Graphite has been getting a lot more attention lately, and Canadian investors have had some pretty compelling reasons to notice.

One example is HydroGraph Clean Power Inc. (CSE: HG) (OTCQB: HGRAF). The graphene producer has become one of the more closely watched Canadian-listed names in the broader graphite and advanced-materials space following a significant move in its shares. Investing News Network recently ranked HydroGraph among its top Canadian graphite stocks for 2026 and reported a year-to-date gain of more than 1,300% at the time of publication.

HydroGraph isn’t a conventional graphite miner; it manufactures high-purity graphene using a patented process that uses acetylene and oxygen rather than mined graphite, but its rise has helped put a spotlight on the broader carbon-materials opportunity.

And it got me thinking.

What is happening with graphite itself?

We constantly hear about lithium, uranium, copper, and gold, but graphite doesn’t always receive the same attention from retail investors. Yet graphite is an important material for lithium-ion batteries and could have growing relevance across energy storage, industrial applications and defence.

There is also a geopolitical component.

According to First Canadian Graphite CEO John LaGourge, China currently accounts for approximately 80% to 90% of global graphite processing. He also told me graphite can account for up to 30% of an EV battery.

That raised an obvious question for me as an investor:

If Canada and the U.S. continue trying to secure domestic critical-mineral supply chains, could graphite be one of the next commodities to capture significantly more investor attention?

That’s what led me to First Canadian Graphite Corporation.

The company is advancing a graphite exploration project in Quebec and recently identified a large electromagnetic target known as Zone 13.

I was curious about the company as a potential investment, but before forming an opinion, I wanted to better understand both sides of the story: Why graphite, and what could First Canadian Graphite actually have on its hands?

So I reached out directly to the CEO, John LaGourge, and asked him to walk me through it.

What Caught My Attention About First Canadian Graphite

First Canadian Graphite has been in existence for approximately a decade, but LaGourge represents new management. He told me he became involved in late 2025 and subsequently raised capital to begin advancing the company’s Quebec project more aggressively.

FCI flew an airborne electromagnetic (EM) survey over their claims, which had never previously been explored. This led the company to a significant new discovery area it calls Zone 13.

According to LaGourge, the anomaly currently measures approximately four kilometres along strike and up to 600 metres wide, while initial geophysical interpretation suggests it could extend to depths of approximately 200 metres.

Those dimensions caught my attention, but they’re also important to put into context.

A large geophysical anomaly is not the same thing as a defined mineral resource. Further exploration and drilling should help determine the extent, continuity and grade of any graphite mineralisation.

That’s what makes the next stage interesting.

Could Grade Become an Advantage?

Grade is another part of the story I’m watching.

LaGourge told me many graphite deposits globally average approximately 5% to 6%, while the company’s broader Quebec district has demonstrated considerably higher grades in certain areas.

First Canadian Graphite has also completed early field sampling. According to LaGourge, some samples returned assays of up to 43% graphite.

Individual high-grade samples don’t mean Zone 13 averages 43%, nor do they establish an economic resource. But they could provide another reason to investigate the target.

If future drilling demonstrates substantial tonnage with consistently attractive grades, it could potentially have implications for project economics. Higher grades may allow more graphite to be recovered from the same amount of processed material, although metallurgy, recoveries, capital requirements and numerous other factors would ultimately need to be considered.

Why Quebec Could Matter

The project is located in Quebec’s Manicouagan region, north of Baie-Comeau.

LaGourge told me the property benefits from year-round road access and is approximately 50 kilometres from the Manic-5 hydroelectric facility and associated Hydro-Québec infrastructure. Baie-Comeau also provides access to port and rail infrastructure.

None of these factors guarantees that a future mine will be economic, but existing roads, electricity, and transportation infrastructure could reduce some of the development challenges faced by more remote exploration projects.

Quebec’s broader push to develop its critical-minerals sector could provide another potential tailwind.

The Catalyst I’m Watching: Drilling

For me, the most important part of this story is what happens next.

The company has completed fieldwork, collected samples and, according to LaGourge, sent metallurgical samples to Corem for testing.

Additional EM surveying is planned to better define Zone 13, followed by 3D modelling and further surface exploration.

Then comes the major test:

Drilling.

LaGourge told me the company is targeting drilling around November and discussed a potential 20,000-metre drill program.

He suggested that if the asset performs as management hopes, a program of that scale could potentially support defining up to approximately 50 million tonnes.

To be clear, that is not a current mineral resource. It represents management’s view of what could potentially be achievable if future exploration supports its geological interpretation.

That’s exactly why the drilling matters.

If the results demonstrate scale, continuity, and attractive grades, the company could progress toward a formal mineral resource estimate. If they don’t, the investment thesis would need to be reassessed.

What I’ll Be Watching

During our interview, we discussed First Canadian Graphite, which has a market capitalisation of approximately C$18 million to C$20 million.

