Mr. John Wisbey reports

ILC CRITICAL MINERALS LTD. CLOSES PRIVATE PLACEMENT

ILC Critical Minerals Ltd. has closed its non-brokered private placement financing of common shares announced on April 8, 2026. On closing, the company issued 19,125,000 common shares for gross proceeds of $382,500.

The company anticipates that $126,784, or 33.15 per cent, of the offering proceeds will be used for exploration and general working capital purposes and $255,716, or 66.85 per cent, will be used for management, director and professional fees to insiders. Payments to persons conducting investor relations activities will be less than 2 per cent of the gross proceeds of the offering.

Closing of the offering is subject to acceptance by the TSX Venture Exchange. All securities issued in connection with the offering are subject to a four-month hold period from the date of issuance under applicable Canadian securities laws. No finders' fees have been payable on the transaction.

The offering constitutes a related party transaction within the meaning of Multilateral Instrument 61-101, Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions, as four directors and an officer of the company participated in the offering. 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. The company did not file a material change report 21 days prior to the closing of the private placement as the details of the participation of insiders of the company had not been confirmed at that time.

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 toward 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 (exclusive prospecting orders) 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, an after-tax net present value of $342.9-million and an after-tax 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 U.S.-dollar-to-Canadian-dollar exchange rate of 1.35. As at the end of May, 2026, the spot spodumene price in Canadian dollars was slightly 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.