Western Coal Appoints Graham Mascall to the Board

VANCOUVER, Oct. 19 /CNW/ - Western Coal Corp.  (TSX: WTN, WTN.WT and AIM: WTN) (the "Company" or "Western") announces that it has appointed Graham Mascall as a Non-Excutive Director of the Company, effective November 1, 2010.

David R. Beatty, Chairman of the Western Coal Corp comments, "Graham's broad experience in the global mining industry, especially in the coal sector, will be of significant benefit to Western. On behalf of the Board, we look forward to working with Graham and drawing on his knowledge and judgment as Western executes its strategic growth plans."

Mr. Mascall (64), who is based in London, UK, is CEO of Ncondezi Coal Company Ltd (AIM:NCCL), which has coal assets  in Mozambique. He is also a director of Gemfields Resources plc (AIM:GEM) and London Mining plc (AIM:LOND), both based in London, UK.

From 2003 until April 2010, he was a Director of Caledon Resources plc (AIM:CDN; ASX:CCD) of London, UK, which owns coal mining operations in Australia. From 2006 to 2009 he was the CEO of Lubel Coal (UK) Ltd of London, a privately held coal development company active in the Ukraine.

Mr. Mascall's extensive commercial, financial, and transaction experience include senior executive positions with a broad range of mining companies and investment banks. He has worked as a senior executive of Billiton plc and Outokumpu Metals and Resources International Limited and for investment banks such as Deutsche Morgan Grenfell and Barclays Bank.

He earned a Master of Engineering, Mineral Economics (1972) from McGill University, Montreal, Canada and a Mining Engineer degree (1969) from the Camborne School of Mines in Cornwall, UK.

In the past five years he has served as a Director of:

• Anglo-Asian Mining PLC, Baku, Azerbaijan
• Uramin (UK) Ltd. and Uramin Inc., London, UK
• Caledon Resources plc, London, UK
• Katanga Mining Ltd., Baar, Switzerland
• Lubel Coal (UK) Ltd, London, UK
• Lundin Mining Corp., Toronto, Canada
• Eurozinc Mining Corp., Vancouver, Canada
• International Molybdenum Ltd., London, UK
• Rio Alto Mining Limited, Vancouver, Canada
• Global Diamond Resources PLC, Gibraltar
• Ortac Resources Ltd. Guernsey, UK

There are no other details to be disclosed under Schedule 2(g) of the AIM Rules.

About Western Coal

Western Coal is a producer of high quality metallurgical coal from three mines in northeast British Columbia (Canada), high quality metallurgical coal and compliant thermal coal from four mines located in West Virginia (USA), and high quality anthracite and metallurgical coal in South Wales (UK). Other interests owned include a 24% interest in Mandalay Resources Corporation (MND: TSX), 40% interest in Xtract Energy (XTR: AIM), and a 20% interest in NEMI Northern Energy & Mining (NNE.A: TSX). The Company is headquartered in Vancouver, BC, Canada, and trades on the AIM and TSX stock exchanges under the symbol "WTN". More information can be found at www.westerncoal.com

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