Aston Bay Holdings Ltd. announced the commencement of high-impact drilling and exploration activities at the Storm Copper Project on Somerset Island, Nunavut. The program will be conducted by American West Metals Limited (American West). Highlights: The 2024 exploration and resource definition program has commenced at the Storm Copper Project; Track-mounted Reverse-Circulation (RC) drilling is underway and is initially focused on: Testing new, high-priority exploration targets proximal to the known Storm mineralized zones to discover new zones of near-surface high-grade copper mineralization; Resource definition drilling of the 2023 high-grade copper discovery at Thunder where discovery hole ST23-03 delivered 48.6m at 3% Cu from 32.4m within a broader interval of 76m at 2% Cu from 32.4m; Drilling electromagnetic (EM) targets adjacent to the Cyclone Deposit - including an EM target with a very high modeled conductivity of 17,000 Seimens - with the aim of finding additional mineralization; Additional drill rigs will join the program in the coming weeks and will focus on: Expansion and infill drilling of the Cyclone (formerly the 4100N) and Chinook (formerly 2850N) Zones; Exploration below the known copper mineralization within the Storm area; Drilling of large-scale copper targets at the underexplored Tornado, Blizzard, and Tempest Prospects.

High-powered Moving Loop Electromagnetic (MLEM) geophysical survey is also now underway to define potential extensions to known areas of high-grade copper mineralization and to define new exploration targets, both in the near-surface and at depth. This drilling program is designed to expand and infill an upcoming maiden mineral resource estimate for the Storm Project that is currently being constructed to CIM standards and is expected to be presented in May 2024. The 2024 drilling is also designed to bring the new 2023 discoveries of high-grade copper mineralization into potential additional resources later in the year and explore numerous high-priority copper sulfide targets within the >2,000 sq km project area to discover new copper mineralization.

Phase 1 Drilling: Reverse Circulation (RC) drilling with a track-mounted RC rig has commenced on high-priority Electromagnetic (EM) and Induced Polarisation (IP) targets as well as areas of potential extensions within the Storm area (Figure 1). This is the first time a tracked RC rig has been deployed at Storm. This rig can move autonomously instead of requiring helicopter mobilization and is expected to provide operational and production benefits, with up to 12,000m of RC drilling initially planned.

Phase 1 of the exploration drilling will target existing EM and IP anomalies that are ranked highly due to nearby copper sulfides in drilling and areas of strong copper geochemical anomalism at surface. These compelling targets include an EM target to the immediate east of the Cyclone Deposit where an EM anomaly has been modeled with a very high conductivity of over 17,000 Siemens. EM anomalies tested to date in the Storm area have been strongly correlated with higher-grade, >2% copper mineralization.

Several IP anomalies that have been drill tested also show a positive correlation with copper sulfide mineralization in the range of 0.5-2% Cu.