Dr. Charles Fipke reports

CANTEX PLANS DRILLING FOR GOLD AND SILVER-COPPER IN ADDITION TO COPPER AND MASSIVE SULPHIDE SILVER-LEAD-ZINC-GERMANIUM PROJECTS AT NORTH RACKLA, YUKON, CANADA

Cantex Mine Development Corp. has provided the exploration plans for 2025 on its 100-per-cent-owned 14,077-hectare North Rackla claim block in Yukon.

Massive sulphide silver-lead-zinc-germanium project

Cantex's directors continue to be impressed with the scale and grade of the mineralization at the massive sulphide project. Drilling in 2024 brought the drill confirmed strike length to 2.65 kilometres (km) and continued to intersect high-grade mineralization, such as hole YKDD24-315, which intersected 15 metres (m) of 62 grams per tonne (g/t) silver (Ag), 3.49 per cent lead (Pb), 19.38 per cent zinc (Zn) and 117 g/t germanium (Ge) (see news release of Feb. 12, 2025).

The mineralization is open both along strike and to depth, with the deepest intercept occurring at 700 m depth, where hole YKDD20-163 contained a 23.67 m true width of 24 g/t silver, 2.31 per cent lead and 5.84 per cent zinc (see news release of Dec. 17, 2020). Drilling this season will focus on further expanding the mineralization.

Cantex is also initiating metallurgical test work on the massive sulphide mineralization. The coarse-grained, high-grade nature of the mineralization suggests that concentration on site may not require flotation. This would eliminate hazardous tailings and minimize the environmental impact of mining at North Rackla.

Copper project

The copper project was discovered by prospecting a soil-talus anomaly on the western side of the North Rackla property. Initial drilling intersected 2.5 m of 3.93 per cent copper (Cu), including one m of 7.32 per cent copper (see news release of April 13, 2023). This was followed up with drilling early in the 2024 field season, where results included 2.9 metres of 4.54 per cent copper in hole YKDD24-287 (see news release of Aug. 19, 2024).

Late in the 2024 season, a ground geophysical induced polarization/conductivity survey was completed over the area. This survey detected several strong conductors, which the company thinks represent copper mineralization. Drill testing of these anomalies is planned for this summer.

Regional focus anomalies in North Rackla

Cantex's exploration of the North Rackla claim block has identified several other prospective targets worthy of drilling. Structural geologist Chris Buchanan will be on site this summer, and will be selecting sites for drilling at the North Gold and G67 gold anomalies, and the G14 silver-copper anomaly. Details of these areas are presented in this news release.

North Gold area

The North Gold area consists of a 120 m by 150 m area, where mineralization occurs within a stromatolitic dolomitic unit that is exposed beneath a sandy bedded dolomitic unit. The company's previous drilling will aid in defining the structural controls of the mineralization to best test the mineralization. Selected rock samples collected from this area are contained in an attached table.

G67 gold area

Anomaly G67 consists of a gold-arsenic soil-talus anomaly approximately 950 metres long and of irregular width of between 40 and 550 m (averaging about 200 m) underlain by Proterozoic dolostones. Rock samples from this anomaly have contained up to 39.60 g/t gold. Selected samples are presented in an attached table (see release dated June 24, 2021).

G14 silver-copper anomaly

Anomaly G14 is an irregular (990 by 75 m) anomaly that contains consistently high silver and copper values. Results (see release of June 24, 2021) from selected rock samples from this anomaly are presented in an attached table.

Summary

Cantex looks forward to a productive drill season on its North Rackla project. Work will be undertaken not only on the advanced massive sulphide project but also selected targets within the broader claim block. These include the copper project, the G14 silver-copper anomaly, the G66 gold anomaly and the North Gold area.

Sample preparation

The drill holes reported in this news release were drilled using HQ (63.5 millimetres (mm)) diamond drill bits. The core was logged, marked up for sampling and then divided into equal halves using a diamond saw on site. One-half of the core was left in the original core box. The other half was sampled and placed into sealed bags, which were in turn placed into larger bags closed with security seals. Prospecting rock samples were also placed into security sealed bags prior to being transported to the ISO 9001:2015-accredited CF Mineral Research Ltd. laboratory in Kelowna, B.C.

At CF Minerals, the drill core or rock samples were dried prior to crushing to minus 10 mesh. The samples, which averaged over three kilograms (kg), were then mixed prior to splitting off 800 grams (g). The 800 g splits were pulverized to minus 200 mesh. A 250 g portion of this pulverized material was submitted for multielement analysis at ALS Chemex in North Vancouver. Quality control procedures included running a barren sand sample through both the crusher and pulverizer between each sample to ensure no intersample contamination occurred. Silica blanks were inserted along with certified reference samples. These quality control samples were each inserted approximately every 20 samples.

ALS Chemex in North Vancouver assayed the samples using a four-acid digestion with an ICP-MS (inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry) finish. The 48-element ME-MS61 technique was used to provide a geochemical signature of the mineralization. Where lead or zinc values exceeded 1 per cent the Pb-OG62 or Zn-OG62 techniques were used. These have upper limits of 20 per cent lead and 30 per cent zinc, respectively. Samples with lead and zinc values over these limits were then analyzed by titration methods Pb-VOL70 and Zn-VOL50. Where silver samples exceeded 100 g/t, the Ag-OG62 technique was used which has an upper limit of 1,500 g/t.

For the germanium results completed on bulk core, a portion of the remaining pulverized material from the base metal analysis was analyzed by ALS Chemex in North Vancouver, Canada. The pulverized samples were analyzed using a sodium peroxide fusion followed by an ICP-MS finish on a 0.2 g pulverized sample.

The technical information and results reported here have been reviewed by Chad Ulansky, PGeol, a qualified person under National Instrument 43-101, who is responsible for the technical content of this news release.

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