Mr. Thomas Ullrich reports

ASTON BAY ANNOUNCES NEW LARGE-SCALE COPPER TARGET IDENTIFIED AT THE STORM PROJECT, NUNAVUT, CANADA

Aston Bay Holdings Ltd. has provided an update on the planned 2025 regional exploration activities at the Storm copper project on Somerset Island, Nunavut. American West Metals Ltd., the project operator, is conducting the exploration program. Aston Bay and American West have formed a 20/80 unincorporated joint venture with respect to the Storm project property, with Aston Bay maintaining a free carried interest until a decision to mine is made upon completion of a bankable feasibility study.

Highlights:

• More than 58 metres of visual copper sulphides identified in historical drill hole: Drill hole AB18-04 was drilled in 2018, approximately five kilometres west of the Storm mineral resource estimate (MRE) in an area now named the Midway prospect. The drill hole was logged as intersecting more than 58 m in total of intermittent visual copper sulphides, but has yet to be sampled and assayed.
• New Midway prospect could significantly expand the graben-related copper endowment: The 20-kilometre (km) stretch of the 110 km long copper-mineralized belt that hosts the Midway, Storm and Tornado prospects is located along the Storm graben faults, known conduits for copper-mineralizing fluids and confirmed settings for high-grade copper mineralization.
• Expansion of regional targets: Midway presents as another highly prospective regional target to be tested in 2025, in addition to other priority regional targets, including the Tornado and Blizzard prospects.
• Review of historical geophysics delivers new large-scale targets: Reinterpretation of historical electromagnetic (EM) and induced polarization (IP) surveys, including the airborne GeoTEM survey completed by Noranda in 2000, has identified numerous large-scale targets for potential copper mineralization.
• Regional scale mobile magneto-telluric (MMT) survey: Planned helicopter-borne MMT survey, designed to see deeper and detect a broader EM spectrum than previous geophysical surveys, will generate additional geophysical targets within the Storm and regional exploration areas.
• Two thousand twenty-five multifaceted drill program: In addition to testing priority regional targets, the 2025 drill program will include follow-up drilling at copper discoveries made in 2024, such as Squall and The Gap, and near-mine expansion drilling.

Drilling preparations are well advanced: All fuel, salt and other supplies for this year's program are already on site, delivered via Sealift in 2024.

Thomas Ullrich, chief executive officer of Aston Bay, commented:

"We are excited to share the planned exploration program for 2025 at Storm. It has been a milestone year for the project, marked by the release of the initial maiden resource estimate and announcement of the strategic partnership with Ocean Partners to fund the majority of the initial capital for the planned development of the near-surface copper and silver mineralization at Storm. We look forward to completing a preliminary economic assessment for the near-surface mineralization while exploring for new discoveries both deeper and outside of the MRE area. This planned program will add the excitement of additional discovery potential throughout the year."

Regional exploration targets

The project covers over 110 km strike length of stratigraphy that is host to multiple deposits and occurrences of copper and zinc sulphide mineralization. While most work has been focused on shallow mineralization in the immediate area of the Storm MRE, regional exploration has confirmed the prospectivity of the entire stratigraphic horizon along the entire strike length. Each one of these regional prospects has the potential to yield significant copper mineralization.

The immediate focus for the regional exploration will be to drill along the highly prospective Midway-Storm-Tornado corridor. This greater than 20 km mineralized trend is centred on the known Storm copper deposits and is controlled by the large-scale and laterally extensive Storm graben. There is strong geological and geophysical support for the prospectivity of this area and for potential expansion of the known copper mineralization.

Midway prospect

The Midway prospect has been recently identified as an area of high priority following a reinterpretation of historical drilling, which identified thick intervals of intermittent visual copper sulphide mineralization.

Aston Bay completed drill hole AB18-04 during the 2018 drilling program to test the geology approximately five km west of the known Storm deposits.

The drill hole encountered 58.49 m of visual intermittent mineralization, including two intervals with up to 2.5 per cent of sulphide mineralization (Table 1). The mineralized intervals show vertical zonation with an interpreted chalcocite core, with pyrite and sphalerite on the periphery, typical of Storm-style mineralization locally and sediment hosted copper deposits in general.

The visual copper sulphides are hosted within heavily brecciated dolomites of the Allen Bay formation, in a setting and stratigraphic level similar to the large Cyclone deposit. The mineralized intervals also contain abundant organic material, a critical component of copper mineralization in the sediment hosted copper mineralization model.

Drill hole AB18-04 has not been sampled and will be processed along with four other historical drill holes upon the commencement of the 2025 field program (tables 1 and 2).

Tornado and Blizzard prospects

The Tornado prospect is located five km along strike and to the east of the known Storm deposits. The prospect is centred on an area with abundant chalcocite and malachite boulders within a 3.2 km by 1.5 km geochemical copper anomaly. The large copper anomaly shares the same linear trend as the main structural features of the Storm graben. Most of the anomalous copper samples are located proximal to the interpreted Northern graben fault, which is a similar setting to that of the large and laterally extensive Cyclone deposit at Storm.

