NISK

The Nisk Project is located approximately 55 km east from the Cree Nation of Nemaska Community in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay territory of Quebec, Nord-du-Québec administrative region, 283 km north-northwest from the town of Chibougamau, QC and 425 km northeast from the town of Matagami, QC.

The project consists of a total of 90 claims covering an area of 4589.11 Ha. On December 22, 2020, Power Nickel entered into an option agreement with Critical Elements to acquire an initial 50% interest in the Nisk Project (the “First Option”). Upon completion of the terms of the First Option, Power Nickel has a Second Option (the “Second Option”) to increase its interest from 50% to 80% by incurring or funding additional work. Power Nickel shall act as the operator and shall be responsible for carrying out and administering the work expenditures on the Nisk Project. The terms of this option agreement are outlined in detail in item 4.3 of this report.

On July 31, 2023, Power Nickel announced that it had fulfilled the requirements for and exercised the First Option and taken on a 50% interest in the property.

Most of the claims are subject to 1.4% - 3.0% NSR royalties with a 1% buyback for $1,000,000 from four (4) different individuals. A total of seven (7) claims have no royalties, twenty-six (26) claims have a 1.4% royalty, forty-four (44) claims have a 2% royalty, and thirteen (13) claims have a 3% royalty. The claims covering the area of the MRE have a 2% NSR royalty.

Access to the Property consists of a main gravel road, the “Route du Nord”, and through secondary gravel roads and trails. From the Poste de la Nemiscau transformer station (the Nemiscau camp), the drive takes about 30 minutes to reach the Poste Albanel, a Hydro‐ Quebec electrical station. At this intersection, there is a secondary road to the North which leads to an access trail at km 4.

The climate in the region is sub-arctic. This climate zone is characterized by long, cold winters and short summers. The winter temperature can reach -40°C and in the summer can reach up to 30°C. The ground can be covered with snow from September to June.

Infrastructure in the area includes several access roads to the Project via the northern highway “Route du Nord” from Nemaska, QC and Chibougamau, QC. The northern highway “James Bay Road” connects Matagami, QC and Amos, QC with the town of Nemaska, QC via the Route du Nord Junction. A skilled and experience workforce are easily available from these towns and larger cities in Quebec. Hydro-Québec has several facilities near the property.

The Cree Construction and Development Company Ltd (“CCDC”) provides lodging and food services as well as fuel and gasoline at the Nemiscau camp. The small town of Nemaska also provides services such as a grocery, building supply store, garage, and a medical clinic.

The area is characterized by a relatively flat topography with only a few low altitude rounded hills. The Nisk deposit is located at an altitude of about 300 m above sea level. The overburden is relatively thin (less than 10 m-thick) and consist essentially of glacial till.

Nickel mineralization was discovered at Nisk by INCO in 1962, who proceeded to drill twenty-four (24) drill holes in 1964. In 1969 an Inco subsidiary drilled another four (4) holes.

The Nisk property was included in regional-scale work done by Canex Place Ventures in 1973 and by Westmin Resources in 1987.

Muscoho Explorations operated the project from 1987 onwards, drilling sixteen (16) drill holes and doing an in-house resource calculation of 570,000 tons at 0.75% Ni and 0.49% Cu (Medd, 1989). Muscoho Explorations later merged with two other companies to become Golden Goose Resources.

In 2002-2003 INCO and SOQUEM conducted surface work and completed four (4) drill holes.

From 2006-2007 Golden Goose Resources drilled seventeen (17) holes and did downhole EM surveys on eight (8) holes. They completed the first NI43-101 compliant resource on the property in 2007 (Table 4), with 0.516M tonnes in the Indicated category and 0.734M tonnes in the Inferred categories. In 2008, fifty-three (53) more holes were drilled, and an updated resource was completed estimating 2.038M tonnes of Measured and Indicated, and 0.783M tonnes in Inferred (Table 5). These previous resources are considered Historical and not current.

Nemaska Exploration acquired the property from Golden Goose Resources in 2008 through an option agreement and operated it through to 2011. They completed geophysical and geochemical work, including a floatation optimization study in 2010.

Resources Monarques acquired the property in 2011, and in 2011 and 2012 drilled thirteen (13) holes and resampled 244.7 meters of previously drilled core.

The Property was sold to Critical Elements Lithium Corporation (“CELC”) in 2014. From 2014 to 2020 CELC did limited exploration work on the Property.

The Nisk Project is located within the Nemiscau subprovince of the Québec portion of the Archean Superior Geological Province (Card and Ciesielski, 1986). The Superior Province forms the core of the North American continent and is bounded by Paleoproterozoic age provinces to the west, north and east, and the Mesoproterozoic Grenville Province to the southeast. The Nemiscau Subprovince corresponds to the remnant of a large sedimentary basin that would have formed a little before 2700 Ma. The age of deposition of the metasedimentary complex is estimated between 2698 and 2688 Ma (Valiquette, 1963).

