HPQ Silicon Strengthens Its Balance Sheet and Solidifies Its Position as an Innovative Manufacturer of Silicon Materials for Lithium-ion Batteries

An increase of more than 4.4 million in the Company's equity through a series of transactions with Investissement Québec (IQ)

MONTREAL, June 22, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Innovative Silicon Solutions company HPQ Silicon Resources Inc. (“HPQ” or the “Company”) (TSX-V: HPQ) (OTCQX: HPQFF) (FWB: UGE), is pleased to announce that Investissement Québec (IQ) completed the following financial transactions today:

1. An increase of $2,325,000 in the Company's liquidity through the exercise of 15,000,000 warrants;
   
   
2. A reduction of $2,076,984 in Company debt through the early conversion of a $1,800,000 convertible debenture and the payment in shares of $276,984 of accrued interest related to the debenture.

Settlement in shares of interest payable to Investissement Québec
Pursuant to the terms of the $1,800,000 debenture issued by the Company to Investissement Québec (IQ) dated August 20, 2018 and in furtherance of IQ's decision to convert the interest owed to it to date, the Board of Directors of HPQ has approved the issuance of 452,072 common shares at a deemed price of $0.61 per share to pay $276,984 in accrued interest incurred to date. Each share issued pursuant to the debt settlement will be subject to a mandatory hold period of four (4) months and one (1) day from the closing date. This transaction is subject to the approval of the TSX Venture Exchange.

If the Exchange approves the conversion of the interest in common shares, IQ will hold just over 10% of the Company's capital.

Silicon, a promising anode material, but…
Despite intensive research efforts and significant investments in silicon battery materials, current manufacturing processes remain unscalable or even commercially unviable. This explains why even though silicon (Si) is theoretically a superior anode material for Li-ion batteries than graphite, it is currently included in less than 5%¹ of commercial battery anodes and its use is limited to a few advanced Li-ion battery manufacturers. The NSiR PUREVAP^TM developed by PyroGenesis is a game-changer and solves the scalability and commercial viability issues of silicon (Si) for the Li-ion battery market.