A handful of the world's giant copper mines also carry platinum and palladium. They are rarely worth mining on their own — but the story of how they got there is one of the clearest windows we have into how a copper-gold deposit is made. This is that story, told for the curious rather than the credentialled. This Samso Insight is inspired by the International Symposium on Mafic-Ultramafic Mineral Systems. This is pretty much the culmination of Day 1 where the talks were focused on Magmatic Processes. For the general public, an academic conference such as this would put you to sleep. However, I find these talks are the ground work that allow me to gain a greater understanding of the facts and the processess that are used to drive the stories in the business part of the sector. The relevant talk that made me think on a commercial sense was by Jung-Woo Park on "Mechanism and conditions for PGE enrichment in porphyry deposits." Samso Insights Research Insights PGE and A Porphyry Samso Geology Series WHAT THIS PIECE COVERS 1.00 WHAT WE ARE ACTUALLY TALKING ABOUT Two metals doing two completely different jobs. 2.00 THE CONVEYOR BELT How a porphyry deposit gets built in the first place. 3.00 THE TWO DIALS Every deposit comes down to size and grade. 4.00 THE FORK IN THE ROAD The sulfide trap, and whether it springs early or late. 5.00 THE SWITCH Oxygen decides when the trap springs. 6.00 THE TECTONIC LEVER Thick crust against thin crust, and why it changes the metal mix. 7.00 THE FINGERPRINT Using palladium to read a magma's history. 8.00 WHERE IT ACTUALLY SITS What the palladium looks like once it is in the rock. 9.00 THE NUMBERS How much is really there, and where. 10.00 THE FRONTIER How the metals hitch a ride upwards when they should sink. 11.00 SO WHAT What an investor takes away from all of it. 1.00 — WHAT WE ARE ACTUALLY TALKING ABOUT Two metals, two completely different jobs - Copper and the PGEs - Platinum and Palladium Porphyry deposits are the giants of the copper world — they supply roughly three-quarters of mined copper and a large slice of gold and molybdenum. The platinum-group elements (PGE) are a family of six rare, precious metals (Figure 1). Normally we get them from a totally different kind of rock (layered intrusions like South Africa's Bushveld). So finding platinum and palladium inside a copper porphyry is a genuine curiosity and it turns out to be useful in two very different ways. Figure 1: The six PGE behave as two groups. The "iridium-group" (IPGE: Os, Ir, Ru) stays locked in the deep mantle; the "palladium-group" (PPGE: Pt, Pd, Rh) is mobile enough to travel — and in porphyries it is almost entirely palladium, with subordinate platinum. Source: original Samso illustration of concepts in Park et al. (2021), Nature Reviews Earth & Environment; PGE grouping after Barnes et al. and Economou-Eliopoulos (2005). Almost everything that follows is really a story about palladium and the rare conditions that let it survive the long journey from the mantle to a copper mine near the surface. 2.00 — THE CONVEYOR BELT How a porphyry gets built in the first place Before we can talk about the passengers, we need the vehicle. A very novel and simplistic way to describe a porphyry copper deposit is to imagine the end of a long magmatic conveyor belt that starts where one tectonic plate dives beneath another, what we geologists call a subduction zone (Figure 2). The next step is to imagine water that is in the system being squeezed off the sinking slab, triggering melting in the mantle above it, producing magma that is unusually wet, sulfur-rich and oxidized. That recipe is the whole ballgame. Figure 2: Optimum conditions for development of giant porphyry copper deposits. From Sillitoe and Perello (2005, their Figure 15). (source: USGS Porphyry Copper Deposit Model — John, D.A. et al. (2010), SIR 2010-5070-B.) The metals, copper, gold, molybdenum, and our passengers, are carried up dissolved in the magma and then handed off to that escaping fluid. The fluid cooks the surrounding rock into the tell-tale "potassic" alteration and drops its metal load as veins and disseminated grains. So far, so ordinary. The question that decides everything is: did the metals survive the trip, or get dumped on the way? 3.00 — THE TWO DIALS Every deposit comes down to size and grade Economists and geologists watch two numbers. Size, how much ore is set mostly by how big and how long-lived the magma system was, and how much water it carried. Grade is related to how rich that ore is and that is set by how much metal the magma started with and how efficiently it delivered it. For the platinum-group elements, one process dominates the grade dial above all others and that is the timing of sulfide saturation. Everything in the next three sections is an unpacking of that single phrase. The one idea to keep Copper, gold and palladium are all "chalcophile", meaning that they love sulfur. Given the chance, they abandon the magma and dive into any droplet of molten sulfide that forms. Whether that is good news or a disaster depends entirely on when those droplets appear. 