Mr. Harry Dobson reports

WESTERN GOLD ANNOUNCES HIGH GRADE GOLD FINDINGS FROM FIRST TRANCHE OF FIELDWORK IN CALEDONIAN GOLD PROJECT

Western Gold Exploration Ltd. has released the first tranche of rock grab and drainage sampling data recently gathered by company geologists. The data relate to the Lyon licence application, one of the two Crown Estates Mines royal option exploration licence applications applied for as part of the company's Glen Lyon joint venture with Acrux Gold Ltd. (see Nov. 25, 2025, press release).

"Our latest exploration results validate the high-grade gold shown in historic assays and reveal new outcrop and boulders in areas well beyond the scope of past work," said Harry Dobson, chairman. "We're maintaining an active, boots-on-the-ground approach to exploration and target development as we continue to advance the project towards drilling."

Key highlights for the Lyon licence application include:

Rock grab samples:

• Total of 199 rock grab outcrop and float samples assayed to date:
  • Float samples up to 252 grams per tonne gold;
  • Outcrop grab samples up to 64.9 g/t Au;
  • All historic high-grade gold assays confirmed or exceeded;
• Areas with limited to no historical sampling returning high-grade gold and silver assays:
  • Up to 30.5 g/t Au and 2,190 g/t Ag discovered in outcrop grab samples at Coire Leaeach area, with several new mineralized veins up to two metres wide identified:
    • Historic data record one outcrop up to 9.4 g/t Au;
  • Up to 27.7 g/t Au float discovered in tributaries of Meall Daill, which is over five kilometres east of nearest historic sample.

Drainage samples:

• A total of 52 panned concentrate drainage samples assayed to date:
  • 14 samples highly anomalous in gold (greater than or equal to 0.1 g/t Au), with visible gold in six samples;
  • Confirmation of anomalous gold in assays from all historically sampled drainage basins;
• Two new drainage basins (cumulatively 18 square kilometres) with elevated gold, including:
  • Visible gold in pan assaying up to 4.61 g/t Au at Gleann Cailleach.

Note: Grab samples are inherently selective and may not reflect the true grade of the mineralization although they are taken from exposed outcrop. Float samples, by contrast, consist of transported material that is not in situ and therefore act only as indicators of potential nearby mineralization.

Geological overview

The Lyon licence application is situated within the highly prospective Grampian terrane, a key segment of the Caledonian mineral belt that stretches from northern Britain and Ireland to Scandinavia and North America. This district is already proved for gold, hosting deposits such as Cononish, which sits directly along strike to the Lyon area, as well as Cavanacaw and the world-class Curraghinalt deposit (Dalradian Resources; measured, indicated and inferred resources greater than six million ounces gold -- National Instrument 43-101 technical report for the Curraghinalt gold project, Northern Ireland dated June 22, 2018, by SRK Consulting (Canada) Inc.).

The reader is cautioned that mineralization on adjacent properties is not necessarily indicative of what can or will be found within any projects upon which the JV may be granted exploration licences.

Rock grab samples

A total of 74 outcrop grab and 125 float grab samples have been collected and assayed to date. High-grade gold and silver samples consist of quartz-veining or quartz-matrixed breccias with 1 to 20 per cent sulphide mineralization, usually dominated by pyrite with lesser arsenopyrite and base metal sulphides. This is generally consistent with the available descriptions from historic rock chip samples.

Rock grab highlights include:

• 24 per cent of samples (n equals 48) assayed above one g/t Au;
• Approximately 10 per cent of samples (n equals 18) assayed above 10 g/t Au:
  • Four spatially distinct locations or prospects with high-grade gold in outcrop have been identified.

Drainage data

Fifty-two panned-concentrate drainage samples have been collected to date. By applying the company's refined sampling method across the major drainage basins, it has confirmed anomalous gold in every system previously sampled historically, demonstrating that its approach reliably validates past results while offering far greater sensitivity. Crucially, its work has also identified two additional anomalous drainage basins that historic methods either understated or missed.

Gleann Cailleach basin (14 square kilometres): previously assessed by the British Geological Survey using outdated assay techniques, which returned only one anomalous sample. Its new panned-concentrate sampling shows:

• Multiple gold-bearing streams;
• 50 per cent of samples (seven of 14) contain elevated gold;
• Two streams approximately three kilometres apart returned 4.61 g/t and 3.99 g/t Au in pan.

