Mr. Jon Ward reports

TARGA COMMENCES FIELD EXPLORATION PROGRAMS IN QUEBEC

Targa Exploration Corp. has started its 2023 exploration programs on the company's Quebec projects. A field crew has mobilized at its Musquaro lithium exploration project in southeast Quebec (Musquaro) to conduct a phase 1 mapping, sampling and traversing program across the project.

Targa has contracted GroundTruth Exploration to help plan and execute the phase 1 exploration program at Musquaro. GroundTruth is providing a team of 15 geologists and prospectors, equipped with the latest in field exploration equipment, to conduct the phase 1 work, which is expected to take approximately seven days to complete.

Phase 1 field program

Mobilizing out of the town of Natashquan, the GroundTruth team will access Musquaro via helicopter. Crews are conducting traverses across the three claim blocks that make up the Musquaro project to provide a more detailed geological map of the area and potentially identify new pegmatite occurrences. Geology teams will also be investigating the 96 known pegmatite occurrences at Musquaro, of which none have been previously sampled for their lithium-cesium-tantalum (LCT) potential.

The GroundTruth team is equipped with a drone for detailed aerial imagery and a laser-induced breakdown spectrometry (LIBS) portable analyzer for collecting onsite real-time data, capable of identifying the presence of lighter elements such as lithium. The LIBS will be used on samples from the known and any new pegmatites discovered during the program to help the geology team identify the presence of minerals common to LCT rare metal pegmatites. Samples taken during the field program will be sent to SGS Laboratories for full element analysis.

Cameron Tymstra, chief executive officer of Targa, commented: "It is very exciting to be kicking off Targa's first-ever lithium exploration field program. Musquaro's proximity to an existing road network and local communities along the St. Lawrence seaway make the project easy to access with a longer fieldwork window. Extensive bedrock exposure across the project should allow for rapid mapping coverage and pegmatite prospecting inland from the historically mapped shoreline. The combination of nearly a hundred previously identified pegmatites around Musquaro Lake and the concentration of highly anomalous lake sediment samples within the lake has us very excited about the lithium discovery potential at Musquaro."

About the Musquaro project

Musquaro consists of three claims blocks totalling 75,415 hectares located in southeastern Quebec, 60 kilometres northeast of the highway-accessible community of Natashquan and 10 kilometres from the nearest forestry road. Musquaro is one of three projects that Targa acquired from prospector Shawn Ryan in 2023.

The claim blocks are centred over clusters of lake sediment samples from the provincial database that are anomalous for LCT pathfinder elements with many values for lithium and cesium in the 99th percentile of the database. Initial exploration work will prioritize the western claim block where historical geological maps indicate 96 occurrences of pegmatite around the shoreline of Musquaro Lake.

Stock option grant

The company has granted stock options to directors, officers, employees and consultants of Targa, under the company's stock option plan. An aggregate amount of 2.15 million stock options have been granted with an exercise price of 44 cents and will vest immediately. They are exercisable for a period of five years from the date of the grant and are subject to the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange.

About Targa Exploration Corp.

Targa Exploration is a Canadian lithium exploration company engaged in the acquisition, exploration and development of lithium mineral properties with headquarters in Vancouver, B.C. Targa's lithium project portfolio consists of 10 projects in the provinces of Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and covers over 275,000 hectares of prospective ground, most of which has never been explored previously for lithium.

Qualified person

The scientific and technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Lorne Warner, PGeo, who is a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

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