4.00 — THE FORK IN THE ROAD The sulfide trap: early death or late delivery Lets try and go through the geology as simple as possible. As magma rises and cools, sooner or later it becomes saturated in sulfide (Figure 3). The theory is that tiny immiscible droplets of molten metal-sulfide separate out, like oil beading out of water. Those droplets are dense, and they greedily absorb copper, gold and palladium. The fate of the whole deposit hangs on whether this happens early and deep or late and shallow. Figure 3: The sulfide fork — the single most important idea in the whole subject. Sulfide droplets are where chalcophile metals go to hide. Form them too early and deep, and the copper, gold and palladium are buried before they can rise. Hold them off until the magma is shallow, and the metals survive to make ore. Source: original Samso illustration of the sulfide-saturation control central to Park et al. (2021) and Park et al. (2019), Mineralium Deposita 54. This is also why palladium is such a sharp signal. Copper is abundant and somewhat forgiving; palladium is hyper-sensitive to sulfide. If a magma ever dropped a sulfide droplet, the palladium is the first thing to vanish. So a magma that still carries palladium is, almost by definition, a magma that kept its metals intact. So what does this mean for explorers? It turns the timing of an invisible, long-vanished event into something you can actually measure. Because palladium is wiped out the instant sulfide forms, a handful of cheap whole-rock assays on the right igneous rocks can tell an explorer which side of the fork a magma took, long before any expensive drilling. A suite that still carries palladium, sits on the oxidised side, and shows the chemical fingerprints of shallow, late sulfide saturation (the trace-element ratios geologists lean on, such as Sr/Y and La/Yb) is a suite that kept its metal budget. A suite stripped of palladium probably dumped its copper and gold at depth, and no amount of drilling will conjure them back. In practical terms, this is a fertility filter: a way to rank intrusions and prospects and concentrate effort on the magmas that were actually capable of building a deposit, rather than the ones that merely look the part. It is a vector, not a guarantee, remember that you still need size, structure and a well-focused fluid system to make an orebody. Could this be one of the few tools that screens out barren ground early and inexpensively. And what does it mean to the average ASX investor? Mostly, it tells you how to read a company's announcements. First, treat "PGE in a porphyry" with calm rather than excitement: as the rest of this Insight shows, the contained palladium and platinum are almost always modest, so a headline framing PGE as a standalone value driver in a copper-gold project deserves a healthy dose of skepticism. The real signal is the opposite and quieter as when the technical work points to an oxidised, often alkalic magma, evidence of late sulfide saturation, favourable chalcophile-element or Pd/Pt chemistry, and high Sr/Y, that is a company showing genuine evidence its system was fertile. Read palladium as the tell, not the treasure. It is a clue about whether the copper-gold story underneath is real, not a metal you should be valuing the company on. None of this is a substitute for the usual homework such as grade, tonnage, depth, jurisdiction, balance sheet and management all still decide outcomes. This is not financial advice, it is simply a lens for telling a magma that meant business from one that didn't. 5.00 — THE SWITCH Oxygen decides when the trap springs So what holds the sulfide trap off? The biggest lever is oxidation and that is how much free oxygen the magma effectively carries (geologists measure it as "oxygen fugacity"). The trick is what oxygen does to sulfur. In a reduced magma, sulfur exists as sulfide and saturates quickly. Oxidize the magma and the sulfur flips to sulfate, which the melt can dissolve far more of, so it takes much more sulfur before any sulfide droplet appears at all. Figure 4: The oxidation switch. As a magma becomes more oxidised, the amount of sulfur it can dissolve before saturating in sulfide climbs steeply — roughly doubling across the sulfide-to-sulfate transition. A more oxidised magma can hold its sulfur (and its metals) far longer. Arc magmas are naturally oxidised, which is the deep reason they make copper deposits and most other magmas do not. Source: original Samso illustration of the S-content-at-sulfide-saturation vs oxygen-fugacity relationship of Jugo (2009), Geology 37; as applied in Park et al. (2021). Values indicative. That single fact ties the room together. Oxidation lets a magma carry more sulfur and metal; it delays the sulfide