Balmoral Commences 25,000 Metre Drill Program Focussed on Expanding the Bug Lake Gold Deposits, Martiniere Property, Quebec

VANCOUVER, BC--(Marketwired - February 09, 2017) - Balmoral Resources Ltd. ("Balmoral" or the "Company") (TSX: BAR) (OTCQX: BALMF) announced today that its 2017 drilling program is now underway with the primary focus being the continued expansion and delineation of the Bug Lake gold deposits and other recent high-grade, near surface gold discoveries on its Martiniere Property, part of the Detour Gold Trend Project, in Quebec. It is anticipated that a minimum of 25,000 metres of drilling will be completed this year along the Bug Lake Gold Trend, with expansion of the size of the program as the year progresses being a strong possibility given the excellent results from the fall 2016 program.

"Our summer/fall 2016 drill program more than doubled the known footprint of the Bug South and Bug Lower Steep gold deposits and continued to extend the Bug North deposit down-plunge," said Darin Wagner, President and CEO of Balmoral. "Those results included some of the broadest gold mineralized intercepts from the property to date from our expansion drilling of the Bug South deposit, which is the initial focus of drilling this winter."

The Bug South gold deposit (see Figure 1) is one of three deposits now recognized along the length of the Bug Lake Gold Trend located central to the Martiniere Property. The summer/fall program led to the identification of a broad central core to the Bug South deposit located at depths of less than 275 vertical metres and highlighted by intercepts of:

• 115.45 metres grading 1.40 g/t gold including 10.75 metres grading 3.73 g/t gold (see NR16-19)
• 88.36 metres grading 1.07 g/t gold including 7.77 metres grading 2.99 g/t gold (see NR17-02)
• 78.17 metres grading 1.65 g/t gold including 17.00 metres grading 4.50 g/t gold (see NR16-24)
• 41.95 metres grading 3.24 g/t gold including 11.58 metres grading 6.30 g/t gold (see NR17-02)
• 35.16 metres grading 2.16 g/t gold including 9.08 metres grading 7.10 g/t gold (see NR16-24)
• 32.29 metres grading 3.39 g/t gold including 18.26 metres grading 5.41 g/t gold (see NR16-19)
• 25.90 metres grading 2.73 g/t gold including 10.75 metres grading 4.17 g/t gold (see NR16-19)

To date the Bug South deposit has been intersected for approximately 300 metres along strike, to a vertical depth of approximately 275 metres and down-plunge for approximately 425 metres. It remains open to depth and down plunge. One drill is currently testing the Bug South deposit with a second slated to begin turning over the next several days.

Drilling will also target the rapidly expanding Bug Lower Steep gold deposit which has now been intersected for over 850 metres down-plunge and which, like the Bug South deposit, remains open to depth and down-plunge. The sparsely drilled Lower Steep deposit has demonstrated excellent potential to rapidly add to the overall potential of the gold system at Martiniere.

The current winter drill program will also follow-up on three high grade, near surface gold discoveries made during the fall program. The first of these three targets, the 221 Zone, has already been intersected in several holes and occurs in the hanging wall to the Bug South Deposit. The discovery intercept of 26.90 metres grading 4.51 g/t gold included two higher grade sub-intervals grading 15.89 g/t gold over 2.80 metres and 10.89 g/t gold over 6.80 metres (see NR16-20).

The other two new discoveries occur approximately 300 metres to the east of the Bug Lake Gold Trend. The first, from hole BLD-16-03, returned 5.80 metres grading 10.51 g/t gold (see NR17-01). The second discovery is located approximately 1,000 metres to the south and returned 11.58 metres grading 6.25 g/t gold (see NR17-03). Both intercepts occur at depths of less than 100 vertical metres and are open in all directions. This area, 300-500 metres east of the Bug Lake Trend, is virtually untested and based on the recent intersections appears to have good potential to add meaningful zones of gold mineralization in the near surface to the project.

Finger Lake (Lac du Doigt) Fault Corridor

The north-south oriented Bug Lake Gold Trend is located between two east-west trending deformation/fault zones, the Sunday Lake Deformation Zone to the south, host to the large Detour Lake gold mine located 45 kilometres to the west, and the sub-parallel Finger Lake fault corridor to the north. The Finger Lake fault corridor was first identified by Balmoral in late 2014.

Limited drill testing along the Finger Lake fault corridor during the 2016 summer/fall drill program successfully extended the known gold mineralization along the corridor with an intercept of 1.28 g/t gold over 7.18 metres (43.27-50.45 metres downhole) including a higher grade core of 3.46 g/t gold over 2.37 metres in hole MDX-16-55. A second zone of weaker deformation and quartz-tourmaline veining occurs directly below (56.93-73.47 metres) and returned anomalous gold mineralization grading 0.17 g/t gold over 16.54 metres.

