc release March 2, 2023) in a geological environment similar to that hosting the Kemess district porphyry Cu-Au deposits.

In addition to the many deposit scale targets noted above, the Joy district also hosts a high-quality pipeline of seven other Cu-Au targets located across the district where additional survey work is required to bring them up to a drill-ready status.

About Amarc Resources Ltd.

Amarc is a mineral exploration and development company with an experienced and successful management team focused on developing a new generation of long-life, high-value porphyry Cu-Au mines in British Columbia. By combining high-demand projects with dynamic management, Amarc has created a solid platform to create value from its exploration and development-stage assets.

Amarc is advancing its 100-per-cent-owned Ike, Duke and Joy porphyry Cuplus or minus Au districts located in different prolific porphyry regions of southern, central and northern B.C., respectively. Each district represents significant potential for the development of multiple and important-scale, porphyry Cuplus or minus Au deposits. Importantly, each of the three districts are located in proximity to industrial infrastructure -- including power, highways and rail.

Freeport-McMoRan Mineral Properties Canada Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Freeport-McMoRan Inc. at Joy and Boliden Mineral Canada Ltd., an entity within the Boliden Group of Companies at Duke, can earn up to a 70-per-cent interest in each District through staged investments of $110-million and $90-million, respectively. Together this provides Amarc with potentially up to $200-million in non-share dilutive staged financing for these districts. In addition, Amarc intends to solo drill the higher grade Empress deposit in the Ike district allocating funds from its successful 2023 financing. Amarc is the operator of all programs.

Amarc is associated with HDI, a diversified, global mining company with a 35-year history of porphyry Cu deposit discovery and development success. Previous and current HDI projects include some of British Columbia's and the world's most important porphyry deposits -- such as Pebble, Mount Milligan, Southern Star, Kemess South, Kemess North, Gibraltar, Prosperity, Xietongmen, Newtongmen, Florence, Casino, Sisson, Maggie, Ike, Pine and Duke. From its head office in Vancouver, Canada, HDI applies its unique strengths and capabilities to acquire, develop, operate and monetize mineral projects.

Amarc works closely with local governments, indigenous groups and stakeholders in order to advance its mineral projects responsibly, and in a manner that contributes to sustainable community and economic development. The company pursues early and meaningful engagement to ensure its mineral exploration and development activities are well co-ordinated and broadly supported, address local priorities and concerns, and optimize opportunities for collaboration. In particular, the company seeks to establish mutually beneficial partnerships with indigenous groups within whose traditional territories the company's projects are located, through the provision of jobs, training programs, contract opportunities, capacity funding agreements and sponsorship of community events. All Amarc work programs are carefully planned to achieve high levels of environmental and social performance.

Qualified person

Mark Rebagliati, PEng, a qualified person (QP) as defined by National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed and approved all technical and scientific information related to the Joy project contained in this news release. Mr. Rebagliati is not independent of the company.

Quality assurance/quality control program

Amarc drilled mostly NQ size core in 2022, except in the PINE deposit area where the holes were drilled HQ core size and then reduced to NQ, typically around 200 m depth, to hole completion. Over all, 12 per cent of the 2022 core drilled was HQ size. All drill core was logged, photographed and cut in half with a diamond saw. Half core samples from Joy along with surface rock samples were sent to Activation Laboratories Ltd. (Actlabs), Kamloops, Canada, facility for preparation and analysis. During peak periods, samples were also prepared at Actlabs laboratories located in Timmins and Ancaster, Ont.

At the preparation laboratory, the entire sample was dried, crushed to 80 per cent passing two millimetres size, mechanically split (by riffle) to obtain a representative sample and then pulverized to at least 95 per cent minus 105 micrometres (mum) (method RX1). The pulverized fraction was analyzed for Au at either the Actlabs, Kamloops, Timmins or Ancaster laboratory by fire assay fusion of a 30 g subsample with an ICP-OES finish (method 1A2-ICP). All samples were also analyzed with a multielement ICP finish. For core, Cu, Ag and 58 additional elements were determined by four-acid digestion of a 0.25 subsample followed by an ICP-OES and ICP-MS finish (method UT6) and for surface rocks, a 36-element, four-acid digestion and ICP-OES finish method was used (method 1F2-Assay). Samples greater than 10,000 parts per million Cu by UT6 were also analyzed by assay grade four-acid digestion ICP-OES. All multielement and Cu ICP analysis was done at the Ancaster facility.

The three Actlabs facilities are ISO/IEC 17025 accredited. As part of a comprehensive quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) program, Amarc control samples were inserted in each analytical batch at the following rates for core: standards one in 20 regular samples, coarse reject duplicate splits one in 20 samples and blanks one in 80 regular samples, or once per drill hole. For surface rocks, a standard was inserted at a rate of one in 20 regular samples. The control sample results were then checked to ensure proper QA/QC.

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