LSR raises $4.7M - assays pending from copper project in Chile

Our US heavy rare earths Investment Lodestar Minerals (ASX: LSR) just raised $4.7M in an upsized capital raise at 1.51c per share.

Directors also came into the raise for $305k on the same terms which is always good to see.

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The placement also came with 1:1 attaching options exercisable at 4.5c expiring 31 January 2029.

We initially Invested in LSR for the US heavy rare earths project in Arizona.

Now LSR has news pending from four different projects:

• Copper assays from its project Chile (Three Saints).
• Drill results from WA gold project.
• Geophysics to get underway at its US heavy rare earths project, and
• Another drill program coming in June from its other copper project in Chile (Los Loros).

Now LSR should have a cash runway to complete all those programs ($1.7M cash at 31 March 2026 and now the $4.7M raised).

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What the $4.7M actually funds

Here are where the funds are going to be put toward continuing works on each of LSR's 4 projects that are being progressed:

Chile - Three Saints + Los Loros (copper).

Three Saints is awaiting assay results from the two diamond holes drilled into the never-before-drilled IOCG target.

Hole 1 hit visible chalcopyrite over ~410m from 190m to 600m (the maiden moonshot drill we covered here).

Hole 2 hit visible sulphides + skarn alteration over 121.9m to 510m before stopping at the rig's depth limit. (we covered the visible sulphides from hole 2 here)

The second hole hit visible sulphides plus the skarn alteration, the same alteration style that hosts the giant Candelaria deposit nearby, this is what that looked like:

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For context, Candelaria is a giant copper-gold mine owned by $34BN Lunding Mining, it has a resource here of over 5BN pounds of copper.

Assays for Hole 1 are expected late May 2026 and Hole 2 assays early July 2026, this is a cross section view of the drilling:

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As an aside in Chile, the Los Loros project is permit-pending with drilling planned for June across the 5 IP targets (IP1-IP5) defined by the May 2026 geophysics.

This includes IP1 next to the historic Anglo American hole that hit 136m @ 0.20% copper equivalent.

Earlier in the year LSR acquired this project with some notable historic results and has an option on the project that allows them to walk away with minimal spending.

So it was a near-drill ready project when acquired and the drilling is scheduled to begin next month, just ~4 months after acquiring the project.

Here are a look at those targets and the prior drilling, it does appear that the prior drilling was near but either not into or deep enough into these targets:

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USA - Virgin Mountain heavy rare earths.

The specialist REE team is moving to a high-resolution airborne radiometric (Uranium/Thorium/potassium) and magnetic survey over the 5km structural trend.

The objective here is to refine drill targets on the back of the xenotime mineralogy and the up to 3.73% TREO at 64% HREE rock chips assayed prior.

Xenotime is a rare earth host mineral that contains the specific rare earths that the US needs:

These are dysprosium, terbium and lutetium, which have uses in:

Importantly this mineralisation has been seen elsewhere to be favourably processable using conventional flowsheets, this is similar to $277M capped Northern Minerals' Browns Range Project.

We covered this in a deep dive article: LSR: Dysprosium, terbium and lutetium in xenotime... huh? The market liked it.

The US rare earth team were recently on site:

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WA - Ned's Creek gold.

The 10,000m RC drilling program here is now more than 50% completed, with the maiden Mineral Resource Estimate on track for delivery later in 2026.

Back in December LSR released an exploration target of 250,000-300,000 ounces at 1.0-1.7 g/t gold, so we are hoping to see the result of this drilling result in a maiden resource in that range.

Plus also hopefully some signs that mineralisation remains open form each of the known mineralised areas:

(source)

We covered this update 2 weeks ago here.

What's next for LSR?

🔄 Chile drilling - Three Saints Project

Now we have two holes with visible copper in them.

What we are hoping to see next is the assays confirm that there is economic quantities (and hopefully enough for LSR to officially declare a discovery).

Here are the milestones we are tracking:

• ✅ Maiden drill hole completed (600m)
• ✅ Visible copper mineralisation identified (visible copper from 190m to 600m)
• ✅ Second diamond drill hole underway (TODAY, complete at 611m, assays pending)
• ✅ Second hole visual results
• 🔲 Assay results from hole 1 (First results expected from “Late May”)
• 🔲 Assay results from hole 2 (Assays expected “Early July)

🔄 Target generation on the US rare earths project

We want to see LSR continue to advance its US asset with mineralogical studies and then plan the next round of exploration.

Here are the milestones we are tracking for the US asset:

• ✅ Mapping and sampling (soil and rock chips)
• ✅ Mineralogical studies
• 🔄 Geophysics/ follow up field work (starting in April)
• 🔲 Drill targets confirmed

🔄 10,000m drilling program on WA gold project

Drilling on this asset started a few weeks ago.

We are hoping to see the 250,000 to 300,000 ounce exploration target converted into a maiden resource estimate post drilling.

Here are the milestones we are tracking on that project:

• ✅ Drilling starts
• 🔄 Assay results
• 🔲 Resource estimate

🔲 LSR also has a second copper project in Chile (Los Loros)

Beyond Three Saints, LSR also has an option to acquire a second copper project that was previously drilled by the United Nations and supermajor $78BN Anglo American.

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Since 1969 no one has done any modern geophysics on that project - so there could be more to come on this front too.

Back in early February when LSR acquired the option, it was aiming to be drilling here in April this year, so LSR is expecting there to be newsflow from here in the near term also. (source)