It is my pleasure to share a transcript of an interview recorded earlier today with Mr. Mark Campbell, CEO of Aton Resources (TSX.V:AAN). Aton has generated significant news from across their 738 square kilometer concession throughout 2017, but have been quiet about their plans to advance Hamama West until now.

The news out today may seem like a small change in timelines, but I believe it reflects a huge shift in the Egyptian government’s understanding and willingness to negotiate with mineral exploration companies. Thank you for the interview, Mark.

Mark Campbell: Hello, Peter. It's great to be talking with you today. It is a very exciting time for us and for Egypt, as well. People may look at the news and say, “So what – you declared your intention to declare?” Well, this is the start of a process. You issue a notification to the Egyptian Mineral Resources Authority that we intend to declare commerciality and then you have six months to deliver an economic study that will support this commercial discovery. In our case, we're looking at building a heap leach to start with. You present your plan to EMRA, go through it with them in detail, and they have two months to deliver you a mining license. Based on that timeline, we expect to have a mining license by July 20th, 2018.

The Egyptian government is very keen to develop their mining industry. Recent comments by the Minister of Petroleum and the Chairman of EMRA have clearly communicated that there is a priority in developing the mining industry here. The Chairman of EMRA said that he sees mining as one of the pillars of the Egyptian economy. That's very good in particular for Upper Egypt, especially, where most of this mining activity would take place but it's good for the country overall.

To have a mining industry, you need mines. The Ministry has put out information saying that Resolute Mining is now coming into the country to do mineral exploration after being awarded 2 concessions earlier in the year. Now that Resolute have decided that they are coming into the country, the government is very keen to move things forward. They wanted to see if we could get going more quickly than expected and that was related to this news today.

We said that we could move up our previous trajectory and they offered to add two years to our current exploration license to finish off the regional exploration program. That was a huge boost because it meant that we're not under the gun to do something by July of 2018. It also means that we can go and start down this road of, hopefully, constructing a mine and generating some money in the company. All in all, it's for us a huge win.

Peter Bell: And I see the news releases mentions May 20th as a target date for the economic study.

Mark Campbell: Yes, that’s six months from today. We may be able to do it sooner. Once we declare the economic study with them, they have two months to actually issue the mining license. If we did it earlier, in say April, then it would come in June.

Peter Bell: And this economic study will focus on the resource estimate at Hamama West. This oxide and transitional zone could work very well as a heap leach scenario.

Mark Campbell: Yes, and this is the first step towards that. It’s important to remember that this is just the first step. We will continue to develop plans for the long term, but there is quite a lot for us to do in and around Hamama. It may be appropriate to build a CIL plant several years out, but we are focused on an initial starter pit.

Peter Bell: Great. It helps to have this extension to the timelines for the regional exploration programs. This declaration of commerciality seems to be a relatively unprecedented action in country.

Mark Campbell: Yes, it is unprecedented. As we’ve discussed at length, Peter, when Centamin first went through this process back in 2001, things were very different. For one thing, EMRA didn’t even exist. The process then, was managed by EGSMA, the Egyptian Geological Survey and Mining Authority, which was under the Ministry of Industry at the time. As far as EMRA, which is now under the Ministry of Petroleum, this is the first time they have ever dealt with the permitting and launch of new mining project.

Prior to Centamin, there was very little to no real mining activity for approximately 90 years! The records of mining in Egypt are fairly scattered about and you have to piece things together but, from what we can tell, the heyday of Egyptian mining ran from the end of the 19th Century up until probably end of the 1920s. Interestingly enough, Peter, one of the old mines in our area, Abu Garida, that we have talked about before was a tungsten mine. That mine probably produced tungsten during Second World War because it was a strategic mineral. It may have even produced during the First World Was, as well.

Peter Bell: Well, there is a whole new set of records being created by your activity in the area. Who knows what people will think of that in 100 years. But recently there were some exploration results from West Garida that were just exceptional.

Mark Campbell: When you look at the map in the news release, you can see that Hamama really runs from Hamama West up to West Garida. But West Garida sits just outside of Hamama and has again different mineralization to Hamama, which makes it a very exciting place in its own right.

Peter Bell: To establish that West Garida is part of Hamama in terms of compliant resource estimates could take years or work and thousands of meters of drilling.

Mark Campbell: Yes, indeed. And that is an advantage, Peter, because it means there is more work to be done. When you start considering how you could develop one of these concessions in Egypt, you quickly realize that could end up have one big mine or you could have a whole series of mines of varying sizes!

Peter Bell: And that reminds me of something you’ve been saying since I first met you, which is that this concession is like a geological Disneyland. Exciting stuff. How do you convey all of this to the Egyptian government?

Mark Campbell: From the point of view of the Egyptian government, as the potential for development at this concession grow so does the potential tax revenue, job creation, and all the multipliers from that. Upper Egypt is certainly in need of employment and something like this is very exciting because it can grow larger over time, which is different from most mining projects that are depleting their asset base. The mining industry is really the ideal solution to a lot of the economic woes of Upper Egypt.