trap; and it keeps palladium in play. It is also why the most fertile porphyry magmas are described as "hydrous and oxidized" — water and oxygen are doing related jobs. 6.00 — THE TECTONIC LEVER Thick crust vs thin crust — and why it changes the metal mix Park and colleagues' central contribution is to link all of this to something you can read off a map: how thick the crust is. Thick crust and thin crust send magma on different journeys, and those journeys produce different ore. Figure 5: Two tectonic settings, two recipes. Thick crust holds magma deep for a long time and tends to build supergiant — but often gold-poorer — copper systems. Thin crust lets magma differentiate shallow with late sulfide saturation, keeping gold and palladium in play; this is where the precious-metal-rich porphyries cluster. (Real deposits sit on a spectrum between these end-members.) Source: original Samso illustration of the thick-vs-thin-arc model in Park et al. (2021), Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, key points and Fig. 6. Geologists read crustal thickness indirectly, from the chemistry of the rocks themselves — ratios like Sr/Y and La/Yb rise as crust thickens, because deep, high-pressure crystallisation leaves a fingerprint. So a rock chemistry lab can effectively tell you which journey the magma took, long after the mountains have eroded away. 7.00 — THE FINGERPRINT Using palladium to read a magma's history Now the two threads meet. Because palladium is wiped out the instant sulfide forms, its abundance in a suite of rocks is a direct readout of whether sulfide saturated early or late — which is to say, whether the magma was fertile. This is the heart of why Jung-Woo Park's group cares about PGE in porphyries: not (mainly) as a metal to sell, but as a cheap, sensitive fertility tracer that separates ore-forming magmas from barren ones. Figure 6: Palladium as a fertility ladder. Across barren, copper, and copper-gold systems, the surviving palladium climbs — because higher palladium means sulfide saturated later and the metal budget was preserved. A relatively quick PGE assay can therefore flag whether a magmatic suite was capable of building an ore deposit. Source: original Samso schematic of the chalcophile-fertility relationship in Park et al. (2019), Mineralium Deposita 54; Cocker et al. (2015), J. Petrol. 56 (El Abra). Schematic, not to scale. Not just theory — tested against real deposits That's the idea. The proof is that it has been tested directly against real, drilled, economically proven porphyries and it held up well enough to explain not just whether a deposit formed, but what kind of deposit it became. The flagship case is El Abra, in northern Chile, which forms the basis of the study in this section. Cocker, Valente, Park, and Campbell (2015) conducted the first thorough PGE analysis of a felsic magmatic suite associated with an economic porphyry to determine the onset of sulfide saturation. As they explain, PGEs exhibit extreme partitioning between sulfide-melt and silicate-melt, making them highly sensitive indicators of this timing. Their findings indicate that sulfide saturation occurred shortly before the exsolution of the ore fluid, with only a small amount of sulfide forming. This was sufficient to extract most of the gold from the magma but left most of the copper, as gold partitions into sulfide approximately 5–10 times more strongly than copper. They conclude that this timing is the reason El Abra is a copper-only deposit rather than a copper-gold one. The method provided more than just a "fertile or not" assessment; it offered a detailed reading of the magma's history to explain the ore type. Northparkes, in New South Wales, is the comparison that proves the point. A Macquarie Arc copper-gold system, it was chosen deliberately to test El Abra's logic against a different outcome. According to Hao, Campbell and colleagues (2017), the prediction was that Northparkes' magmas reached sulfide saturation later than El Abra's, so less gold would have been sequestered at depth — and the PGE data bore that out, consistent with Northparkes being a copper-gold deposit rather than copper-only. Two real deposits, the same tool, correctly discriminated by their palladium and PGE fertility signatures. Zoomed out, the broader claim — that this method "separates ore-forming magmas from barren ones" — has its own dedicated test. According to Park and colleagues (2019), across many suites palladium, used as a chalcophile-fertility indicator, tracks with porphyry ore type: barren, copper, or copper-gold. That is precisely the three-way separation this section has been describing, now validated well beyond a single deposit. A fair caveat El Abra and Northparkes are themselves known, economic deposits, so these are retrospective demonstrations — the PGE signature correctly reads the fertility, and even the copper-only versus copper-gold distinction, of magmas we already know made ore. Using it prospectively, to screen undrilled prospects before anyone knows the outcome, is the direction Park's group and others argue for — not yet a long track record of discoveries made this way. Why this is the real prize You will likely never mine a porphyry for its palladium. But palladium chemistry is one of the most honest answers to the hardest question in copper exploration: was this magma ever capable of making a deposit? A tracer that cheap and that sensitive is worth more to an explorer than a few tonnes of by-product metal. 