Sunday Edition: 9th 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.

But firstly,

Are you a Canyon Resources (ASX:CAY) shareholder? We are.

First bauxite production from CAY was looking on track... not according to CAY's major shareholder in a bidder statement offering to takeover CAY for 5c per share released on 29th July.

We await to hear what the CAY board has to say about all this.

Are you a CAY shareholder?

Please fill in the form below with your email address and how many CAY shares you hold and we will keep you informed as much as we are able.

CAY Shareholders click here to complete the form.

Yesterday’s Saturday note: Gold, Silver and US Critical Minerals - Is the Second Wave Starting Now?

Quick Takes: PR1, SS1, PAT (x2), SPA, BKB, VKA, PUR, HAR, Macro Commentary

Deep Dives: ION, BKB, WAU, Gold and silver rally (RML, WAU, AVM, RCM, WCE, BKB, SS1), IVZ

Other content: ILA, TG1, SS1, OD6, PNN, RCM, LSR, AVM, TTM, PAT, HVY, PUR, AW1, CND, ONE

PR1 added the former Chief of the Australian Navy to its advisory board.

PR1 has appointed Vice Admiral Michael Noonan (retired), who served as Chief of the Australian Navy from 2018 to 2022.

Vice Admiral Noonan brings networks across the Australian Department of Defence, the Defence Science and Technology Group and the Advanced Strategic Capabilities Accelerator.

All target organisations for the tech PR1 is working on in collaboration with Rice University: thermal management material inside drones, robots and defence systems.

SS1 hit critical minerals antimony and silver at its project in Nevada, USA.

SS1’s project is already the largest pre-production silver project on the ASX and in the US.

A 539Moz silver equivalent JORC resource estimate.

With the 50m at 0.11% antimony drill hit this week, it’s looking more like that giant resource might actually be laced with antimony too.

SS1’s MD Andrew Dornan ran through the result really well at Diggers this week - catch the full replay below:

Sun Silver - Andrew Dornan, Managing Director - Diggers & Dealers Mining Forum

(“maiden antimony resource” gets a mention in the presentation)

PAT mapped new copper targets in Zambia - drilling planned for later this year.

These new targets are on the project PAT just recently acquired, ~17km away from a project owned by $35BN First Quantum Minerals.

(this is separate to PAT’s copper discovery next to $8BN Sinomine)

Early days for this new asset but that ~3km by 0.7km target area is starting to look interesting.

PAT’s goal is to drill test the asset before the end of the year.

(source)

PAT also expanded its Peru silver project this week - the strike grew to 3.1km.

PAT added a new block directly south of its 31.4Moz silver equivalent resource, increasing the potential strike to ~3.1km.

Part of PAT's giant 559 to 774Moz silver equivalent exploration target - potentially one of the largest undeveloped silver systems in the world.

It was also good to read that Peru's Ministry of Energy and Mines declared PAT’s Environmental Impact Declaration remains valid.

(a signal we might be getting closer to PAT’s first drill campaign on this project)

Just need those community agreements sorted now.. which PAT says it is working on. (source)

SPA raised $10M at 7.5c to fund its Vodafone app launch and platform growth.

We participated in the raise, adding to our position.

SPA's CEO also put $100k into the raise - always a positive sign to see management putting decent money into a raise.

The funds will go toward “launching SPA’s app with Vodafone, migration to TPG's wholesale network, inventory and new devices”.

Launching the Vodafone app will be a big inflection point for SPA’s business, so this cash injection now gives SPA a decent runway to deliver some big catalysts.

(read the full announcement)

BKB assays increase silver grades by up to 147% from project in Texas, USA

This is the second time BKB has announced something similar to this.

The first batch of re-assays had grades ~50% higher.

This new batch had grades up to ~147% higher than originally recorded.

Hopefully, all of this means BKB’s 17.5Moz at 289g/t silver foreign resource estimate grows AND is higher grade when BKB eventually converts it into JORC standards.

(source)

VKA to drill its US tungsten project just as Trump bans tungsten scrap exports.

The US banned the export of tungsten scrap this week.

On the same day VKA announced assays from old stockpiles grading up to 1.8%.

The stockpiles matter because it's a part of VKA’s plan to “rapidly restart” production at its project.

AND because the 1.8% grade is very strong - for context, $1.6BN capped ASX tungsten producer EQ Resources mined average grades of just 0.11% to 0.16% in the prior quarter at one of its projects. (source)

(source)

PUR confirmed a district scale gold-silver system at project in Argentina.

