Mr. Brian Thurston reports

COPPER QUEST COMPLETES ACQUISITION OF PAST PRODUCING ALPINE GOLD MINE, APPOINTS NEW DIRECTOR

Further to Copper Quest Exploration Inc.'s news releases of Nov. 14, 2025, and Dec. 10, 2025, it has completed its acquisition of the past-producing Alpine gold property, located in the West Kootenay region of British Columbia.

"We are excited to offer our shareholders the opportunity to leverage a pure gold play in what has been a primarily copper-focused company. Having now successfully acquired this exceptional property with an existing historical gold resource, excellent expansion potential and a seasoned technical team, including Alan Matovich, Ted Murano and John Mirko, we look forward to updating our shareholders on our endeavour towards growing this current historical resource, and the possibility of seeing near-term cash flow from existing stockpiles," commented Brian Thurston, chief executive officer of Copper Quest. "The Alpine Gold property presents a tremendous opportunity to create near-term value for our shareholders through exposure to an all-time high gold market while we also continue to advance our multiple copper properties. Our recent financing of approximately $2-million ensures that our shareholders will benefit from more than one exploration opportunity."

Highlights of the Alpine gold property

• 2018 National Instrument 43-101 -- Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects -- Historical inferred resource of 268,000 tonnes estimated using a cut-off grade of 5.0 grams per tonne gold and an average grade of 16.52 g/t Au that represents an inferred resource of 142,000 ounces of gold (McCuaig & Giroux, 2018).
• Substantial opportunity to grow the maiden Alpine resource to the east-west and to depth with only about 300 metres of the roughly two-kilometre-long vein system explored to date by underground mine workings and drilling.
• Estimated 24,000-tonne run-of-mine mineralized stockpile on surface presenting a possible near-term cash flow opportunity.
• One thousand six hundred fifty metres of clean and dry underground workings accessing sampled and mineable zones.
• At least four additional relatively unexplored vein systems on the property (Black Prince, Cold Blow, Gold Crown and past-producing King Solomon), all hosting historic high-grade gold values.
• Road-accessible 4,611.49-hectare property including 15 Crown grants (one with surface rights) and 19 staked mineral claims with all-season operation potential.
• Additions of Allan Matovich to the board of directors of the company, and Ted Muraro and John Mirko as technical advisers on closing. They have a combined mining and exploration experience of 150-plus years in the industry.

The 4,611.49-hectare property is approximately 20 kilometres northeast of the City of Nelson and hosts a former operating underground mine with a recorded production of approximately 16,810 tonnes of mineralized vein material (Table 1). This material contained 356,360 grams of gold, 222,054 grams of silver, 49,329 kilograms of lead and 17,167 kilograms of zinc. The other four significant vein systems on the property will also be explored including the Black Prince and Cold Blow quartz veins approximately three km to the northeast of the Alpine mine, the Gold Crown vein system 600 m southeast and the past-producing King Solomon vein workings 1.8 km to the south. Further information about the Alpine gold property will be forthcoming in the upcoming weeks.

Appointment of Mr. Matovich as director

Copper Quest is also pleased to announce the appointment of Mr. Matovich to the board. Mr. Matovich has 60-plus years of mining and exploration experience in Canada and the United States. He first started with Cominco in Trail, B.C., working in the smelter operation. Mr. Matovich then started Matovich Mining Industries, which supplied considerable tonnages of siliceous flux materials, lead and zinc concentrates to cominco for over 20 years. He then opened a mining operation in 1997 in Northern British Columbia to supply barite for drilling fluids in the oil and gas industry. This mining operation is still in production today. Mr. Matovich also opened a barite operation in Washington State that is going into production. He also worked with Halliburton, Baker Hughes and Newmont, and was very successful. In 2000, Mr. Matovich purchased the Alpine gold property and has spent a considerable amount of time proving up the project.

Mr. Matovich commented: "I am very pleased to bring the Alpine gold property to Copper Quest and join as a director. The company has a fantastic portfolio of advancing critical mineral projects and the Alpine gold project gives a potential near-term cash flow opportunity along with upside to grow the current resource with drilling. I look forward to working with the Copper Quest team to create value for all stakeholders."

Appointment of Mr. Muraro as technical adviser to the board

Mr. Muraro has been appointed as technical adviser to the board. Mr. Muraro has accumulated over six decades of experience in mineral exploration, including 35 years with cominco where he advanced to serve as the company's chief geologist and internal consulting geologist. Early in his career, Mr. Muraro gained underground experience at Keno Hill, HB mine, Sullivan and Western Mines.

His tenure at Cominco was marked by direct involvement in the discovery and subsequent successful development of the Westmin mine at Buttle Lake, the Polaris mine on Little Cornwallis Island in the high Arctic and Snip mine on the Iskut River. Following his service at Cominco, Mr. Muraro assumed the role of vice-president, exploration, at Romanex and International Barytex Resources, contributing his expertise to international gold projects.

Mr. Muraro, who was awarded the Spud Huestis award in 2021 for his outstanding contributions to the industry and excellence in exploration, worked as an independent consultant (T.W. Muraro Consulting 1993 to 2016) on base metal and gold exploration projects around the world until his retirement in 2016. In these later years, he served on several boards as director and/or adviser, most recently with Imperial Metals. Mr. Muraro's working relationship with Al Matovich started in the Rossland mining camp and shifted to the Alpine property in the late 80s.