A relatively small valuation can provide significant leverage to exploration success, but it also reflects the risks associated with an early-stage company that still has to prove its resource.

Rather than trying to predict the outcome, I’m watching a few key questions:

How large is Zone 13? Are the high grades repeatable? What does the metallurgy show? And can management execute on its exploration timeline?

But I’m also watching graphite itself.

Stocks such as HydroGraph have shown that Canadian investors are paying attention to opportunities in advanced carbon materials. HydroGraph’s story is very different from that of a graphite explorer, but the investor interest surrounding the company made me want to better understand the upstream graphite opportunity as well.

If Canada and the U.S. continue to prioritise secure critical-mineral supply chains while demand from batteries, energy storage, defence and other applications grows, graphite could become much more visible to Canadian investors.

First Canadian Graphite still has plenty to prove.

But that’s also what makes the next stage interesting.

I’ll be watching the drill results.

Disclosure & Disclaimer

I independently reached out to First Canadian Graphite Corporation and its CEO, John LaGourge, to learn more about the company and the graphite sector. No fee or compensation was paid by First Canadian Graphite Corporation for this interview or resulting editorial coverage.

This article is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Statements concerning First Canadian Graphite’s properties, grades, exploration targets, potential tonnage, future resources, economics and timelines are primarily based on comments made by company management during my interview and have not been independently verified by Boreal Markets unless otherwise stated.

Exploration targets, geophysical anomalies, historical resources and individual assay results should not be interpreted as current mineral resources, reserves or evidence of an economically viable mine. Junior mining securities are speculative and can be highly volatile.

References to HydroGraph Clean Power are provided for market context only and should not be interpreted as suggesting that HydroGraph and First Canadian Graphite have equivalent businesses, assets or investment characteristics.

Readers should conduct their own due diligence, review each company’s official regulatory filings and continuous disclosure, and consult a qualified financial professional before making investment decisions. My views may change as new information becomes available.

Most people who followed $CYDY remember March 30, 2021. The FDA publicly stated that CytoDyn's claims about leronlimab were "misleading and not supported by the data", no benefit was shown in COVID-19 treatment trials. The stock dropped 25%+ that day.

What happened afterward was a class action lawsuit covering investors who held $CYDY between March 27, 2020 and March 30, 2022.

A $500,000 settlement has been reached and terms are now submitted to the court for approval.

Who qualifies?

Anyone who held $CYDY during the class period and suffered losses from the alleged misrepresentations about leronlimab's effectiveness for HIV and COVID-19.

Can I still apply?

Yes, you can submit your application now and it will be processed once claims filing officially opens after court approval.

If you were damaged by this don't forget to check your eligibility. GL!

Beyond Oil Successfully Completes Industrial-Scale Validation of Patented Chemistry, Demonstrating Substantial Reductions in Harmful Frying-Oil Degradation Compounds

Independent pilot at industrial food-production facility delivers approximately 93% reduction in Free Fatty Acids and approximately 52% reduction in Total Polar Compounds versus untreated control

Results extend Beyond Oil's validated technology into industrial frying amid tightening global regulation of frying-oil composition and worker exposure to frying-oil emissions

August 17, 2026 08:30 ET | Source: Beyond Oil Ltd.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 17, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Beyond Oil Ltd. (TSX: BOIL) (OTCQB: BEOLF) ("Beyond Oil" or the "Company"), a food-tech innovation company dedicated to reducing health risks associated with fried food while improving food quality, minimizing waste and enhancing sustainability, today announced the successful completion of an independent industrial-scale pilot validating its patented filter-powder technology at an industrial food-production facility. The pilot represents the first validated application of Beyond Oil's chemistry in the industrial-frying environment.

Key Results

• Approximately 93% reduction in Free Fatty Acids¹ versus the untreated control, with treated-oil quality remaining within a narrow, stable range across the full production cycle.
• Approximately 52% reduction in Total Polar Compounds² versus the untreated control, with the Beyond Oil-treated fryer remaining well below the 24% regulatory maximum³ throughout the pilot while the untreated control breached that threshold.
• Structured sensory-panel evaluation confirmed the Beyond Oil-treated product retained day-one characteristics across the full pilot period, with clearer and more golden oil, uniform crispness, consistent taste, and no burnt-oil or rancid odors.
• Materially reduced secondary odors in the plant environment during production, with direct implications for workplace conditions and worker exposure to frying-oil emissions over extended shifts.
• Integration with existing plant filtration infrastructure without requiring custom capital equipment, demonstrating operational compatibility of Beyond Oil's chemistry with standard industrial-frying environments.

Industrial pilot results: approximately 93% lower Free Fatty Acids and approximately 52% lower Total Polar Compounds versus untreated control. Source: Data derived from the industrial-scale pilot described in this news release; regulatory maximum reference (24% TPC) per academic and industry-standard sources (see footnote 1).

