Soma Gold Corp (TSXV: SOMA) (OTC: SMAGF) reported the first drill result and new underground channel sampling from its Escondida Project in Antioquia, Colombia, indicating that the gold-bearing Escondida Vein continues beyond the boundaries of the small underground mine the company has operated since acquiring it in July 2025.

The result is the first from a 21-hole, 2,790-meter Phase 1 drill program that Soma Gold began at Escondida in May 2026 to test the vein’s extent up to 500 meters along strike and 250 meters below the mine’s deepest level. La Escondida Mine has produced mineralized material on a small scale since 2013; Soma Gold has held it for just over a year.

The lead hole, designated EZDDH-26-001, was drilled to intercept the vein 25 meters northeast of the mine’s current workings and about 100 meters below surface, near level 10 of the underground operation. It intersected a 2.7-meter-wide fault zone with strong clay alteration and a 0.65-meter quartz vein hosted in a granodiorite-to-diorite intrusive body, similar in style to the mineralization already mined at Escondida. The composite result was 4.25 g/t Au over 1.85 meters, including a higher-grade section of 12.10 g/t Au over 0.65 meters.

“The first assay results from the Escondida Mine have met our expectations and demonstrated near-mine continuity of the vein,” said Chris Buchanan, Soma Gold’s vice president of exploration. “The vein intersection and tenor of gold mineralization are consistent with mineralized material that has been mined from this area.”

A second hole, EZDDH-26-002, aimed to intercept the vein 50 meters down-dip of the first but was lost to drilling difficulties about 25 meters above the target depth. A third hole, EZDDH-26-003, reached the target zone 50 meters down-dip and 65 meters southwest of the first intercept; its core has been shipped to Actlabs’ Medellín facility and assays are pending. A fourth hole, EZDDH-26-004, has been collared to retest the point the lost hole was meant to reach.

Underground channel sampling, conducted as crews pumped out and rehabilitated the mine’s lowest workings, returned higher grades than the drill hole. Workers collected 29 channels comprising 81 samples from areas developed since the company’s last underground sampling campaign in 2022. Three of the highest-grade results were CHU600005, at 15.40 g/t Au over 1.0 meter, including 38.22 g/t Au over 0.40 meters; CHU600006, at 16.61 g/t Au over 1.0 meter, including 36.72 g/t Au over 0.45 meters; and CHU600008, at 19.24 g/t Au over 1.0 meter, including 38.26 g/t Au over 0.5 meters.

The Escondida Vein has been traced 800 meters along strike to the northeast and about 135 meters down-dip, dipping steeply at 70 to 80 degrees to the northwest. The mine’s previous operator worked 200 meters of that strike length to a vertical depth of 105 meters, developing five-meter levels that are now mostly backfilled. Soma Gold describes the vein’s style, alteration and sulphide mineralization as consistent with an intermediate sulphidation epithermal system.

La Escondida Mine holds a permiso de trabajo de obra (small-scale mining work permit), an environmental permit and an explosives permit, and is developed through two internal winzes feeding a small on-site mill. Soma Gold recently repaired the access road linking the project to an all-season route from Zaragoza or Cáceres, Colombia, making the roughly 90-minute drive to the company’s El Limón mill passable for trucks. The previous operator produced 10 tons per day at a diluted grade of about 9.0 g/t Au from a vein 15 to 65 centimeters thick, accompanied by a wider clay-altered zone that is also variably mineralized. Soma Gold is now extending the mine’s main decline by 10 meters to open four working faces on two new levels, targeting production of 20 to 30 tons per day.

Beyond Escondida, Soma Gold continues exploring across its broader Antioquia land package. At the Cordero Deposit, two surface rigs are testing targets down-dip of the Cordero, Atenas and Cordero Viejo zones, and two underground rigs at the Cordero Mine are focused on infill drilling to support mine planning. Regional teams are also running surface geochemistry programs at the company’s El Bagre and Machuca projects.

Drill core and channel samples are split, tagged and shipped under documented chain of custody to Actlabs Colombia SAS in Rionegro, where pulps are prepared and gold is assayed by fire assay with an atomic-absorption finish; overlimit samples are re-assayed with a gravimetric finish. Pulps are then sent to Actlabs’ laboratory in Ancaster, Ontario, for a 51-element analysis. Soma Gold said its quality-control program includes regularly inserted blanks, duplicates and certified OREAS reference standards, checked against certified values and standard deviations. Buchanan, a professional geologist and the qualified person under National Instrument 43-101, reviewed and approved the technical disclosures in the release.

Soma Gold Corp’s flagship operation, the Cordero Mine, feeds two mills in Antioquia — the El Bagre mill, with a capacity of 450 tons per day, and the El Limón mill, with a capacity of 225 tons per day — for a combined 675 tons per day, permitted for up to 1,400 tons per day. Escondida, the smaller, separately permitted operation Soma Gold acquired in July 2025, has its own small on-site mill and also feeds ore to the El Bagre and El Limón complexes. Internally generated funds are financing the company’s regional exploration program. Soma Gold also holds an exploration property near Tucumã, in Brazil’s Pará state, that it has optioned to Ero Copper Corp (TSX: ERO) (NYSE: ERO).