IGS proposes sustainable development of Oka deposit

Metallurgical Tests Confirm Niobium and Rare Earths Content

Montreal, Quebec--(Newsfile Corp. - August 4, 2026) - Nio Strategic Metals Inc. (TSXV: NIO) (OTCQB: NIOCF) (" Nio " or the " Corporation "), a critical mineral exploration company, is pleased to announce the results of the metallurgical study, The sustainable and optimized development of niobium and other critical and strategic minerals (CSM) of the Oka deposit , which was prepared by IGS Impact Global Solutions (" IGS "), for the Centre technologique des résidus industriels (" CTRI ") as part of the Éléments08 initiative. CTRI is a Rouyn-Noranda based applied research and technology transfer centre on industrial tailings.

In addition to confirming and characterizing the strong presence of niobium, phosphate and other rare metals, IGS provides an innovative solution to process the concentrate from the deposit in a remote location, thereby reducing the local environmental impact.

The study investigates the opportunity to maximize the recovery value of the mined concentrate by using hydrometallurgical extraction of rare earth elements (" REE "), niobium, tantalum and zirconium. IGS also recommends further tests to assess the monetization of phosphate while producing the pyrochlore concentrate, as samples of the historical resource have tested 4.29% P 2 O 5 (see Table 1).

IGS tested 95 samples taken from historical drill cores of the S60 and HWM2 zones to create a composite sample representative of the historical resource (see Table 1). The significant presence of REE was confirmed in the zone targeted for mining. The results, summarized in Table 2, demonstrate that the total rare earth oxide (" TREO "), content is 0.507% TREO for the composite simulating that of the 2011 feasibility study (FSG) and 0.935% TREO for the composite (HGG) designated as high-grade in Nb₂O₅.

A high-grade Nb composite sample (HGG), prepared at CTRI, was