Viva Gold Corp. announced that it has completed an initial metallurgical optimization program for its Tonopah Gold Project ("Tonopah"), located near Tonopah, Nevada. The work is reported in a study titled "Tonopah Gold Project, Pulp Agglomeration, Report on Metallurgical Testwork", dated October 2022, prepared by Kappes, Cassiday & Associates ("KCA"), Reno, Nevada.

Pulp agglomeration/heap leach testing produced a calculated gold leach recovery of over 91% for high-grade (+ 1.0 gpt gold) composite samples; the 91% indicated recovery is significantly higher than the 71% recovery estimate utilized in the 2022 PEA Technical Report; Gold recoveries on the low-grade composite sample was 68%; this recovery estimate compares well to the overall 71% heap leach recovery for the composited high- and low-grade recoveries utilized in the 2022 PEA Technical Report. The pulp agglomeration process is well proven and has been utilized at mines in both the US and Mexico at sites where dual high- and low-grade populations of gold mineralization exist. This includes the Ruby Hill mine in Nevada, the Castle Mountain mine in California, and the Dolores mine in Mexico.

Pulp agglomeration is a process where mined material is campaign crushed utilizing a three-stage crushing plant and placed respectively on high-grade or low-grade stockpiles. The high-grade material is further ground in a grinding mill and carbon-in-leach processed ("CIL") in a large tank for 10 to 12 hours, recovering a substantial percentage of the contained gold. The depleted pulp from this process is then dewatered and blended with low-grade crushed product and cement to produce an agglomerated product.

This agglomerated product is then transported by conveyor to the leach pad and leached over time for final gold recovery. One of the benefits of this process is that it accelerates overall gold recovery, thereby improving early gold revenue generation, while at the same time eliminating the need for tailings disposal. Material from core drilling at Tonopah was utilized to generate a high-grade blended composite sample (head grade 2.68 g/t Au) and a low-grade composite sample (0.795 g/t).

The two (2) composite samples were then utilized for pulp agglomeration test work. All preparation, assaying and metallurgical studies were performed utilizing accepted industry standard procedures. These samples were previously crushed utilizing conventional and High-Pressure Grinding Roll (HPGR) crushing methods.

Crushed high-grade composite material was ground and bottle roll tested at varying grind sizes to determine a practical size range (80% passing 0.075mm) for final CIL bottle roll testing. CIL bottle roll leach testwork on the ground high-grade product was replicated in 6 separate tests to produce an average gold recovery of 65% after 8 hours of leach. Crushed low-grade material was blended with dewatered high-grade pulp from the CIL testing at a 4:1 ratio with cement added and mixed to produce agglomerates.

These agglomerates were subject to compact permeability testing to approximate heap leach pad loading conditions to determine correct cement addition rates. The final agglomerate blend was then column leached, which simulates the heap leach process. Gold extraction for the agglomerates was 69% based on a calculated head grade of 0.84 g/t over an 86-day leach period.

The combination of CIL bottle roll and column leach recovery resulted in a calculated gold recovery for the high-grade mineralization of over 91%. Future testwork will be performed with a focus on optimizing CIL leach time, grind size, cement consumption, and aggregate strength.