It was a very long (but very good) update from PUR - ticking off all the boring (but very necessary) pre-drilling work junior explorers need to do.

Like mapping, sampling, geophysics and then bringing it all together in a geological model.

PUR now has five key targets across its project and is fully permitted to drill, with first drilling targeted for next month.

Here are the first three PUR will chase first:

(source)

HAR to start drilling US gold project this month.

Back in May HAR delivered a maiden JORC resource estimate of 402koz at 5.1g/t gold on just one portion of the project.

That was off the back of HAR’s first drill campaign.

Now, HAR will run its second round of drilling - a ~1,600m, 16-hole campaign looking to fill the gaps between its current defined resource estimate.

If it all comes together, HAR’s plan is an updated JORC resource for the whole project in Q4 this year.

Also nice to see HAR talk about re-start studies on its existing processing plant this week...

(source)

US President Trump lined up a Friday roundtable with mining execs as part of the push to "expand domestic and allied supplies of critical minerals".

Since we wrote the above article, the meeting occurred, and there are plenty of news articles out there on what went down.

Here’s our Take:

We cover the aftermath of the Trump meeting and what it all means in our note yesterday.

Official White House Fact Sheet:

Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Announces Billions in New Deals and Investments to Power American Mining

Not the first time Trump has met with mining CEOs and we don't think it will be the last.

Another example of the US using targeted policy to mobilise private capital with US critical minerals.

We think the news is bullish for our US critical minerals Investments: ION, VKA, RML, SS1, OD6, AW1, RCM, LKY, LSR, BKB and PFE.

(source)

Lockheed Martin - the $193BN maker of the F-35 and Patriot missiles is in talks to secure US supplies of scandium and germanium, according to Reuters.

Lockheed has already done one deal with ASX listed Sunrise Energy Metals.

(Sunrise share price is up over 7,000% in the last two years... past performance is not an indicator of future performance)

Now, Lockheed's out looking for more US minerals supply - more specifically “germanium from recycled feedstock”.

Again, a bullish signal for all of our US critical minerals Investments: ION, VKA, RML, SS1, OD6, AW1, RCM, LKY, LSR, BKB and PFE.

(source)

Gold - US Treasury buying Japanese Yen, G7 countries spending more on interest then defence - catalysts for a gold rally.

A sneaky photo from a US cabinet meeting caught Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's to do list: "Buy $5-10BN in Japanese Yen".

The Treasury is signalling it will do whatever it takes to stop the Yen decline.

US buying Yen = US selling/printing dollars = weaker dollar + a signal that the US wants the US dollar weaker = gold's two favourite things at once.

(source)

Iondrive (ASX:ION)

The US exports nearly 33,000 metric tons of electronic waste PER MONTH.

And all the valuable critical minerals inside it.

Wait... isn’t the USA in a mad scramble to secure domestic critical minerals supply?

Late last week, US President Donald Trump said: STOP!

US President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order to restrict the export of e-waste, black mass (old batteries) and old magnets - that contain critical minerals.

SO that the critical minerals inside them can be recycled and extracted INSIDE the USA.

(source)

Recycling critical minerals from USA e-waste, INSIDE the USA is what Iondrive (ASX:ION) is doing.

ION already has:

• A binding agreement with America’s largest e-waste processor (Colt Recycling) to supply the e-waste to feed ION’s process. (source)
  
  
• Independent lab testing showing ION’s tech can recover rare earths (including heavy rare earths) from e-waste.
  
  
• And a letter of support for up to ~US$15M for a recycling plant from the Oklahoma Department of Commerce.

But this week, ION announced it isn’t going to wait for its Oklahoma plant to get built before it starts producing rare earths.

ION announced it has found a third party processing plant it can rent, to apply its patented IONsolv technology right now.

AND has just commissioned its first ~5 tonne production campaign.

Read more: ION to produce first 1.4 tonnes of Rare Earth Oxides (the ones for advanced magnets), in North America, within the next 150 days.

Black Bear Minerals (ASX:BKB)

Just buy it already, Barrick.

Nothing like a “we are moving towards actually building it” study to flush out a buyer...

Our 2025 Small Cap Pick of The Year, Black Bear Minerals (ASX:BKB | OTCQX: BKBMF), has a development stage gold project in Nevada, USA.

