Sunday Edition: 2nd August

Disclosure: S3 Consortium Pty Ltd and its associated entities may hold direct or indirect interests in securities referred to in this publication and may receive fees or other forms of consideration from entities mentioned. These interests and arrangements may create a potential conflict of interest in the preparation of this material.

The information contained in this communication is provided for general information purposes only and may relate to speculative investments. It does not constitute financial product advice, and has been prepared without taking into account your personal objectives, financial situation or needs. You should consider obtaining independent financial advice before making any investment decision.

Any forward-looking statements are uncertain and not a guaranteed outcome.

Below you can find short overviews of all the content we published last week, plus links to each full note.

Further down, there’s also some links to other interesting stuff we came across on our travels around the internet.

Yesterday’s Saturday note: 1.2 Million Margin Calls, One Imploded Hedge Fund Kid, and a Historic Snapback

Quick Takes: PFE, MNB, OD6, PAT, SGQ, ION

Deep Dives: HVY, VKA, PNN

Other content: ION, MNB, ILA, EMD, AW1, OD6, IVR, EIQ, PNN, TG1, PUR, WCE, SS1, BPM, AVM, NS1, CND, ONE

PFE announced its maiden US antimony-silver drilling is set to start this month.

This will be the first time anyone has drilled PFE’s antimony and silver project in decades.

The rig starts turning in the third week of August, with ~10 diamond holes planned for ~1,500m over four to six weeks.

PFE will be drill testing at depth beneath historic mines that produced antimony into the 1940s.

(source)

MNB gave an update on construction of its phosphate fertiliser project.

Key points for us:

1. Phase 2 structural steel fabrication has begun, with construction on track for completion and dry commissioning in Q2 2027.
   
2. Lenders' advisors cleared MNB’s site, unlocking ongoing releases from the US$16M IDC facility, with the first drawdown from the US$5.4M BFA facility on track for August.
   
3. AND 20 of Angola's largest commercial growers committed to the 2026/27 fertiliser demonstration program.

Looks like it's all happening for MNB...

(source)

OD6 sampled high grade gold at Nevada fluorspar project.

OD6 found high grade gold at its Nevada fluorspar project, with rock samples grading up to 6.31g/t gold.

We are in OD6 for critical mineral fluorspar BUT OD6’s fluorspar is known to sit in an “epithermal system”.

We are not geos but epithermal gold systems are definitely a thing AND we do know Nevada is home to some of the biggest gold deposits, so OD6’s gold in rock chips could be an interesting side salad to the fluorspar.

Early days with the gold targets - but it's a watch and see for us now.

(source)

PAT acquired another copper project in Zambia, drilling targeted for Q3.

We Invested in PAT primarily for its Peruvian silver project (a 31.4Moz silver equivalent resource estimate with a 559-774Moz silver equivalent exploration target).

However a few weeks ago, PAT made a discovery on its copper project next door to $8BN Sinomine.

PAT’s new ground picked up this week sits a few hundred kms away in a different part of Zambia. It is ~17km along strike from a copper project part owned by $32BN First Quantum Minerals.

We don't mind seeing PAT add to its copper portfolio in Zambia with copper trading near all time highs - never know what happens the more PAT drills here.

PAT is targeting a Phase 1 drill program in Q3 2026.

(source)

SGQ hit a record 207m rare earths intercept from its project in Brazil.

SGQ delivered its biggest drill hit yet at its rare earths and niobium project in Brazil, 207m at 2.60% total rare earth oxides (TREO) and 0.30% niobium from surface.

Including some ultra high grade hits too - 20.0m at 12.65% TREO from surface - we had to double check that one wasn't a typo.

The results came from a batch of ~37 diamond drill holes and will feed into another resource upgrade, which SGQ says shareholders can expect news of in the coming weeks.

SGQ's project is already the largest and highest grade carbonatite hosted rare earth resource in South America, and hosts the same hard rock geology as $11BN MP Materials and $14BN Lynas.

All that high grade material sitting right at surface supports a simple, low strip open pit operation, which is exactly what SGQ's economic studies are currently assessing.

Four rigs are turning 24/7 at the project right now.

(source)

ION - Trump signed a critical minerals recycling Executive Order.

BREAKING on Friday afternoon AEST:

Trump signed an Executive Order banning export of old batteries and other electronic waste... so the USA can recycle it and recover critical minerals.

It comes just ten days after Trump signed another Executive Order forcing US military suppliers to prove "serious efforts" to source critical minerals domestically.

