AW1 to drill for indium and gallium in the US in early 2026

Our US critical minerals Investment American West Metals (ASX: AW1) is now fully permitted for a drill program on its giant indium deposit in early 2026.

AW1 confirmed that a gallium and indium targeted drill program would start “early in the new year”....

… over what is already the USA’s biggest indium deposit.

(source)

Indium is used in things like infrared detectors, night vision systems, missile guidance systems, Radar systems and F-35 fighter jets…

Gallium is used to create high-performance semiconductors essential for AI tech and indium is

Both are listed on the US critical minerals list.

And at the moment, the USA has zero domestic indium OR gallium production, relying 100% on imports to meet its demand.

China dominates controls ~70% of indium production and ~98% of gallium production globally.(source)(source)

AW1 has already previously said that it has been receiving “unsolicited interest” from US investors to position the stock as a “US focused critical minerals company” on the NASDAQ or New York Stock Exchange:

(Source)

And before that, AW1’s MD is on the record saying “We have been approached by the Department of War, Department of Energy and local government to move this forward” (listen to the soundbite here)

We think that the drill program early next year could accelerate all of that interest.

Especially if the gallium exploration potential materialises and AW1’s project all of a sudden has the USA’s biggest indium resource AND a big gallium resource to go with it.

It’s also worth noting, the current indium resource is based on assay results from just ~35% of the drilling done on its project.

So we don't even know how big AW1’s indium (and maybe gallium) resource actually is...

It could end up being the biggest in the USA across two critical minerals…

More on the gallium potential:

AW1 recently resampled one of the old holes on the project which intersected a combined total of 518m of gallium with a peak grade of 77.3 g/t.

Those results haven’t really been followed up despite AW1’s project sitting in a similar geological setting to the Apex mine (also located in Utah).

The the same geological setting that hosts the world -class gallium - germanium Apex Mine

The Apex Mine was actually the only only mine developed in the Western world primarily for germanium and gallium production and had peak germanium grades up to 7,000g/t and gallium grades up to 20,000g/t.

That was the only primary gallium mine ever operated in the USA… and it sits ~300km away from AW1’s project.

AW1’s theory is that its project is analogous to the APEX mine.

(source)

What we want to see from the 2026 drilling program:

We also noticed in today’s announcement that AW1 has now identified copper, gold and silver targets at its US indium deposit.

(source)

So for this next round of drilling we are hoping to see AW1 drill out as much of the project as possible to expand the current resource and bring into the resource the minerals that it thinks it can best recover from the project.

We have seen how some of the biggest critical minerals projects in the US have been primary precious metals deposits with critical mineral by-products.

JP Morgan also talked about how financing projects where there are more predictable revenue streams to go with the strategic critical minerals is a lot easier.

Here is that comment from JP Morgan’s Co-CEO of Investment Banking:

(source - Reuters article)

So next year's drilling program could be a lot more material than just expanding the resource in terms of how AW1 can position its project when it comes time to engage with any potential financiers (like the US government or JP Morgan).

Here are the areas we want to see AW1 drill:

(source)

What’s next for AW1?

Drilling to start on US critical minerals project 🔄

Now that AW1 has fully permitted its 2026 drilling program we are looking forward to the program getting underway.

As mentioned earlier, there is still so much to find out about the project, given only 35% of the project has been assayed for indium, the copper/gold/silver potential and the gallium potential.

We think the gallium exploration could surprise the market to the upside…

AW1 expects drilling to start “early in the new year”.

(source)