Announcement • Jul 27
Santana Minerals Limited Reports Outstanding Bonanza Gold Hits from RAS Stage 1 Area Santana Minerals Limited has received outstanding results from within the high-grade core of the Rise and Shine (RAS) orebody, which contains the bulk of the deposit's ounces. Infill hole MDD528 has reduced spacing to 20m from the nearest holes and returned a bonanza intercept of 24.4m @ 10.9 g/t Au from 165.7m (true width 20.2m). Two additional sub-parallel intercepts of a second, stacked zone deeper in the hole returned 2.0m @ 89.5 g/t Au from 197m (true width 1.7m) with abundant visible gold, and 3.0m @ 2.5 g/t Au from 207m (true width 2.5m). This hole significantly improves the grade over the previous model with wider spaced drilling. The deeper zone of 2.0m @ 89.5g/t confirms the sub-parallel trend of a high-grade zone that can be accessed from the open pit. Two other infill holes, MDD526 and MDD527, returned intercepts consistent with previous drilling, confirming the continuity of mineralisation projected from the wider-spaced drill pattern and increasing confidence in the first ore scheduled to be mined. MDD526 returned 2.0m @ 8.5 g/t Au from 172m (true width 1.8m), and 10.0m @ 2.9 g/t Au from 179m (true width 9.0m). MDD527 returned 5.0m @ 1.3 g/t Au from 176m (true width 4.9m), and 11.0m @ 1.0 g/t Au from 188m (true width 10.8m). The results presented above are from drilling samples collected by diamond drilling. Diamond drill (DD) core samples for laboratory assay are typically 1 metre samples of diamond saw cut ½ diameter core. Where distinct mineralisation boundaries are logged, sample lengths are adjusted to the respective geological contact. Fire Assay: Samples are crushed at the receiving laboratory to minus 2mm (85% passing) and split using a rotary splitter to provide 1kg for pulverising in a ring mill to -75um. Pulps are fire assayed (FAA) using a 50g charge with AAS finish. Certified standards, blanks and field replicates are inserted with the original batches at a frequency of ~5% each for QAQC purposes. Photon Assay: Samples are crushed at the receiving laboratory to 3.5mm using a jaw crusher and split using a linear sample divider to provide a 500g sample. The 500g sample is assayed via a Chrysos Photon Assay unit. Certified standards, blanks and field replicates are inserted with the original batches at a frequency of ~5% each for QAQC purposes. Blank material is inserted after samples with notable visible gold to assess for carryover contamination. All pulps and crush reject (CREJ) are returned from the laboratory to MGL for storage on site. Of these returned samples, a further ~5% are re-submitted as QC check samples which involve pulp FAA re-assays by the original and an umpire laboratory and CREJ re-assayed by 500-gram (+ & -75mu) screen fire assay (SFA), 1kg BLEG (LeachWELL) and 2*500-gram Photon analysis (PHA) for gold. Where multiple assays exist for a single sample interval, larger samples are ranked in the database: PHA > BLEG > SFA > FAA. All returned pulps are analysed for a suite of 31 elements by portable XRF (pXRF). The sampling, sub-sampling and assaying methods are appropriate to the geology and mineralisation of the RAS deposit. Current drilling techniques are diamond coring (DD) PQ3 and HQ3 size triple tube. Where PQ3 core size (83mm diameter) is commenced this is maintained throughout the DD hole until drilling conditions dictate reduction in size to HQ3 core (61mm diameter). Holes deeper than 750m are cased off to NQ3 (45mm diameter). DD pre-collars are drilled open hole through un-mineralised TZ3 schist to within about 15 m of the mineralisation hangingwall, at which point diamond coring commences. RC drilling is only carried out where the mineralisation target is less than about 150m downhole and used a face sample bit with sample collected in a cyclone mounted over a rotary splitter producing 2 x 30% splits and 1 x 40% split. The two 30% splits were used as primary sample and field duplicate (if submitted) with the 40% split used for logging and then stored at the MGL core yard. Drillholes are oriented to intersect known mineralised features in a nominally perpendicular orientation as much as is practicable. A small number of holes are oriented in other directions to resolve areas of ambiguous geological interpretation. All drill core is oriented to assist with interpretation of mineralisation and structure using a Trucore orientation tool. DD core sample recoveries are recorded by the drillers at the time of drilling by measuring the actual distance of the drill run against the actual core recovered. The measurements are checked by the site geologist. When poor core recoveries are recorded the site geologist and driller endeavour to immediately rectify any problems to maintain maximum core recoveries. DD core logging to date indicate ~96% recoveries. RC sample recovery is measured as sample weight recovered. RC sample moisture for all RC drilling data was logged as dry (83.7% of RC samples), moist (12.0%) or wet (4.3%). All samples logged as wet were omitted from use in mineral resource estimation. The drilling contract used states for any given run, a level of recovery is required otherwise financial penalties are applied to the drill contractor to ensure sample recovery priority along with production performance. Sample grades were plotted against drilling recovery by drilling method and no relationship was established. Wet RC samples do show higher grades than dry RC samples. This may be due to wet RC samples coming from higher grade zones or sampling bias due to the loss of fines in wet samples. Due to a bias being present, wet RC samples are omitted from use in mineral resource estimation. All DD holes have been logged for their entire sampled length below upper open hole drilling (nominally 0-450 metres below collar). Data is recorded directly into AcQuire database with sufficient detail to support a Mineral Resource estimation (MRE). Logging is mostly qualitative but there are estimations of quartz and sulphide content and quantitative records of geological /structural unit, oxidation state and water table boundaries. Oriented DD core allows alpha /beta measurements to determine structural element detail (dip /dip direction) to supplement routine recording of lithologies /alteration /mineralisation /structure /oxidation /colour and other features for MRE reporting, geotechnical and metallurgical studies. All RC chips were sieved and logged for lithology, colour, oxidation, weathering, vein percentage and sulphide minerals. All core is photographed wet and dry before cutting. Sieved RC chips are also photographed. 100% of all relevant (within the gold grade domains) intersections were logged. Announcement • Jul 20
Santana Minerals Limited and Matakanui Gold Limited Announce Retirement of Frederick James Leslie Bunting as Non-Executive Director, Effective July 20, 2026 Santana Minerals Ltd. announced the retirement of Mr. Frederick (Kim) Bunting as a Non-Executive Director of the Company and its subsidiaries effective 20 July 2026. Mr. Bunting has been a long-term Director of Santana and its wholly owned subsidiary, Matakanui Gold Limited (NZ) for many years and he was the driver of the team that made the Rise and Shine (RAS) discovery at the Bendigo-Ophir Gold Project. Recent Insider Transactions • Jul 09
Insider recently bought AU$709k worth of stock On the 8th of July, Peter Cook bought around 2m shares on-market at roughly AU$0.44 per share. This transaction amounted to 16% of their direct individual holding at the time of the trade. This was the largest purchase by an insider in the last 3 months. Insiders have collectively bought AU$728k more in shares than they have sold in the last 12 months. 