The Nisk Project lies within the Bande du Lac des Montagnes volcano-sedimentary formation (“BLM”) of the Nemiscau subprovince, between the Champion Lake granitoids and orthogneiss and the Opatica NE, which is made of orthogneiss and undifferentiated granitoids.

The Nisk deposit is hosted in an elongated body of a serpentinized ultramafic and/or peridotite unit that intrudes the Bande du Lac des Montagnes volcano-sedimentary formation (“BLM”) paragneiss (sedimentary derived), orthogneiss (igneous derived) and amphibolite/mafic volcanic sequences. This ultramafic body is historically interpreted as a conformable sill, however recent mapping and drilling completed by Power-Nickel, shows that the contact between the felsic units (hanging wall) and the ultramafic unit is unconformable.

The ultramafic hosting the Ni-Cu-Co-PGE Nisk deposit consists of a layered intrusive. The main layers include pyroxenite at the top (clinopyroxenite, websterite, orthopyroxenite), a grey colour peridotite and a black serpentinized dunite at the bottom. Locally secondary layers can alternate the same sequence at smaller scale.The Nisk Ni- Cu-Co-PGE deposit occurs as a layer of semi-massive to massive sulphide mineralized zone deposited at the base of a black serpentinized dunitelayer, as described above. This main mineralized zone generally strikes N245°, and dips steeply (75° to 80°) to the northwest. To date, the mineralized main zone has been traced over a strike length of over 900 meters and approximately 500 meters vertical depth and is 0.5-32 meters wide (average horizontal width of >5 meters). The deposit remains open at depth and along strike in both directions (east and west).

The concentration of sulphides in the Nisk deposit varies from very low (1 to 2%) to massive (100%), with an average of 45 to 50%. Sulphide mineralization of the Nisk deposit consists essentially of pyrrhotite (Fe1-xS), chalcopyrite (CuFeS2), pentlandite [(Fe, Ni)9S8] and pyrite (FeS2).

Three sets of fault groups have been interpreted and correlated with new data from a 2023 Ambient Noise Tomography (“ANT”) survey. These faults generated late-stage deformation causing the Nisk deposit to be locally displaced and/or off-set. This deformation of the Nisk deposit is interpreted to control two main high-grade trends within the deposit.

The Nisk deposit appears to be a classic magmatic nickel sulphide deposit associated with an ultramafic intrusion.

The fall 2021 drilling campaign on the Nisk Project was performed by Forage Val-d’Or Inc. from Val-d’Or, Quebec. Seven (7) holes were successfully drilled during the 2021 drilling campaign totalling 2,394 meters. In 2022, Power Nickel drilled thirty-eight (38) holes totalling 4,973 meters, performed by Forage Val-d’Or Inc. In 2023, Power Nickel drilled thirteen (13) holes totalling 5,204 meters. Mid-way through the year, the drilling contractor was switched from Forage Val-d’Or Inc to Forage RJLL, based in Rouyn-Noranda, Quebec. Drilling was completed with NQ size rods.

Power Nickel has successfully intersected the known mineralization both along strike and at depth, with the trend remaining open in all directions.

Completed core logging and sampling descriptions are exported into a Geospark™ database format as well as an Excel spreadsheet. The data is sent to the geologist in charge of the project, to validate and integrate the data into the current Leapfrog™ model.

Power Nickel has a QA/QC program for drill core that includes the insertion of blanks, standards (certified reference material; or CRM) and duplicates in the flow stream of core samples. For each group of fifty (500) samples, the issuer inserted one blank, one standard.

The authors are of the opinion that the sample preparation, analysis, security procedures and QA/QC protocols used by Power Nickel for the Nisk Project are appropriate and adequate for an advanced exploration project, the data is of good quality and satisfactory for use in the current Mineral Resource Estimate.

Power Nickel has also completed multiple airborne and ground-based surveys over the Property.

A high-resolution heli-borne geophysical survey was flown in April 2023, including magnetic and time-domain electromagnetic components. Several EM anomalies were identified, both correlated with the known mineralization and with suspected extensions and new potential mineralized structures.

In July 2023 a program of mapping, prospecting, and sample collecting was undertaken on the property, delimiting and testing outcrops. In addition to identifying new ultramafic rock outcrops to aid in projecting the extensions of the mineralization, many pegmatite dykes were sampled and showed potential for Lithium and other rare earth metal mineralization (Table 6).

An airborne LiDAR (“Light Detection and Ranging”) and air photography survey was flown in August 2023. This provided detailed 10 cm resolution orthophotos and highly detailed topographical data across the property. These are very useful to identify new outcrops, geological trends, surface characteristics, and for planning of drilling and field work programs, as well as refining the topographic control for the MRE.

From July to October 2023, ANT surveys were conducted across the Main Zone and the Wildcat target, using the services of Fleet Space Technologies. ANT surveys record seismic data from ambient sources across a distributed grid of instruments (as opposed to an active seismic survey which includes creating the seismic waves from a point source). The seismic data is processed to build a three-dimensional model of the variation in wave velocities through the rock, which can be used as an analogue to lithology. The ANT surveys identified new potential massive sulphide targets on the property as well as improved the understanding of fault offsets on the known mineralization.

