Critical One Energy Inc. (CSE: CRTL) has signed a binding memorandum of understanding with Solar International Core Canada (SICC) for a C$425-million investment and offtake package tied to its flagship Howells Lake antimony-gold project in northwestern Ontario, positioning the company as a co-development partner in a Canadian critical minerals supply chain.

SICC is a strategic investment and operating firm whose institutional financing partnerships include the Sultanate of Oman Sovereign Wealth Fund. The MOU brings together SICC as principal capital and offtake partner and Northlink Development Group as developer and project manager of a planned Ontario antimony processing facility.

The package comprises three components. First, SICC will invest C$15 million in strategic equity at C$1.20 per share for 12.5 million common shares without warrant exposure — a 48% premium to the closing price of C$0.81 on October 28, 2026 — giving SICC a 12% interest on a fully diluted basis, a 12-month voluntary lock-up and the right to nominate one director to Critical One’s board.

Second, SICC will use commercially reasonable efforts to deliver, within 90 days, an indicative term sheet for a construction debt facility of up to C$400 million to fund industrial mine and plant infrastructure.

Third, SICC holds exclusive offtake rights to purchase up to 150 million pounds of future antimony production from Howells Lake at international benchmark prices. SICC is also funding a C$10 million commitment representing Critical One’s carried equity interest in the planned Ontario processing facility developed by Northlink.

Through the partnership, Critical One participates as both a future antimony feedstock supplier from Howells Lake and a carried equity partner in the processing facility.

“Being positioned as a strategic co-development partner, with returns from processing as well as mining, elevates Critical One’s growth strategy,” said Executive Chairman and CEO Duane Parnham. “We are advancing our geological results into a development plan that returns benefits directly to our shareholders and the Eabametoong First Nation community”.

Marc Kealey, Vice-Chairman of SICC, framed the deal as a response to supply chain vulnerability. “This collaboration with Critical One Energy is a decisive step toward closing critical vulnerabilities in North American critical minerals supply chains,” he said. “By integrating upstream Canadian feedstock with domestic refining infrastructure, we are creating an integrated, value-added supply ecosystem that keeps economic benefits, processing intellectual property, and high-skilled jobs inside Canada”.

Howells Lake is located in the homelands of the Eabametoong First Nation, approximately 120 kilometres west of the Ring of Fire access corridor in the Thunder Bay Mining Division. The property spans 26 kilometres and is described as Canada’s largest undeveloped antimony deposit.

Critical One is advancing a 20,000-metre drilling programme to establish a maiden mineral resource estimate for the East Zone, running alongside consultation with the Eabametoong First Nation. An independent NI 43-101 technical report by Micon International in September 2026 traced antimony mineralisation over more than 300 metres of strike and 200 metres of depth, open to the northeast and at depth, including intercepts of 8.0 metres grading 42.2% antimony, including 4.0 metres at 70.2%.

The company cautions that future production is not guaranteed and Howells Lake does not yet have an NI 43-101 compliant mineral resource.

The MOU sets out a 90-day window for due diligence and work toward indicative construction financing terms, alongside metallurgical test work and resource drilling. Additional metallurgical testing will determine how Howells Lake material can be processed and what product it can deliver, while the funded drilling programme is designed to deliver a maiden resource estimate for the East Zone.

For Critical One, the agreement secures capital, a processing route and a buyer before its first mineral resource estimate — an unusual position for a junior developer and a signal of the strategic premium now attached to non-Chinese antimony supply.