Canary Gold Corp. has mobilized its 2026 exploration program at the Madeira Project with the arrival of the first drill rig on site, marking the beginning of a comprehensive 20,000-meter drilling campaign. The company has engaged Geosol, a leading drilling services contractor, to execute this multi-rig program focused on defining near-surface mineralization through specialized geological definition and rapid regional coverage.
The exploration program employs a dual-rig strategy with distinct objectives. The first rig utilizes a screw-auger drilling system, a specialized technique optimized for unconsolidated ground conditions designed to recover high-quality samples from the favorable "Mocururu" geologic horizon and associated prospective gravel beds. This phase involves approximately 5,000 meters across roughly 100 drill holes arranged in an initial grid of 200 m x 100 m, with drilling to a maximum depth of approximately 50 meters per hole.
A second Reverse Circulation (RC) drill rig is expected to arrive during the second half of January to conduct regional reconnaissance drilling. This phase will test the broader extent of the property included in the original agreement with New Frontiers, covering approximately 15,000 meters across roughly 300 drill holes in a wide-spaced reconnaissance grid of approximately 2,000 m x 1,000 m. The RC program aims to rapidly assess regional geological continuity and identify new priority targets across the property, though drilling of additional land associated with the agreement with Talisman is not contemplated at this stage.
Parallel to the drilling mobilization, the company has completed a comprehensive update of its corporate website and investor presentation materials available at https://www.canarygold.ca. These refreshed materials are designed to more clearly communicate the geological framework, exploration strategy, and scale of the company's land position while ensuring consistent and accessible disclosure for investors during what is expected to be a productive year of exploration.
The company also announced the grant of 6,107,500 stock options to certain directors, officers, and consultants with an exercise price of $0.27 per common share for five years. This grant constitutes a related party transaction, with the company relying on exemptions from formal valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements under Multilateral Instrument 61-101 since the fair market value does not exceed 25% of the company's market capitalization.
This drilling initiative represents a significant advancement in the exploration of Brazil's Madeira River region in Rondônia State, one of the country's most prospective yet underexplored gold provinces. The program's importance lies in its systematic approach to testing both specific geological targets and broader regional potential, which could provide critical data for understanding mineralization patterns in this emerging district. For investors and the mining industry, the results from this extensive drilling campaign could either validate the geological hypotheses guiding exploration or redirect efforts toward more promising areas, potentially influencing investment decisions and regional exploration strategies.
The scientific and technical information has been reviewed and approved by Andrew Lee Smith, P.Geo., Executive Director of Canary Gold Corp., a Qualified Person as defined under National Instrument 43-101. It is important to note that the information disclosed relates to early-stage exploration results, and heavy-mineral analyses and field-based observations do not provide quantitative gold grades and cannot be used to estimate mineral resources. Additional drilling, systematic sampling, and assay verification are required to determine the significance of the geological features described.
