Mr. John Karagiannidis reports

QIMC LAUNCHES EXPANDED 2026 ONTARIO NATURAL HYDROGEN PROGRAM IN THE TEMISCAMINGUE GRABEN

Quebec Innovative Materials Corp. has expanded a 2026 natural hydrogen exploration program in the Ontario extension of the Temiscamingue graben, designed to advance target definition for Ontario 2-D seismic surveys and drilling.

The Ontario program is being launched in parallel with Quebec Innovative's previously announced 78-line-kilometre 2-D Vibroseis seismic campaign, including approximately 36 line kilometres in Temiscamingue, Que., at Ville-Marie/St-Bruno-de-Guigues, with the balance in Nova Scotia. Quebec Innovative intends to integrate the Ontario data sets with the Quebec seismic results to guide follow-up development.

Program highlights:

• Expanded soil-gas coverage: 823 new stations at 100-metre spacing over approximately 80 line kilometres, bringing the Ontario database to approximately 1,733 stations and more than 125 line kilometres;
• Geophysical coverage: more than 1,100 gravimetric stations, district-wide mobile gamma-ray spectrometry and radon-thoron measurements alongside an audiomagnetotelluric survey;
• Technical leadership: program design led by Prof. Marc Richer-Lafleche, PhD, of the Institut national de la recherche scientifique, integrating the Ontario data sets into Quebec Innovative's proprietary R2G2 exploration framework.

Management commentary

"Ontario is one of the most strategic assets of QIMC's clean hydrogen portfolio, and this program is about turning reconnaissance into conviction. Our objective is clear: convert what we've found on the ground into a ranked, drill-ready set of targets for the next stage of development. Advancing Ontario in lockstep with our Quebec seismic campaign lets us integrate both data sets into a single picture that will drive our seismic and drilling decisions. Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia: three provinces, one proven strategy and model, advancing simultaneously with disciplined execution and momentum," said John Karagiannidis, president and chief executive officer, Quebec Innovative.

2025 Ontario soil-gas results

Reconnaissance soil-gas work completed in 2025 with Diagnamed Holdings Corp. under INRS technical direction returned the following results.

Phase 1 returned a mean of 558 parts per million H2 and a median of 456 ppm. Phase 2 extended the anomalous zone by more than 11 kilometres northward, defining a hydrogen-bearing area of roughly 260 square kilometres (11.3 km north-south by 23 km east-west) across 45.3 line kilometres of traverse. The Temiscamingue median value stands in sharp contrast to regional background medians of 50 to 125 ppm recorded in the neighbouring Abitibi.

Field execution and community participation

Quebec Innovative will work alongside the Timiskaming First Nation to carry out the Ontario soil-gas station work, building on the company's established relationship with TFN in the Temiscamingue district. Field employment, training and data collection roles are part of the 2026 program.

Non-invasive exploration

Soil-gas samples are collected by hand from shallow probes; gravity readings are taken with portable meters at surface; and gamma-ray spectrometry is acquired from a moving vehicle on existing roads and tracks. The Ontario program involves no explosives, no shot-hole drilling, no hydraulic fracturing and no reservoir stimulation.

Geological context and significance of the 2026 Ontario program

Prof. Marc Richer-Lafleche, PhD, INRS

This phase of the natural hydrogen exploration program in the Ontario sector of Temiscamingue builds on earlier exploration work that led to the discovery of very high H2 concentrations detected in soils in the Ontario (2025) and Quebec (2024) sectors of the Lake Temiscamingue graben.

On the Ontario side, the graben forms a major morphotectonic depression bounded by numerous normal faults (West Shore fault, Cross-Lake fault and Blanche-River fault) marked by large topographic breaks visible in satellite imagery. In this region, the Ontario Temiscamingue is characterized by greater thicknesses of Paleozoic sedimentary rocks (Liskeard group and Wabi group), consisting of an accumulation of Ordovician (Dawson Point formation) and Silurian (Earlton and Thornloe formations) rocks comprising limestones, dolomitic limestones, conglomerates, sandstones and shales (Kumarapeli, 1985; Dix et al., 2007), which can total several hundred metres in thickness depending on basin subsidence, which, among other factors, allowed the accumulation and preservation of these sedimentary rocks (Russell, 1984). These rocks are likely to act both as transitional reservoirs during hydrogen ascent and, locally, as cap rocks (mudstone) slowing hydrogen migration toward the subsurface.

