Southern Empire Resources Corp. announced that it has received permitting from the Secretaria del Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales for 30 exploration drill hole sites at its Centauro Gold Project located in the State of Chihuahua, Mexico. The Centauro Gold Project, which has undergone numerous, but low-density, historical exploration work programs along a 2.5 by 1.5 kilometre (km) corridor, including 27 widely-spaced (200 meter (m) to >700m spacing) NQ diameter core drill holes totaling 5,824.5m.

Previous operators (Silver Spruce Resources Inc., 2007 to 2009 and Mundoro Capital Inc., 2012 and 2013) also undertook various geological mapping, geochemistry and geophysics campaigns. The new permitting provides for 30 new exploration drill sites as shown in Figure 1. TheCentauro Gold Project exhibits significant potential to host "Carlin-style" and/or epithermal precious metal mineralization based on extensive brecciation, silicification and argillization of the Tertiary-age Ahuichila Formation conglomerate, a strongly coincident gold ("Au"), arsenic ("As"), antimony ("Sb"), mercury ("Hg"), thallium, silver, barium soil geochemical signature associated with a silicified mesa "cap" covering 2.5 km along the strike of the main zone, outcrops containing arsenopyrite, realgar, orpiment and stibnite, and low to non-anomalous base metal values. The environmental permitting work was completed by the geo-environmental consulting firm Segeo Ambientales Mx.

of Hermosillo. On September 1, 2023, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issued a Decision Record and a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) regarding the Environmental Assessment/Mitigated Negative Declaration (EA/MND) for the Oro Cruz Project. The EA/MND, and other associated documents were posted for public review online at the BLM NEPA Register.

These documents are also available for public review at the BLM El Centro Field Office located at 1661 South 4th Street in El Centro, California. During that time, gold was recovered by heap leaching of lower-grade ores and milling of higher-grade ores. Following significant definition drilling and underground development, the Oro Cruz open-pit and underground mines operated successfully for only one year (producing about 61,000 ounces of gold) AGMJV operations ceased in late 1996 as collapsing gold prices caused the entire operation to be shuttered and decommissioned, leaving the Oro Cruz property with many gold exploration targets in addition to a historical inferred resource estimate, reported In 2011 by Lincoln Mining Corp., totaling 341,800 ounces gold based on 4,386,000 tonnes averaging 2.2 grams gold per tonne at a cut-off grade of 0.68 g/t Au (4,835,000 tons at 0.07 ounce gold per ton; refer to the Cautionary Notice Regarding the Oro Cruz Property Historical Resource Estimate below).

Although no surface facilities remain, the underground infrastructure at Oro Cruz (including a 2.4 kilometre haulage ramp, sublevels and draw points) remains in excellent condition and the open pit was abandoned just after stripping was completed prior to the start of Stage II pit expansion. Southern Empire has received a Decision Record and Finding of No Significant Impact regarding federal permitting of Oro Cruz and is finalizing state and county permitting that will allow for up to 65 exploration, confirmation and metallurgical drill hole sites at Oro Cruz to support a new resource estimate, and to also test the potential of waste rock and decommissioned heap leach piles to yield residual gold production.