Dr. Tim Coughlin reports

ROYAL ROAD MINERALS' SAUDI ARABIAN SUBSIDIARY SELECTED AS THE WINNING BIDDER FOR THE AL-MIYAH COPPER-GOLD TENDER

Royal Road Minerals Ltd.'s 50-per-cent-owned Saudi Arabian joint venture company, Royal Road Arabia, has been selected as the winning bidder as part of a competitive licensing round for the Al-Miyah copper and gold tender area. This tender area consists of three contiguous exploration licences, located in the Asir province of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, 150 kilometres northwest of the company's Jabal Sahabiyah exploration licences (see press release dated Jan. 15, 2024).

Royal Road Arabia is a Saudi Arabian joint venture company owned on a 50- to 50-per-cent partnership basis by Royal Road and Midu Company Ltd. Midu is a Saudi Arabian investment holding company, headquartered in Jeddah, with interests across various sectors, including mining, industrial, real estate development and utilities.

The Al Miyah exploration licences are contiguous and cover approximately 234 square kilometres of historic known copper and gold occurrences, hosted in upper Proterozoic-age metavolcanic and intrusive rocks within the prospective Nabitah-Tathlith belt.

Historic exploration work was focused on volcanic massive sulphide deposits and was conducted by BRGM (the French geological survey) in 1969. This work comprised geological mapping, trenching and sampling, and identified mineralized gossans at two prospect areas known as Al Miyah and Hishashat-al Hawi. In 1979, Riofinex Ltd. (a subsidiary of Rio Tinto Zinc) conducted ground geophysics at the Al Miyah prospect and identified a 1.5-kilometre-long and 200-metre-wide northwest-trending magnetic anomaly corresponding to a corridor of mineralized gossan. Historic samples containing malachite and hematite from 25-metre-spaced trenches, over 450 metres of strike length, returned up to 2.4 per cent copper (minimum 0.6 per cent, average 1.5 per cent copper) and 3.2 grams per tonne gold (minimum 0.2, average 1.2 grams per tonne gold).

Following an Arabian Shield-scale generative exercise, RRA identified Al Miyah as an area of interest for intrusion-related and structurally controlled copper and gold mineralization. During field reconnaissance, the team revisited the known potential at Al Miyah and Hishashat-al Hawi, and identified new gossans, shear-zone and vein-hosted occurrences, some of which returned promising rock-chip geochemistry. A total of 46 grab rock-chip samples were collected, and best results included 5.9 per cent copper and 1.3 grams per tonne gold from gossan, and 1.2 per cent copper and 1.1 grams per tonne gold from a vein-hosted occurrence (minimum 0.001 per cent, average 0.6 per cent copper; and minimum 0.001, average 0.1 gram per tonne gold).

Additionally, RRA completed a pXRF soil survey on a 150-metre-by-25-metre-spaced grid along a newly identified northwest-trending mineralized shear zone, which was traced for approximately one kilometre in strike length at the Hishashat-al Hawi prospect. This survey highlighted a 250-metre-by-125-metre-wide greater-than-500-part-per-million-copper anomaly, which remains open toward the southeast.

RRA interprets the Al Miyah exploration licences to host significant potential for intrusion-related and structurally controlled copper and gold mineralization, with immediate exploration objectives evident along strike extensions to the Al Miyah magnetic corridor and along the newly identified shear-zone-hosted copper and gold mineralization at Hishashat-al Hawi.

The company intends to conduct detailed field mapping and grid-based auger soil sampling across both known prospect areas and new target areas, as well as utilizing its drone-borne hyperspectral scanner, magnetometer and radiometer, with a view to identifying drill targets before the end of 2024.

The tender was a merit-based process, subject to a proposed exploration program, minimum expenditure commitments and the provision of a performance financial guarantee, to be provided by a recognized Saudi Arabian financial institution. RRA has committed to finance $3.9-million (U.S.) in exploration activities for the first two years, which will be results dependent, subject to surrender of the performance financial guarantee. RRA will be eligible for the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources exploration enablement program, which can provide up to $1.1-million (U.S.) per exploration licence in reimbursements. Furthermore, the company is currently in the process of qualifying for the Saudi Human Resources Development Fund, which can provide assistance with expenditures related to local salaries and professional development.

Dr. Tim Coughlin, Royal Road's president and chief executive officer, stated: "It has been 45 years since exploration work was conducted at Al-Miyah. Commodity focus and our understanding of exploration geology has changed profoundly since then. Our team have identified immediate copper and gold potential at known historic occurrences and at new prospects throughout the licence areas. Saudi Arabia's vision and pro-active support for the mining sector is unparalleled as clearly evidenced by its innovative financial assistance schemes. It is a privilege for our organization to be at the forefront of mineral exploration in the kingdom at this exciting transformative time."

Tareq Telmesani, chief executive officer of Midu and chairman of Royal Road Arabia, stated: "We are grateful to the MIMR for granting us this opportunity and eager to commence work at Al-Miyah. We will continue to utilize all of our resources and expertise to support Saudi Arabia's vision 2030 and ensure we are an integral part of the mining sector in the kingdom."

About Royal Road Minerals Ltd.

Royal Road is a mineral exploration and development company with its head office and technical operations centre located in Jersey, Channel Islands. The company is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the ticker RYR and on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the ticker RLU. The company's mission is to apply expert skills and innovative technologies to the process of discovering and developing copper and gold deposits of a scale large enough to benefit future generations and modern enough to ensure minimum impact on the environment and no net loss of biodiversity. The company currently explores in the kingdoms of Saudi Arabia and Morocco.

Quality assurance and quality control

Sample preparation and analyses are conducted according to standard industry procedures at certified laboratories. Analytical performance is monitored by means of certified reference materials, coarse blanks, coarse and pulp duplicate samples. Grab rock-chip samples were bagged in the field for a sample size of approximately two kilograms and then sent to ALS in Jeddah, where gold was analyzed by fire assay with inductively coupled plasma spectrometry finish, and multielement analyses were conducted by four-acid digest with ICP-MS finish (ME-MS61). Soil samples were collected 40 to 80 centimetres below the surface to avoid surficial contamination. Approximately 0.5 kilogram was collected for each sample. For each sample, soil or cover thickness, horizon (where present), sample type, sample collection depth, and field sieve-mesh were recorded. QAQC materials included approximately 5 per cent CRMs, 5 per cent blanks and 8 per cent field duplicates. Soil samples were sent to ALS Jeddah for drying and dry-sieving to minus 75 um/minus 200 mesh. Gold analysis was completed by 30-gram fire assay with an ICP-MS finish. Supertrace multielement analysis was completed using four-acid digest with ICP-MS finish (ME-MS61L). Portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) analysis was conducted using a hand-held Olympus Vanta M series. Analytical performance is monitored by means of an Oreas pXRF calibration kit, which includes certified reference materials (CRMs). Calibration is performed each time the pXRF is turned on and after every 50 samples. Each certified reference material cup is 32 millimetres in diameter and fitted with four-microm polypropylene film to minimize signal attenuation of lighter elements. All results were analyzed by the company's in-house exploration and database management team before import into its geochemical database.

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