Mr. Glen Parsons reports

FURTHER HIGH GRADE INTERCEPTS FROM THE EMPIRE GOLD DISCOVERY, ODIENNE, COTE D'IVOIRE

Awale Resources Ltd. has released results from the first two holes of its phase 2 program at the Empire gold discovery. Five holes have now been completed at Empire Main with the sixth hole under way for total of approximately 800 metres drilled to date. Up to 1,500 drill metres have been planned for Empire Main and a further 4,500 metres for strike extension targets from the Empire Main discovery. Highlights from these first two holes are as follows.

Highlights:

• OEDD-16 -- 17 metres at 3.5 grams per tonne gold from 86 metres downhole, including one metre at 11.9 grams per tonne and one metre at 11.7 grams per tonne from 87 metres and 90 metres, respectively;
• OEDD-17 -- eight metres at 1.6 grams per tonne gold from 65 metres, including three metres at 3.4 grams per tonne gold from 66 metres and six metres at 1.2 grams per tonne from 82 metres.

Note: Drill intervals are reported as downhole, true widths are approximately 75 per cent to 80 per cent of the downhole interval.

Technical background

These first holes (OEDD-16 and OEDD-17) of this program were designed to test for potential downplunge extensions to the gold mineralization in discovery holes OEDD-1 and OEDD-2. The holes have successfully intersected target geology and alteration, and the 59-gram-metre gold intercept in OEDD-16 conforms with the over-48 gram-metre shallow plunge interpreted from previous drilling. OEDD-17 also intercepted target geology and alteration with visible gold but appears to have clipped the top of the mineralized plunge.

Drill section P2, a step eastward to extend mineralization from the previous program, has recently been completed, with holes OEDD-18, OEDD-19 and OEDD-24 currently being logged, cut and sampled for analysis. These holes are expected to be shipped to the lab by the end of the week. These three holes have traversed expected geology and visible-gold-bearing, brittle ductile deformation zones. The company eagerly awaits results for these stepout holes.

The Empire discovery is summarized in a release dated Jan. 29, 2020, along with other releases dated Nov. 19 and Dec. 23, 2019.

Further to the plunge targets at Empire Main, the company has commenced drilling with a second rig on the three high-order (greater than 100 parts per billion) auger anomalies along strike from the discovery area. Each of these greater-than-100-part-per-billion targets are of similar size to the discovery zone at Empire Main and represent compelling targets to rapidly expand gold mineralization at the prospect. These extension targets add a potential 1,200 metres to the discovery zone. The company has planned 50 holes for 4,500 metres over these extension targets.

The program with the second rig has commenced with diamond drilling due to some initial sample recovery issues with RC drilling; these issues are being addressed and RC drilling is expected to commence in the coming week.

Awale chief executive officer Glen Parsons commented: "A strong result from our first two holes of this program at Empire, the postulated high-grade plunge is proving correct with the robust high-grade intercept of 17 metres at 3.5 grams gold from OEDD0016. Furthermore, OEDD0017 has some interesting additional high-grade zones but does [look] like it may be on the upper margin of the plunge, which opens up a potential deeper high-grade step-back hole from hole 16.

"Unfortunately, things have been a little slow on the ground at the commencement of drilling. Unrelenting rain in the early weeks of the program as well as some initial mechanical problems have hampered progress. Encouragingly drilling issues have been overcome, the rains are abating, and we see a path to improved production and results flow to the market. A second rig is now operating on site to assist in getting closer to our planned objectives and to ensure our exploration momentum is maintained.

"Our focus on the Empire Main target is to continue to test for high-grade plunging mineralization and the margin of the diorite intrusion.

"Parallel to this, the company has now commenced the program over the three new and exciting extension targets to the east, each of these having similar aerial extents to the Empire Main discovery. These three targets have potential to extend mineralization at Empire by a further 1,200 metres.

"The Empire discovery and new zone footprint currently has tested only three kilometres [of] strike of the [over-20-kilometre-long] Empire structure. This will also be systematically explored and extended with targets being generated along this exciting shear zone and mineralized system.

"The pipeline of assays from completed holes is now in motion and we look forward to reporting results as and when they are received."

Quality assurance/quality control

Analytical work for drill core and RC percussion samples is being carried out at the independent Intertek Laboratories Ghana Ltd., an ISO 17025-certified laboratory. Samples are stored at the company's field camps and put into sealed bags; they are stored securely until collected by Intertek for transportation to Ghana.

Drill holes reported in this release are HQ core and have been sampled as three-quarters core (approximately six kilograms per metre) with one-quarter sliver of the core sample being reserved as a library sample at the company offices. The remaining three-quarters core samples are logged in the Intertek tracking system, weighed, dried and finely crushed to better than 70 per cent, passing a two-millimetre screen, of which 50 per cent is pulverized to 85 per cent, passing a 75-micron screen, and the remaining 50 per cent is reserved. The pulverized sample is then cyanide leached by the LeachWell method, with a further two fire assays completed on the tail samples from the leach to monitor leach efficacy.

Blanks, core duplicates, crush duplicates and certified reference material (standards) are being used to monitor laboratory performance during the analysis. Due to the presence of free gold, the lab was requested to run a quartz wash between each sample during preparation, and a selection of the quartz wash samples is also routinely analyzed.

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, 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 mineral exploration and mining project evaluation.

We seek Safe Harbor.