Mr. Michael Michaud reports

RED PINE INITIATES NEAR-SURFACE DEFINITION DRILLING AS PRELIMINARY ECONOMIC ASSESSMENT PROGRESSES AT WAWA GOLD PROJECT

Red Pine Exploration Inc. has commenced a 9,000-metre drilling program to better define gold mineralization at surface and collect samples for additional environmental, metallurgy and geotechnical analysis at the Wawa gold project as part of the continuing preliminary economic assessment (PEA) and potential future development.

Michael Michaud, president and chief executive officer of Red Pine, commented: "We are pleased with the ongoing progress we have made towards completing a PEA for the Wawa gold project. Given our confidence in a positive outcome, we have commenced a fully funded drilling program to further define the higher-grade, near-surface gold mineralization. This drilling program will also allow us to collect additional samples for environmental, metallurgical and geotechnical analysis to assess potential mining and processing opportunities. We anticipate releasing consistent news flow from the ongoing drilling program as well as the surface trenching program commenced several weeks ago and on other project advancements over the coming months. We remain on track to complete the PEA in the first half of 2026."

Drilling program in areas of open-pit potential

Building on the drilling results from the 2025 program and from prior campaigns, the company has now outlined priority areas for a potential open pit along the Jubilee shear that will be considered as part of the PEA.

In the priority areas identified, the new drilling program plans to:

• Test the crown pillar of the former Jubilee and Surluga mines, where it was not tested in prior drilling programs;
• Test infill areas covered by historical drilling solely for grade validation and metallurgical purposes;
• Test the margins of several of the new high-grade mineralization areas discovered in 2025.

Quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) measures

Individual drill core samples are labelled and sawn in half along a premarked cutting line. A consistent half-core sample is then placed in an individual numbered plastic sample bag that is sealed. The remaining half-core samples are kept at the company's core storage facility located on the Wawa gold project. Quarter-core duplicates are taken from certain samples to define the variability of gold distribution. Groups of samples are then placed into durable rice bags sealed with security seals to be transported by commercial carrier for analysis at Activation Laboratories Ltd. (Actlabs) in Ancaster, Ont. NQ core assays are obtained by 50-gram fire assay with an AA finish or by one-kilogram metallic screen fire assay. The one-kilogram metallic screen assay method is selected for samples anticipated to contain coarse gold and when the original fire assay returns results greater or equal to 2.25 grams per tonne gold. The residual coarse reject portions of the samples remain in storage for a minimum 90-day period if further work or verification is needed.

As part of its QA/QC program, Red Pine inserts external gold standards (low to high grade) and blanks every 20 samples and routinely inserts blanks immediately after samples with visible gold. Quarter core duplicates are routinely inserted to evaluate the natural variability of gold mineralization. Assay certificates are sent to at least three members of the senior management team, and they are directly accessible from the WebLIMS portal of Actlabs. Approximately 5 per cent of the pulps and coarse rejects analyzed at Actlabs are sent to Agat Laboratories in Thunder Bay for umpire testing.

Qualified person

Jean-Francois Montreuil, PGeo, vice-president, exploration, of Red Pine and the qualified person, as defined by National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed and approved the technical information contained in this news release.

About Red Pine Exploration Inc.

Red Pine Exploration is a gold exploration company headquartered in Toronto, Ont., Canada. The company's shares trade on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol RPX and on the OTCQB market under the symbol RDEXF.

The Wawa gold project is in the Michipicoten greenstone belt of Ontario, a region that has seen major investment by several producers in the past five years. The company's land package hosts numerous historic gold mines and is over 7,000 hectares in size. Red Pine is building a strong position as a major mineral exploration and development player in the Michipicoten region.

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