Sonoro Gold Corp.(TSX.V: SGO) is not your ordinary junior miner, the company is focused on bringing their 1400-hectare flagship property - The Cerro Caliche Gold Property into production utilizing a heap leach pilot operation (HLPO).

Cerro Caliche will be a near term producer, generating cash flow to fund future exploration and development programs. The project is surrounded by several gold-silver mining operations including Magna Gold Corp’s (TSX.V: MGR) San Francisco mine, Premier Gold’s ((TSX: PG) acquired by Equinox (NYSE/TSX: EQX)) Mercedes mine, and Agnico Eagle’s (NYSE/TSX: AEM) recently acquired Santa Gertrudis project.

San Francisco Mine

Magna Gold Corp’s (TSX.V: MGR) San Francisco mine currently has mineral resources of: M&I: 99,700,000 t grading 0.446 g/t Au, 1,430,000 oz Au (refer to the NI 43-101 F1 Technical Report, PFS for the San Francisco Gold Project, Sonora, Mexico, dated August 28, 2020 with an effective date as of August 8, 2020). The mine is a past producing open pit heap leach gold operation that commenced operations in 2010 and produced over 820,000 ounces of gold, achieving yearly production over 100,000 ounces on several occasions. The current outlook will average 69,000 oz per year between 2021 and 2028 (all information from Magna Gold’s website) .

Mercedes Mine

The recently completed friendly acquisition of Premier Gold (TSX:PG) by Equinox Gold (NYSE/TSX: EQX) has increased Equinox’s existing portfolio of operating gold mines in the Americas.

Christian Milau, CEO of Equinox Gold, stated: "With Mercedes and Greenstone in our portfolio, Equinox Gold now has eight operating mines and one of the largest gold reserves in our peer group, all in the mining-friendly jurisdictions of Ontario, California, Mexico and Brazil. We also have a strong, near-term growth profile with construction of our Santa Luz mine underway, Greenstone construction targeted to start in 2021, and significant expansion projects at Los Filos and Castle Mountain. We look forward to developing Greenstone with Orion as our partner, integrating Mercedes into our portfolio of producing mines and being a substantial and supportive shareholder of i-80 Gold."

Mercedes is an underground gold and silver mine in Sonora, Mexico that achieved production in 2011. Mercedes currently produces approximately50,000 ounces of gold per year, with expansion potential from increased plant throughput. Currently, Mercedes has reserves of 325Koz @ 3.90 g/t gold, and M&I Resources 551Koz @ 4.10 g/t Gold (all information from Equinox Gold’s website).

Cerro Caliche Project

Mineralization identified at Cerro Caliche consist of epithermal low sulfidation veins and related mineralized dikes and associated volcanic domes. Local altered felsic dikes cut the mineralized meta-sedimentary rock units and may be associated with mineralization both in the dikes and meta-sedimentary rocks. The district has historically been regarded as vein dominated, but recently, open pit mining operations have been developed on disseminated and stockwork style gold mineralization. The current NI 43-101 estimated inferred mineral resource is 11.5M tonnes at an average grade of 0.495 g/t gold and 4.3 g/t silver.

Currently, Sonoro Gold (TSX.V: SGO) will focus on expanding the current resource by drilling 50,000 meters during2020-2021, to test the exploration target of between 75,000,000 to 100,000,000tonnes with grades potentially between 0.3 g/t to 0.5 g/t AuEqR, assuming AuEqR= (Au g/t × 0.72) + (Ag g/t × 0.01133 × 0.30). The goal of this program is to test mineralized zones by focusing on three different mineralization format:

 
1. Extension of known zones of gold mineralization along trend of the vein zones outlined with drilling to the northwest and to the southeast together with new high-grade gold targets;
 
2. Targeting of porous geologic units including volcanic basal units of rhyolite flows; and
 
3. Newer untested but surface defined gold mineralized zones where 16 zones remain to be tested

San Marcial Project

Sonoro Gold (TSX.V: SGO) also owns a 100% interest in the San Marcial Project which consists of over 1,000 hectares. The project is in northern Sonora State, 20 km east of the San Francisco Mine, owned and operated by Magna Gold (TSX.V: MGR).  

San Marcial has excellent road access, and shows high-grade gold & silver mineralization, with broader lower-grade zones of disseminated to stockwork forms of mineralization, with previous work done in the 1980s by Cominco; Barrick; and in 1990s by Campbell Resources; Queenstake –air track drilling showed near-surface mineralization

Management Team

The Sonoro Gold (TSX.V: SGO) group consist of highly experienced executives with experience in financing and developing multiple resource deposits. Management has been apart of developing and operating a total 5Moz of gold, and collectively discovering 12 gold and copper mines:

John Darch, Chairman & Director

John brings over 35-years’ experience in the financing and management of natural resource related projects in both the public and private sectors. In 1981 he co-founded the Vancouver-based Crew Group of Companies which created various natural resources companies including gold (Crew Development Corp. Canada, Greenland & Africa), diamonds (Botswana Diamond Fields Corp., Botswana & South Africa), geothermal (Western Geo Power Corp., Canada), oil & gas (Crew USA, USA), coal, antimony, nickel, and copper(Crew Development Corp., Africa, Zambia & Philippines), tin (South Crofty Holdings, England) and potash (Asia Pacific Resources, Thailand). John has successfully secured over USD 300-million in private and public funds from North America, UK and Europe, through listings on the Stock Exchanges inCanada, USA, UK, Germany, Norway and South Africa.