Friday’s order directly relates to what ION does, using its solvent tech to recover critical minerals, including heavy rare earths, from e-waste.

ION already has:

1. Independently verified tech, which last month recovered ~93.5% dysprosium, 96.5% neodymium and 96.5% praseodymium from commercial US e-waste.
2. The feedstock, via a binding agreement with Colt Recycling, one of the biggest e-waste processors in the US.
3. A letter of support from the Oklahoma Department of Commerce worth ~US$5.2M in incentives, scaling to more than US$15M, for its first US rare earth recycling facility.

Dysprosium is one of the most important elements, a heavy rare earth used in the magnets inside missiles, drones and fighter jets, and China controls close to 100% of the world's separated supply.

IF exports of recoverable material get restricted, e-waste processors like Colt will have fewer places to send their material and more reason to have it processed onshore by tech like ION's.

We think the two Executive Orders combined could set up the ideal macro backdrop to get ION's US rare earths facility funded with more non-dilutive money, hopefully enough for a Final Investment Decision on the Oklahoma facility.

(source)

And here’s President Trump giving a speech two weeks ago: 'I'll Tell You How To Make Money: Do Magnets': President Trump

Here the Don is urging American defense contractors and brilliant minds to pivot heavily into manufacturing high-performance permanent magnets. This all seems to align with this week’s Executive Order and the US push to secure critical minerals supply chains.

Heavy Minerals (ASX:HVY)

When global building and heavy manufacturing surges - so does the demand for “garnet”.

Garnet is an important industrial mineral used in high-precision manufacturing, shipbuilding, defence infrastructure, and heavy engineering.

The global shipbuilding orderbook is at a 17-year high.

China and the US are locked in a once in a generation shipbuilding race.

Whoever controls the shipyards controls the global supply chains, economic choke points, and the future of maritime warfare.

China is rapidly outbuilding the US, with an estimated 232x more shipbuilding capacity - but the US has now started running hard to catch up.

The US Navy has committed to dramatically increasing from 291 vessels to 450+ in the next 5 years.

(for context, until now they only build on average 2 new vessels per year).

So the world is going to need a lot more garnet.

Our Investment HVY is progressing two advanced stage garnet projects towards production in Australia.

1. Port Gregory, WA - flagship pre-production MINING asset - generating ~A$56 million in EBITDA per year for 24 years when built.
   
2. Kanmantoo, SA - fast tracked garnet production (within ~6 months) by processing tailings from an operating copper mine. HVY does no mining here. Our rough calcs show it could generate up to ~$31.1M in gross revenue for the first 3 years, followed by up to ~$62.2M per year after that.

And the unique thing about the $28.5M capped HVY?

They are the most vigorous defenders of capital structure we have EVER seen in the small end of the market...

... where heavily dilutive cap raises, 1:1 oppies, broker options, convertible death notes run rampant.

HVY has two advanced stage projects with just 72 million shares on issue and some options mostly above today’s share price (no share consolidations) - usually getting to this stage comes with dilutive capital raises at least once a year - shrinking your shareholding.

In the three years since we first Invested, HVY has progressed its projects via largely non-dilutive royalty funding (even during tough market times when aggressively priced, highly dilutive cap raises can be the easy way out).

Pristinely kept capital structures mean share prices have little overhang or resistance to going up.

This week the $28.5M capped HVY released the results of its Pre Feasibility Study for its WA asset, which demonstrated the asset can deliver:

• Net Present Value (NPV) of $322.8M.
• EBITDA of $1.34BN over 24 years.
• Internal Rate of Return of 47.6%.
• A 3.1 year payback,
• Based on $122.1M CAPEX

Right next door to the world’s biggest operating garnet mine.

Read more: HVY: Key shipbuilding material production to come online as US and China race to outbuild each other?

Viking Mines (ASX:VKA)

The US is running out of missiles.

Yep, the world’s strongest military.

This week, the US put in a US$59BN order to “urgently” build thousands more AND significantly ramp up manufacturing capacity over the next 7 years:

(source)

(source)

Tungsten is vital in armour-piercing ammunition, fighter jets, and the warheads of Tomahawk, Patriot and Precision Strike missiles.

The US produces zero tungsten domestically.

On January 1st 2027, a ban on foreign imports of critical minerals for US Military use is coming into effect (source) - uh that’s only five months away...

