Ms. Melissa Render reports

NEW FOUND INCREASES QUEENSWAY DRILL PROGRAM TO 650,000 METRES, SEISMIC INTERPRETATION TO GUIDE 2024 TARGETING

New Found Gold Corp. is enlarging the exploration program at its 100-per-cent-owned Queensway project, located on the Trans-Canada Highway, 15 kilometres west of Gander, Nfld.

Highlights:

• To date, the company has completed 516,263 metres of drilling at Queensway. During 2023, New Found drilled 195,899 m of core, employing an average of 10 drill rigs, equating to 15,400 m of core production per month and leading to the discoveries of Iceberg, Iceberg East, K2, Monte Carlo and Jackpot.
• New Found is now planning to drill a total of 650,000 m as part of its continuing drill program at Queensway, an increase of 150,000 m over the company's initially planned 500,000 m.
• Much of the 2024 drilling will be designed to target prospective areas both peripheral to and beneath the current mineralized zones defined to date by New Found along the Appleton North corridor. Drilling will also occur along the parallel JBP fault zone, located five km to the east, as well as at Queensway South.
• In 2023, the company contracted HiSeis to complete an industry-leading three-dimensional seismic program covering the Appleton North corridor at Queensway North that is capable of capturing high-resolution imagery down to a depth of 3,000 m. The company expects to receive an initial interpretation of these data in the coming weeks.

Melissa Render, vice-president of exploration, stated: "Much of the initial 500,000 m of drilling undertaken by New Found has been focused along the Appleton North corridor, where a combination of systematic grid drilling and targeted drilling has successfully outlined a multitude of zones forming a 'string-of-pearls' configuration that spans approximately six km of strike and includes several key discoveries such as Keats, Keats West, Iceberg, Golden Joint, Lotto, K2 and Jackpot. These zones are clustered along the Appleton fault, a regional-scale structure that we believe is responsible for channelling mineralizing fluids towards surface and depositing epizonal gold mineralization at Queensway.

"While our initial drilling has been focused on drill defining the near-surface, low-hanging fruit, our exploration thesis and accompanying geological model illustrate a scenario whereby gold mineralization is not necessarily constrained to the near-surface domain, but instead has the potential to persist to depth. Queensway mineralization is in an orogenic gold system -- a system that often extends deep along the structures that form them.

"As we move into 2024, our exploration team will focus its attention on unlocking the next layer of the cake through targeted deeper drilling. In addition, we will continue to look for new areas of mineralization that are peripheral to the Appleton fault zone, the 110 km of strike that is covered by the Queensway project. The discovery of Iceberg East and Jackpot, which are zones located at distances ranging from 300 m to 500 m away from the Appleton fault, highlight the ability of this system to concentrate gold well outside of the narrow window we were initially targeting. We have been fortunate to identify a system of scale that starts at surface, with the majority of the drilling completed testing only the top 250 m vertical. We will now apply the knowledge garnered from our near-surface exploration, combined with the results of the 3-D seismic program, to unlock what lies further outside and beneath our current discoveries made to date."

Qualified person

The scientific and technical information disclosed in this press release was reviewed and approved by Greg Matheson, PGeo, chief operating officer, a qualified person as defined under National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Matheson consents to the publication of this press release dated Jan. 4, 2024, by New Found. Mr. Matheson certifies that this press release fairly and accurately represents the scientific and technical information that forms the basis for this press release.

About New Found Gold Corp.

New Found holds a 100-per-cent interest in the Queensway project, located 15 kilometres west of Gander, Nfld., and just 18 km from Gander International Airport. The project is intersected by the Trans-Canada Highway and has logging roads crosscutting the project, high-voltage electric power lines running through the project area and easy access to a highly skilled work force. The company is currently undertaking a 650,000 m drill program at Queensway and is well financed for this program with cash and marketable securities of approximately $57.3-million as of January, 2024.

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