Western Copper and Gold Corporation (TSX: WRN) (NYSE American: WRN) is pleased to announce results from a supplemental metallurgical program for its wholly owned Casino Copper-Gold Project.

The Metallurgical Program used drill core composites of material representing potential mill feed taken from the 2023 diamond drilling program with more variable copper, gold, and molybdenum levels than had been tested in previous drill campaigns and from a broader period of planned mining.

Attractive Recoveries – Standard processing methods continue to produce good recoveries for copper and gold, consistent with previous metallurgical work. The program achieved significantly higher recoveries for molybdenum (approximately 90% in hypogene material versus overall 71% in the Feasibility Study).

High Grade Concentrates with Low Impurities – Casino would produce a high gold grade copper concentrate and a separate molybdenum concentrate. Both are expected to be highly marketable given the very low levels of impurities.

Further Potential Upside – Primary grind size for Casino is expected to be 210μm which compares quite favorably versus other similar projects.  Initial coarse particle separation tests, conducted during this program, suggest an opportunity to further increase primary grind size without sacrificing recoveries.

“The latest metallurgical testing complements the work released in 2023 and now creates a fairly comprehensive picture of the attractive recoveries and metallurgical characteristics of the Casino Project. The project has the ability to produce highly sought after, high-grade concentrates into a market experiencing significant tightness, especially for cleaner concentrates such as those from Casino.” said Sandeep Singh, President and CEO.

Metallurgical Program

The outline of the Metallurgical Program and the review of the results were developed by Western’s Technical and Sustainability Committee, which is comprised of members from Western, Rio Tinto and Mitsubishi Materials.

The fifteen composites of approximately 200 kg were subjected to detailed mineralogy, comminution testing, flotation testing and detailed analysis of copper concentrates. Composite preparation and all metallurgical test work was completed at ALS Metallurgy in Kamloops, B.C.

Table 1 shows the analysis of the composites and their associated lithology, either Supergene Sulphide (SUS) or Hypogene (HYP). The target composition was achieved for all composites except Composite 14, which contained very low grades and was subject to limited testing. Composite 8 was also excluded from the results below, as it was intentionally selected as an outlier to maximize deleterious content.

Casino has two main copper-gold zones, the Supergene Sulphide Zone which represents about 25% of the resource and the Hypogene Zone, which represents about 70% of the resource. The remaining 5% of the resource is represented by oxide materials.

Table 1 – Composites Used in Metallurgical Program

Flotation Test Results

Casino proposes using flotation to produce saleable copper-gold and molybdenum concentrates using an industry standard process flowsheet. Gold values are expected to be recovered within a copper concentrate and be payable under typical copper concentrate smelting terms and molybdenum is separated from a bulk copper-molybdenum concentrate to produce separate copper and molybdenum concentrates.

Table 2 depicts metallurgical recoveries obtained for hypogene composites using locked cycle testing. Hypogene samples demonstrate consistently high copper recoveries and very good quality copper concentrates. An average molybdenum recovery to a bulk copper-molybdenum concentrate of 90%, significantly higher than previous testing, was achieved for the hypogene composites without including Composite 2, which had a very low molybdenum head grade.

Table 2 – Summary of Locked-Cycle Flotation Results for Hypogene Composite Samples

Table 3 shows locked cycle test results for supergene sulphide samples. Copper concentrate grade does not appear to be significantly impacted when processing supergene sulphide weathered materials. The reduction in overall copper recovery in flotation is a function of the weak acid soluble copper content (shown in Table 1) and is in line with previous test work. Molybdenum and gold recoveries are similar to previous test work.

Table 3 – Summary of Locked-Cycle Flotation Results for Supergene Sulphide Composite Samples

Copper Concentrate Quality

The flotation concentrates produced from Casino continue to demonstrate very good grades in terms of copper and gold, as well as low levels of potential penalty elements. Table 4 shows a summary of copper concentrates produced from the recent test work, including key elements relevant to smelter terms. Average values for penalty elements, including As, Sb, Hg and F are shown to be well below typical smelter contract terms.

Table 4 – Casino Concentrate Analysis

Coarse Particle Separation Testing

A hypogene master composite was prepared for coarse particle flotation to test the impact on recoveries while increasing the primary grind size. In a single test, the grind size was increased from the project baseline of 210μm to 292μm with no significant change in overall copper and gold recoveries, and a small reduction in molybdenum recovery. The initial testing was promising and warrants future testing and evaluation.

Qualified Persons

The metallurgical information in this news release has been prepared in accordance with Canadian regulatory requirements set out in National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosures for Minerals Projects of the Canadian Securities Administrators (“NI 43-101”) and supervised, reviewed, and verified by Jeffrey B. Austin, P.Eng., President of International Metallurgical and Environmental Inc., a “Qualified Person” as defined by NI 43-101.

ABOUT WESTERN COPPER AND GOLD CORPORATION

Western Copper and Gold Corporation is developing the Casino Project, Canada’s premier copper-gold mine in the Yukon Territory and one of the most economic greenfield copper-gold mining projects in the world.

The Company is committed to working collaboratively with our First Nations and local communities to progress the Casino project, using internationally recognized responsible mining technologies and practices.