First Phosphate Has C$21.5 Million in Signed Federal Contributions

Ottawa has signed three agreements to pay for study work at the Bégin-Lamarche phosphate project in Quebec's Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region. First Phosphate Corp. signed a C$16.7 million contribution agreement with Natural Resources Canada on March 4, 2026, and two further agreements worth C$4.84 million, announced on August 5, 2026, for a power transmission line and a mine access road.

All three are non-repayable. The money does not have to be paid back and no shares are issued for it. The company's October 2026 corporate presentation adds them up to about C$21.5 million of Government of Canada support.

On Thursday, 22 October, the company is scheduled to present at Kinvestor Day 2026, a free virtual investor conference run by the Vancouver investor-relations firm Kin Communications, at 7:00 a.m. Pacific, according to Kin's release of 20 October.

Kin Communications issued the schedule release. First Phosphate's own news archive, read on October 20, 2026, lists no company release dated in October; its most recent releases cover the SERV letter of support on September 16 and the peer-reviewed deposit study on September 21.

The federal agreements are the part of the plan that is already signed.

What the federal money pays for

The larger agreement comes from the Global Partnerships Initiative at Natural Resources Canada. The company's release of March 16, 2026 says it funds technical and engineering work, including the processing circuits needed to show that Bégin-Lamarche can produce phosphate concentrate of the purity that lithium iron phosphate batteries require, and a feasibility study of the integrated mine and processing project. Eligible activities run to 2028.

Lithium iron phosphate, usually shortened to LFP, is the cathode chemistry used in a growing share of electric-vehicle and grid-storage batteries. The cathode is the positive electrode, and in an LFP cell it is built from iron, lithium and purified phosphate. China is also the largest miner of the raw material: the US Geological Survey's Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 estimate world phosphate rock production at 250 million tonnes in 2025, 110 million of them in China, a figure for all phosphate rock, most of it destined for fertiliser rather than batteries. A Quebec source is the reason for federal interest.

The smaller pair comes from the First and Last Mile Fund at the same department. According to the August 5 release, about C$3.07 million goes to studies for a 161-kilovolt transmission line and substations, and about C$1.77 million to preparatory work on a new access road and on upgrades linking the mine to rail and the Port of Saguenay. The release presents both as additional to the March agreement, not part of it.

How the contribution money arrives

A contribution agreement pays as the work is done. The company spends on eligible activities, claims the costs, and the department reimburses them.

The audited statements for the year ended February 28, 2026 show the mechanism at work. Note 21 records reimbursements of C$410,371 earned in that fiscal year, after conditional approval on January 9, 2026. The remaining C$16,307,351 had not yet been booked as a receivable at February 28, 2026; the statements say it had not been accrued because the company had determined that there was still collection uncertainty.

Sources: company releases of March 16, July 13, August 5 and September 16, 2026.

So the C$21.5 million is a commitment that turns into cash over the life of the studies through 2028. It is the funding for the feasibility study and the infrastructure planning, the work that has to exist before anyone can price a mine.

The company's own balance sheet

Cash and cash equivalents were C$20,190,457 at February 28, 2026, up from C$1,873,550 a year earlier, according to the audited annual statements filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Form 40-F.

Total liabilities were C$3,891,993 at February 28, 2026, and the October 2026 presentation describes the company as debt free. In Note 2 of its interim statements for the three months ended May 31, 2026, the company states that it "has raised adequate financing that is sufficient to sustain operations for the next twelve months."

Spending rose with the work. Operating activities used C$21,239,861 of cash in the year to February 28, 2026, much of it exploration and study work on the deposit.

After the year end, First Phosphate closed a private placement on July 10, 2026 for gross proceeds of C$17,698,290, according to its release of July 13. Most of it came from flow-through shares. A flow-through share passes the company's Canadian exploration tax deductions to the buyer, and the proceeds must be spent on qualifying exploration in Canada. The release sets the deemed price of the compensation shares at C$2.00, and the proceeds divided by the shares issued give the same C$2.00.

The condensed interim statements for the three months ended May 31, 2026 (Form 40-F/A, Exhibit 99.92) show cash and cash equivalents of C$15,996,340 and total liabilities of C$4,364,986 at that date, before the July placement.