A ~2.2M ounce gold JORC resource next door to $90BN Barrick and $141BN Newmont's Nevada Gold Mines (NGM) Phoenix Complex.

Yep, literally as “next door” as you can possibly get. We have seen it in person just how close - see for yourself in our video from the site a couple of sentences below.

As you can see on this map, BKB’s project is almost completely surrounded by the NGM complex:

(source)

Barrick and Newmont’s NGM JV is the biggest gold mining complex in the world.

It has been producing gold for decades. Last year it produced ~2.6M ounces of gold.

Over decades, most of the shallow gold resources have been mined, leaving $90BN Barrick to start planning an underground mine going after a deposit ~1km below the surface.

We think that backdrop makes any nearby shallow gold resource valuable... like BKB’s.

Especially as a potential supply source for the infrastructure owned by the big miners in Nevada.

This week BKB released a scoping study for ~420K ounces gold equivalent portion of its total 2.2M ounce resource showing:

• A post-tax NPV of ~A$511M - almost 7x BKB's current market cap of $73.9M,
• A ~64% Internal Rate of Return, and;
• A ~1.4 year payback on initial capital of ~A$119M.

Those economics are all based on BKB building its own processing infrastructure.

Remember we said BKB’s project is right next door to N.G.M’s Phoenix mine - below is our video from BKB’s boundary into NGM’s mega mining complex.

(where copious amounts of infrastructure already exists and is producing millions of ounces of gold a year right now):

This is from our site visit - looking at N.G.M’s project from BKB’s ground.

Surely, the economics for BKB’s project would be a lot stronger if the project was fed into all of the existing infrastructure on site a few hundred metres away...

Read more: BKB: Surrounded by the biggest gold mining complex in the world - and this just happened

WA Gold (ASX:WAU)

One of the unwritten (well, we are just about to write it), general rules of ASX small cap investing is:

“When drilling results are taking too long to be released, it means they are probably going to suck”.

IF it's been 2, 3 or 4 months since drilling started and the company has gone quiet - the market starts to make assumptions about the results - usually negative.

And the selling begins.

Then as the share price falls, it feeds confirmation bias and market participants think “look I was right... I should sell more”.

Sometimes, the selling starts for completely unrelated reasons - but the market believes what it wants to believe.

We think that’s what’s happened to our Investment WA Gold (ASX:WAU).

Sub $30M capped WAU has a 518k ounce gold project in WA.

Four months ago it released a scoping study showing that for a low pre production capital requirement of $8M, WAU could deliver an NPV of A$205 – A$253 million (pre-tax). (source)

WAU’s assets sit in the famous WA “Northern Goldfields” gold region hosting many, multi-million ounce gold deposits:

(source)

The purpose of the drilling was targeting extensions at depth to its existing resource.

WAU’s working geological theory is that its project could host a Never Never style ductile gold system - where the grades of its resource get bigger as drilling goes deeper.

Never Never was the discovery Spartan Resources made in mid 2024 which led to a ~$2.5BN takeover by Ramelius Resources. (source)

WAU started drilling, took a long time to release results, the market got suss, and WAU got sold off from highs of 4.2c to 1.8c.

(the gold price breather during this time didn't help matters either)

BUT...

The drill results came out this week and they are... actually pretty good, gold hit in every hole.

(even generally accepted market rules don't always hold)

WAU also has assays pending from its other WA asset - more on that in the link below.

So the 518k ounce gold resource estimate is still there and WAU has hit some possible extensions at depth:

(source)

All seven holes hit gold at (or very close to) the spot that WAU's geological model said it would be. (source)

One hole even clipped a 231m zone of altered rock - which WAU says indicates "a much larger and extensive gold system is potentially emerging" at the project.

AND WAU has already got a second round of drilling planned this quarter to extend the resource further AND lob a few geotech holes in so it can start development planning.

Read more: WAU: A Positive Surprise...

Gold and silver rally

Silver and gold are on the move again.

And yes...

The gold and silver price chart screenshots are back:

(might even soon dust off a new “cup and handle” that we are seeing...)

(source)

The past performance is not and should not be taken as an indication of future performance. Caution should be exercised in assessing past performance. This product, like all other financial products, is subject to market forces and unpredictable events that may adversely affect future performance.

So the big question is - Is the global “debasement trade” back too?

Let’s drop the financial jargon for a second and explain what the “debasement trade” actually means:

Governments are spending far more money than they collect.

