Subsequent to year-end, on January 6, 2026, CORFO (the Chilean Economic Development Agency) officially announced the selection of the project entitled “Sustainable Cobalt: A Semi-Industrial Validation of the Green Cobalt Biotechnological Process Integrated with an Extractive Metallurgical Strategy Focused on Tailings and Circular Mining” (the “Project”) for a $3,000,000 R&D Contribution (the “Grant”), which is to be funded by Albemarle Limitada under agreement with CORFO to support research and development programs vetted and approved by CORFO. The Project objective is to recover marketable volumes of cobalt product from tailings and mining waste. The Company is one participant in a consortium of industry sponsors for the Project and has committed to providing $200,000 overall support consisting of half monetary and half in-kind support over the expected three-year project timeline. The Company’s support equates to approximately 21% of the overall consortium-required support contribution of $950,000 toward the project. The other key participants in the consortium are Universidad Andres Belo, through its Center for Systems Biotechnology, Pucobre (SSE: PUCOBRE), a Chilean copper mining company listed on the Santiago Stock Exchange, and ENAMI, Chile’s state-owned mining company.

Subsequent to year-end, on January 8, 2026, the Company entered into a binding earn-in and option agreement with NeoRe SpA, a privately-held Chilean Company to acquire approximately 6,300 hectares of mining concessions (the “Properties”) within the coastal belt region near Concepcion Chile with an ionic adsorption clay-style rare earth elements system enriched with yttrium, neodymium, dysprosium and terbium elements critical to defense and advanced manufacturing supply chains. If the option to acquire the mining concessions for development contributions and 6,000,000 common shares of the Company is not exercised, the Company may still earn as much as a 2% net smelter return royalty (“NSR”) on the Properties, depending on the phase of project development achieved through funding by the Company, subject to a maximum of $3,000,000USD to be contributed over an expected nine to eighteen month expected scale-up period to production. Upon exercise of the option, a definitive agreement for the acquisition of the Properties would outline the conditions precedent, project management and environmental, social and governance commitments. The Company is not obligated to proceed with the earn-in contributions or the acquisition of the Properties if its ongoing due diligence or other strategic priorities dictate otherwise, however, any amounts contributed that do not go toward the earning of an additional NSR stake are non-refundable.