The newest statements, for the six months ended August 31, 2026 and filed on SEDAR+ on October 15, 2026, show cash and cash equivalents of C$19,949,271 at August 31, 2026, after the July placement. Total liabilities were C$4,938,469 at August 31, 2026.

The audited statements count 177,199,011 shares issued at February 28, 2026. The presentation gives 190,419,664 at October 16, 2026, an increase that includes the July placement.

The deposit behind it

Bégin-Lamarche is an igneous phosphate deposit, meaning the phosphate formed in cooling magma rather than in sedimentary layers on an ancient sea floor. The company argues that igneous rock carries fewer impurities such as cadmium and uranium, which matters for battery-grade material. A peer-reviewed study of the deposit appeared in Ore Geology Reviews, according to the company's release of September 21, 2026.

The updated mineral resource estimate, effective May 1, 2026 and announced on May 26, puts measured and indicated resources at 204.7 million tonnes grading 6.05 per cent phosphorus pentoxide, the standard measure of phosphate content. More tonnage sits in the lower-confidence inferred category. Measured and indicated resources have enough drilling behind them to support a mine plan; inferred resources do not. The supporting technical report under National Instrument 43-101, Canada's disclosure standard for mineral projects, was filed in August by Antoine Yassa of P&E Mining Consultants, the qualified person who signed it.

Maple reported that resource on October 15, 2026, in its coverage of the deposit update. The October presentation sets the dates around it, and targets the feasibility study for the first quarter of 2027. Environmental studies and Quebec's public hearings follow in the third quarter of 2027, with permit applications in early 2028 and commercial production in 2030. The project holds fast-track status in Quebec.

Building the mine is a separate financing

The study money and the treasury pay for the work up to a construction decision. The mine and its processing plant are a different scale. The preliminary economic assessment of December 2024, as summarised in the company's release of February 27, 2025, estimated mine build capital at US$459 million. A phosphoric acid plant, a separate project, was put at US$175 million in an internal pre-feasibility and capex study by Ballestra S.p.A. that the same release says is not NI 43-101 compliant. A preliminary economic assessment is an early study that may use inferred resources, and its figures carry a wide margin of error.

For that stage, the company has lined up support from export-credit agencies, which are government-backed lenders and insurers that help finance projects buying equipment from their home countries. Switzerland's SERV issued a letter of support, announced on September 16, 2026, under which it "is prepared to consider" guarantees on about US$212.5 million of buyer credit for Swiss equipment. The release ties it to SERV's due diligence and a definitive agreement. The presentation lists a Danish export-credit guarantee letter of intent for about US$190 million and an export-credit guarantee letter of intent from SACE, CDP, SIMEST and MAIRE for the phosphoric acid plant at Port Saguenay.

The export-credit letters would be debt if they become binding agreements; the construction financing package has not yet been announced.

The federal contributions are non-repayable and issue no shares, and the company calls them non-dilutive support in its presentation. They are directed at studies and infrastructure planning, not at construction.

Where the price sits, and where the shares trade

First Phosphate's shares ended the session at C$1.77 on the Canadian Securities Exchange on October 20, 2026, up 2.31 per cent, per end-of-day data read at 14:00 Pacific on October 20, 2026. QuoteMedia data (15-minute delayed, secondary market data) gave a 50-day average of C$2.169, and the exchange shows a 52-week high of C$2.78.

At the close, on 190,419,664 shares issued, the company's market value was near C$337 million.

First Phosphate trades on the CSE under PHOS, on Nasdaq as PHOS through American depositary receipts since August 10, 2026, according to the company's uplisting release, on OTCQX as FRSPF and in Frankfurt under the symbol KD0, WKN A3DQCH, ISIN CA33611D1033, with the Frankfurt identifiers per Deutsche Börse's instrument page. Deutsche Börse showed no price or turnover for the Frankfurt line when its page was read on October 20, 2026, so the CSE line sets the price.

Thursday's presentation and the dates after it

Between March 4 and August 5, 2026 the company signed C$21.5 million of federal study funding, and in July 2026 it closed a C$17.7 million placement. Its second-quarter statements, for the period ended August 31, 2026, were filed on October 15, 2026; the cash and liabilities they show at August 31 are set out above.

On Thursday, 22 October, First Phosphate presents that plan at Kinvestor Day, with the feasibility study the next milestone it has dated.