LAKE VICTORIA GOLD IDENTIFIES PREFERRED PROCESSING ROUTE FOR IMWELO NEAR-SURFACE MINERALIZATION

Pretreatment lifts 24-hour gold extraction from 50% to 85% VANCOUVER, BC , Sept. 24, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Lake Victoria Gold Ltd. (TSXV: LVG) (OTCQB: LVGLF ) (FSE: E1K) ("LVG" or the "Company") is pleased to report results from metallurgical testwork on the shallow, highly weathered mineralization at Area C of its fully permitted Imwelo Gold Project ("Imwelo" or the "Project") in Tanzania's Lake Victoria Goldfield. The program identifies attrition scrubbing followed by desliming as the preferred pretreatment option for further optimization of the clay-rich material expected to form an important component of initial Area C feed. In mechanically agitated leach testing designed to simulate plant conditions, 24-hour gold extraction increased from 49.99% on as-received material to 84.54% following attrition scrubbing and desliming, while bottle-roll testing returned recoveries of up to 88.15% on the pretreated fraction. The treatment also materially improved slurry settling and gravity recovery, with Nesch Mintech recommending its advancement into the next stage of process optimization. The work was completed by Nesch Mintech Tanzania Limited ("Nesch Mintech"), a laboratory based in Mwanza, Tanzania. Key Highlights Preferred pretreatment route lifts 24-hour gold extraction to 84.54%. Attrition scrubbing followed by desliming produced the strongest overall metallurgical response, increasing extraction from 49.99% on as-received material to 84.54% while materially improving slurry handling. Bottle-roll recovery of up to 88.15%. The attrition-scrubbed and deslimed fraction returned 88.15% recovery at 48 hours, compared with 70.76% on as-received material and 76.84% following desliming alone. Coarse and gravity-recoverable gold confirmed. Approximately 26% of the gold reported to the +300 µm size fraction, while average gravity recovery increased from 12.78% as received to 21.25% following attrition scrubbing and desliming, supporting further evaluation of gravity recovery ahead of cyanidation. Pretreatment materially improves slurry handling. Settling time decreased from 220 seconds to 130 seconds, while bed compaction increased from 50.56% as received to 65.09% following attrition scrubbing and desliming. Extends the metallurgical framework across the planned mining sequence. The weathered-ore results complement the Company's March 18, 2026 program on transitional and fresh mineralization, which demonstrated recoveries of up to approximately 96–97% using conventional gravity concentration and cyanide leaching. Management Commentary Marc Cernovitch, President & CEO of Lake Victoria Gold, commented: "We designed this program to answer a practical engineering question: how should we treat the clay-rich material expected early in the Area C mining sequence? The results give us a clear preferred processing direction, with scrubbing and desliming materially improving gold extraction and slurry handling. Combined with the strong recovery profile already established for the deeper transitional and fresh material, we now have a much stronger metallurgical basis for advancing Imwelo's process design. This is another important step in moving the Project from engineering into execution." Strong Near-Surface Results from Area C The metallurgical program follows LVG's August 27, 2026 announcement of strong, near-surface drill results from Area C, including 28.71 g/t Au over 2.75 metres from 21.00 metres in IMWDR029 and 12.20 g/t Au over 4.50 metres from 32.00 metres in IMWDR028. The intervals included higher-grade sections of 59.77 g/t Au over 1.30 metres and 27.94 g/t Au over 1.90 metres, respectively, with individual quartz-vein samples returning up to 142.90 g/t Au and 124.83 g/t Au. The drilling was designed specifically to intersect the shallow, highly weathered mineralization and provide whole-core material for metallurgical testing ahead of detailed mine planning and process design. Previous geotechnical work identified the weathered zone a...