AW1 raises A$10M to upsize US critical metals drill program

Our US critical minerals Investment American West Metals (ASX: AW1 | OTC: AWMLF) has closed a $10M “heavily oversubscribed” capital raise.

AND has now committed to upsizing the drill program at its West Desert project in Utah - the largest undeveloped JORC-compliant indium resource in the United States.

The raise was done at 4.5c per share and came with a listed AW1O option for every 2 shares issued.

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AW1 is currently in the middle of a drill program on the project and just last week - with the first hole of its 2026 drill program hit 77.65m of visual sulphide mineralisation ~430m east of the existing resource, along a previously untested 4km magnetic anomaly:

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We covered the visual mineralisation hit in detail here: AW1 hits visual mineralisation — 430m away from the largest Indium deposit in the US

Drilling is ongoing and AW1 said assays should be ~3-5 weeks away so its good to see AW1 commit to upsizing the program and getting its balance sheet in order to properly test for extensions to its resource.

Despite being the biggest indium resource in the USA the projects have only been assays for indium across ~35% of historic drilling.

AND only ~10% has been assayed for critical minerals Germanium and Gallium.

With this round of drilling AW1 will be assaying for all of those minerals (as well as base metals like copper too).

We are Invested in AW1 mainly as a way of getting indium exposure but IF AW1 can define a gallium and germanium resource to go with the indium, its project could become a lot more interesting strategically.

Here is what the three minerals are used for:

• Gallium is used in high-efficiency electronics and thermal management for AI chips - gallium oxide chips can be ~5x more conductive than silicon.
• Germanium is the critical dopant in fibre optic cores - AI server racks need 36x more fibre than traditional server racks, and China controls ~60% of global supply.
• Indium powers the laser diodes and transceivers, enabling high-speed optical data transfer inside AI data centres.

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More on AW1’s current drill program

AW1’s drill program at West Desert is testing three exploration ideas - all outside the existing resource:

• Look-alike geophysical targets along the 4km magnetic trend (where the visual mineralisation hit came from in Hole 1)
• The Juab Fault - a known host of high-grade zinc, copper, silver, indium and gallium and the gallium analogue to the Apex Mine (highest-grade gallium-germanium mine ever operated in the US), hole 2 is already underway here
• Look-alike geophysical anomalies along the broader 5.6km magnetic trend outside the current resource

AW1 had already flagged the potential to upsize the drill program and today’s raise gives it the funding to execute on just that.

Here is a look at what AW1 revealed form the first hole visuals from the prior announcement:

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AW1 is presenting at the RIU conference in Sydney

We are in Sydney today for the RIU conference and will try to catch MD Dave O’Neill at the booth.

For anyone following the conference along from home, here is AW1’s updated Investor presentation for RIU - Full presentation here

Dave presented this morning - if you go back to the morning session you can actually replay the presentation on youtube here:

(we have timestamped the link, if it doesn’t stick it’s around 1h:54min into the stream)

What's next for AW1?

🔄 5,000m drill program (ongoing)

Here AW1 is testing resource expansion targets, the Goldilocks Zone polymetallic skarn, gallium targets along the Juab Fault, and look-alike geophysical anomalies that are similar to the Apex Mine.

AW1 previously flagged the potential to upsize this drill program, which was confirmed in the raise announcement, so this could be an early sign that management are liking what they see from the drilling. (source)

Here are the milestones we are tracking for the US indium project.

This is where the visuals came from in today’s announcement.

• ✅ Resampling of historical core for indium and gallium (completed - confirmed high grades) (source)
• 🔄 Drilling underway - running 24/7 with Major Drilling Group source)
• 🔲 Resampling assays - expected in 3-5 weeks
• 🔲 Drill results - expected over the coming months
• 🔲 Updated resource estimate (post drilling)

🔄 Pre-Feasibility Study for Canadian copper project

AW1 also has its Storm Copper Project in Canada where a PFS is in progress, in the recent quarterly: “Workstreams for the potential development of Storm are continuing with

a focus on optimisation of the potential mine plan and process flow sheet design.” (source)

With copper prices having run the past year or so, we want to see this delivered, along with the environmental studies and key permits needed to advance the project.

🔄 Strategic and government engagement

AW1 appointed Ervin Graves (Washington DC firm) earlier this year to lead government engagement. (source)

With drilling now underway, and the Section 232 Proclamation on the books, this is something we could see some movement and momentum on.

Especially for potential US government funding that would position AW1 as a domestic critical minerals supplier.