Mr. Blaine Monaghan reports

DRILL PROGRAM AT KLIYUL COPPER-GOLD PROJECT TO BE INCREASED FROM 7,000 M TO 9,000 M; LARGEST EVER DRILL PROGRAM

Pacific Ridge Exploration Ltd. is increasing the size of the diamond drill program at its 100-per-cent-owned Kliyul copper-gold project, located in the prolific Quesnel Trough in north-central British Columbia, from 7,000 metres to 9,000 metres. This will be the largest-ever drill program to take place at Kliyul.

The company is reallocating the Chuchi copper-gold project 2023 exploration budget to finance the expanded drill program at Kliyul. The 2023 British Columbia wildfire season is already the worst on record and the planned 2,000-metre diamond drill program at Chuchi had to be cancelled due to fires -- an area restriction order is in place for the Nation Lakes area, where Chuchi is located. While most of the Chuchi budget will be reallocated to Kliyul, the company plans to use some of it for an induced polarization (IP) survey at the Onjo copper-gold project, which adjoins the western boundary of Centerra Gold Inc.'s Mount Milligan mine.

The RDP copper-gold project, under option to Antofagasta Minerals SA, a wholly owned subsidiary of Antofagasta PLC, is unaffected by fires and the planned 1,800-metre diamond drill program is expected to commence in August.

"Although fires prevented us from drilling Chuchi, reallocating the Chuchi budget for an expanded drill program at Kliyul dramatically increases our chances of success this year," said Blaine Monaghan, president and chief executive officer of Pacific Ridge. In addition, we can further advance Onjo, which has excellent potential for the discovery of an alkalic porphyry copper-gold deposit."

2023 Kliyul drill program update

Two diamond drill rigs are on site and Pacific Ridge has completed 3,160 metres of the planned 9,000-metre drill program.

The two main objectives of this year's drill program at Kliyul:

1. Test for extensions of the Kliyul Main zone to the southeast and into adjacent fault blocks to the north, east and southwest -- these targets are defined by known mineralization from previous drilling combined with modelled geophysical signatures, including a magnetic vector inversion (MVI) aeromagnetic-high anomaly with coincident resistivity-high and chargeability-high anomalies;
2. Test several high-priority targets that occur mainly along the Divide Lake fault trend, a highly prospective six-kilometre-long northwest-trending alteration and mineralization corridor, including Ginger (1.4 kilometres northwest of KMZ), Parish Hill (one kilometre southeast of KMZ), M-39 (3.5 kilometres southeast of KMZ) and Ginger South (1.2 kilometres west of KMZ), which occurs along the east-northeast Valley fault trend -- these targets are interpreted porphyry centres derived from aeromagnetic data and MVI modelling, IP survey inversions, geological mapping and surface geochemical sampling.

Onjo copper-gold porphyry project

One hundred per cent owned by Pacific Ridge, Onjo adjoins the western boundary of Centerra's Mount Milligan mine and has exploration targets that are within 16 kilometres of the processing plant. Onjo is over 12,350 hectares in size and can be accessed through a network of forestry roads.

Pacific Ridge's 2022 exploration program at Onjo identified three new porphyry copper-gold targets (see news release dated Dec. 13, 2022): the Gingla, Chica and Yazi zones. These targets are defined by ZTEM (Z-tipper electromagnetic) conductivity and aeromagnetic features, surface geochemistry and geological mapping (Chica). All three target zones are aligned along an interpreted east-northeast-trending cross-arc structural linear (Heidi Lake trend) that extends westward from the open pit at Mount Milligan (MBX Main zone) through the western brownfield mine expansion area and then continues westward through the Heidi greenfield target at Mount Milligan and onto Onjo.