Jonathan Or, CEO of Beyond Oil, commented: "This pilot is a validation of what Beyond Oil's chemistry is fundamentally about - improving frying across every dimension that matters: food quality, health, worker safety, and sustainability. While our near-term commercial focus remains firmly on the expansion of our direct-sales footprint in the United States for our core foodservice business, this milestone reflects longer-horizon work we have been advancing in parallel - validating that the same patented chemistry performs at industrial scale and delivers the same core outcomes: substantially cleaner oil, safer and higher-quality fried product, and a materially healthier working environment for the people producing that food. It confirms that our technology addresses a system-level problem in how the world produces fried food, independent of customer type or scale of operation, and reinforces the long-term significance of the industrial-frying opportunity for Beyond Oil."

The industrial-frying segment is a large, growing global market. The North American frozen French fries market alone, for example, was valued at approximately US$6.8 billion in 2022 and is projected to reach approximately US$8.1 billion by 2028⁴, while the broader industrial-frying-machine market is projected to grow at a compound annual rate of approximately 7.4% from 2026 through 2034⁵. The performance validated in this pilot underscores the long-term significance of this opportunity for Beyond Oil as the Company continues its principal near-term focus on scaling its foodservice business in the United States.

The pilot was conducted over multiple production days at an industrial food-production facility. Beyond Oil's product was integrated into the plant's existing filtration workflow at end-of-day cycles: hot oil was transferred to an auxiliary mixing and settling tank, treated with a specialized industrial version of Beyond Oil's patented powder, and left overnight for phase separation. The following morning, the clean upper oil phase was returned to the fryer through the facility's standard filtration equipment; the settled powder phase, containing absorbed food particles and degradation compounds, was removed as a low-volume waste stream. An identical untreated fryer was operated in parallel as a control.

Emissions from high-temperature frying are formally classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as a Group 2A ("probably carcinogenic to humans") hazard⁶, and food-safety and occupational-health regulators across major markets have moved in recent years to tighten oversight of frying-oil composition, acrylamide levels in industrially-produced foods, and worker exposure to frying-oil emissions. Regulatory ceilings on Total Polar Compounds in frying oil are set at 24% to 25% across most major markets⁷, with enforcement activity rising in parallel. Beyond Oil's technology is designed to address these converging pressures directly, at the point of oil degradation itself, rather than downstream of it.

Free Fatty Acids and Total Polar Compounds are the two most widely monitored indicators of frying-oil degradation. Both are directly associated with the formation of compounds linked to health risks, including acrylamide, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and trans fats, which accumulate in oil as it degrades and reach both consumers (absorbed into fried food) and production personnel (inhaled as vapor or absorbed through skin exposure). The stability observed in the Beyond Oil-treated fryer across the pilot period reflects consistent oil quality maintained across multiple production cycles - a materially different outcome from the accelerating degradation curve observed in the untreated control.

About Beyond Oil Ltd.

We all love fried food. Let's make it better. Not by changing what people love. By improving the system behind it. Beyond Oil Ltd. (TSX: BOIL) (OTCQB: BEOLF) is a food-tech innovation company on a mission to help foodservice operators improve fried food across every dimension that matters: quality, health, consistency, safety, sustainability and profitability. We achieve these outcomes by improving the system behind every kitchen, the frying performance and oil management that determine what lands on the plate. The Company's patented technology, cleared by the FDA and Health Canada, integrates into existing kitchen workflows to improve frying performance and oil management, helping operators deliver more consistent food, strengthen operational control and reduce oil waste. Beyond Oil's solution serves restaurant chains, supermarkets, hotels, catering, institutions and industrial frying operations worldwide, turning frying into a measurable, repeatable and scalable brand standard. The result is a better frying standard, helping every fryer, every shift and every plate live up to the food people love. For more information, please visit: www.beyondoil.co.

Forward-Looking Statements and Information

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[...] Read the full release here: https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/08/17/3346080/0/en/beyond-oil-successfully-completes-industrial-scale-validation-of-patented-chemistry-demonstrating-substantial-reductions-in-harmful-frying-oil-degradation-compounds.html

Everyone talks about how much Canada needs the U.S.

Critical minerals make that relationship a little more interesting.

CTV reports Ottawa has discussed reducing preferred U.S. access to Canadian critical minerals and energy if tariff negotiations break down. Copper is already on Canada's critical-minerals list, and the bigger global picture explains why this matters. China mines less than 6% of global copper while refining and consuming roughly 53% of supply. That's a pretty wild concentration for a metal becoming increasingly important to AI infrastructure, power grids, defense and manufacturing.

