Mr. John Karagiannidis reports

QIMC EXTENDS DDH-26-05 DRILLING TO BEYOND 1,000 METRES AND LAUNCHES IN-SITU HYDROGEN CHARACTERIZATION AND EXTRACTION PROGRAM AT BENNETT HILL AS SEISMIC FURTHER CORROBORATES TWO DISTINCT HYDROGEN SYSTEMS IN NOVA SCOTIA

Quebec Innovative Materials Corp. has extended diamond drill hole DDH-26-05 at Bennett Hill, N.S., to a planned depth of more than 1,000 metres, together with the launch of an in situ hydrogen characterization and hydrogen extraction program at the Bennett Hill system. Drilling will be carried out by Maritime Drilling and is scheduled to resume in November, 2026. Strum Consulting of Halifax will carry out the in situ hydrogen characterization. The launch of the extraction program marks a major milestone for Quebec Innovative: another important step from exploration toward in situ clean natural hydrogen production at Bennett Hill.

Management comment

"Bennett Hill has shown us that hydrogen is present, that it reaches 30 per cent in mud-gas samples and that the system is under enough pressure to push gas to surface during drilling. Our hybrid free gas and hydrogeological model at Bennett Hill will allow us to determine free gas pockets along with dissolved hydrogen concentrations at greater depth for the in situ extraction program. Moving from drilling for hydrogen to testing how it can be produced is a major milestone for QIMC and for the Bennett Hill project. At the same time, the seismic further corroborates that the corridor holds two different kinds of hydrogen system: one structural in the Cobequid highlands and one conventional in the Cumberland basin, and we intend to pursue both," said John Karagiannidis, chief executive officer of Quebec Innovative.

Highlights:

• DDH-26-05, paused at approximately 416 metres after pressurized free gas and a mud-gas headspace hydrogen reading of 30.0 per cent at 413 metres, will be extended beyond 1,000 m to intersect the principal fault imaged on seismic Line 1 at Bennett Hill. The extension targets dissolved hydrogen samples as deep as possible using downhole probes and in situ sampling to determine gas quantity and purity in support of planning an in situ extraction pilot for the hybrid model of free gas pockets and hydrogen dissolved in water.
• The 2026 seismic program supports and corroborates the company's previous modelling and data for two distinct hydrogen settings along the Cobequid corridor: a fault-hosted hybrid hydrogeological system in the Cobequid highlands (Bennett Hill) and a conventional reservoir and seal system in the lowlands and Cumberland basin.
• Strum Consulting has been engaged to manage the program, including well control, hydrogeological measurement, sampling and postdrilling testing.
• DDH-26-04 (818 m, 24.3 per cent H2 at 707 m) defined a layered architecture at Bennett Hill: a fractured upper corridor, a competent low-porosity granite block from 250 to 640 m acting as a confining layer and a deep altered zone below 665 m where porosity increases with depth. The extension of DDH-26-05 further tests the structure that feeds that deep zone.
• Both holes have produced pressurized water at surface during drilling, DDH-26-04 from approximately 617 m and DDH-26-05 from 413-416 m, consistent with a connected, confined and artesian system.

Extension of DDH-26-05

DDH-26-05 was collared approximately 700 m from DDH-26-04 and drilled at a dip of about minus 70 degrees toward the south-southeast. Between 326 m and 416 m, the hole intersected a fault breccia and shear package in which mud-gas hydrogen readings reached 27.8 per cent at 374 m and 30.0 per cent at 413 m, with pressurized free gas reaching surface between 413 m and 416 m. Drilling was paused to adapt equipment and procedures to the gas and pressure conditions.

Processed seismic Line 1 at Bennett Hill shows that the breccia zone encountered to date sits within a fan of hangingwall splays above a deeper, south-dipping principal fault whose interpretation is being refined. The hole will be extended beyond 1,000 m (approximately 945 m vertical) to intersect that principal fault.

The extension will establish the depth, width and character of the principal fault, further calibrate the time to depth conversion for Line 1 and the broader seismic data set, and extend the hybrid hydrogeological model. It also carries DDH-26-05 below the depth range of the competent granite block and into the equivalent of the deep altered zone identified in DDH-26-04, allowing the two holes to be compared at depth for the first time.

DDH-26-04 and the architecture of the Bennett Hill system

DDH-26-04 (818 m, completed July, 2026) established that the Bennett Hill system is vertically layered. A pervasively fractured upper corridor to approximately 250 m returned repeated per-cent-level hydrogen, including 16.0 per cent at 236 m. A competent, low-porosity syenogranite block from approximately 250 m to 640 m (RQD approximately 90 per cent, fractures healed by quartz and hematite) is interpreted as a confining layer, breached locally by a pressurized water zone at approximately 617 m that overflowed at the collar during drilling.

