Aton announces the start of the Phase II diamond drilling programme at Rodruin

VANCOUVER, Nov. 23, 2021 - Aton Resources Inc. (AAN: TSX-V) ("Aton" or the "Company") is pleased to update investors on the start of diamond drilling at its Rodruin gold exploration project (Figure 1), located in the Company's 100% owned Abu Marawat Concession ("Abu Marawat" or the "Concession"), in the Eastern Desert of Egypt.

"We are delighted to announce the start of the second phase diamond drilling programme at Rodruin," said Tonno Vahk, Interim CEO. "It has been a long and rocky road to this new programme, but we are very happy to now be finally back drilling, as we aim to unlock the potential of the Rodruin gold project, as well as continuing to advance the Hamama West project and the remainder of our highly prospective Abu Marawat Concession."

Figure 1: Geology plan of the Abu Marawat Concession showing the location of the Rodruin project

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Rodruin diamond drilling programme

In June 2021 the Company contracted Energold Drilling (EMEA) Limited ("Energold") to undertake an initially planned 3,350m diamond drilling programme at Rodruin (see news release dated June 14, 2021). Energold who are regarded as one of the world's premier mineral exploration drilling companies, and have one of the world's largest drilling fleets, consisting of some 160 rigs, are known specialists in drilling in difficult terrain such as that at Rodruin. Energold have supplied a Global Drilling ID500-G track-mounted rig (Figure 2), which is specially engineered to be able to drill horizontal and very shallow holes, as well as more conventional inclined and vertical holes, has a small footprint and is ideal for the rugged conditions at the Rodruin project.

Figure 2: Energold's ID500-G rig drilling on the first hole of the new programme, ROD-051

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The containerised drill rig arrived onsite at Rodruin on November 11, 2021 and was reassembled by Energold's drilling crew, prior to tracking up the 4.5km access road to the Rodruin drill sites. The last shipment of ancillary equipment arrived onsite on November 17, 2021, and drilling commenced on November 22, 2021.

Drilling will be supervised by Aton's experienced exploration team, who discovered the Rodruin deposit in 2017, with drill samples being sent to ALS Minerals sample processing facility in Marsa Alam, Egypt, prior to being exported to ALS laboratories in Europe for geochemical analysis. The first assay results from this drill programme can be expected in January 2022.

The programme has been designed to resolve some of the structural complexities of the Rodruin mineralisation, as well as rapidly advancing the project with Aton's objective being to produce a maiden resource at the Rodruin project in the shortest time frame possible. Widespread gold mineralisation has been, and continues to be identified at surface at Rodruin (see news release dated November 3, 2021). The phase one reverse circulation percussion ("RC") drilling programme intersected wide zones of oxide mineralisation from surface, as well as in deeper sulphide zone mineralisation. The new drilling will also follow up on mineralisation intersected in the RC drilling, which returned intersections including 36m @ 12.47 g/t Au (see news release dated October 1, 2018). Drilling will be undertaken at the Aladdin's Hill, Central Buttress, Spiral Pit and GF zones (see news release dated January 29, 2019), as well as targeting currently undrilled mineralisation on the North Ridge which has returned assays of up to 321 g/t Au from surface samples (see news release dated February 6, 2018).