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VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE/ July 27, 2022 / Aztec Minerals Corp. (AZT:TSX-V, OTCQB:AZZTF) announces that core drilling has commenced at the Cervantes porphyry gold-copper property in Sonora, Mexico. Aztec plans to drill the 10 hole, 3,000 m core program through September 2022 as a follow-up to the successful Phase 2 RC drill program earlier this year. The new program will test three main targets. View: Cervantes Planned Phase 3 Core Drilling Plan

The primary objectives of the drilling program are to better define the open pit, heap leach gold potential of the porphyry gold oxide cap at California, evaluate the potential for deeper copper-gold porphyry sulfide mineralization underlying the oxide cap, test for northern extensions of the California mineralization at California North and northwestern extensions of the Jasper mineralization.

Cervantes is a highly prospective porphyry gold-copper-molybdenum property located in southeastern Sonora state, Mexico. The project lies 160 km east of Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico within the famous Laramide porphyry copper belt approximately 265 km southeast of the Cananea porphyry copper-molybdenum mine (Grupo Mexico). Cervantes also lies along an east-west trending gold belt 60 km west of the Mulatos epithermal gold mine (Alamos Gold), 45 km west of the La India mine (Agnico Eagle), and 40 km northwest of Santana gold deposit (Minera Alamos). View: Cervantes Project Location Map

In 2017-18, Aztec completed a Phase 1, 17 diamond core hole drill program, totaling 2,675 meters (m) (see news release dated June 26, 2018). Phase 1 drilling tested the California target 900m by 600m gold-in-soils anomaly that averaged 0.44gpt covering hydrothermal breccias within a quartz feldspar porphyry stock intruding Paleozoic siliciclastic sediments.

The Phase 1 drill program consistently intersected an oxidized gold cap to a porphyry-type gold-copper-silver system at California, including multiple 100+ meter widths of exceeding 0.40 gpt gold, spanning an 800-meter length and a 200-meter breadth, to a maximum vertical depth of 150 meters. The area tested by Phase 1 drilling represented only 30% of the surface gold soil anomaly.

Mineralization at the California zone is open in all directions. Highlights of the 2017-18 Phase 1 diamond core and 2021-22 Phase 2 RC (see news release dated June 14, 2022) drill programs are as follows:

Preliminary metallurgical tests on California drill cores were conducted in 2019 (see news release dated March 12, 2019). Drill core samples were grouped into 4 separate types of mineralization: Oxide 1, Oxide 2, Mixed Oxide/Sulfide and Sulfide. The preliminary results of bottle roll tests showed excellent potential for heap leach gold recovery, as follows:

Purisima East - outcropping gossans, altered and mineralized diatreme breccias and porphyry intrusions marked by a 700m by 600m geochemical soil anomaly in 193 samples that average 0.25 gpt gold, a small historic glory hole' mine where rock chip sampling returned high-grade mineralization up to 44.6 gpt gold.

Estrella - outcrops of gossan and sulfides in silicified Paleozoic sediments near quartz porphyry dikes with rock chip samples up to 3.9 gpt gold and 2,010ppm copper.

Purisima West - a mirror image of Purisima East in size and type of gossans, altered and mineralized breccias and intrusions in association with gold and copper soil anomalies.

Jasper - 2017 trenching returned skarn/replacement-type mineralization up to 0.52% copper and 0.62 gpt gold over a 92.4 m length. In 2022 RC drilling found a broad zone of copper - gold mineralization in JAS22-001.

California North - coincident IP chargeability and gold-copper-molybdenum soil geochemical anomalies with demonstrated gold - copper mineralization by RC drilling, it may be a north extension of the California target

Other targets - porphyry alteration and geochemical soil anomalies mark the Jacobo and Brasil prospects but more work is required to expand and define these targets

Bradford Cooke, Chairman and a Director of the Company, and Simon Dyakowski, the President and CEO of the Company, participated in the private placement that closed on June 6, 2022 by subscribing for 200,000 units and 125,000 units, respectively, which constitute related party transactions pursuant to Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions ("MI 61-101"). There has not been a material change in the percentage of the outstanding securities of the Company that are individually owned by Mr. Cooke or Mr. Dyakowski as a result of their participation in the private placement. The Company is exempt from the requirements to obtain a formal valuation and minority shareholder approval in connection with the participation of the insiders in the private placement in reliance on the exemptions contained in sections 5.5(a) and 5.7(1)(a) of MI 61-101, respectively.

Allen David Heyl, B.Sc., CPG., VP Exploration, is the Qualified Person who reviewed and approved the technical disclosures in this news release.

Simon Dyakowski, Chief Executive Officer Aztec Minerals Corp.

About Aztec Minerals - Aztec is a mineral exploration company focused on the discovery of large polymetallic mineral deposits in the Americas. Our core asset is the prospective Cervantes porphyry gold-copper property in Sonora, Mexico. The historic, district-scale Tombstone properties host both bulk tonnage epithermal gold-silver as well as CRD silver-lead-zinc mineralization in Cochise County, Arizona. Aztec's shares trade on the TSX-V stock exchange (symbol AZT) and on the OTCQB (symbol AZZTF).

Contact Information - For more information, please contact:

Simon Dyakowski, CEO or Bradford Cooke, Chairman Tel: (604) 619-7469 Fax: (604) 685-9744 Email: [email protected] Website: www.aztecminerals.com

Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved the information contained herein.

Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute forward-looking statements under Canadian securities legislation. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "expects" or "it is expected", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "will" occur. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from results contemplated by the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Accordingly, the actual events may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. When relying on forward-looking statements to make decisions, investors and others should carefully consider the foregoing factors and other uncertainties and should not place undue reliance on such forward-looking statements. The Company does not undertake to update any forward-looking statements, except as may be required by applicable securities laws.

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