Below 665 m, a deep altered zone returned the hole's strongest readings, 12.4 per cent to 24.3 per cent between 665 m and 707 m, with fracturing, hematization and brecciation increasing to the end of the hole, suggesting increasing permeability with depth, and an open structural break at 776 to 779 m bracketing 8.3 per cent and 11.4 per cent.

Statistical analysis of 284 mud-gas samples confirmed breccia zones as the conduits, with hydrogen decreasing away from them and lower in undeformed granite. The company interprets the fault-bound sedimentary screen at 409 to 425 m in DDH-26-04 and the 326- to 416-metre breccia package in DDH-26-05 as potentially the same structure, tight in one hole and gas-charged in the other; this is a working interpretation to be tested by the extension. Laboratory porosity and permeability results on DDH-26-04 and DDH-26-05 core are pending.

Two hydrogen systems along one corridor

The company's work in Nova Scotia now distinguishes two geological settings along the Cobequid corridor.

• The Cobequid highlands: a fault-hosted hybrid hydrogeological system. Bennett Hill sits within the Cobequid-Chedabucto fault zone, a continental-scale structure where the North and South Cobequid faults form a composite shear corridor more than six kilometres wide. Here, hydrogen migrates along the deep principal faults and is retained in the fractured, water-saturated rock of the hangingwall splays. The free-gas pockets intersected in DDH-26-05 are interpreted as zones where formation water has reached hydrogen saturation and gas is exsolving along open fractures. DDH-26-04 showed that the system is vertically layered, with a competent granite block confining a deeper aquifer whose porosity increases with depth, and both holes have flowed pressurized water at surface during drilling. The interpreted hydrogen system at Bennett Hill follows a hybrid hydrogeological model in which hydrogen may occur both dissolved in formation water and as free gas within open fractures. The production concept for this setting is in situ recovery of dissolved hydrogen from produced formation water, with free gas from the conduits as the complement.
• The lowlands and Cumberland basin: a conventional reservoir and seal system. North and east of the highlands, the same corridor passes into a Carboniferous sedimentary basin with porous reservoir units overlain by impermeable local membranes of salt and shale. Hydrogen, helium and thermogenic natural gas rising along the corridor's faults can accumulate beneath these seals in the manner of a conventional gas play. The exploration logic here is reservoir, seal and trap, and it is directly addressable by seismic interpretation.

The company's program treats them as two targets with two methods rather than one.

Program management and well control

Strum Consulting of Halifax, which already supports the company's health, safety and environmental program in Nova Scotia, has been engaged as program manager and hydrogeological lead for the extension and the characterization program.

Cautionary note on results

The previously reported hydrogen concentrations cited in this release are preliminary exploration-stage measurements from collected mud-gas headspace samples. They do not establish in situ dissolved hydrogen concentrations, formation gas composition, formation pressure, sustained flow rates, deliverability or recoverable volumes. Observations of gas and pressurized water reaching surface during drilling are qualitative operational observations. Formation pressure and gas and water flow rates have not been quantified. The characterization program is designed to produce quantitative measurements. Until it is complete, no conclusions regarding flow rate, deliverability, reservoir volume or commercial viability can be drawn. No resource or reserve has been defined for the Bennett Hill project. The interpretation of a confining granite block, the correlation of structures between DDH-26-04 and DDH-26-05, and the description of the Bennett Hill system as a hybrid dissolved and free-gas system are preliminary geological interpretations based on core logging and field observations. Laboratory porosity and permeability results are pending. Measurements collected during the extension will be composite values across all open intervals of the hole until individual zones are tested.

About Quebec Innovative Materials Corp.

Quebec Innovative is a North American exploration company advancing district-scale clean natural hydrogen, helium and natural gas projects across Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia and Minnesota. Quebec Innovative applies its proprietary R2G2 exploration framework, developed with INRS, to identify multigas systems and advance them toward pilot production without hydraulic fracturing or reservoir stimulation. In Cumberland county, Nova Scotia, the company's multigas pilot production pathway is built on more than 10,000 soil gas samples and over 1,000 independent helium and C1-C4 analyses, 63.7 line kilometres of 2-D seismic, gravity, magnetic and radon-thoron surveys, and more than 3,500 m of core, with continuing testing at DDH-26-05.

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