Orea Mining Corp. announced the commencement of a diamond drilling program at the Maripa Gold Project ("Maripa"), located in eastern French Guiana, France. Orea has an option to acquire up to a 70% interest in Maripa.

Ten thousand (10,000) meters of diamond drilling have been approved by the State services on Maripa. Fourteen (14) drill holes, for 2,140 meters, are planned as an initial investigation by Orea of the promising Changement gold zone ("Changement"), with 1,000 meters of drilling to be completed this January and February. The initial program consists of 5 drill hole fences at 200- to 250-meter north-south spacing, which will test a 1,050-meter strike extent of the Changement gold mineralized trend, as defined by historical drilling and surface sampling by Orea.

Drill pad and access road construction was completed and the drilling contractor has mobilized the equipment on site for an anticipated start date of January 15th. Changement Gold Zone: The Changement area was subject to placer gold mining from 1859 to 1950. All creeks peripheral to the deposit have been worked over time.

Underground hard rock mining was recorded as early as 1880 and the deposit was exploited at surface by three shallow open pits from 1985 to 1996. Total declared historical placer and hard rock gold production is estimated to be approximately 100,000 ounces, with 40,000 ounces from hard rock. The Changement gold mineralization is localized within two subparallel north-northwest striking, moderately west dipping, shear zones of 10 to 25 meters in width cutting Paramaca Formation mafic volcano-sedimentary sequences.

Gold mineralization is associated with quartz veining and sulfides, mainly as pyrite. The deposit has been traced by drilling to shallow depths over a lateral (strike) distance of 1,250 meters. A total of 63 diamond drill holes (4,500 meters) were drilled by the French geological survey (BRGM, 1978-1998) and by IAMGOLD (2002-2004).

Most of drilling was confined to the surface oxidized saprolite layer. Prospecting by Orea in 2019 identified numerous abandoned mine shafts and adits excavated by illegal artisanal miners, located some 800 meters to the south of the Changement mine main pit. Stockpiles of rock extracted from the mine workings consist of mineralized quartz-pyrite veins and mafic volcanic wall rock.

Select samples of the mineralized material returned numerous high-grade assays including 115.70, 83.48, 68.43, 42.60, 29.57, 15.51, 14.70, 9.42, 6.05, 5.98, 52.33, 17.20, 16.99, 14.64, 14.50, 9.75, 9.00, 7.36 and 6.83 g/t gold. The discoveries extended the Changement gold mineralized trend another 250 meters to the south.