Mr. John Wisbey reports

ILC CRITICAL MINERALS LTD. ANNOUNCES ADOPTION OF SEMI-ANNUAL REPORTING

ILC Critical Minerals Ltd. has elected to adopt the semi-annual reporting policy pursuant to the Coordinated Blanket Order 51-933 -- Exemptions to Permit Semi-Annual Reporting for Certain Venture Issuers. The company confirms that it meets all conditions outlined in the blanket order to rely on the quarterly reporting exemption.

The company will not file condensed interim consolidated financial statements and related management discussion and analysis (MD&A) for the three-month period ending March 31, 2026, and the nine-month period ending Sept. 30, 2026, and all subsequent periods ending March 31 and Sept. 30. The company will continue to file audited annual consolidated financial statements within 120 days of Dec. 31, and six-month condensed interim financial statements and related MD&A within 60 days of June 30.

The company welcomes the regulatory move to allow semi-annual reporting which is in line with exchanges in many other countries including European countries and Australia. The company remains committed to timely disclosure and will continue to report as required under National Instrument 51-102 -- Continuous Disclosure Obligations.

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 U.S., 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 regard 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 April, 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.