Aston Bay Announces New Large-scale Copper Target Identified at the Storm Project, Nunavut

23 April 2025

TORONTO, Ontario, April 23, 2025 – Aston Bay Holdings Ltd. (TSXV: BAY) (OTCQB: ATBHF) ("Aston Bay" or the "Company") is pleased to provide an update on the planned 2025 regional exploration activities at the Storm Copper Project ("Storm" or the "Project") on Somerset Island, Nunavut. American West Metals Limited ("American West"), 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.

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.”

 

Thick interval of visual copper sulfide identified in historical drilling supports the potential for discovery and highlights significant untapped regional potential

Highlights:
  • More than 58m of visual copper sulfides identified in historical drill hole: Drill hole AB18-04 was drilled in 2018, approximately 5km 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 58m in total of intermittent visual copper sulfides, 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 110km-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.
     
  • 2025 multi-faceted 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.

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