News 2023

Aton announces the start of a 10,000m RC exploration drilling programme at Abu Marawat

Vancouver, British Columbia, May 19, 2023: Aton Resources Inc. (AAN: TSX-V) (“Aton” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce that it has now commenced a 10,000m programme of reverse circulation percussion (“RC”) exploration drilling at its 100% owned Abu Marawat Concession (“Abu Marawat” or the “Concession”), in the Eastern Desert of Egypt (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Geology and prospect plan of the Abu Marawat Concession

“I am very pleased to be able to announce that Geodrill have now started on our highly anticipated regional RC exploration drilling programme” said Tonno Vahk, Interim CEO. “We are delighted to finally be in a position to get out and drill some of our regional targets for the first time at Abu Marawat. We have no doubt that we have one of, if not the most prospective package of gold exploration projects in Egypt. The team on the ground has worked hard to get this programme together, and are very excited to be finally starting drilling at some of these great targets. We are absolutely confident that the results of the drilling will speak for themselves in the coming months.”

2023 Abu Marawat RC drilling programme

Aton signed a contract with Geodrill’s Egyptian branch, Geodrill for Leasing and Specialized Services Freezone LLC, for 10,000m of RC drilling at the Abu Marawat Concession in April 2023 (see news release dated April 20, 2023). Geodrill’s X900 multi-purpose drill rig arrived at the West Garida prospect on May 18, 2023, and commenced drilling on the first hole of the programme, WGP-006 (Figure 2). The powerful X900 multi-purpose rig carries a 1200cfm/430psi onboard compressor, and an additional service unit equipped with a 1200cfm/430psi auxiliary compressor and 1800cfm/900psi booster pack. The X900 rig has a rated RC depth capacity of 400m.

Drilling has commenced at the West Garida prospect (Figure 1), which is only 3 km away from the Company’s Hamama West deposit. A short programme of 19 holes has been planned at West Garida, for a total of 1,370 metres to follow up on a previous drill intersection of 41.7 g/t Au, 263 g/t Ag and 2.08% Pb over a 1m interval (see news release dated September 1, 2022). Mineralisation at West Garida is associated with narrow high grade quartz veins.

Figure 2: Collaring off the first hole WGP-006 at West Garida, 18 May, 2023

After the completion of the West Garida programme the rig will then be mobilised to the Abu Gaharish prospect (Figure 1), where a temporary exploration camp has been erected to service the drilling. Drill pad construction is almost finished at the prospect, and is expected to be completed in the coming days. Abu Gaharish is located approximately 16km east northeast of the Company’s main exploration camp at Rodruin, and is accessed by rough desert tracks. A provisional programme of 28 holes has been planned for a total of 4,040 metres at Abu Gaharish. The Company believes that Abu Gaharish is an analogue of the world-class Sukari deposit, approximately 200 km south of Abu Marawat, and where artisanal miners have recently exploited a highly prospective structural system consisting of numerous mineralised veins and structures along a c. 3 km strike length on the southeastern margin of the Gaharish granite pluton. Aton has carried out extensive surface sampling at Abu Gaharish with samples grading up to 157 g/t Au (see news release dated October 28, 2021).

A further programme of 17 holes for a total of 3,600m has been designed at the Semna prospect, which will be drilled after Abu Gaharish, and where drill access road and pad construction is also well advanced. Semna is located approximately 10 km northwest of Abu Gaharish (Figure 1). The Semna area has a long history of gold mining, during both ancient and modern times, dating back as far as the Old Kingdom period, over 4,500 years ago. Semna was exploited by 2 British companies between 1904 and 1906, who reported that Semna had the widest vein mined during the British phase of mining in Egypt in the early 20^th century, reaching up to 6m in width in places. The British reported mining grades of over 2 ounces per ton. Reports from the British Mining Journal from 1905 indicated that some pillars from the ancient Pharaonic era stopes assayed up to 5.5 ounces per ton gold. Mineralisation is associated with at least 4 sub-parallel structures at Semna, and Aton has returned channel sampling intercepts including 5.17 g/t Au over an interval of 9.7m at surface, and individual channel samples grading up to 18.05 g/t Au (see news release November 22, 2017).

Further drilling programmes are being developed to also test the Zeno, Sir Bakis and Bohlog areas (Figure 1) in the current RC programme.