Results obtained during the 2021 drilling program are from 7 holes that were planned to either confirm or expand the historical resources reported in 2009. These results, presented below, successfully demonstrated the existence of the Nisk main mineralized lense, and appear to be representative of what was expected from the historical work.

* UTM NAD83, Zone 18N

** True widths are estimated to be 70 to 90% of core length

The table above and the illustration below detail the current results and location of drill holes covered in the releases dated March 1, March 14, and March 30, 2022.

Recent assay results from the current drill program at the Nisk deposit continue to return high grade Ni-Cu-Co sulphide and PGE mineralization.

These initial drill results confirm the presence of high-grade Ni-Cu-Co-PGE mineralization in the Nisk Main zone and extends mineralization by an additional 150 metres at depth and to the east and below to central portion.

Table 1 below presents the significant results received to date from drill holes PN-22-008 through to PN-22-021.

Fourteen (14) holes were completed in the fall of 2022 for the second phase of drilling at Nisk. An additional seven (7) holes have been completed in the winter 2023 drill program. This release comprises results covering the mineralized target for five (5) holes: PN-22-011, PN-22-012, PN-22-014, PN-22-017 and PN-22-018.

Significant results from PN-22-014 have confirmed the presence of nickel mineralization in the areas defined as targets. Such assay indicates that the mineralization extends to a minimum of 150 metres below the deepest known intercepts.

Figure 2 and 3 below present section views along the two of the reported drillholes.

The results in Holes PN-22-011 and PN-22-012 were significant, maintaining a very high NIEQ Flow that is continuing at depth. Peripheral holes PN-22-014, and PN-22-017 showed to be just outside the river of nickel but even so had some interesting kicker zones. Adding these holes to holes 22-009 from earlier in the campaign and PN-21-003A from the first drill program and we are seeing a very robust drill response.

 

Power Nickel commissioned Expert Process Solutions (“XPS”), based in Sudbury, Ontario to study the mineralogical and metallurgical characterization of the Nisk deposit, and to perform a locked cycle test (“LCT”) to demonstrate metal recoveries.

In concert with Power Nickel, XPS selected drill core to be split for a sample representing a mix of massive sulphide, semi-massive sulphide, and blebby-disseminated sulphide material that reflected the make-up of the known and modelled deposit.

Nickel mineralization is found to be primarily carried by the mineral pentlandite, Copper is carried in by two minerals, chalcopyrite and valleriite.

The proposed milling and recovery process include an initial grind to a p80 of 75 μm, followed by a conditioner and rougher flotation circuit. This is followed by a regrind to a p80 of 25 μm, and then four cleaner circuits.

The results of the LCT project the potential to produce a marketable concentrate with a grade of 12.9% Ni, 4.9% Cu, 0.92% Co, and 14.16 g/t Pd (Table 7), reflecting a 70% recovery rate for Ni.

PLR Resources Inc. was retained by Power Nickel to produce a Mineral Resource Estimate for the Nisk Project, which incorporates historical drilling data and recent drilling programs. Drillhole information up to November 26, 2023 was considered for this estimate.

The independent qualified person for the 2023 MRE, as defined by National Instrument ("NI") 43-101 guidelines, is Pierre Luc Richard, P.Geo. of PLR Resources. Jeffrey Cassoff, P.Eng. of BBA is the independent qualified person for the Pit shell analysis and cut-off grade calculations. Gordon Marrs, P.Eng. of XPS is the independent qualified person for Metallurgy and Smelter Costs.

Since acquiring the Project, drilling activities focussed mainly on validating historical programs and developing a NI 43-101 compliant Mineral Resource Estimate. The drilling program was underway when the MRE cut-off date was determined and therefore drillholes with pendant assay results were discarded. It is the QP’s opinion that adding these holes to the model would not have had a material impact on the current MRE.

Leapfrog Geo™ was used for the modelling of the mineralized and host rock solids and for the generation of the drillhole intercepts for each solid. Leapfrog Edge™ was used for the compositing, the 3D block modelling, for the interpolation, and reporting. Statistical studies were conducted using Excel and Snowden Supervisor.

The methodology for the estimation of the mineral resources involved the following steps:

• Database verification
• 3D modelling of the mineralized zone
• Drillhole intercept and composite generation
• Basic statistics
• Capping
• Geostatistical analysis including variography
• Block modelling and grade interpolation
• Block model validation
• Mineral resource classification
• Cut-off grade calculation and pit shell optimization
• Preparation of the mineral resource statement

The Mineral Resource Estimate presented (Table 1) is either constrained within pit shells developed from the pit optimization analysis discussed above or presented as underground mineral resources using appropriate cut-off grades and reasonable potential mining shapes which include must-take material.