AUZ appoints Michael McNeilly as Chairman

Our critical minerals Investment Australian Mines (ASX: AUZ) just appointed Michael McNeilly as its new Chairman stepping up from a Non-Executive Director.

(source)

McNeilly is a name we are familiar with.

He is also the chairman of our 2026 Small Cap Pick of the Year Iondrive (ASX: ION).

He is also a director of copper explorer Cobre Limited, which secured a partnership with BHP providing up to $25M of exploration funding in Botswana.

Cobre's market cap has gone from ~$19M at its 2020 ASX listing to ~$470M with McNeilly at the company.

(Past performance is not an indicator of future performance.)

McNeilly also played an active role in the $167M acquisition of MOD Resources by Sandfire Resources back in 2019.

He has also been the CEO of Strata Investment Holdings since 2016, an Investment company that focuses on the mining sector targeting from near the discovery stage and holding through development. (source)

So he has been in a few winners with mining assets over the years.

We are backing him in at AUZ to do the same with its scandium asset in NSW.

We Invested in AUZ 5 weeks ago - check out our initiation note here: Our Latest Investment is Australian Mines Ltd (ASX: AUZ)

A quick reminder of where AUZ is at:

Recently AUZ revealed the drill targets for an upcoming campaign which COULD end up 3x’ing the scandium output of its project when developed.

(preparing its asset for that future demand from advanced technologies?)

IF the drilling comes in AUZ could 3x the production numbers in its existing scoping study (more on that in a second).

And 3x the planned output of $3.1BN Sunrise Energy Metals’ project which:

• The US Department of War is giving a US$400M conditional loan to,
• Major US defence contractor Lockheed Martin signed an offtake option with,
• Is chaired and majority owned by mining billionaire Robert Friedland, AND
• Sits on the same geological structure as our Investment AUZ’s asset next door

(source)(source)(source)(source)

AUZ’s project has a resource that is higher grade relative to Sunrise at the moment.

With this next round of drilling, AUZ’s plan is to drill out (and hopefully) extend its defined resources - so its resources could grow toward the size of Sunrise's project…

Here is how the projects rank against one another:

(source)

Exploration isn’t necessarily a big part of why we Invested in AUZ - because its project is already well advanced and the scandium market isn’t large enough to need giant resources.

(however… AI data centres and military demand may change that)

But IF AUZ can make new discoveries and grow its resource, the comparisons to Sunrise’s deposit could start to get stronger - especially when the two projects literally sit on the same geology.

It looks pretty intuitive when you look at the geophysical surveys - drill the mega blobs that host Sunrise’s project (and RIO’s to the north).

And hopefully hit more scandium.

(source)

AUZ expects drilling to start as soon as final approvals come in - so we shouldn’t have to wait too long to see how much of that geophysical survey is mineralised.

There is also an interesting demand side playing out from $112BN capped, NYSE listed Bloom Energy, which was recently announced to be joining the S&P 500.

Bloom makes fuel cells and they are made up of ~10% scandium oxide (locked by Bloom’s patents). (source)

Bloom posted its first ever US$1BN+ quarter, has a US$20BN+ backlog that management says is now growing faster than revenue, and is doubling its manufacturing capacity to a ~2GW per year run-rate by the end of this year. (source)

Each gigawatt of Bloom fuel cells needs ~25-60 tonnes of scandium. (source)

The entire global production capacity was ~80 tonnes of scandium last year. (source)

At the moment, Bloom consumes ~74% of the world's scandium making fuel cells that power AI data centres (servicing customers like Amazon and Oracle).

We covered more of the macro unfolding in our recent Deep Dive article here: AUZ: US Military industrial base quietly buying up future scandium production...

What else do we want to see AUZ deliver?

Drilling to grow the scandium resource

We want to see AUZ drill out and grow its scandium resources - so that the market can start to make stronger comparisons between AUZ and Sunrise’s asset.

Here are the milestones we are tracking:

🔲 Drilling approvals

🔲 Drilling commences

🔲 Drilling results

Progress the scandium project through to development

We want to see AUZ progress its scandium project through to being development ready.

The next major catalyst being a Pre Feasibility Study (PFS)

Here are the milestones we are tracking:

✅ PFS formally commenced and fast-tracked (May 2026)

🔄 Mine optimisation, metallurgical testwork, infrastructure

🔄 Assessment of 180tpa scale-up case

🔲 PFS completed (~Q1/Q2 2027)

Commercial progress for scandium asset

We also want to see AUZ execute the Sunrise playbook and convert:

🔄 Offtake / strategic partner discussions

🔲 First offtake, MOU or government-linked funding

Corporate - progress toward a US facing listing

This one is all about building up the company to get listed on a major US stock exchange OR become a takeover target for one of the big US listed critical minerals players (OR SPAC’s).

This one is out of AUZ’s control to some extent but we would like to see some progress toward a listing.