Vancouver, British Columbia — March 1, 2026 — Leads & Copy — New Found Gold Corp. has announced the final results of its 2025 grade control drill program at its Queensway Gold Project in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.
The results include those from the Keats and Iceberg zone excavations in the AFZ Core, which were completed as part of the company’s 2025 drill program. According to the release, the company wholly owns the Queensway Gold Project.
Iceberg excavation highlights include:
71.8 g/t Au over 31.95 m from 37.80 m (NFGC-25-GC-069)[1]
76.6 g/t Au over 16.00 m from 51.45 m (NFGC-25-GC-055)
44.4 g/t Au over 21.55 m from 13.40 m (NFGC-25-GC-072)
35.4 g/t Au over 21.20 m from 34.95 m (NFGC-25-GC-061)
31.6 g/t Au over 18.65 m from 3.60 m (NFGC-25-GC-106)
40.6 g/t Au over 12.70 m from 40.35 m (NFGC-25-GC-118)
41.1 g/t Au over 11.40 m from 40.40 m (NFGC-25-GC-079)
55.4 g/t Au over 8.30 m from 21.75 m (NFGC-25-GC-107)
43.2 g/t Au over 19.85 m from 16.80 m (NFGC-25-GC-082)
Keats excavation highlights include:
51.3 g/t Au over 3.40 m from 54.60 m (NFGC-25-GC-115)
11.8 g/t Au over 9.95 m from 13.20 m (NFGC-25-GC-065)
9.73 g/t Au over 11.30 m from 9.75 m (NFGC-25-GC-063)
15.9 g/t Au over 5.85 m from 4.90 m (NFGC-25-GC-115)
40.3 g/t Au over 2.25 m from 23.95 m (NFGC-25-GC-068)
16.9 g/t Au over 3.90 m from 1.00 m (NFGC-25-GC-071)
New Found Gold President Melissa Render said the final results from the 2025 grade control drill program at the Keats and Iceberg excavations continue to deliver consistently high gold grades over broad widths. She added that the results are some of the best intercepts the company has drilled to date at Queensway.
According to Render, the company continues to systematically de-risk Queensway, as demonstrated by the continuity of high-grade gold mineralization in the at-surface zones targeted for early open pit mining in the company’s 2025 PEA Phase 1 mine plan.
The results presented in the release include the final 907 m of drilling in 32 diamond drill holes from the Keats excavation and the entirety of the 2,390 m of drilling in 40 DDH from the Iceberg excavation 2025 grade control drill program.
The KEGCDP and IEGCDP were designed to improve confidence in the distribution of high-grade, near- to at-surface gold mineralization and support mine planning as outlined in the 2025 Preliminary Economic Assessment Phase 1 open pits. Drill highlights, along with detailed results for these 72 DDH, are provided in Tables 1 to 3 below.
The full KEGCDP comprises 2,773 m in 84 DDH; for the previously reported KEGCDP results see the New Found Gold press releases dated December 1, 2025 and February 2, 2026 and highlights below. The full IEGCDP comprises 2,390 m of drilling in 40 DDH and all results are reported in this press release.
The KEGCDP tested a volume that is approximately 65 m long by 30 m deep by 40 m wide and the IEGCDP a volume that is approximately 60 m long by 35 m deep by 40 m wide with a drill spacing of 5 m by 5 m and includes the near- to at-surface high-grade portions of Keats and Iceberg that were exposed as part of the company’s excavation programs.
Results released to date correlate well with the initial mineral resource estimate block model and indicate strong continuity of -high grade mineralized shoots at both Keats and Iceberg, providing improved definition of their geometry, with most intervals occurring at or within a few meters of surface.
The detailed geostatistical data from this phase of work will further validate the resource models, specifically by increasing confidence in grade-capping and influence-limiting parameters applied to high-grade intersections in advance of a MRE update and subsequent mine planning.
The Keats and Iceberg zones are hosted within the Keats-Baseline Fault Zone, a high-grade gold-bearing structure that has been defined over a current strike length of 1.9 kilometres. This corridor consists of a broad mineralized fault zone with limited deep drill testing to date. Drilling completed in 2024 confirms that the system extends to vertical depths of up to 1.1 km.
The 2025 Queensway drill program included 74,377 m of drilling in 614 DDH, with approximately 75% of the drilling focused on the AFZC to support advancement of the Phase 1 mine plan as outlined in the PEA and 25% focused on exploration targets such as the Dropkick zone. To date, approximately 45% of the results from 2025 drilling remain outstanding, in addition to channel sampling results from the Lotto excavation. These results will be reported once available.
The 2026 Queensway drill program is underway, with four drill rigs currently active. Initial 2026 infill drilling is planned to first target PEA Phase 2 open pit resource conversion, transitioning later in the year to PEA Phase 3 underground resource conversion.
The company plans to expand its grade control drilling beginning in Q2/26. The next phase of work will leverage results from the 2025 program to optimize drill hole spacing and program scope. This will include completing grade-control drilling at the Iceberg excavation, commencing grade-control drilling at the Lotto excavation and potentially expanding the grade-control drilling at the Keats and Iceberg excavations.
The objective of this work is to improve confidence in the distribution of gold mineralization and support mine planning as outlined for the PEA Phase 1 open pits.
Exploration drilling will focus on AFZC resource expansion including an initial grid-based program targeting the prospective corridor adjacent to the AFZ at Bullseye, continued step-outs at Dropkick, located 11 km north of the AFZC, and targeted segments of the AFZ at AFZ Peripheral. A regional drilling program testing advanced targets at Queensway South is in the planning phase and expected to commence in H2/26.
The company plans to file an updated Technical Report for Queensway, which will include an updated mineral resource estimate, in Q3/26.
New Found Gold is an emerging Canadian gold producer with assets in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The company holds a 100% interest in Queensway and the Hammerdown Gold Project, which includes fully permitted milling and tailings facilities. The company is currently focused on advancing its flagship Queensway to production and bringing the Hammerdown deposit into commercial gold production.
In July 2025, the company completed a PEA at Queensway.
Recent drilling continues to yield new discoveries along strike and down dip of known gold zones, pointing to the district-scale potential that covers a +110 km strike extent along two prospective fault zones at Queensway.
Through 2025 New Found Gold built a new board of directors and management team and has a solid shareholder base which includes cornerstone investor Eric Sprott. The company is focused on growth and value creation.
Source: New Found Gold Corp.