The moving loop EM (MLEM) survey completed in 2024 has defined two strong anomalies at Tornado that are also located within the prospective Allen Bay formation. The interpretation of the 3-D modelling indicates that the EM anomalies may be flat lying and located deeper than the current limit of the recent RC drilling and GeoTEM/VTEM survey detection (greater than 150 m vertical depth). MLEM anomalies are commonly located below the historical VTEM anomalies, supporting deep copper potential at Tornado.

Historical drill hole AB18-07 was drilled to a down hole depth of 300 m and intersected brecciated Allen Bay formation throughout the entire hole with local logged visual copper oxide mineralization (1 to 4 per cent abundance between 19.40 m and 20.50 m down hole -- Table 1). Farther to the east, though not covered by the recent MLEM survey, historical drill hole AB18-01/01B also intersected multiple intervals of disseminated and veinlet-hosted visual chalcocite. These drill holes have not been sampled and assayed.

The Tornado and Blizzard areas contain a compelling coincidence of ideal structural and stratigraphic setting, strong gravity and EM anomalies, and copper geochemistry, located just five km along strike from Storm.

Visual estimates of mineral abundance, type or habit should never be considered a proxy or substitute for laboratory analyses where concentrations or grades are the factors of principal economic interest. Laboratory assays are required to determine the presence and grade of any contained mineralization within the reported visual intersections of copper sulphides.

Large-scale geophysical targets

A recent review and reinterpretation of the historical regional-scale airborne GeoTEM and IP data has also yielded significant results and defined numerous targets for the potential discovery of additional copper mineralization.

The interpreted data highlights a series of extensive EM and IP anomalies that coincide with the known copper deposits and main structures of the graben fault system, the interpreted conduit for copper-mineralizing fluids.

Of particular interest is a series of GeoTEM and IP anomalies that are located along the central graben -- an ideal setting for sediment hosted copper deposits. The anomalies are interpreted to be at a deeper stratigraphic level (approximately 100 to 300 m depth) than the known copper deposits and located in an area of no drilling. These features may represent southern offset extensions of the Cyclone copper mineralization.

Multiple other anomalies have been highlighted in these data sets, including strong coincident anomalies with the Corona and Cirrus deposits, as well as the Thunder, Lightning Ridge and The Gap prospects.

New geophysical surveys for target generation

A regional-scale mobile magneto-telluric (MMT) survey is planned to cover the Storm and regional exploration areas during the 2025 program. MMT utilizes natural source energy to capture a wider range of EM frequencies than the techniques used at Storm to date. The survey is designed to show a greater contrast between the host rocks and potential accumulations of conductive material (that is, metalliferous sulphide) with better spatial and depth resolution. This is potentially very useful for deeper(greater than 200 m) occurrences of copper sulphide at Storm where the resistive host rocks result in a decreased signal-to-noise ratio (and decreased confidence in interpretation) with depth in the historical geophysics.

The initial MMT survey will be completed over the Midway-Storm-Tornado area as an orientation survey to determine the response of the known deposits before extending the survey into more regional areas.

Intersections below are expressed as down hole widths and are interpreted to be close to true widths. Visual estimates of sulphide type, quantity and habit should not be considered a substitute for laboratory assays. Portable XRF analysis has been used to confirm the nature of the sulphide intercepts. Laboratory assays are required to determine the widths and grade of mineralization as reported in preliminary geological logging.

Qualified person

Michael Dufresne, MSc, PGeol, PGeo, is a qualified person as defined by the National Instrument 43-101 -- Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects, and has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical information in this press release.

About Aston Bay Holdings Ltd.

Aston Bay is a publicly traded mineral exploration company exploring for high-grade critical and precious metal deposits in North America.

The company is currently exploring the Storm copper property and Cu-Ag-Zn-Co (copper-silver-zinc-cobalt) Epworth property in Nunavut. The company is also in advanced stages of negotiation on other lands with high-grade precious and critical metals potential in North America

The company and its joint venture partners, American West Metals Ltd. and its wholly owned subsidiary, Tornado Metals Ltd. (collectively, American West), have formed a 20/80 unincorporated joint venture in respect of the Storm project property, which hosts the Storm copper project and the Seal zinc deposit. Under the unincorporated joint venture, Aston Bay shall have a free carried interest until American West has made a decision to mine upon completion of a bankable feasibility study, meaning American West will be solely responsible for funding the joint venture until such decision is made. After such decision is made, Aston Bay will be diluted in the event it does not elect to contribute its proportionate share and its interest in the Storm project property will be converted into a 2-per-cent net smelter returns royalty if its interest is diluted to below 10 per cent.

We seek Safe Harbor.