Urasar Mineral District

Hayasa was recently granted an exploration permit comprising 33.8 km² over the Urasar mineral district in northern Armenia.  After a period of review, the license was granted in September 2023 by the Armenian Ministry of Territories.  No further permits are requried for dtilling, trenching, road building and other basic exploration work.  Due to historical work by carried out in from the late 1950s to early 70s, the area already contains most of the road network needed for exploration.  Historical Soviet data from that time reveals a non-NI 43-101 compliant resource totalling 344K oz Au in the Russian C1+C2 category and 649K oz Au in the P category* in two separate zones.

*C1 and C2 are roughly equivalent to CIM’s (Canadian Institute of Mining Metallurgy and Petroleum) “indicated” category, while P is roughly equivalent to CIM’s “inferred” category

The Usasar project occurs in the Lesser Caucasus Mountains, within the NW-SE Seven-Amasi metallogenic/suture zone, part of an intensely folded province containing ophiolites that represents the closure of the ancient Tethyan sea. The belt contains a number of deposits, most notably Zod (also known as Sokt) a >7m ounce epithermal gold deposit, as well as a number of other precious metal deposits such as the Armanis mine with roughly 600,000oz gold equivalent pre-mining and Archut deposit 30km to the SW with approximately 400,000 ounces gold equivalent. The Urasar prospect area occurs seven kilometers south of Armanis gold mine, and lies on the same tectonic lineament that hosts the world-class Zod mine.

The area was first visited by Hayasa management In September 2021, when Urasar was one of ten prospects evaluated and sampled. It was ranked the highest priority due to wide-spread surface alteration/mineralization and encouraging geochemical results that comprised eight surface rock chip and channel samples, ranging from a minimum of 0.123 g/t Au to a maximum of 12.5 g/t Au, and averaging 2.65 g/t Au.  Thirty follow-up rock chip samples were collected in November 2022 from other parts of the license area and returned an average of 0.75 g/t Au, and 6,285 ppm Cu.  Based on opportunities such as the Urasar District, the availability of other well-mineralized prospects in Armenia, and a mining-friendly business environment, Hayasa management decided to set up a small office in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, in mid-2022.

The only significant exploration work undertaken at Urasar was carried out in the 1950’s through the early 1970’s by Soviet government exploration teams.  The work focused on a 300 m wide, 8 km long quartz-sericite-pyrite alteration zone along the Chibukhlu fault and comprised 16 trenches, six adits and several drillholes (the latter not currently located). Three polymetallic precious metal deposits were defined based on Soviet era, non-NI 43-101 compliant resource models, named the Black River, Chibukhlu and Hanqakutak deposits. Other similarly mineralized areas were also identified as part of this work and constitute second order targets in upcoming programs.   The figure below shows the location of two of the deposits as well as the prospects defined by this work.

Patany Erkaban LLC based in Yerevan, Armenia, completed a mineral resource estimate for the three deposits in 2008 based on the Russian C1, C2 and P mineral resource categories using the Soviet historical data and including several duplicate drillholes.  They estimated that the Black River deposit hosts 209,000 ounces Au in the C1+C2 categories and 334,000 ounces Au in the P category.  The Chibukhlu deposit was reported to have good potential for Cu with up to 20,000 tonnes of Cu in the P category as well as 135,000 ounces Au in the C1+C2 categories and 315,000 ounces Au in the P category.  The Hanqakutak deposit, which lies mostly outside of the Urasar license boundary, is estimated to host more than 500,000 ounces Au in the C1+C2 and P categories.  (Ounces and tonnes have been rounded to the nearest 1,000).   A NI 43-101 compliant report is being prepared and is expected to be posted on SEDAR within the next three to four weeks. The report will not include an update of the mineral resource estimate.

In late 2023 Hayasa conducted an initial geochemcial soil sampling program over the Urasar license comprising about 800 sample points over a 7km strike length.  Sample desnisty varied from 400m x 200m over areas between known mineralized zones, to as low as 200m x 50m over the areas defined as "deposits" by historic work.  A program of ground geophyscics (ground magnetometer) and further soil smpling commenced in spril 2024.