For a government, the easiest way out of ever-growing debt is to print more of its own money.

More money, chasing the same amount of stuff, means each dollar buys less - that's called currency debasement.

So the "debasement trade" is simple: own the things that governments can't print.

Gold, silver, hard assets - anything with a fixed or slow-growing supply.

You can’t just ‘print’ more gold or silver.

(If you melt down every ounce of gold humanity has ever mined - from ancient Egyptian pharaohs' treasures to modern wedding rings and tech components - it condenses into a single solid cube measuring ~22m on all sides.)

So the “debasement trade” is where global investors pile into all things gold and silver - the physical commodities AND gold and silver stocks.

The debasement trade gained popularity and an early run during the second half of 2025.

This was when gold and silver both delivered those outrageous price runs to all time record highs, and took ASX gold and silver stocks along with them.

But alas, as we often say, the past performance is not an indicator of future performance.

Things cooled off over the last 6 months.

(like most global trades, the initial hype phase saw too many speculators pile in too hard and too early. We needed the real world to catch up - ie the 2018/19 battery metals run before 2020 mega bull)

In the last 7 days we have seen:

• Jul 31 - Aug 3: The Japanese yen hit a 40-year low, forcing Japan and the US into their first joint currency intervention since 2011- a ~US$59BN rescue just to stop a major fiat currency from sliding further.
• Aug 3 - South Korea’s central bank went on record saying it will start buying gold for the first time in 13 years to “support ⁠its management of foreign reserves”.
• Aug 4: New analysis showed five of the seven G7 nations (all but Germany and Canada) now spend more on debt interest payments per year than on their entire military spending.
• Aug 4: The US Treasury lifted its Q3 borrowing estimate to US$739BN. $68BN more than planned just three months ago... with another $628BN pencilled in for Q4.
• Aug 4: Central banks bought a record 289 tonnes of gold in Q2 (up 62% year-on-year) - the money printers themselves are stockpiling the thing that can't be printed.
• Aug 4-5: Weak US jobs data slashed the odds of a September Fed rate hike, sending gold up ~4% through $4,200 and silver above $62.

Current reality catching up to the 2025 hype?

The last few days in gold and silver have certainly felt a bit FOMO-y...

Read more: Are gold and silver back?

Invictus Energy (ASX:IVZ)

We have a spud date.

(well a “month” - but close enough to a firm date for a small cap stock)

Invictus Energy (ASX:IVZ) has confirmed its next big oil and gas well will spud in November.

A nice 90-120 day runway for anticipation to build in the market ahead of a high impact oil and gas drilling event.

(source)

Drilling in November is going to target an entirely new area OUTSIDE of the existing discovery IVZ previously made.

The drill bit is targeting ~1.2Tcf of gas and ~73m barrels of condensate (estimated gross mean unrisked prospective resource).

A simple vertical well, down to 1,500m.

It’s a pretty good time to deliver a new hydrocarbon discovery with so much of global supply offline in the Middle East.

Success on this well could add to IVZ’s discovery made on the western side of the basin in 2023 - which was Sub-Saharan Africa’s second largest discovery of 2023 at ~1.3 Tcf gas / ~230M barrels of oil equivalent.

This year's well AND IVZ’s discovery are both part of the “central fairway” across IVZ’s giant 5.5BN barrel of oil Equivalent Cabora Bassa Basin (prospective resource).

If the discovery is large in November, IVZ could rate multiples above its current share price... or even run higher in anticipation of a large discovery.

Of course - this is high risk oil and gas exploration and the share price might not move, or it could even go down.

(source)

IVZ’s drilling contractor will be undertaking some rig maintenance ahead of spudding, and will do some all important operational readiness campaigns ahead of the big day.

Wellpad construction starts next week.

All of the other smaller contracts (well services, civils and logistics) are currently being prepared for award.

Read more: IVZ spud date locked in for November

Bloomberg - Scope Ratings found every G7 nation apart from Germany and Canada now spent more on interest than defence, with interest costs running at 193% of the defence budget in Italy and 121% in the US.

FX Leaders - Silver briefly got past US$64/oz, up over 11% for the week, after US payrolls unexpectedly fell 23k in July, pulling the gold silver ratio down to about 69 from a 104 peak earlier this year.

LinkedIn - Pulse Intelligence's Will Coetzer counted just nine producing tungsten mines outside China, one of them Chinese controlled, while the US stockpile sat at zero and 2027 procurement rules will ask where metal was mined, not melted.

