Sihayo Gold Limited announced the results of recently completed drilling on the Company's Sihayo Starter Project (the "Project") in North Sumatra, Republic of Indonesia. The primary objectives of the seven-hole, 2,216 m diamond drilling program were to test for potential extensions to known deeper high-grade gold mineralisation located below the planned Sihayo starter pit. The holes completed in this recent drilling program have tested some deeper zones within the Sihayo gold resource, which are characterised by locally high gold grades identified by historic drilling.

These deeper zones fall within the Inferred Mineral Resource category and are not included in the current Ore Reserve estimate due to insufficient drilling data being available to accurately define their extent and geometry. The holes were located on the southern end of the proposed pit shell. The high-grade gold mineralisation is open in several directions, and with additional drilling, there is potential to join some of the currently disconnected resource blocks into larger coherent zones of high-grade mineralisation or lead to the discovery of a higher-grade feeder zones below the Sihayo deposit.

Results from the High-pH Leaching CIL test work indicated the potential to increase overall metallurgical recoveries for the Sihayo Starter Project from 71.2% (as assumed in the 2022 Feasibility Study Update ("2022 FSU")) to approximately 80 ­ 85%. These results have the potential to significantly transform the Sihayo Starter Project through higher gold production from existing Ore Reserves. Higher metallurgical recoveries from High-pH Leaching may unlock additional known and yet to be defined high-grade mineralisation located beneath the Sihayo pit, which is not currently included in the current Ore Reserve due to the low recoveries previously assumed.

The high-grade zones below the planned Sihayo pit are largely underexplored and were previously tested by a relatively low density of drilling. This is therefore a high priority for follow-up drilling following the metallurgical test work program. The recently completed program of first phase of follow-up drilling was designed to infill and extend selected zones within the deeper high-grade Mineral Resource.

The deeper high-grade gold zones within Sihayo are mainly hosted in Permian karstic limestones intruded by a diorite laccolith and unconformably overlain by Tertiary quartz sandstones and mudstones. The gold mineralisation occurs as sulphide-refractory, sub-micron-size gold in arsenic-rich rims on fine-grained pyrite disseminated through decalcified clay-sulphide and jasperoidal silica altered limestone karst cavity-fill breccias, composed of varying proportions sandy matrix and polylithic clasts of limestone, sandstone, and mudstone. The mineralised breccias are generally fresh to locally fractured and oxidised.

They are best developed along the contact-unconformity with the overlying Tertiary rocks, and along or near the contacts of the diorite laccolith intrusion. As with the entire Sihayo deposit, the deeper high-gold zones are anomalous in arsenic, antimony, mercury and thallium geochemistry. The breccias hosting high-grade gold mineralisation at Sihayo show physical features and alteration-mineralisation characteristics that appear to be similar to those reported in the literature from the Cortez Hills breccia-related Carlin-type gold deposit in Nevada (Bradley et al, 20201).