Kenneth MacLeod, President; CEO; Director

Ken has 35 years’ experience as an entrepreneur, financier and executive officer in the resource and energy sectors, having served as President, CEO and director of various public and private companies operating in the Americas, Asia and Africa. He served as President & CEO of Kakanda Development Corp. from 1994 until 2001 and for Western GeoPower Corp. from 2001 until its acquisition by Ram Power Corp. in2009. Ken also launched and recently sold a private, successful Renewable Energy company currently operating in the Philippines.

Melvin Herdrick, Vice-President, Exploration

Melvin Herdrick is a professional geologist and a member of SME-AIME professional mining organization. He has over 35 years’ experience in mineral exploration in the US and Mexico and has been involved in the successful discovery and re-evaluation of six economically viable deposit with three in production and one in pre-production. He has extensive experience in the exploration of gold, silver and copper deposits as well as in uranium, iron and nickel resource evaluations.

Mel has spent the past 20-years focused on the discovery and development of gold and silver mineralized deposits in Northern Mexico. He is currently overseeing exploration at Sonoro’s Cerro Caliche deposit where he recently identified a cluster of eight northwest trending gold-dominant structures surrounded by parallel sheeted veinlets and stockwork veinlets. Mel also performed surface and underground sampling of the main mineralized shear vein at the company’s Chipriona concession which lead to the project’s acquisition by Agnico Eagle Mines in 2016. From 2006 Mel served as Vice President of Exploration for Pediment Gold Corp. until its takeover by Argonaut Gold in 2011. During this time, he discovered the two-million-ounce Los Planes deposit at the San Antonio gold project in Baja California Sur and discovered one-million ounces of gold with significant silver at the closed La Colorado mine now back in operation.

From 1994 until 2002 Mel served as Chief Geologist for Phelps Dodge Mexico. He was the exploration geologist at the Morenci and Tyrone open pit copper mines and was involved in the exploration and discovery of multiple deposits including the La Florida-Barrigon and Piedras Verdes copper deposits. Mel also served as the Senior Exploration Geologist at Kennecott Copper where he was part of the discovery team for the Vermillion River deposit and the Spar Lake deposit, now the Troy copper-and-silver underground mine.

Curtis Turner, Director

Curtis has over 15 years’ experience in business and finance; including mergers and acquisitions, public reporting and operations, as well as community and government relations. He is currently the CFO for Rawhide Mining LLC, a producing heap-leach gold mine in Nevada, which is majority owned by Coral Reef Capital, a Private Investment firm. Previously, Mr. Turner was the CEO and director of Candelaria Mining Corp. and held a senior management position at Argonaut Gold Inc., where he was a key member of the team that successfully completed four acquisitions totaling over $700million. Prior to his position at Argonaut Gold, Mr. Turner was CFO at sodium cyanide manufacturer Cyanco International LLC., Director of Finance at Yamana Gold Inc. and Corporate Controller at Meridian Gold Inc.

Current Outlook

Sonoro Gold (TSX.V: SGO) is well capitalized now, with gold prices flirting around $1,900, the company will look to continue to grow ounces through the drill bit. Sonoro recently completed a $3.1Moversubscribed financing which management subscribed for 2,449,999 units.  

Sonoro’s Chairman John Darch added, “Since the completion of our $8 million financing in September 2020, exceptional drilling results support the Company’s conceptual plan to develop a heap leach mining operation(“HLMO”) having a capacity of between 15,000 to 20,000 tons per day. The reception to this current financing, which continued to be oversubscribed despite being increased in size twice, reflects investors’ confidence in the Company’s plans.  We expect that the funds raised will sustain our operations beyond the completion of a 43-101 resource update and a Preliminary Economic Assessment, both expected by this July. On behalf of the Sonoro executive team, I would like to emphasize our confidence that these independent reports will reflect both a material increase and upgrade in our current inferred resource, together with robust economics for the conceptual heap leach mining operation, which we anticipate will enable us to raise debt financing to construct the HLMO with the objective to commence production in early 2022.”

Sonoro Gold (TSX.V: SGO) recently completed an additional 25 RC drill holes completed at four of the 18 gold mineralized zones within the Cerro Caliche gold concession located in Sonora, Mexico.  Recent drilling successfully tested on-strike and lateral extensions at El Colorado, Cabeza Blanca, Buena Vista and Boludito, as shown on the map below.

Highlights are as follows:

• SCR-234 in the southern extension of El Colorado intercepted 16.77 meters averaging 1.837 grams of gold per tonne (“g/t Au”); including 4.57 meters averaging 5.627 g/t Au; including 1.52 meters averaging 14.6 g/t Au.
• SCR-239 in the eastern extension of El Colorado intercepted 7.62 meters averaging 2.425 g/t Au; including 1.52 meters averaging 10.6 g/t Au.
• SCR-256 at Cabeza Blanca intercepted 12.19 meters averaging 1.067 g/t Au; including 4.57 meters averaging 2.10 g/t Au; including 1.52 meters averaging 3.701 g/t Au.
• SCR-247 at Buena Vista intercepted 25.91 meters averaging 0.578 g/t Au; including 3.05 meters averaging 1.784 g/t Au.

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Currently, Sonoro Gold (TSX.V: SGO) is trading at $0.285 and has 102.37M shares outstanding, giving it a market cap of $29.07M.

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DISCLAIMER: Sonoro Gold is a paid marketing client*

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