Irving Resources Announces Purchase of Diamond Drills in Japan

Irving Resources Inc. is delighted to confirm the acquisition of two additional diamond drills for its Japanese exploration activities.

GeoTech Drilling Services Ltd., Prince George, British Columbia, has obtained a new Zinex A5 diamond drill, which will be sent to Japan this week and arrive in mid-July. A new LF90DT diamond drill has also been ordered through Boart Longyear in Adelaide, South Australia, and is expected to arrive in the third quarter of this year.

Given the difficulties encountered during the COVID pandemic, particularly foreign travel to and from Japan, Irving Resources has chosen to bring its drilling activities in-house, including the formation of its drilling crew.

Although this is a significant move for Irving, similar in-house approaches have been used by firms such as Lion One Metals, which has effectively and continuously maintained drilling operations despite the pandemic for the past two years.

Irving will be able to drill at two targets at the same time using two drills, which will assist in speeding up the exploration process. Furthermore, Irving Resources will now have more freedom to continue drilling at its Omu project while also drilling other projects, such as Yamagano.

This is a bold step for Irving, but it will allow us to be more aggressive with our exploration plans. COVID brought to the fore many issues, especially international travel in and out of Japan. We foresee buying these drills and building a solid in-house team of drillers who can stay with us over the years as a critical means of advancing our high-quality portfolio of epithermal gold-silver projects.

Dr Quinton Hennigh, Director and Technical Advisor, Irving Resources Inc.

Hennigh added, “Having two rigs will also help us with flexibility. We will now have the ability to drill two areas simultaneously which gives us the ability to tackle projects such as Yamagano, our Hishikari analog in Kyushu. We look forward to getting both of these drills in place by the third quarter of this year.”

Further Updates:

• Geophysical teams have just been given visas to visit Japan to execute phase II-controlled source audiomagnetotelluric (“CSAMT”) surveys at the Omu project and phase I CSAMT surveys at the Yamagano project. Work on the CSAMT is now ongoing at Omu.
• SRED, a Japanese drill contractor, has commenced Phase I drilling at Irving’s Hokuryu target, which is part of the Omu project. Three diamond drill holes are planned to follow up on the intersection of high-grade veins discovered in hole 21HKR-001 (3.12 gpt Au and 469 gpt Ag over 0.41m and 4.27 gpt Au and 7.55 gpt Ag over 1.67 m).
• At the end of April, Irving finished a second diamond drill hole at the Omui mining license, which is part of the Omu gold-silver project. In Canada, both this and the first hole are being analyzed. Sawing and sampling of core from these holes were delayed by a few weeks due to a COVID outbreak among site employees in April.

Quinton Hennigh (PhD, P.Geo.) is the competent person responsible for, and has examined and approved, the technical information contained in this press release, as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Dr Hennigh is a technical advisor and a director of Irving.