MDX-16-55 is the westernmost hole drilled to date along the Finger Lake corridor. Three holes across 750 metres of this structure have now all successfully intersected gold mineralization of a similar nature (see Figure 2) which is open in all directions.

"We continue to be very intrigued by the evolving potential along the Finger Lake fault system," said Mr. Wagner "The style of mineralization suggests a favourable environment which has been tested by only 3 holes to date, is open in all directions, and which has shown evidence for good gold grades and thicknesses. Additional testing is currently being planned for the summer 2017 season."

Quality Control

Mr. Darin Wagner (P.Geo.), President and CEO of the Company, is the non-independent qualified person for the technical disclosure contained in this news release. Mr. Wagner has supervised the work programs on the Martiniere Property since inception, visited the property on multiple occasions, examined the drill core from the holes summarized in this release, discussed, reviewed the results with senior on-site geological staff and reviewed the available analytical and quality control results.

Balmoral has implemented a quality control program for all of its drill programs, to ensure best practice in the sampling and analysis of the drill core, which includes the insertion of blind blanks, duplicates and certified standards into sample stream. NQ sized drill core is saw cut with half of the drill core sampled at intervals based on geological criteria including lithology, visual mineralization and alteration. The remaining half of the core is stored on-site at the Company's Martiniere field camp in Central Quebec. Drill core samples are transported in sealed bags to ALS Minerals' Val d'Or, Quebec analytical facilities. Gold analyses are obtained via industry standard fire assay with atomic absorption finish using 30 g aliquots. For samples returning greater than 5.00 g/t gold follow-up fire assay analysis with a gravimetric finish is completed. The Company has also requested that any samples returning greater than 10.00 g/t gold undergo screen metallic fire assay. Following receipt of assays, visual analysis of mineralized intercepts is conducted and additional analysis may be requested. ALS Minerals is ISO 9001:2008 certified and the Val d'Or facilities are ISO 17025 certified for gold analysis.

About Balmoral Resources Ltd. - www.balmoralresources.com

Balmoral is a well-funded, Canadian-based company actively delineating and expanding a series of high-grade gold deposits on its Martiniere Property located within the prolific Abitibi greenstone belts in Quebec, Canada. The Martiniere Property is just one of several large, highly prospective properties comprising the Company's wholly owned, 1,000 km² Detour Gold Trend Project. Employing an aggressive, drill focused exploration style in one of the world's preeminent mining jurisdictions, Balmoral is following an established formula with a goal of maximizing shareholder value through discovery and definition of high-grade, Canadian gold and base metal assets.

On behalf of the board of directors of
BALMORAL RESOURCES LTD.

"Darin Wagner"

President and CEO

This press release contains forward-looking statements and forward-looking information (collectively, "forward looking statements") within the meaning of applicable Canadian and United States securities laws. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, included herein, including statements regarding the anticipated content, commencement, duration and cost of exploration programs, anticipated exploration program results, the discovery and delineation of mineral deposits/resources/reserves, the timing of the receipt of assay results, the visual continuity of certain mineralized intervals and business and financing plans and trends, the potentially open nature of the mineralized zones on the property and the potential for future discoveries of additional mineralization on the property are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by words such as: believe, expect, anticipate, intend, estimate, postulate and similar expressions or are those which, by their nature, refer to future events. Although the Company believes that such statements are reasonable, there can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. The Company cautions investors that any forward-looking statements by the Company are not guarantees of future performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual events and results to differ materially from the Company's expectations include those related to weather, equipment and staff availability; performance of third parties; timing of receipt of assay results from third party analytical facilities; risks related to the exploration stage of the Company's projects; market fluctuations in prices for securities of exploration stage companies and in commodity prices; and uncertainties about the availability of additional financing; risks related to the Company's ability to identify one or more economic deposits on the properties, and variations in the nature, quality and quantity of any mineral deposits that may be located on the properties; risks related to the Company's ability to obtain any necessary permits, consents or authorizations required for its activities on the properties; and risks related to the Company's ability to produce minerals from the properties successfully or profitably. Trading in the securities of the Company should be considered highly speculative.All of the Company's public disclosure filings may be accessed via www.sedar.com and readers are urged to review these materials, including the latest technical reports filed with respect to the Company's mineral properties.

This news release contains information with respect to adjacent or similar mineral properties in respect of which the Company has no interest or rights to explore or mine. Readers are cautioned that the Company has no interest in or right to acquire any interest in any such properties, and that mineral deposits on adjacent or similar properties are not indicative of mineral deposits on the Company's properties.

This press release is not, and is not to be construed in any way as, an offer to buy or sell securities in the United States.

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Contact

For further information contact:
John Foulkes
Vice-President, Corporate Development
Tel: (604) 638-5815
Toll Free: (877) 838-3664
E-mail: jfoulkes@balmoralresources.com