Forge Resources Intends to Apply for Export Permits to Ship Coal Samples to U.S. Laboratory for Metallurgical and Thermal Testing

Vancouver, May 12, 2026 - Forge Resources Corp. (CSE: FRG) (OTCQB: FRGGF) (FSE: 5YZ) ("Forge" or the "Company") announces its intention to apply for export permits to send representative coal samples from its La Estrella Colombian project to a U.S.-based laboratory for advanced metallurgical and thermal testing. If approved, the samples would be analyzed by Matexcel to assess key thermal and steelmaking characteristics, including coke strength, fluidity, ash composition, volatile matter, sulfur content, and overall carbon performance. The results will inform classification within global thermal and metallurgical coal markets and guide further technical planning.

Strategic Context

Metallurgical coal has recently been elevated within U.S. policy frameworks as a strategically significant industrial input. In 2025, the U.S. Department of Energy designated metallurgical coal as a "critical material," followed by the U.S. Department of the Interior classifying it as a "critical mineral." These designations reinforce its importance to national industrial capacity and may support expedited permitting pathways, enhanced funding eligibility, and broader alignment with critical materials policy frameworks. In parallel, U.S. legislative initiatives - including the Critical Mineral Consistency Act of 2025 and the Finding ORE Act - aim to harmonize federal critical minerals lists and expand strategic resource mapping and oversight. Recent federal fiscal policy has also incorporated metallurgical coal into advanced manufacturing production incentive frameworks, further integrating it into U.S. industrial and energy security strategy.

Collectively, these developments reflect a broader reclassification of metallurgical coal as a strategic input material essential to steel production, industrial resilience, and defense-adjacent manufacturing capacity, rather than solely a traditional bulk commodity.

About Forge Resources Corp.

Forge Resources Corp. is a Canadian-listed junior exploration company. The Company holds an 80% in Aion Mining Corp., a company that is developing the fully permitted La Estrella coal project in Santander, Colombia. La Estrella contains eight known seams of metallurgical and thermal coal.

The Company also holds an option on the Alotta project, a prospective porphyry copper-gold-molybdenum project consisting of 230 mineral claims that cover 4,723 hectares, located 50 km south-east of the Casino porphyry deposit in the unglaciated portion of the Dawson Range porphyry/epithermal belt in the Yukon Territory of Canada.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain of the statements made and information contained herein may contain forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities laws. Forward-looking information in this press release includes, but is not limited to, information concerning the intended application for export permits. Forward-looking information is based on the views, opinions, intentions and estimates of management at the date the information is made, and is based on a number of assumptions and subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated or projected in the forward-looking information (including the actions of other parties who have agreed to do certain things and the approval of certain regulatory bodies). Many of these assumptions are based on factors and events that are not within the control of the Company and there is no assurance they will prove to be correct. There can be no assurance that forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change except as required by applicable securities laws, or to comment on analyses, expectations or statements made by third parties in respect of the Company, its financial or operating results or its securities. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking information. We seek safe harbor.

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