Mr. Glen Parsons reports

AWALE RESOURCES SCOUT DRILLING DELIVERS NEW DISCOVERIES ALONG TREND AT THE EMPIRE PROSPECT, ODIENNE, COTE D'IVOIRE

Awale Resources Ltd. has released further exceptional gold results from scout drilling over the Empire East extension targets. Assays reported in this release are from the final 15 scout RC holes (1,050 metres (m) of drilling) drilled over gold in auger Anomaly 1, which commences 500 m east of the Empire Main discovery.

The scout drill program is now complete with 54 holes drilled for 4,523 m. This drilling partially covers a total strike length of 1.5 kilometres (km) within the 20-kilometre-long Empire corridor. This successful scout program has resulted in two new bedrock gold discoveries being made at Anomaly 1 and Anomaly 2.

Highlights

Intercepts reported below are from Anomaly 1 and highlight mineralization with the same alteration and geology across three drill sections and an open-ended strike of over 200 m.

• OERC-67 -- two m at 4.1 grams per tonne (g/t) gold (Au), including one m at 7.3 g/t Au from 72 m downhole;
• OERC-71 -- one m at 1.9 g/t Au from 81 m downhole;
• OERC-74 -- four m at 1.1 g/t Au, including one m at 3.5 g/t Au from 30 m downhole;
• OERC-75 -- one m at one g/t Au from 87 m downhole.

These results complement the previously reported intercepts of:

• OEDD-57 (Anomaly 1) -- six m at 2.2 g/t Au from 38 m (including one m at five g/t Au from 39 m and one m at 5.2 g/t Au from 41 m) and two m at 1.4 g/t Au from 48 m;
• OEDD-20 (Anomaly 2) -- one m at one g/t Au from 66 m (within a broader intercept of 4.1 m at 0.3 g/t Au from 66 m) and one m at 4.7 g/t Au from 85 m.

Company chief executive officer Glen Parsons commented today:

"The scout drilling intercepts reported at the extension anomalies are new gold discoveries along strike from Empire Main and demonstrate key proof of concept for a larger mineralized system along the 20-kilometre Empire corridor. The scout drilling to date covers a mere 1.2 kilometres of this trend. Furthermore, the Empire Main discovery demonstrates the presence of high-grade fluid flow within this structure corridor, with grades of up to 129 grams gold reported from Empire Main.

"The company is delighted to have two new promising discoveries along strike from the Empire Main discovery in such a short time and looks forward to advancing these as well as more of the same at Empire and the greater Odienne permit area.

"We look forward to further results from the steep plunge test holes at Empire Main which have the potential to enhance the existing robust high-grade mineralized envelope.

"These are exciting times for Awale as we continue to systematically focus on developing the resource potential of the Odienne project."

Anomaly 1 mineralization occurs within a deformed volcano sedimentary package with alteration and mineralization developed at the contact between fine-grained and medium-grained rocks with a noted increase in strain. The alteration envelope is up to 12 m wide and is characterized by silica sericite alteration with sulphide and peripheral calc silicate alteration and provides a distinctive vector to gold mineralization.

At Anomaly 2, drill hole OEDD-20 intercepted visible gold and grades up to 4.8 g/t Au in footwall alteration of a target diorite body with quartz veining deformation and alteration remarkably similar to Empire Main.

Follow-up exploration plan at Odienne

Awale remains confident of the upside potential of the Empire structural trend and has an aggressive exploration campaign designed for 2021. The near-term focus for the Odienne project is as follows:

• The company is testing a steep plunge model for Empire Main -- 897.3 metres of diamond drilling have been completed, with assays currently pending. Results will guide the next phase of stepout diamond drilling on the known high-grade gold mineralization at Empire Main.
• It is testing potential eastern offsets from Empire Main, in addition to western extension targets. A 500-metre gap exists between current drilling at Empire Main and Anomaly 1 and the western extension of the Empire structure. A program of 240 auger holes for 964 m was completed on Dec. 8 as a targeting exercise and will guide the next phase of drilling at Empire Main.
• Further to this, a new parallel structural target to Empire has been auger drilled approximately three km to the north-northeast of Empire Main. This will feed into the next program scout drilling over the greater empire structure. Results are also pending for this auger program:
  • The Charger prospect is approximately three km north of Empire. Legacy soil sampling by Randgold returned up to 1,677 parts per billion (ppb) Au within a 600-metre-long greater-than-100-part-per-billion-gold anomaly. Initial mapping has revealed diorite body central to the prospect area that is bound by a package of basalts and intermediate volcaniclastics and tuffaceous rock.
• Further detailed interpretation and understanding of the first pass intercepts from scout drilling at Anomaly 1 and Anomaly 2, as well as anticipated further results from Anomaly 1 follow-up drilling.

Quality control and assurance

Analytical work for drill core and RC percussion samples is being carried out at 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 RC (reverse circulation) drill cuttings. RC samples for the exploration holes are riffle split to approximately three-kilogram samples labelled, tagged and stored at company offices before collection by Intertek Ghana. After collection, samples are logged in the laboratory tracking system, weighed, dried and finely crushed to better than 70 per cent, passing a two-millimetre screen. A split of up to 1,000 grams is taken and pulverized to better than 85 per cent, passing a 75-micron screen, and a 50-gram split is analyzed by fire assay with an AAS finish.

Blanks, core duplicates, crush duplicates and certified reference material (standards) are being used to monitor laboratory performance during the analysis. As a further measure, all samples in potentially mineralized zones at Empire Main have routinely have a quartz wash placed between each sample to prevent any smearing of high-grade gold -- 3 per cent of these quartz wash samples are routinely analyzed, with the remainder stored with the analysis pulps.

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 and 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 minerals exploration and mining project evaluation.

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