This is why I've been paying more attention to Canadian copper explorers like NRED. Wilmac covers nearly 39.7k acres in BC, roughly 6.2 miles from Hudbay's producing Copper Mountain mine. The company has identified 3 priority exploration areas, multiple interpreted porphyry centres, copper-in-soil values reaching 1,125 ppm, and an interpreted intrusive system roughly 11.2 miles across.

Copper is becoming part of trade negotiations, supply-chain security and defense policy at the same time North America is trying to reduce its exposure to concentrated overseas processing.

That makes promising Canadian copper ground a lot more interesting to me than it was a few years ago.

And $NRED happens to be sitting right in the middle of that theme.

The latest update from NRED is exactly the kind of exploration news I like to see - not another generic "highly prospective" headline, but a specific geophysical target that can actually be tested.

At the Lamont Grid, NRED has confirmed a buried resistivity anomaly at roughly 200-400 metres depth and defined a 42-hectare chargeability target around 300 metres below surface. Even more interesting, the target remains open to the north, giving the company room to expand the survey and better define the system.

What makes this more compelling is the context. Just days earlier, the company reported up to 1.67% copper from Wilmac samples and an updated geological model identifying multiple porphyry targets about 10 km from Copper Mountain. The latest IP/AMT work adds another layer to that picture.

This is still exploration, so the drill bit has the final say. But the progression is becoming pretty interesting - surface copper, intrusive-system interpretation, alteration, magnetic signatures and now a large deep chargeability target.

For me, this is where a junior explorer starts becoming much more interesting. The question is no longer simply whether there is a target at Wilmac. It's whether NRED can turn these targets into a discovery.

0.8%. Seriously?

$32 billion. 140,000 jobs. And that's the potential economic prize from building enough sustainable aviation fuel in Canada to meet just 40% of our own aviation fuel demand by 2040. Those are the findings of a recent macroeconomic study conducted by Airbus and ICF. 

Now for the absurd part.

In 2026, global SAF production is expected to reach approximately 2.4 million tonnes, representing just 0.8% of global aviation fuel consumption. IATA sees SAF playing a major role in aviation's pathway toward net zero, yet production remains a fraction of what could ultimately be required. 

So why aren't we building more of it?

SAF doesn't appear to have an ambition problem. It has an industrialization problem. Producing fuel at meaningful scale requires far more than technology. It requires feedstock, infrastructure, enormous amounts of capital, supportive policy, competitive economics and organizations capable of bringing all of those pieces together.

IATA's own diagnosis is remarkably direct. It is calling for greater renewable energy and feedstock supply, open access to fuel infrastructure, better-sequenced production incentives and investment frameworks, and sufficient production at commercially viable prices. In other words, the challenge is increasingly about building the ecosystem required for scale. 

Meanwhile, SAF is increasingly becoming part of industrial strategy. Europe has created mandatory demand through ReFuelEU Aviation, while the broader conversation increasingly connects SAF with energy security, industrial competitiveness and domestic production capacity.

Which brings the conversation back to Canada.

Canada has many of the pieces required to build at scale: abundant forestry and agricultural resources, industrial expertise, supportive policy, carbon policy and economics, and an established aerospace sector. The opportunity lies in turning those advantages into industrial capacity.

There is another reason this matters. Canada already relies on foreign suppliers for approximately 35% of its conventional aviation fuel, and Airbus warns that without increased domestic capacity, reliance on biofuel imports could exceed 65% by 2030. Building SAF in Canada therefore isn't simply about emissions. It is increasingly about energy security, economic resilience and industrial capacity. 

This is an industrial opportunity hiding inside a supply shortage.

The global SAF race may ultimately be decided not by who talks most aggressively about decarbonization, nor by who owns the most interesting technology. It may be decided by which countries and organizations can assemble the feedstock, technology, capital, policy, infrastructure, carbon advantages and leadership required to build production at scale.

**Canada has the resources, the policy, the carbon opportunity and the industrial capability. Now it needs execution.

**The world is at 0.8%. Canada has been shown a $32 billion opportunity.

The opportunity now belongs to those capable of building it.

References:

• Airbus and ICF, Canadian SAF economic study
• IATA, Sustainable Aviation Fuel
• IATA, 2026 SAF production outlook
• Moeve, SAF and the future of aviation decarbonization

What you get: $50 CAD

Steps: WeBull Canada has a promotion where you can get $50 CAD(in trading Voucher) when you sign up using the Referral Code link below. Once you sign up, you need to deposit $500 as your initial deposit to receive $50. You will receive the $50 once your deposit has settled. Once you receive the $50 in your account, you can then withdraw ALL $550. No catch, no holding period.

Cost/catch: No catch. You receive the $50 within 3 business days. Once you receive the $50 in your account, you can withdraw it along with the principal $500.

Who qualifies: Any Canadian with a valid ID

Expires: June 30 2026

https://www.webull.ca/s/r7DcaFxmS980HTTgKg