Abitibi Metals Corp. announced results from the first four holes of the maiden drill program currently underway at the B26 Polymetallic Deposit ("B26", the "Project" or the "Deposit"). The Company is currently completing its winter drill program at the Deposit, where a minimum of 12,000 metres is targeted by the end of March under the first phase of a fully funded 30,000-metre 2024 field season.

On November 16th, 2023, the Company entered into an option agreement on the B26 Polymetallic Deposit to earn 80% over 7 years from SOQUEM Inc. Drillholes 1274-24-293 and 1274-24-294 were designed to test the geometry and validate (infill & extension) of mineralization in historical hole B26-40 at the intersection with historical hole 1274-16-224 (3.05% CuEq over a length of 48.1 metres) on section 652900E. Hole 1274-16-224 was drilled to the south at 180°. Hole 1274-24-293 was planned to reproduce historical hole B26-40 and extend the hole to cover the entire mineralized structure to the north.

Hole 1274-24-294 is an undercut, drilled at about 20 metres down-dip of 1274-24-293 in a 70-metre gap in the model. Hole 1274-24-294 illustrates a variant of the same type of mineralization with a higher fraction of quartz veining showing different episode of mineralization. This environment can be related to gold enrichment observed from 136.2 to 146.3 metres (4.8 g/t Au and 8.1% Cu over 10.6 metres).

Overall, the style of mineralization observed in the two holes close together could follow a braided deformation pattern which can explain part of the grade variations observed. On the section drilled, the interlacing of veins creates a lens structure that can be followed from hole to hole 150 metres vertically. Holes 1274-24-295 & 1274-24-296 were designed to intercept the copper-bearing structure up-dip close to surface on section 653150 where there was no historical drilling to cover the surface extension of the B26 Zone.

Mineralized intervals correspond to the extension of the stringer zones closer to the surface under around 25 metres of overburden. This is in line with the Company's objective of testing the north bedrock interface to complete the model in order to assess the potential updated pit-shell model. Drilling continues at the project with 8,839 metres completed to date amongst 29 holes with three rigs currently active.

Within the additional holes completed to date, the Company continues to see positive visuals in both the infill and extension targets. The core logging program is run by Explo-Logik in Val d'Or. The drill core was split with half sent to AGAT Laboratories and prepared in Val d'Or, QC.

All samples are processed by fire assays on 50gr with Atomic Absorption finish and by "four acids digestion" with ICP-OES finish respectively for gold and base metals. Samples returning a gold grade above 3 g/t are reprocessed by metallic screening with a cut at 106 µm. Material treated is split and assayed by fire assay with ICP OES finish to extinction. A separate split is taken to assay separately mineralized intervals with target grades above 0.5% Cu using Na2O2 fusion and ICP-OES or ICP-MS finish.

Samples preparation duplicates, varied standards, and blanks are inserted into the sample stream. In the 2018 Resource estimate, SGS recommended the QAQC protocol to explain the replicability for the four metals (Au-Cu-Ag-Zn). The Company has set up for this program a series of assaying protocols with the objective to control QAQC issues from the beginning of the project.

As a result, samples are crushed finer with 95% of particles passing 1.7 mm and a large split of 1 kg is pulverized down to 106 µm (150 mesh). Other measures put in place include the automatic re-assaying of gold results above 3 g/t by metallic screening and the use of sodium peroxide fusion in mineralized intervals interval corresponding to a target grade above 0.5% Cu.