Onjo hosts skarn occurrences and alkalic porphyry copper-gold mineralization associated with dioritic to monzonitic phases of the Witch Lake diorite (WLD) pluton, a satellite pluton of the Hogem batholith and plutonic suite that lies six kilometres to 10 kilometres to the northwest. The WLD pluton spatially coincides with a large (nine kilometres by 3.5 kilometres) east-southeast-trending total magnetic intensity (TMI) aeromagnetic-high anomaly that underlies late Triassic to early Jurassic volcanic rocks of the Takla group and Chuchi Lake succession and crosses an interpreted unconformity between these two host successions. The primary exploration target, the Chica zone, lies at the southeastern margin of this magnetic-high anomaly, where it occurs with the early Jurassic host rocks and is less than two kilometres from the unconformity. It should be noted for comparison that the nearby Mount Milligan porphyry copper-gold deposit is early Jurassic in age and lies at the southern margin of a large (11 kilometres by 3.5 kilometres) north-northwest-trending aeromagnetic-high anomaly.

2023 Onjo exploration program

Exploration at Onjo in 2023 will comprise up to 10 line kilometres of IP geophysical survey in two reconnaissance lines (four to five line kilometres each) across two target areas, Chica and Gingla:

• One IP line will be run across the Chica target area, where 2022 mapping identified a crowded plagioclase monzodiorite porphyry that is quartz sericite and locally potassium feldspar and actinolite altered with trace chalcopyrite (up to 1,320 parts per million copper); surface sampling of rocks returned an 800-metre-by-500-metre multielement porphyry pathfinder anomaly.
• A second IP line will be run across the Gingla target area, which has similar scale and basin-edge relationship as the historical MBX Main zone at Mount Milligan, now the open pit. The Gingla target features a shallow-to-deep (360 hertz to 30 hertz) continuous ZTEM conductivity anomaly with anomalous porphyry pathfinder geochemistry in historical and recent surface rock sampling despite there being an obscuring blanket of till overburden.

The style of copper-gold mineralization returned in historical drilling, combined with the presence of nearby skarn occurrences, leads Pacific Ridge to believe that past operators at Onjo encountered the upper and/or peripheral levels of an alkalic porphyry system, and that this may be a moderately eastward tilted system like the Mount Milligan silica-saturated alkalic porphyry copper-gold deposit. As such, there is excellent potential for the discovery of a similar type of porphyry deposit.

2023 RDP exploration program

Drilling in 2022 produced the best-ever drill result from RDP. Drill hole RDP-22-005 at the Day target returned 107.2 metres of 1.45 per cent copper equivalent (0.63 per cent copper, 1.10 grams per tonne gold and 2.91 grams per tonne silver) within 497.2 metres of 0.68 per cent copper equivalent (0.37 per cent copper, 0.40 gram per tonne gold and 1.6 grams per tonne silver). Exploration plans in 2023 include 1,800 metres of diamond drilling, a 16-line-kilometre IP survey at the Day, Porcupine and Bird targets, rock sampling at the Porcupine target, and soil sampling at the Bird target.

The 2023 exploration program is being financed by Antofagasta Minerals SA, which can earn a 75-per-cent interest in RDP by spending $10-million on exploration over eight years and delivering a preliminary economic assessment report (see news release dated Feb. 8, 2022). Pacific Ridge is the operator and will support the program from the Kliyul camp, located 40 kilometres to the east. Drilling is expected to commence some time in August.

About Pacific Ridge Exploration Ltd.

Pacific Ridge's goal is to become British Columbia's leading copper-gold exploration company. Pacific Ridge's flagship project is its 100-per-cent-owned Kliyul copper-gold project, located in the Quesnel Trough close to existing infrastructure. In addition to Kliyul, the company's project portfolio includes the RDP copper-gold project (optioned to Antofagasta Minerals), the Chuchi copper-gold project, the Onjo copper-gold project and the Redton copper-gold project, all located in British Columbia. Pacific Ridge would like to acknowledge that its British Columbia projects are located in the traditional, ancestral and unceded territories of the Gitxsan Nation, McLeod Lake Indian Band, Nak'azdli Whut'en, Takla Nation and Tsay Keh Dene Nation.

The technical information contained within this news release has been reviewed and approved by Dr. Gerald G. Carlson, PhD, PEng, executive chairman of Pacific Ridge and qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 policy.

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