8.00 — WHERE IT ACTUALLY SITS What the palladium looks like in the rock When palladium does make it into the ore, where does it end up? Two recurring habits show up across the world's PGE-bearing porphyries — and both confirm that the palladium arrived early and hot, alongside the copper and gold, not as some late afterthought. Skouries, Greece — palladium riding inside the copper Skouries is a copper-gold porphyry in the Chalkidiki Peninsula of northern Greece (Figure 7.1), currently being developed by Eldorado Gold's Greek subsidiary, Hellas Gold, as an underground and open-pit mine. It's a small, steep, pencil-shaped intrusion — under 400 metres across at surface — but mineralised to a depth of nearly a kilometre, and it happens to be one of the most PGE-enriched porphyries known anywhere in the world. Figure 7.1: Skouries is a copper-gold porphyry in the Chalkidiki Peninsula of northern Greece. According to Eliopoulos and Economou-Eliopoulos (1991) and later confirmed by Cardiff University researchers working directly on Skouries drill core, the palladium isn't spread evenly through the ore. It's concentrated in microscopic grains of a palladium-telluride mineral called merenskyite, and those grains sit inside or right at the edge of the copper sulfide minerals — chalcopyrite and bornite — that geologists mapped out in section 6. In practice, this means the palladium was deposited in the same hot, early mineralising pulse as the copper and gold, not added later by some separate, cooler event. The ore itself even carries the signature in its formal name: geologists now describe Skouries as a "Cu-Au (Pd, Pt, Te) porphyry" — platinum, palladium and tellurium written directly into the deposit's own classification. New Afton, Canada — palladium riding inside the pyrite New Afton, west of Kamloops in British Columbia (Figure 7.2), tells a related but distinct story. It's an alkalic copper-gold porphyry, and unlike Skouries it's not a project under construction — it's an active underground mine, currently owned and operated by New Gold, producing real copper and gold concentrate today. Figure 7.2: The New Afton copper-gold porphyry mine. (Source: N1 43-101 TECHNICAL REPORT – NEW AFTON MINE BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA) According to a pair of 2023 studies in Frontiers in Earth Science, the palladium and platinum at New Afton sit inside crystals of ordinary-looking pyrite — but those crystals are chemically zoned, like the rings in a tree trunk, recording the changing chemistry of the fluid as it cooled. The cores of the pyrite grains, which crystallised first while the fluid was hottest, are enriched in cobalt and platinum; the outer rims, laid down later as the fluid cooled and evolved, are enriched in palladium, nickel, arsenic and selenium. One of the more striking numbers to come out of that work: the cobalt locked into some of these pyrite cores reaches concentrations higher than in any other ore-forming system yet reported, anywhere. That's not a claim about the amount of copper or gold at New Afton — it's a reminder that this "ordinary" pyrite is quietly recording an extraordinary hydrothermal history, one crystal layer at a time. The metal that never shows up A small but telling detail from both deposits: the "stay-behind" iridium-group metals — osmium, iridium and rhodium — are essentially absent. At Skouries, they sit below the detection limit of the instruments used to measure them. This isn't a gap in the data; it's the whole story of section 1 playing out in the assay results. Porphyry PGE is, in practice, an almost pure palladium-and-platinum story, heavily skewed toward palladium — commonly around ten parts palladium to every one part platinum. That lopsidedness isn't a local quirk of these two deposits. It's the inherited fingerprint of the oxidised, sulfide-shy magma the metals came from in the first place, carried faithfully all the way from the mantle wedge to the mineral grain a geologist eventually puts under a microscope. Two deposits, one pattern Skouries and New Afton sit on opposite sides of the world, in completely different tectonic settings, mined by different companies at different stages of development. Yet the palladium in both tells the identical story: it arrived early, alongside the copper and gold, riding inside whichever high-temperature mineral