Mr. Glen Parsons reports

INFILL SOIL SAMPLING ENHANCES GOLD ANOMALIES AT THE SAMANDA PROSPECT, BONDOUKOU PROJECT, COTE D'IVOIRE

Awale Resources Ltd.'s infill soil sampling has enhanced the initial gold-in-soil anomalies reported for the Samanda prospect, Bondoukou project.

The Samanda East prospect is now a high-priority target for the company. The gold-in-soil anomaly forms a robust, 1.5-kilometre-long, greater-than-20-part-per-billion-gold anomaly with a 350-metre-by-300-metre core at greater than 300 ppb Au with a peak value of 1,178 ppb Au. This anomaly can be traced farther out to three km along strike at the prospect. A trench program will commence at Samanda East in July, and drilling is also planned for late third quarter/early fourth quarter (after the conclusion of the wet season).

Samanda West contains several high-order anomalies with greater than 40 ppb Au cores and a peak value of 4,297 ppb Au. Further infill sampling and mapping are required at this target to better define structural controls before trenching and drilling. This work will commence in tandem with the Samanda East trench program.

The gold-in-soil anomalies follow a high-strain contact between granite/granodiorite to the west and dominantly basaltic volcanic rocks to the east. Brecciation and quartz veining have developed along this high-strain contact. Together, these anomalies are equivalent in scale and tenor to the Fako auger anomalies along the Awari shear, where the company returned significant trench and drill results (Fako was a six km long, 10 ppb Au anomaly with consistent greater than 50 ppb Au cores). The Samanda structure continues under cover five km farther to the north, where it confluences with the Awari shear, and warrants first-pass auger drilling in the future.

Delineation of these soil anomalies highlights the potential and scale of the Bondoukou project and further complements the additional previously defined 40 km east-west Awari shear zone anomalies. The company plans for a Q4 scout drill program to test a minimum of four targets on the project.

Glen Parsons, chief executive officer, commented: "Whilst follow-up drilling at our Empire discovery at Odienne remains our priority for the current quarter, our field teams continue to successfully advance drill target generation activities at the Bondoukou project, with the aim of developing multiple drill targets for testing later this year.

"The robust, 1.5 km long, high-order soil anomaly at Samanda East is stacking up to be another high-priority drill target. This complements the company objective of being ready to scout drill multiple targets at Bondoukou in Q4 2020."

Descriptive statistics from sampling for gold in soils

Background

The Samanda prospect is one of the 12 priority target areas that were defined at the Bondoukou project through Awale's 2017 regional reconnaissance exploration program. Samanda is characterized by the highest-order (up to 20.2 ppb Au) BLEG (bulk leach extractable gold) stream gold anomalies within the entire Bondoukou project area. An attached table includes summary statistics for the silt samples collected from the Samanda prospect; these are consistently high-order anomalies for this style of sampling and are distributed along the granitoid contact zone. The contact zone has now been mapped as granite to the west and a mafic-to-intermediate volcanic package to the east.

BLEG stream summary statistics from the Samanda prospect

This interpreted contact along with gold-in-stream anomalism and the structural interpretation of the aerial magnetic data collected by the company led to the broad-scale, first-pass soils program at the Samanda prospect, covering approximately nine strike kilometres.

Structures in the magnetics at Samanda are dominated by north-northeast-trending and northeast-trending lineaments in a typical C-S sinistral shear array, as supported by the current field studies. North-northeast-trending lineaments are interpreted as zones of transpressive sinistral shears and/or mylonitization, while east-northeast lineaments represent oblique sinistral shears. Locally, quartz veining and brecciation have been observed at the contact between the granite body and the volcanics, developed around north-northeast-trending and north-northwest-trending shears and mylonites. Observed in situ mineralization observed in some of these localities is hosted in strongly oxidized and laminated quartz veins at Samanda West.

Selected rock chip samples collected during the course of the mapping and soil sampling program have returned values of up to 16.2 grams per tonne gold, with other rock samples collected also returning high-order values of 0.9 g/t Au, 1.3 g/t Au, 2.2 g/t Au and 6.9 g/t Au.

Quality control/quality assurance

Analytical work for geochemical samples and rock chip samples is being carried out at Intertek Laboratories Australia Ltd., an independent, ISO 17025-certified laboratory. Samples are stored at the company's field camps and put into sealed bags until collected by Intertek from the company's secure Bondoukou office and transported by Intertek to its laboratory in Tarkwa, Ghana, for preparation, and, subsequently, the samples are shipped by Intertek to its Australian laboratory for analysis. Samples are logged in the tracking system, weighed, dried and pulverized to better than 85 per cent passing a 75-micrometre screen. This pulp sample is then shipped to Australia, where a 10-gram split is analyzed by ICP/MS with an aqua regia digest. Blanks, duplicates and certified reference material (standards) are being used to monitor laboratory performance during the analysis.

Qualified person

The technical and scientific information contained in this news release has been reviewed and approved for release by Andrew Chubb, the company's qualified person, as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Chubb is the company's chief operating officer, holds an economic geology degree (honours), is a member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists (AIG) and is a member of the Society of Economic Geologists (SEG). Mr. Chubb has 18 years of experience in international minerals exploration and mining project evaluation.

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