And 7 days ago US President Trump signed an Executive Order telling the trillion dollar US military industrial complex to source critical minerals from within US borders ...or face legal and financial penalties - we covered this in detail here.

(Read the full Executive Order here)

Quite the pickle for the world’s strongest military.

... and quite the opportunity for the $25M capped VKA and its USA tungsten project.

VKA said this week “it’s on the cusp of” putting the first drill hole in 40 years into its historically producing tungsten project located in the USA (source).

Permitting is complete, the drill contractor has been engaged, and the drill rig mobilised last week.

We want to see VKA deliver some big tungsten drill hits over the coming weeks, in the USA...

just as the US government has forced the $1TN US military industrial complex to prioritise domestic military metals supply...

AND put in a giant order of tungsten hungry munitions.

All this probably explains why tungsten prices are up ~620% between Jan 2025 and April 2026.

(the past performance of the tungsten price is not an indicator of future performance.)

IF little VKA can even just replicate and extend what’s known at the old mine on its project we think things could get very interesting.

Read more: VKA to start drilling for tungsten in the US any day now...?

Power Minerals (ASX:PNN)

The biggest rare earths mines outside of China are owned by Lynas Rare Earths and MP Materials.

These companies are the West’s only option to buy the rare earths needed to build robotics, AI and advanced military weapons whenever China decides to withhold rare earth supply....

One is owned by the ~$15BN ASX listed Lynas Rare Earths.

The other is owned by the ~$10BN NYSE listed MP Materials.

Lynas’ mine averages grades of ~4.1%, MP’s mine averages ~8%.

So when it comes to rare earth grades, 4% is very very good.

8% is incredible, and anything above that is almost exclusive to MP’s mine in California.

Well, this morning, $46M capped PNN just hit the following from its advanced stage project in Brazil:

(source)

Excellent over 116m... and a ~31m intercept sitting in that elite level basket.

One of the strongest single intercepts we have seen from a rare earths project on the ASX before.

One hole does not make a mine, but this is an excellent start, plus PNN has some high grade historical hits too.

Those billion dollar rare earths producers have been able to define resources at those 4.1% and 8% grades and get into production.

PNN still has another two holes in the lab for assays, a second rig on site and more drilling to come.

With a maiden JORC resource estimate targeted by the end of the year.

As expected from historic drill cores, the Magnet Rare Earth Oxide (MREO) grades on this hole also came in strong.

PNN's first hole returned up to 3.66% MREO over a 2m sample - and 31m at 1.58% MREO.

The four magnet rare earths (ie MREO) account for more than 80% of the market value of all rare earths. (source)

Magnet rare earths are the valuable ones that go into humanoid robots, drones, jet fighters, missile guidance systems, AI data storage and quantum computing.

PNN’s 31m drill intercept has a MAGNET rare earth grade higher than the TOTAL rare earth grade of many deposits globally.

For context - PNN’s two neighbours $523M Meteoric and $389M Viridis’ projects have average TREO grades of 0.23% and 0.25% respectively. (source)(source)

Here is where PNN sits relative to $523M Meteoric and $389M Viridis:

(source)

PNN’s MREO grades are ~5x higher than those numbers and PNN’s TREOs are almost 20x bigger.

Unexpectedly... PNN also got a surprise win at the bottom of its first hole.

Historical drilling never drilled as deep as PNN did - so the gallium hits are completely new data...

Read more: PNN: How’s this hit...

Forbes - Trump signed a directive restricting exports of recovered and recycled critical minerals, steering reclaimed material toward US defense and industry use as Washington moves to cut reliance on China for processing.

This is a big macro event for our Investment ION, which was up 17% on Friday, ION is looking has a recycling solution so could be a big winner with local processing instead of sending recycling offshore.

Reuters - The Trump administration weighs extending Chinese rare earth magnet access past its 1 Jan 2027 cutoff after Pentagon suppliers including MP Materials, USA Rare Earth and Lynas admit domestic processing and magnet capacity won't be ready in time.

Rare Earth Exchanges - China Rare Earth Group's mid year conference sets AI integration and nationally coordinated research as top priorities for the second half, underlining Beijing's deepening grip on rare earth processing and strategy.

Bloomberg - Copper holds near record highs as tight mine supply, falling exchange stocks and storms in top producer Chile offset the drag from Middle East tensions.

CNBC - Heavy storms battering Chile's copper mines combined with an AI driven demand surge to send prices soaring, tightening an already stretched supply chain that Codelco now says cannot hit its old output targets.

