Mr. Matthew Lennox-King reports

CONTACT GOLD CONFIRMS CENTERRA GOLD'S PARTICIPATION IN YEAR TWO OF US$ 10 MILLION EARN IN ON THE GREEN SPRINGS GOLD PROJECT, NEVADA

Contact Gold Corp. has confirmed that a wholly owned subsidiary of Centerra Gold Inc. (TSX: CG) (NYSE: CGAU) has approved participation in the year 2 exploration program at the company's Green Springs oxide gold project located on Nevada's Cortez trend.

The Green Springs project is subject to a four-year, $10-million (U.S.) earn-in (the "Earn-in") whereby a wholly-owned subsidiary of Centerra Gold Inc. can, upon satisfaction of certain expenditure and funding conditions, acquire a 70-per-cent interest in Green Springs.

"We are pleased to confirm Centerra's participation in year 2 of the earn-in, providing additional validation of the exploration potential at Green Springs, and a pathway to increased exploration across the property in 2024," said Matt Lennox-King, president and chief executive officer of Contact Gold. "Year 1 of the Centerra partnership was extremely impactful, with multiple exceptional drill intercepts and the development of compelling new drill targets. In 2023 we expanded the property boundaries and doubled the area permitted for drilling. We look forward to continuing the partnership with Centerra through 2024 and creating value at Green Springs through aggressively exploring the large number of targets across the property."

Key points:

• An exploration budget of $2.0-million is planned for year 2, financing up to 5,500 metres of reverse circulation drilling in 40 drill holes.
  • Planned targets include: The Tango-Alpha-X-Ray trend, the southern extension of the Mine trend, and the never-before-drilled Kilo, Oscar, Sierra, Whiskey and Foxtrot targets.
• Contact Gold remains the project manager at Green Springs for year 2 of the earn-in and will collect a management fee based on eligible expenditures through the earn-in.
  • The management fee is expected to be sufficient to cover administrative and operating costs of the company's presence in Nevada.
• The next phase of drilling is expected to commence in Q2 2024.

Contact Gold has been advancing Green Springs since 2019 and has drilled 151 holes for 20,797 metres significantly improving the understanding of the geologic setting and controls to gold mineralization in that time. Drilling by the company has delivered new oxide gold discoveries at the X-Ray and Tango zones, and has extended the historic Mine trend to the south, where it remains open for further expansion. The Mine trend at Green Springs is a three-kilometre-long trend of outcropping or shallow oxidized gold mineralization hosted within the Chainman shale where USMX mined high-grade oxide gold in the 1980s from three small pits, highlighted by the high-grade Echo zone at the southern end of the Mine trend. The company plans to drill the large-scale, to-date-undrilled Whiskey and Foxtrot targets in 2024.

Earn-in terms

Pursuant to the earn-in, Centerra has an option to acquire a 70-per-cent interest in Green Springs for cumulative exploration expenditures of $10-million (U.S.) and aggregate cash payments to the company of $1-million (U.S.) as shown in the attached table.

Contact Gold is the project manager at Green Springs, with exploration led by Contact Gold's vice-president of exploration, Vance Spalding.

Upon satisfaction of the $10-million (U.S.) exploration expenditure commitment and payment to Contact Gold of the aggregate $1-million (U.S.) cash payments, the parties will form a joint venture to hold and operate the property, and each party shall proportionately finance future activities at Green Springs or have their interest diluted. Should Contact Gold's interest be diluted to less than 10 per cent, then that interest will convert to a 1.5-per-cent net smelter returns royalty interest. Contact Gold will remain the 100 per cent owner of Green Springs until the completion of all earn-in requirements.

For further details on the earn-in with Centerra see Contact Gold news release dated Dec. 9, 2022.

Green Springs is strategically located seven km immediately east of the Gold Rock project operated by Calibre Mining Corp. (TSX: CXB; OTCQX: CXBMF) and 20 km southeast of its Pan mine.

Qualified person and technical disclosure

The scientific and technical information contained in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Vance Spalding, CPG, VP of exploration, Contact Gold, who is a qualified person within the meaning of National Instrument 43-101 -- Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

Green Springs is an early stage exploration property and does not contain any mineral resource estimates as defined by NI 43-101 due to insufficient exploration to date to define such a mineral resource estimate. Additional information about Green Springs is summarized in the NI 43-101 technical report entitled, "NI 43-101 Technical Report for the Green Springs Project, White Pine County, Nevada, USA," prepared for Contact Gold, with an effective date of June 12, 2020, and dated Aug. 5, 2020, by John J. Read, CPG; an independent consultant and qualified person under NI 43-101, and can be viewed under Contact Gold's issuer profile on SEDAR+.

About Contact Gold Corp.

Contact Gold is an exploration company focused on making district-scale gold discoveries in Nevada. Contact Gold's extensive land holdings are on the prolific Carlin and Cortez gold trends which host numerous gold deposits and mines. Contact Gold's land position comprises approximately 117.4 square kilometres of target-rich mineral tenure hosting numerous known gold occurrences, ranging from early to advanced exploration and current gold resources.

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