Drilling Program At La Colorada Mine In Sonora

VANCOUVER - Heliostar Metals Ltd. reported on the 12,500 metre drilling program at the La Colorada Mine in Sonora, Mexico. La Colorada is currently producing gold from residual leaching having ceased mining in late 2023. Heliostar is reviewing the potential to restart mining in 2025 and is completing a drill program intended to expand the mineral reserve ahead of this decision.

CEO, Charles Funk, said, "La Colorada has long been a successful mine. It has operated profitably over its history and has reserves to support growth. Mining ceased in 2023 when stripping to expand the pit was not completed. This pre-strip is now a capital project and the opportunity to restart is a priority for Heliostar in 2025. Our team recognized that there are significant opportunities to expand shallow mineralization and results demonstrate the potential to convert a portion of the previously assumed waste into ore. This can result in lower capital costs and higher cash flow at the beginning of the restart. We value speed as a guiding business principle at Heliostar and have hit the ground running to deliver these results at the mine."

Mineralization at La Colorada's Creston Pit is predominantly hosted in three veins: the North, Intermediate and South Veins. These veins trend northeast-southwest to east-west, dip northward and are surrounded by halos of smaller mineralized vein zones. The Creston Pit has historically mined all three of these veins. Drilling prior to Heliostar's acquisition of the mine had successfully focussed on these veins beneath the pit and had expanded the mineral reserve.

Reviewing the expansion potential revealed two opportunities for reserve growth; near surface extensions of known veins where little or no drilling had been completed and upgrading and expanding mineralization beneath the pit. Both opportunities were defined using historical drilling, blasthole data, mining shapes, and the geological model.

High density blast hole data strongly emphasizes the potential for continuation of veins at shallow depth. It defines elevated gold grades continuing to the edge of the pit walls where they remain open for expansion.

Twenty-four holes are reported in this release for a total of 3257.1 metres, principally targeting shallow zones to the east and west of the Creston Pit. The results show narrow to wide, low to high grade oxide gold intercepts. They consistently return intercepts above the average above the mining cutoff of the pit while it was in operation and suggest that areas of waste could be converted to ore in an updated reserve model.

An updated technical report will be completed in January 2025 using the existing resource model at La Colorada. This report will not include the drill results presented in this press release. Results from the current drill program will be incorporated into a resource model and will support a reserve update that will be published with a feasibility study in mid-2025.

Should the drilling define a significant enough volume of gold mineralization, the results have the potential to reduce the capital requirements and improve the economics of the feasibility study. This study will be the basis of a construction decision for the restart of mining from the Creston Pit at La Colorada in mid-2025.

Drilling continues at the mine with three areas of focus. Additional shallow drilling, to follow up these results, is designed to bring production ounces forward in the mine plan. A program of infill and expansion drilling deeper in the pit will attempt to grow the overall gold reserves. A small allocation of drill metres will also test new areas of potential gold mineralization.

The Company anticipates additional drilling results from the current program will be released early next year.