Azure Minerals Limited commenced its maiden drilling program at the Barton Gold Project, located in the world- class Leonora-Laverton gold province of Western Australia's Eastern Goldfields. The initial 3,000m Reverse Circulation (RC) drilling program will target extensions of Genesis Minerals' new gold discovery at Puzzle North. Azure is also announced that diamond drilling has restarted on its flagship Andover Nickel- Copper Project, located in the West Pilbara region of WA, following the Christmas break.

Azure holds 100% ownership of a large strategic landholding in the gold-rich Kookynie Gold District. This sizeable land package hosts numerous prospective, yet under-explored mineralised trends covering greenstone belts, adjacent granite margins and favourable structural settings that are considered highly prospective for hosting significant gold mineralisation. Barton is adjacent to several growing gold deposits and significant gold projects, including: Genesis Minerals Ltd.: Ulysses Gold Project (1,608,000oz gold resource); Genesis' Puzzle North gold discovery which adjoins Azure's southern tenement boundary; and Saturn Metals Ltd.: Apollo Hill Gold Project (944,000oz gold resource).

Azure's first drill program at Barton has started with 3,000m of RC drilling following up historical gold intersections at Daisy Corner and testing for northern extensions of the gold mineralisation drilled by Genesis Minerals at Puzzle North. As reported by Genesis Minerals, gold mineralization at Puzzle North is hosted by granite immediately adjacent to an east-dipping granite-greenstone contact. The mineralisation is associated with quartz veining within hematite-sericite altered granite in a zone 40m to 100m wide which dips east parallel to the granite-greenstone contact and extends for over 600m in a northerly direction towards Azure's tenement.

Multiple holes drilled by previous explorers at Daisy Corner intersected anomalous gold mineralization in mafic rocks to the east of the granite-greenstone contact, with a best result of 7m @ 1.26g/t Au from 42m in hole YAB13 (ASX: 4 September 2020). This drilling was restricted to the mafic rocks with no drill holes testing the potentially mineralised granite to the west of the granite-greenstone contact. Azure's initial 20 hole /3,000m RC drilling program is focused on testing along-strike extensions of the Puzzle North granite-hosted gold mineralisation, with the first holes collared immediately to the north of the Azure-Genesis tenement boundary.

As the Company previously announced (ASX: 9 December 2021), drilling at the VC-07 West mineralized system has intersected several zones containing nickel and copper sulphide mineralisation. Importantly, these mineralised zones coincide with the modelled locations of electromagnetic (EM) conductors identified by surface fixed-loop and downhole EM surveys. To date, two separate zones of massive, semi-massive and matrix Ni-Cu sulphides have been identified at VC-07 West, with several recent holes intersecting significant visible mineralisation.

Assays for these holes are awaited however an earlier hole, ANDD0045, returned high grades of nickel and copper mineralisation in both zones, including: ANDD0045: 4.5m @ 3.95% Ni, 0.80% Cu and 0.16% Co from 486.6m downhole; and 3.4m @ 2.01% Ni, 0.43% Cu and 0.09% Co from 605.2m downhole; Drilling is continuing at VC-07 West to define these mineralised zones and potentially move into a mineral resource drill-out phase.