Appointment of Mr. Mirko as technical adviser to the board

Mr. John Mirko has been appointed as technical adviser to the board. Mr. Mirko has over 40 years of experience in the mining industry, including as past president and founder of Canam Alpine Ventures Ltd. (recently sold to Vizsla Resources Ltd., a TSX Venture Exchange-listed company), and currently as president and founder of Canam Mining Corp. and Rokmaster Resources Corp.

From 1986 to 2010 Mr. Mirko founded and served as CEO, president and director of four public mineral exploration companies and founded and served as director of three other companies. He has been self-employed in the sector since 1972 as a prospector, contractor, and consultant involved in the exploration, development and mine construction of various projects in 12 counties, and commercial production of mineral concentrates and metal products from five of the projects.

In 2008, he was a recipient of the E. A. Scholtz Medal for Excellence in Mine Development from the Association for Mineral Exploration of British Columbia, and in 2009, the Mining Association of British Columbia's Mining and Sustainability Award for the MAX mine. He is currently a member in good standing of the Society of Economic Geologists Inc., the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum, the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, and AME BC.

Transaction details

The company has purchased of all the minerals claims and crown grants that comprise the property from 0847114 B.C. Ltd. (Privco), a private company. As consideration for the property, Copper Quest has issued an aggregate of 14,177,517 common shares in its capital at a deemed price of 13.5 cents per share for deemed consideration of $1,913,964.80 to Privco.

The shares are subject to a statutory hold period expiring April 19, 2026, being the date that is four months and one day from the date of issuance in accordance with applicable Canadian securities legislation. In addition, the shares are subject to further trading restrictions as the shares will be released in stages over the next 24 months, such that (i) 2,362,920 shares will be released April 19, 2026; (ii) 2,362,919 shares will be released Aug. 19, 2026; (iii) 2,362,920 shares will be released Dec. 19, 2026; (iv) 2,362,920 shares will be released April 19, 2027; (v) 2,362,920 shares will be released Aug. 19, 2027; and (vi) the final 2,362,920 shares will be released Dec. 19, 2027.

Copper Quest will also reimburse Privco a total of $225,000 toward 2025 expenditures incurred on exploring the property and has granted a 2-per-cent net smelter returns royalty to Privco on all minerals mined, produced or otherwise recovered from the property. The company retains the right to purchase half of the royalty in consideration of $1-million paid to Privco at any time.

Subject to the approval of the Canadian Securities Exchange, a finder's fee of 587,212 common shares of the company is applicable in connection with the acquisition of the property. The finders' shares will be subject to a statutory hold period of four months in accordance with applicable Canadian securities legislation. It is anticipated that the finders' shares will be issued on or about Dec. 31, 2025.

Debt settlement transactions

The company also wishes to announce it intends to issue 218,620 common shares of the company at a deemed value of 15 cents per debt settlement share in order to satisfy an aggregate of $32,793 in outstanding debt for services previously provided to the company.

The debt settlement shares will be subject to a statutory hold period of four months in accordance with applicable Canadian securities legislation. It is anticipated that the finders' shares will be issued on or about Dec. 31, 2025. The issuance of the debt settlement shares is subject to the receipt of all required approvals, including the approval of the Canadian Securities Exchange.

Qualified person

Brian Thurston, PGeo, the company's chief executive officer and a qualified person as defined by NI 43-101, has reviewed and approved the technical information in this news release.

About Copper Quest Exploration Inc.

Copper Quest is committed to building shareholder value through acquisitions, discovery-driven exploration, disciplined execution and responsible development of its North American critical mineral portfolio of assets.

The company's land package currently comprises six projects that span over 40,000-plus hectares in great mining jurisdictions as well as the Kitimat Cu-Au (copper-gold) project pending acquisition.

Copper Quest has a 100-per-cent interest in the Stars property, a porphyry copper-molybdenum discovery, covering 9,693 hectares in central British Columbia's Bulkley porphyry belt. Contiguous to the Stars property, Copper Quest has a 100-per-cent interest in the 5,389-hectare Stellar property. Copper Quest also has an earn-in option up to 80 per cent and joint-venture agreement on the 4,700-hectare porphyry copper-molybdenum Rip project, also in the Bulkley porphyry belt.

Copper Quest has a 100-per-cent interest in the Nekash copper-gold project, a porphyry exploration opportunity located in Lemhi county, Idaho, along the prolific Idaho-Montana porphyry copper belt that hosts world-class systems such as Butte and CUMO. The project is fully road-accessible via maintained United States highways and forest service roads and currently consists of 70 unpatented federal lode claims covering 585 hectares.

Copper Quest has a 100-per-cent interest in the Thane project located in the Quesnel terrane of Northern British Columbia which spans over 20,658 hectares with 10 high-priority targets identified demonstrating significant copper and precious metal mineralization potential.

Copper Quest has a 100-per-cent interest in the past-producing Alpine gold mine located approximately 20 kilometres northeast of the city of Nelson spanning 4,611.49 hectares. Apart from the Alpine mine the property hosts four significant vein systems including the Black Prince and the Cold Blow quartz veins, the Gold Crown vein system, and the past-producing King Solomon vein workings.

Copper Quest's leadership and advisory teams are senior mining industry executives who have a wealth of technical and capital markets experience and a strong record of discovering, financing, developing and operating mining projects on a global scale. Copper Quest is committed to sustainable and responsible business activities in line with industry-best practices, supportive of all stakeholders, including the local communities in which it operates. The company's common shares are principally listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the symbol CQX.

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