Aton Resources Inc. updated investors on the results of further preliminary metallurgical testwork from its Rodruin and Hamama West projects. Rodruin and Hamama West are both located within the Company's 100% owned Abu Marawat Concession ("Abu Marawat" or the "Concession"), in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. Two composite samples were prepared from the Rodruin mineral deposit for metallurgical testing, which were representative of the two main sulphide mineralisation types, hosted in intensely phyllic altered ("phyllic") and carbonate rock types.

This preliminary testwork programme was designed to follow on from testing of the oxide mineralisation types carried out in early 2023, which indicated that the Rodruin oxide mineralisation is amenable to processing using heap leach and conventional CIL technology. 9, 2023). The programme was specifically focused on the sulphide mineralisation at Rodruin to evaluate the potential of processing both the main sulphide mineralisation types by flotation, with the goal of producing saleable copper and zinc concentrates.

Samples were selected from diamond drill half core intervals (HQ and PQ size), to produce total sample weights between 40-45kg. 2 samples were composited from the 2 main sulphide mineralisation types, specifically phyllic and carbonate hosted mineralisation. The diamond drill half core samples were dispatched from Egypt to Wardell Armstrong International Ltd. ("WAI") in December 2022, for metallurgical testing at their laboratory located in Cornwall, UK, with testwork commencing in January 2023.

The half core intervals were combined to prepare 2 composite samples, which underwent a process evaluation testwork programme consisting of head assays, XRD analysis, rougher, cleaner and locked cycle flotation testing. Sub-samples of the 2 composite metallurgical samples were sent by WAI for head assay analysis at ALS Minerals' geochemical laboratory at Loughrea, Ireland, and were analysed for Au (by screen fire assay), Ag, Cu, Pb, Zn, As, Fe and S. Additional analysis for deleterious elements was not undertaken, but this additional analytical work is planned. The Au head assays measured by screen fire assay show good correlation with the estimated grade of the composited drill core samples.

Ag, Cu, Pb and Zn head assays also showed good correlation with the estimated grades of the composite samples. The good correlation in assay results indicates that the composited samples prepared for metallurgical testwork are representative of the drill core intervals sampled. The XRD results showed the samples as being gangue dominated.

The phyllic hosted ROMS-006 composite sample is predominantly composed of quartz, phyllosilicate minerals (chlorite, illite, mica) and pyrite. The carbonate hosted ROMS-007 composite sample contained a mixture of dolomite, talc, quartz and pyrite. Sphalerite occurs as a minor but significant constituent of both samples.

The two sulphide samples were subjected to flotation testing to investigate the potential to recover base metal concentrates from the sulphide mineralisation. The flotation route tested involved sequential copper and zinc flotation. A primary grind size of 80% passing 75m was utilised for rougher flotation optimisation, except for ROMS-006 FT3 where a grind size of 80% passing 53µm was used.

Rougher optimisation testwork showed optimum copper and zinc recoveries to concentrates from the ROMS-006 sample were 87.9% at a grade of 2.32% copper, and 62.6% at a grade of 16.0% zinc, respectively. For the ROMS-007 sample optimum flotation performance achieved recoveries of 87.4% at a grade of 3.54% copper, and 91.5% at grade of 9.95% zinc, respectively. A series of open circuit cleaner flotation tests were subsequently conducted based upon the optimum rougher flotation conditions.

Three-stage open circuit cleaner optimisation testwork demonstrated that for sample ROMS-006, final concentrate grades of 32.3% copper at a recovery of 54.0%, and 52.2% zinc at recovery of 63.9% could be achieved, respectively. Furthermore, gold and silver were recovered to the final copper concentrate at grades of 103 g/t Au and 1,512 g/t Ag, respectively. The same three-stage cleaning conditions were utilised for sample ROM-007, from which final concentrate grades of 34.9% Cu at a recovery of 42.4%, and 50.3% Zn at a recovery of 67.3% were achieved, respectively.

Gold and silver were recovered to the final copper concentrate at grades of 32.4 g/t Au and 1,012 g/t Ag, respectively. A single locked cycle test was carried out on the ROMS-007 sample, as the predominant lithology of the two sulphide mineralisation samples, based on the test conditions used in the FCT5 open cycle cleaner test. Results from the locked cycle flotation test carried out on ROMS-007 showed that a copper concentrate grading 28.1% Cu at a recovery of 69.2%, and a zinc concentrate grading 61.6% Zn at a recovery of 79.6% could be produced.

Gold and silver were recovered to the final copper concentrate at grades of 30.9 g/t Au and 659 g/t Ag, respectively. Both the copper and zinc concentrates contain reasonable levels of gold and silver credits.