The mining industry really makes a lot of sense in the Eastern desert, where really there is little vegetation or habitation. There's almost nothing out there except barren rock, but the mineral wealth means that it has potential to become a highly productive area. That would be a huge win for Egypt.

Peter Bell: It is good to see the government working with you to some degree. There have been the extensions in the past, but this is different. To see you accelerate your timeline for your economic report at Hamama West by a couple of months is a surprise! And then to see them give you something in return is a good sign.

Mark Campbell: You may not be aware, Peter, but they have a new Chairman at EMRA. He is commercially oriented and I think things will continue to move forward. They will bring in new mining companies and give the ones that are here the ability to do what they need to do so that the country can see the development of new mines down the road. I think that they understand what is needed and that change is coming.

Looking across the world, there is a learning curve for how countries interact with the mining industry. I think Egypt is starting to climb that curve rapidly right now. They have been very effective at supporting the oil and gas industries in their country, but mining is different. Even though it's one of the oldest mining destinations in the world, it really hasn't been a priority here since the Second World War. They're figuring it out now and I think that's good news all the way around. This new Chairman seems to want to energize things and get things moving. He is in a position to encourage investment and build the mining industry.

Peter Bell: My impression was that this news release today was very comprehensive. I liked the details and focus on Hamama.

Mark Campbell: From our perspective, this is very exciting news Peter. We have a few irons in the fire with our regional exploration program, but we want to make the transition from a junior exploration company into a mining company. That is just what happened with Centamin – they were a junior exploration company that became a mining company. I think that that bodes well for the future of the company and the shareholders.

Peter Bell: You mentioned Resolute Mining before – what is happening there?

Mark Campbell: Well, Peter, I’m afraid that all I know about Resolute is what I have read publicly. EMRA put some information up on their website the other day that was addressing the fact that they had signed an agreement with Resolute. That agreement was then going onwards to the Minister of Petroleum to endorse, and then to the Parliament. They have the power to ratify it into law, at which point the President would sign it. Again, it's a process.

From what EMRA is saying, it sounds like Resolute Mining are moving towards finalizing their concession agreement. It is interesting to watch Egypt and I think it's a huge vote of confidence in Egypt that a company like Resolute is serious about coming here.

Peter Bell: It’s interesting that you have one company ahead of you in this process, Centamin, and now another one that's starting the process behind you, Resolute. Good to see you are not alone.

Mark Campbell: It is a bit of a funny situation that there are only two publicly traded companies operating in Egypt, isn’t it? One is Centamin, which is a large mining company with a $2.7B market cap. Then, there is us – a junior exploration company with a $5M market. Resolute Mining has a market cap of approximately $750M and it is encouraging to see a good sized publicly traded company like Resolute entering into Egypt.

We'd love to see more junior exploration companies come here. We think that the opportunity is enormous. There has been a change in the management at the EMRA and I think things are moving in the right direction.

Peter Bell: I've heard it said by a group that is active in Brazil that they had to explain to the government that it is essential for them to be able to spend money in country to do exploration work on the land. If they're not able to do that work, then it confounds the fundamentals of what a junior exploration company is all about.

Mark Campbell: That’s it, Peter. You want to attract companies to Egypt who can go out and spend money exploring for minerals. It doesn't really matter whether it's gold, copper, zinc, or lithium at this point. They need to encourage as many productive mines as possible. Mines come in all shapes and sizes. Even for us at Hamama, it could be a heap leach or a CIL plant – the best way forward depends on a lot of different things and it is in the best interest of the Egyptian people to encourage as much mining within an effective legal framework as possible.

Mining is an exciting new sector for Egypt. It is an industry that is just waiting to boom. You don't find many places where you have such wide open opportunity as you do here. The Arabian-Nubian shield is very under-explored; Egypt especially and yet it has such a rich history of mining. It has produced gold, copper, and zinc, even gemstones! The potential here is huge.

Now, it's a matter of getting mines. Give the people who are here the ability to go out and do the work they need to do to get these mines built. This will attract people to come here and explore for things that may become mines even further out into the future.

Another thing to consider here is training and education. This is one of the things that are so important in developing their industry here. The oil and gas industry in Egypt is the second oldest in the world and they turn out petroleum engineers and petroleum geologists every day of the week. That doesn’t exist for the mining business in Egypt because there's no need for many highly trained mining engineers, hard rock mineral geologists, or metallurgists. Developing a mining industry – a flourishing mining industry – opens up the possibility to create a whole set of new jobs. I have found that Egyptians are often very good engineers. They are practical and they lend themselves well to doing things like engineering and geology.

If you look at the long-term effects for Egypt, these things stand to be very beneficial for Egypt. Both the Ministry of Petroleum and the Chairman of EMRA have been very vocal recently about the importance of building the mining industry. They understand what it can do to support the nation and they want to see it become a pillar of the Egyptian economy.

This document contains statements that are forward looking statements and are subject to various risks and uncertainties concerning the specific factors disclosed under the heading “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in the Company’s periodic filings with Canadian securities regulators. Such information contained herein represents management’s best judgment as of the date hereof based on information currently available. The Company does not assume the obligation to update any forward-looking statement.