Drilling at Las Conchitas Hits Multiple Intercepts At Bayacun Zone

VANCOUVER - Mako Mining Corp. reported positive drill results from the Bayacun Zone within the Las Conchitas area of its wholly-owned San Albino-Murra property located in Nueva Segovia, Nicaragua. The Las Conchitas area is located approximately 2.5 kilometers south of the fully permitted San Albino gold project currently under construction. The goal of the 2020 drill program at Las Conchitas is to identify near surface, shallow dipping, high-grade gold mineralization and delineate a maiden resource estimate.  Since 2019, the Company has focused on the Bayacun Zone, completing 96 shallow diamond drill holes totaling 6,785.60 meters (m). This zone appears to be one of the most promising zones to delineate a near term resource within the Las Conchitas area. A total of 17,842.75 m within 295 holes have been drilled at Las Conchitas since the start of the 2019-20 drilling campaign.

Akiba Leisman, Chief Executive Officer, said, “These are the widest zones encountered at Las Conchitas to date.  In addition, the grades are consistent with previous near surface, high-grade results.  Historically, the Las Conchitas area was considered second in importance to San Albino but was consistently neglected by previous operators.  We have taken a different approach and have continued drilling at Las Conchitas while advancing San Albino into production. Our view is that delineating a maiden resource at Las Conchitas is essential, especially now that the Company has the green light to process up to 1,000 tonnes per day."

The conceptual model for the mineralization encountered at Las Conchitas consists of multiple, parallel, gold-bearing quartz veins with a gentle dip to the northwest.  The veins appear to be related to compressional tectonics and are associated with later faulting and local folding which accounts for changes in vein orientation both along strike and dip.  Vein mineralogy and morphology share several characteristics that are consistent with the model for orogenic gold-bearing veins.  Local, abrupt changes in vein orientation may account for the limited historical exploration within the area. The last documented exploration was conducted in 1921, using hand dug tunnels.

LC20-276 is the first drill hole which intersected the lost Las Dolores tunnel, which is described in the 1921 report referred to above.  Mineralized veins were encountered both above and below the 4.0 m wide void, with intervals of 14.68 g/t Au and 39.1 g/t Ag over 2.65 m and 4.47 g/t Au and 6.7 g/t Ag over 0.90 m, respectively.  The Las Dolores vein exhibits similar gold grades and mineralized widths as the San Albino vein.

LC20-277 intersected three shallow, gold-bearing intervals and a 2.5 m void over 17.05 m (16.1 m true width).  This hole has one of the widest, shallow, gold-bearing intervals encountered to date in the Las Conchitas area. Additional drilling is planned in the area surrounding LC20-277 to determine the nature and orientation of this exceptionally wide zone.

Drill core was continuously sampled from inception to termination of the drill hole.  Sample intervals were typically one meter.  Drill core diameter was HQ (6.35 centimeters).  Geologic and geotechnical data was captured into a digital database, core was photographed, then one-half split of the core was collected for analysis and one-half was retained in the core library.  Samples were kept in a secured logging and storage facility until such time that they were delivered to the Managua facilities of Bureau Veritas and pulps were sent to the Bureau Veritas laboratory for analysis.  Gold was analyzed by standard fire assay fusion, 30-gram aliquot, AAS finish.  Samples returning over 10.0 g/t gold are analyzed utilizing standard Fire Assay-Gravimetric method.  Due to the presence of coarse gold, the Company has used 500-gram metallic screened gold assays for analyzing samples from mineralized veins and samples immediately above and below drilled veins.  This method, which analyzes a larger sample, can be more precise in high-grade vein systems containing coarse gold. All reported drill results in this press release using the metallic screening method are indicated.  The Company follows industry standards in its QA&QC procedures. Control samples consisting of duplicates, standards, and blanks were inserted into the sample stream at a ratio of 1 control sample per every 10 samples.  Analytical results of control samples confirmed reliability of the assay data.  No top cut has been applied to the reported assay results.