Bloomberg - The Pentagon's logistics agency cancelled its $300M tender for 16,000 tonnes of battery grade lithium carbonate, its second scrapped stockpile buy after cobalt, even as Chinese lithium prices rose almost 20% this year.

FT - Washington banned exports of scrap tungsten and battery black mass for a year, locking used critical minerals inside US borders to secure military supply chains and cut dependence on China.

Bloomberg - A leaked Pentagon war game found the US relies on the UAE for around 90% of its high purity aluminium imports, a vulnerability for fighter jets exposed months before the Iran attacks.

Bloomberg - The White House summoned Rio Tinto, BHP, Freeport and MP Materials to Friday's critical minerals summit with Trump, set to unveil a handful of deals and MOUs aimed at cutting reliance on China.

Washington Times - The Pentagon's $500M loan to Phoenix Tailings targets 120 tons of yearly rare earth magnet capacity, up from 200kg now, as CSIS warns replenishing Tomahawk and Patriot stockpiles takes three years without Chinese supply.

Energy-Storage.News - Australia's grid scale battery fleet passed 9000MW in Q2, cutting NEM wide price spreads 85% in a year to average $51 per MWh as batteries reshape the grid.

Bloomberg - Bloomberg reported the world quietly crossed 3 terawatts of installed solar capacity in 2026, a milestone analysts say barely registered even as solar heads toward becoming the top power source.

Bloomberg - Copper hit a fresh Comex record of $6.731 a pound, up 1.3% on the day and past May's prior peak, as tariff driven hoarding kept pulling metal into the US while supply outside the country tightened, extending the 2026 gain to about 18%.

Bloomberg - Sulfur costs from the Hormuz closure pushed Mosaic, the largest US phosphate producer, to a quarterly loss, with one plant fully idled and another running at 40% of its target rate.

PYMNTS - Amazon completed its full $50BN investment in OpenAI, filing with the SEC that it paid the final $21.3BN after June 30 for a stake near 5% ahead of a planned IPO.

ILA - Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak accelerates - RAAS

TG1 - Flagship copper-gold targets - Drill-ready & fully funded

ROC - Global Scaling Execution Update - Investor Presentation August 2026

SS1 - Maverick Silver Project, Nevada, USA - Diggers & Dealers Mining Forum August 2026

ILA - Combatting Urgent Viral Disease Threats - Dual Approach to Advance Galidesivir as a Pan-Filovirus Medical Countermeasure.

2026 Keynote Address: The Hon. Joe Hockey

SS1 - Sun Silver - Andrew Dornan, Managing Director

OD6 - OD6 Investor Briefing Webinar - Fluorspar Acquisition | 31 JULY 2026

OD6 - Quinn clears the paperwork & gets ready to drill

HVY - Heavy Minerals Ltd: Who would have thought – multi millions from garnet

PUR - Pursuit Minerals (ASX:PUR) - Pilot-Proven Lithium Project in Argentina Targets 5,000tpa Development

PNN - Definitely putting his knackers on the line with this comment...

RCM - Rapid’s Webbs shifts from silver discovery to development

LSR - Ned’s Creek shifts from gold target to resource story

AVM - Advance Metals (ASX:AVM) - JMM Noosa Mining Investor Lunch - July 2026

TTM - Titan Minerals (ASX:TTM) - JMM Noosa Mining Investor Lunch - July 2026

PAT - June 2026 Quarterly Investor Webinar recording - X (@PAT_Resources)

Gold Could Start Climbing Toward 5,000, Says Standard Chartered's Cooper

250 Years of American Capitalism: Hamilton, the GFC, & the AI Boom | The Real Eisman Playbook Ep 71

AW1 - Storm project update: PFS optimisation progressing, exploration review underway, permitting and community engagement advancing.

CND - shared an article on the growing exploration potential of the offshore Peru-Ecuador margin, with the link to its own Peru focus.

AVM - Spent a great few days at the Discoveries Mining Conference in Mexico, where CEO Adam McKinnon took to the stage covering the growing high grade silver portfolio across Mexico's Sierra Madre Volcanic Belt.

Booth photos showed the core shack display:

ONE - Chief product officer Niall O'Neill unveiled its connected care room concept, an infographic setting out five capabilities for linking monitoring, orchestration, connection and analytics around the patient:

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.