Monarques Gold Announces the Start of a 10,000-Metre Drilling Program on Croinor Gold and Gold Bug

MONTREAL, Sept. 14, 2016

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Two drill rigs will be mobilized on the property in the next few days. The goal of the drilling program is to increase the inferred resource of the Croinor Gold main deposit and confirm the economic mineralization of the zones that are slated for production. At the same time, the Corporation will also drill a number of exploration targets, including the Gold Bug sector, the site of a significant discovery less than 500 metres east of the main deposit.

"We are very pleased to be resuming drilling at Croinor Gold," said Jean-Marc Lacoste, President and Chief Executive Officer of Monarques. "This drilling program is in line with our development strategy, which aims to increase the Croinor Gold gold resource to ensure a longer mine life and a steady supply of ore for the Beacon mill. Exploration work on the Gold Bug, Trench 2 and Bug Lake showings has also provided us with a selection of new high-potential exploration targets that will be tested during this program as well."

The 2015 drilling program resulted in an increase in the gold resource at the Croinor Gold main deposit and the conversion of a portion of the inferred resource to the indicated category (see press release dated November 24, 2015). A complete reinterpretation of the deposit data was undertaken in the summer of 2016 to allow for a better understanding of the various zones of the deposit and how they were related. The current program will test this new interpretation in addition to targeting the extensions of the known zones.

On the exploration side, stripping work has improved the understanding of the Gold Bug sector discovered at the end of the 2015 program. Two phases of drilling, in December 2015 and April 2016, both produced erratic gold results (see press releases dated January 26 and June 8, 2016) for the geologically complex area. The stripping work, which is ongoing, has helped shed light on the local geology, which has structural similarities with the Croinor Gold deposit. This will help in targeting the gold-bearing structures. Additional drilling will also be carried out to follow up on historical results.

The technical and scientific content of this press release has been reviewed and approved by Donald Trudel, P.Geo., B.Sc., the Corporation's Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101.