Bloomberg - Brent jumps over 4% toward $88 a barrel after the US bombs Iran for a ninth straight night and fresh attacks hit tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, which carries about 27% of world seaborne crude.

GlobeNewswire - Agility Robotics agrees to go public via Churchill Capital Corp XI at a US$2.5BN pre money valuation, raising over US$620M, as its Digit humanoid robot passes 65,000 operating hours across nine customer sites.

Breaking Defense - The US fighter fleet, already below Congress's 1,145 primary aircraft floor, shrinks further to about 3,000 total jets by 2029 before growing to 3,600 by 2040, Rep Biggs warns, citing CBO fighter fleet projections.

Bloomberg - PJM, the largest US grid operator, warns data centres of 50 megawatts or more could face involuntary power cuts from mid 2027 to avert blackouts, as AI driven demand outruns grid capacity.

Mining.com - The Defense Logistics Agency has twice postponed bidding deadlines (now Aug 5) for a US$300m, 16,167-tonne battery-grade lithium carbonate National Defense Stockpile contract; only Albemarle's Silver Peak is a live US mine, underscoring Chinese-processing dependence even as prices sit at multi-year lows.

Bloomberg - On the back of the US removing tariffs from Moroccan fertilisers, the US Trade and Development Agency provided US$5.7M to an international consortium for an early feasibility study to produce green ammonia in the Western Sahara.

MNB also has a green ammonia project in the background and is set to be producing fertiliser soon from within Angola, so it’s of interest that the US is currently seeking out Africa for supply.

ILA - Combatting Urgent Viral Disease Threats - TechKnow 2026 Investor Roadshow

EMD - Delivering the new paradigm in mental health care - Techknow Presentation July 2026

AW1 - The Further Case for Copper - July 2026

OD6 - Geological Technical Discussion - Quinn Fluorspar & Gold Project

IVR - Noosa Mining Conference Presentation - Investigator Silver website

EIQ - Echo IQ (ASX:EIQ) Quarterly Report Q4 2026 | Webinar

PNN - 18.12% TREO in Hole One | Alistair Stephens - CEO Power Minerals (ASX: PNN)

EMD - Emyria Ltd - TechKnow Invest Roadshow 2026

ILA - Island Pharmaceuticals Ltd - TechKnow Invest Roadshow 2026

TG1 - 52% Copper Chips — And No One Has Ever Drilled It | Ashley Hood - MD Techgen Metals (ASX: TG1)

AW1 - American West Metals (ASX: AW1) Webinar Review: Storm Copper and West Desert

PUR - Pursuit Minerals (ASX: PUR) CEO & MD Aaron Revelle Joins The Open Live on Ausbiz TV

OD6 - Q&A Hon. Julie Bishop | OD6 Metals (ASX:OD6)

WCE - High-grade silver extends Elizabeth Hill growth story

The $1/Hour Robot Is Coming: Four Industry Leaders Explain What’s Next - All-In Podcast

SS1 - Posted a Canaccord research note highlighting Sun Silver's land consolidation at Maverick Silver Project, Nevada, adding the Bayan Springs North Project plus 106 additional lode claims covering 8.86km2.

EIQ - had this educational post on aortic stenosis/heart valve disease, part of the EchoIQ awareness content series:

NS1 - New CEO Veronica Bainton at newly renamed to Nodestream (formerly HTG) posted some images from the team's first US trip as part of Project Consilience. Looks like some meetings in some interesting places where held, so lets see if these develop into anything more:

CND - shared a BNamericas article about Peru's renewed focus on energy security and domestic natural gas.

This is of interest because an election was held in Peru recently and the elected government is pro oil and gas, so we could see more interest and investment come into the country.

ONE - a hospital stay gave a team member the chance to experience Oneview from a family's perspective, seeing Oneview’s products making a difference to the quality of care and patient experience.

A word of caution...

While we aim to highlight developments in the small cap space, investing in early-stage and small cap companies - like those we cover - is inherently risky.

These companies often face funding challenges, regulatory hurdles, and market volatility. Announcements may reflect aspirations more than guaranteed outcomes.

Things can, and often do, change.

Just because a company has signed a deal, released drill results, or appointed a new director doesn’t mean success is assured.

Always assume delays, cost overruns, or results that don’t pan out.

We’re here to share insights, not offer personal financial advice - so please do your own research and speak with a licensed adviser before acting on anything mentioned.

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Bye for now.

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