Eastport advances Semarule with positive assay findings

Eastport Critical Metals Corp. is pleased to announce continued positive assay results from the diamond drill program at the Semarule Project, prospective for rare-earth elements (“REE”), in south-central Botswana. Semarule is located approximately 40km north-west of the capital city, Gaborone.

Daniel Major, Chief Executive Officer, commented; “Following the success of SEM005, holes SEM006 & SEM007 have again returned hundreds of metres of rare earth mineralisation within a ~15km2 large syenite complex, continuing to support the material scale of the Semarule system.

SEM007 returned 347m at 0.20% TREO from surface, including 14.5m at 0.47% with magnet rare earth oxides averaging ~29% of TREO which is consistently tracking across the holes and is key to unlocking economic value within the TREO-pricing basket where having concentration of high-value metals can often be of more economic value than grade alone.

The drilling thus far, supported by the ongoing mineralogical study and geophysics is supporting mineralisation being associated with altered mafic syenite. Planned Phase 2 developments will look to follow that geology to test the grade variability near-surface or whether the mineralisation and grade profile differ materially at even greater depths.

This has been an excellent start to our exploration campaign. Confirming another mineral discovery within the Eastport asset base further reflects the exceptional geological environment within Botswana.”

Background

The eight hole Semarule diamond drilling progam was designed to target both the exposed syenite geology and the geophysical gravity anomaly cross section. The Semarule rare earths project hosts several sizeable mineralised syenite-alkaline granite intrusions, including the Semarule Syenite Hill, exposed over a 5 x 3 km area and consisting of syenite with carbonatite dykes.

Archaean Gaborone granite underlies the Semarule area and is host to the intrusions, suggesting that the Semarule syenite resulted from in situ metasomatism or fractionation of the host granite, followed by intrusions of syenite. The syenites host the REE mineralisation, and the results to date confirm that the more mafic syenite intrusions report elevated REE concentrations.

Based on the exploration completed to date at the Project, including the recent drilling results, reported by the Company support the exploration model that Semarule prospect hosts a significant REE anomaly. The highest grade mineralized intersection reported to date is in hole SEM005, which returned a 47.5m at 0.64% TREO from 20m downhole depth, as reported on 14 September 2026. This intersection coincides with mafic-rich syenite.

The importance of these findings is that mafic-rich syenites host some of the world’s largest REE deposits, including Norra Karr, Lovozero, Strange Lake, Chishan, Longbaoshan and Wicheeda. In these deposits fractional crystallisation, leads to concentration of incompatible elements such as Niobium, Zirconium, and Yttrium in the residual melt, eventually forming REE-bearing minerals. The drilling results received to date confirm the presence of a large REE system with TREO grades reported to over 300 metres in each of the three drill holes reported to date.

The Semarule results to date are supported by historical exploration drilling undertaken by the Botswana Geoscience Institute (BGI)^[1] who positioned two boreholes to test geochemical and geophysical anomalies. BGIS dillhole SEM_BH_001 was positioned on a surface geochemical anomaly of ±13,000ppm TREE in mafic-rich syenite. BGI reported that SEM_BH_001 showed prominent enrichment in the mafic rich syenites with 14 samples from 25 samples showing over 3,000 ppm TREE, and with one outlier sample taken from weathered syenite at 11m downhole returning ±36,000ppm TREE (note BGI reported Total Rare Earth Elements (TREE) before they are converted into their oxide forms which report on average 17% higher).

The significant calculated rare earth oxide downhole depth intersections for drill holes SEM006 and SEM007 are provided in Tables 1 and 2.

Assay results provided by certified laboratory SGS South Africa Pty Ltd. using the ICP/IMS Combination Package (method codes ICP90A/IMS90A), for standard 2.5m length quartered NQ diameter (47.6mm) core samples in the case of SEM006 and with variable sample lengths up to 3.8m based on geological variations for hole SEM007. Sampling was conducted over the entire length of each hole.

Table 1: Drill hole SEM007 significant calculated rare earth oxide downhole depth intersections

Table 2: Drill hole SEM006 significant calculated rare earth oxide downhole depth intersections

QA/QC

Eastport’s Semarule diamond core drill program utilised a NQ size drill bit (47.6 mm core diameter). Collars are located using a hand-held GPS (projection: UTM zone 35 south, WGS84 datum). Core was captured and placed in aluminium core trays and then transported from site to Lobatse, Botswana by Eastport personnel. In Lobatse, the core was XRF scanned using a Vanta Evident hand-held XRF (serial number 994113), measured, logged, ¼ cut and sampled. All cutting used a diamond bladed rock saw.

Each ¼ core sample was collected in unmarked clear plastic bags. Sample tags were stapled inside the plastic bag. Five samples were then placed inside a poly-weave bag, sealed and transported by Eastport personnel to Aramax Couriers in Gaborone, Botswana. The batches were then delivered overnight to the laboratory of SGS South Africa in Randfontein, RSA. All samples are export controlled by the Botswana Government using export permits.

Sample rejects are discarded but sample pulps will be returned to Eastport Ventures Botswana within sixty days of reporting the analytical results. These pulps will be used for quality control procedures.

At SGS South Africa, samples are checked against the submittal form and sample list. The company receives verification of the number and correct sequencing of the samples.

Each entire sample is crushed using a Boyd crusher. The crusher is cleaned using barren material and air after each sample. The crushed sample is then split using an RSD splitter and 250g is subsequently milled down to -75 micron passing 85%.

Five grams of the milled sample is used for ICP analysis using SGS procedure ICP90A/IMS90A. SGS South Africa is accredited to international quality standards of ISO17025.