Fionn a' Ghlinne basin (four square kilometres): historically sampled by Scotgold with generally poor results. Its first-pass mainstream sample returned 0.61 g/t Au. The basin lies close to the Tyndrum fault, the mineralizing structure responsible for forming the Cononish deposit.

Future objectives:

• Boots-on-the-ground exploration is set to continue at high pace to further verify historic high-grade outcrops, particularly in the neighbouring Orchy application area;
• Targeted backpack drilling and channel sampling of all identified gold-bearing structures;
• A second-stage drainage sampling program will be carried out in smaller tributaries within the main drainage basins to better refine target areas;
• Large-scale soil grids will be deployed across areas with confirmed high-grade gold veining to help define the strike extent and continuity of mineralized structures;
• Airborne and/or ground-based geophysics -- including a potential drone-mounted magnetics survey -- will be used to expand known prospects and identify additional targets or concealed anomalies.

Geology

The Lyon area is underlain by the Dalradian supergroup, a thick package of metasedimentary rocks that were deformed and metamorphosed during the Ordovician Grampian orogeny. Subsequent late Caledonian strike slip tectonism during the Silurian-Devonian created major northeast-southwest fault corridors and drove emplacement of high-potassium calc-alkaline intrusions -- both key ingredients in forming high-grade gold-silver quartz-sulphide veins throughout the district.

Importantly, age dating from the Cononish deposit indicates gold mineralization occurred around 410 to 406 Ma, coincident with a regional shift to transtensional tectonics, a setting known to enhance fluid flow and vein development. This same fertile geological environment underpins the exploration potential of the Lyon licence application.

About Western Gold Exploration Ltd.

The company is a mineral exploration company that is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol WGLD. The company is focused on the exploration of gold, silver and critical minerals in Scotland.

In November, 2025, WGLD formed the Glen Lyon joint venture with Acrux to explore for gold, silver and critical minerals as part of the Caledonian gold project in central Scotland. The JV has applied for two Crown Estates Mines royal option agreements (exploration licences) across the Tyndrum mineral district, specifically the Orchy and Lyon licence areas, which form the Caledonian gold project. The company also operates at the Lorne project, which includes both Lagalochan and Ardlochan prospects, located in the highly prospective Lorne porphyry district of the wider Caledonian belt.

Review by qualified person, quality control and reports

David Pym (CGeol), a consultant of the company, is the qualified person (as defined by National Instrument 43-101) who supervised, verified and approved the scientific and technical disclosure in this press release on behalf of the company. The results presented in this press release are from the company's own sampling and provide an important validation of historical assays quoted in previous press releases. Historical assay results have not been checked consistently against assay certificates, nor is there significant quality assurance/quality control information available.

Rock chip material was collected from in situ outcrops as well as float found within burns and scree slopes. Each sample was crushed, split and pulverized prior to analysis. Multielement geochemistry (48 elements, including silver and base metals) was determined using a four-acid digestion followed by ICP-MS analysis (method ME-MS61L). Gold was assayed using a 30-gram fire assay with an ICP-MS finish, providing a detection limit of 0.005 part per million (Au-AA23). Panned concentrate drainage samples were obtained from active streams by collecting approximately 10 to 40 kilograms of alluvium and sieving it to less than two millimetres. The less-than-two-millimetre material was then measured into a standard volume container to ensure consistent sample size before panning commenced. The less-than-two-millimetre fraction was panned on site until heavy minerals -- primarily sulphides, garnets, black sands and occasional gold -- were concentrated, yielding roughly 100 grams of material. These samples were subsequently crushed, split and pulverized before analysis. Multielement analysis (48 elements including silver and base metals) was completed using a supertrace four-acid digestion with ICP-MS finish (ME-MS41L). Gold was determined by 30-gram fire assay with ICP-MS finish and a detection limit of 0.001 part per millio (Au-AA21).

All analytical work was undertaken by ALS Global, Ireland. ALS Geochemistry laboratories operate under a unified global geochemistry quality manual in accordance with ISO/IEC 17025:2017 and use a global laboratory information management system to ensure consistent, high-quality and reproducible analytical results.

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