In addition to these Paleozoic rocks, the western part of the graben is marked by a greater thickness of Proterozoic sedimentary rocks of the Huronian supergroup (Young et al., 2001; Long, 2004) and by the presence of a large volume of Nipissing dikes visible on both sides of the Paleozoic sedimentary basin. In the company's R2G2 model, the presence of late mafic magmatic rocks (as documented in the Cumberland of Nova Scotia) is significant since sea floor hydrothermal alteration and regional metamorphism of older igneous rocks (for example, Archean greenstone belts) destroy the olivine and pyroxenes capable of generating natural hydrogen. The emplacement of the Nipissing dikes, during a late intraplate hotspot event (more than 500 Ma after the greenstone belts), represents a major LIP (LIP: large igneous province; Ernst and Buchan, 2004) event that left behind very large, and still well-preserved, volumes of igneous minerals and magmatic sulphide mineralization. The deep parts of the basement could contain sills rich in olivine cumulates capable of reacting with groundwater channelled through the graben's major faults.

Significance of the 2026 work program for natural hydrogen exploration

The work, which will be carried out largely in the fall of 2026, is located south of the perimeter of the surveys carried out in 2025. More specifically, the surveys will be carried out in the areas of the municipalities of Thornloe, Hanbury, Dymond, Temiskaming Shore, Kerns, Kennebec and McCool.

Soil-gas survey: The densification of the 2026 soil-gas survey aims to evaluate the role of faults in the western part of the graben in the mechanisms governing natural hydrogen emplacement within the graben and to document the spatial distribution of hydrogen above the Paleozoic limestone zones that mark the areas of greatest subsidence in the graben.

Gravimetric survey: This geophysical survey, comprising more than 1,100 stations, will help detect the deepest depocentres of sedimentary rock accumulation and locate structural discontinuities between the Archean, Proterozoic and Paleozoic blocks in the region. These discontinuities could play a decisive role in transferring hydrogen from its deep sources to the subsurface. Given the high density of the Nipissing dikes relative to the Proterozoic and Paleozoic sedimentary rocks, the gravimetric data will help document spatial variations in dike thickness across the study area. On the Ontario side, the Nipissing dikes attest to the presence of large volumes of mafic magmatic rocks in the region. These are continental tholeiites, rocks characterized by a very high FeO/MgO ratio (Lightfoot et al., 1993). Olivine in equilibrium with this type of magma is consistently richer in Fe2 than the olivine found in the MgO-rich, refractory dunitic rocks of ophiolites. The presence of significant volumes of olivine-rich magmatic rocks would therefore represent a potential hydrogen source. Under suitable temperature conditions and sufficient access to groundwater, this source could help explain the high hydrogen concentrations detected in soils (for example, Zgonnik, 2020). In Temiscamingue, this hydrogen, generated by the alteration of Fe2-rich minerals, could subsequently combine with radiolytic hydrogen produced by the interaction of groundwater with the potassium-rich sedimentary layers of the Huronian supergroup, which are particularly thick on the Ontario side of the graben.

Radiometric survey: The gamma mobile radiometric survey will help document the likely presence of redox halos associated with hydrogen transfer to the subsurface. Since potassium and thorium are sensitive to the hydrodynamic fractionation of sedimentary particles, gamma radiometry will also help refine soil characterization, which is important in interpreting soil-gas survey data collected over different Quaternary substrates. In the western part of the study area (Kennebec, McCool), these measurements will help document the volumetric significance of potassium-rich arkosic sandstones in this sector, which has been intensely intruded by the Nipissing dikes.

Audiomagnetotelluric survey: This natural-source electromagnetic method allows vertical penetration of the ground to a depth of roughly 1.5 kilometres, making it possible to refine fault geometry at depth and document variations in the thickness of sedimentary rocks that unconformably overlie the Precambrian basement. Two-dimensional inversion of AMT data is essential to developing a coherent model capable of explaining the presence of natural hydrogen in the different sectors of the Temiscamingue graben.

About Quebec Innovative Materials Corp.

Quebec Innovative is a North American exploration and development company advancing a portfolio of natural hydrogen and critical mineral projects. The company is advancing its district-scale hydrogen exploration model across Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia and Minnesota, leveraging its proprietary R2G2 framework.

Quebec Innovative is committed to responsible exploration, technical innovation and sustainable development, with the objective of supporting clean energy and decarbonization initiatives.

We seek Safe Harbor.