Mr. John Wisbey reports

ILC CRITICAL MINERALS LTD. ANNOUNCES EXTENSION OF PRIVATE PLACEMENT

ILC Critical Minerals Ltd. has closed its non-brokered private placement financing to June 26, 2026. The offering was originally announced on April 8, 2026. The offering is comprised of up to 50 million common shares of the company at a price of two cents per share for gross proceeds of up to $1-million.

The company anticipates that $500,000 or 50 per cent of the offering proceeds will be used for exploration program on the Raleigh Lake and Wolf Ridge projects, $275,000 or 27.5 per cent for general working capital purposes, and $225,000 or 22.5 per cent for management and director fees. Payments, if any, to persons conducting investor relations activities are expected to be appreciably less than 10 per cent of the gross proceeds of the offering. Any such investor relations engagements will be filed with the TSX Venture Exchange, in accordance with their policies.

Closing of the offering is subject to acceptance by the TSX-V. All securities issued in connection with the offering will be subject to a four-month hold period from the date of issuance under applicable Canadian securities laws. The company may pay finders' fees on a portion of the placement, as permitted by TSX-V policies and applicable securities laws.

It is anticipated that some directors and insiders will participate in this offering. The issue of shares (to the extent subscribed for by insiders) constitute related party transactions pursuant to Multilateral Instrument 61-101 -- Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions, as the subscribers include directors of the company. The company is exempt from the requirements to obtain a formal valuation or minority shareholder approval in connection with the shares in reliance on the exemptions contained in sections 5.5(a) and 5.7(1)(a) of MI 61-101, respectively, as the fair market value of the shares to be issued to directors and insiders does not exceed 25 per cent of the company's market capitalization.

At the same time, although unrelated to the offering, ILC announces that it is extending for a further year its advertising and investor awareness campaign with Dig Media Inc., doing business as Investing News Network (INN). INN, a private company headquartered in Vancouver, Canada, is a leading information platform used by many TSX and TSX V-listed companies for advertising, investor awareness campaigns, profile generation, press release syndication and lead generation. While the board has historically taken the view, after interaction with TSX-V on the services provided to ILC, that INN does not provide investor relations or market-making services, the company is announcing this extension this year after consulting with TSX-V on the current interpretation of their policies. For the 12-month term of the agreement, INN will provide advertising to increase awareness of the company. The cost of the campaign is $25,000 payable in quarterly instalments of $6,250 due at the start of the quarter. INN currently holds no securities in the company.

About ILC Critical Minerals Ltd.

ILC Critical Minerals, formerly International Lithium Corp., has exploration activities in Ontario, Canada, with intentions to expand into Southern Africa. It has projects at various stages, ranging from preliminary economic assessment at Raleigh Lake to predrilling at Wolf Ridge. The primary target metals in Canada are lithium, rubidium and copper. There are three projects (two in Ontario and one in Ireland) in which ILC has sold its share, but where the company stands to receive future payments from either a resource milestone being achieved or from a net smelter royalty.

While the world's politicians remain divided on the future of the energy market's historic dependence on oil and gas and on "net zero," there is in any scenario an ever-increasing and significant demand for electricity driven by AI (artificial intelligence) and data centres, and by a likely unstoppable momentum towards electric vehicles and grid-scale electricity storage. All of these contribute to rising demand for lithium, copper and other metals. Rubidium is also a critical metal, strategic for high-precision clocks, space technology and improving the performance of certain types of solar panels. ILC has seen the politically driven, increasingly urgent push by the United States, Canada, the European Union, and other major economies to safeguard their supplies of critical minerals and to become more self-sufficient. The company's Canadian and Southern African projects, which contain lithium, rubidium and copper, are strategic in this regard.

The company's key mission for the next decade is to generate revenue for its shareholders from lithium, rubidium and other critical minerals while also contributing to the creation of a greener, cleaner planet and less polluted cities.

This includes optimizing the value of ILC's existing projects in Canada as well as finding, exploring and developing projects that have the potential to become world-class deposits. The company has announced that it regards Southern Africa as a key strategic target market and it has applied for and hopes to receive EPOs in Zimbabwe. The board hopes to make further announcements on the portfolio developments over the next few weeks and months.

The company's interests in various projects now consist of the following, and in addition, the company continues to seek other opportunities.

The Raleigh Lake project now encompasses 32,900 hectares (329 square kilometres) of mineral claims in Ontario and represents ILC's most significant project in Canada. To date, drilling has occurred on less than 1,000 hectares of the company's claims. A preliminary economic assessment was published for ILC's lithium at Raleigh Lake in December, 2023, with a detailed economic analysis of ILC's separate rubidium resource still pending. This showed, for the lithium only and not yet taking into account the rubidium, a posttax NPV (net present value) of $342.9-million and a posttax IRR (internal rate of return) of 44.3 per cent per annum. This was based on a spodumene price of $2,325 (U.S.) per tonne and a United States-dollar/Canadian-dollar exchange rate of 1.35. As at the end of May, 2026, the spot spodumene price in Canadian dollars was around 10 per cent higher than that used in the PEA. Raleigh Lake is 100 per cent owned by ILC, free from any encumbrances and royalties. The Raleigh Lake project boasts excellent access to roads, rail and utilities.

A continuing goal has been to remain a well-financed, strategically run company that turns ILC's aspirations into reality. Following the disposal of the Mariana project in Argentina in 2021, the Mavis Lake project in Canada in 2022 and the Avalonia project in 2025, ILC has continued to generate sufficient cash inflows to advance its exploration projects.

With the significant upturn in the lithium price since mid 2025, ILC is focused on realizing value from the Raleigh Lake project, which now has better economics on the revenue side than at the time of the PEA even excluding the likely upside from the separate rubidium resource. A key priority is also to increase investor awareness of the growing disconnect between the NPV in the Raleigh Lake PEA and the company's market capitalization -- which is presently less than 2 per cent of the Raleigh Lake NPV.

We seek Safe Harbor.