Volcanic Gold Mines Inc. announced it has continued to advance mining studies on the flagship Holly Project in preparation to upgrade the exploration license to an exploitation license. The Holly project has an inferred Mineral Resource of 1.3 Mt at 6.5 g/t for 270,000 oz contained gold and 260 g/t silver for 11 Moz contained silver, which equates to 9.6 g/t at 410,000 oz gold equivalent. The mineral resource is supported by excellent infrastructure with a paved road passing through the project area and is located less than 70 km from Bluestone Resources' Cerro Blanco gold mine development project.

Resource drilling and sub-surface exploration is at an early stage: the mineralization remains open along strike and at depth, and there are several additional mineralized veins identified at surface that have not yet been drill tested. The Company considers that the demonstrated high-grade and good access to a nearby mine development project means that the Holly Project has a good chance of being developed. Further drilling will determine whether Holly will support a stand-alone mill, or if the ore should be processed elsewhere.

Based on this positive outlook the Company is applying to upgrade the Holly exploration license to an exploitation license. Technical studies to support the application are underway. Volcanic is continuing to monitor and build environmental, hydrogeological, and social baseline studies for the Holly property.

Guatemalan and Mexican-based engineering companies have been commissioned to compile the technical studies and civil engineering design for an underground mining project, with assumed processing off-site. This study is expected to be completed in the first Quarter. The mine design will be an early-stage concept for permitting purposes and will not meet the requirements of a preliminary economic assessment.

As stated in previous news releases the Company intends to resume drilling at the Holly property once Bluestone has been granted a permit to build a mine at Cerro Blanco. Bluestone has issued an update on Cerro Blanco Successful permitting of the Cerro Blanco Project will demonstrate that the Authorities and communities are ready to develop Guatemala's considerable precious metal resource potential and provide the confidence required for Volcanic to resume exploration and resource definition at Holly.