was crystallising at the time, a copper sulfide at Skouries, a pyrite crystal at New Afton, and the iridium-group metals that would mark a colder, deeper origin simply never showed up. Here are real deposits, checked against real drill core, confirming the same magmatic story (Figure 7.3). Figure 7.3: Two homes for porphyry palladium. (A) At Skouries and Elatsite, palladium hides in microscopic telluride/bismuthide grains (the mineral merenskyite) tucked inside copper sulfides and magnetite — high-temperature minerals, meaning Pd, Au and Cu were laid down together. (B) In British Columbia's alkalic porphyries, Pd and Pt ride inside hydrothermal pyrite and magnetite that are chemically zoned core-to-rim (Co-Pt core → Pd-Ni-As-Se rim), recording a fluid cooling through the main ore stage. Source: original Samso illustration of observations in Eliopoulos & Economou-Eliopoulos (1991), Econ. Geol. 86; Tarkian & Stribrny (1999), Min. Pet. 65; and New Afton studies (e.g. Sykora et al., 2018; LeFort et al., 2011). A small but telling detail: the "stay-behind" iridium-group metals (Os, Ir, Ru) are essentially absent from these ores — below detection. Porphyry PGE is a palladium-and-platinum story, heavily skewed to palladium (Pd:Pt commonly around 10:1). That lopsidedness is itself the inherited signature of the oxidised, sulfide-shy magma the metals came from. 9.00 — THE NUMBERS How much is actually there — and where Reality check on the by-product dream. In a typical porphyry, total PGE sits below 10 parts per billion — vanishingly small. Only a special subset, almost all of them alkalic, gold-rich, island-arc systems, carry enough palladium to matter. Even then, the contained tonnage is modest by platinum-mine standards. Figure 8: The PGE-enriched porphyry "club" is small. Skouries — over 200 Mt of ore — holds an estimated 15 t of palladium and 3.5 t of platinum; Elatsite about 13 t Pd and 3 t Pt. Worth recovering as a credit, but a rounding error next to a dedicated PGE mine. The enriched deposits cluster in four regions: the British Columbia Cordillera, the Balkans, Southeast Asia and Central Asia. Source: Economou-Eliopoulos (2005), MAC Short Course 35; Eliopoulos & Economou-Eliopoulos (1991), Econ. Geol. 86; Economou-Eliopoulos & Eliopoulos (2000), Ore Geol. Rev. 16. Figures approximate. The pattern in that table is the whole point of Economou-Eliopoulos's work: the palladium-rich porphyries are the gold-rich, alkalic ones. Across a survey of dozens of porphyries, palladium turned up in most of them at trace levels, but the genuinely enriched cases were nearly all tied to high gold and an oxidised, alkaline magma — exactly the "late sulfide saturation, metals preserved" recipe from the earlier sections, seen from the mine end. 10.00 — THE FRONTIER How the metals actually hitch the ride up One puzzle remains. Sulfide droplets are dense and are expected to sink, not rise, so how do metals that briefly enter sulfide ever get back up to the shallow ore zone? The leading answer is wonderfully simple, and it comes in two parts. According to Mungall and colleagues (2015), whose laboratory experiments first demonstrated the mechanism, the heavy sulfide droplet hitches a ride on a buoyant gas bubble and is carried upward. And according to Park and colleagues (2015), who studied lavas from the Tonga rear-arc, exactly this pairing, sulfide droplets clinging to vapour bubbles, is preserved in nature, confirming the process is real and not just a laboratory curiosity. Figure 9: The bubble lift. A dense sulfide droplet (heavy, would sink) sticks to a buoyant gas bubble; surface tension holds them together and the pair rises, ferrying copper, gold and palladium up to the shallow ore zone. First shown experimentally, it has since been found preserved in natural arc lavas. Source: original Samso illustration of the mechanism in Mungall et al. (2015), Nature Geoscience 8, 216–219; natural evidence in Park et al. (2015), J. Petrol. 56 (Tonga rear-arc lavas). A second frontier idea is worth knowing. According to Holwell and colleagues (2019), in some post-subduction settings an earlier round of subduction enriches the mantle "lid" (the lithospheric mantle) with metals such as palladium and gold. Later, when that region is stretched or peeled away, low-degree melting taps that enriched store and feeds palladium-rich, alkaline magmas, which, they argue, is a plausible reason so many palladium-bearing porphyries are alkalic. As the authors themselves frame it, this remains an active research proposal rather than settled fact, but it fits the global pattern neatly. 11.00 — SO WHAT What to take away Pull the threads together and the platinum-group story in porphyries resolves into one clean idea: palladium is the metal that only survives a perfect journey. It needs an oxidised, hydrous magma, a sulfide trap that springs late rather than early, and a clean handoff to the ore fluid. When all of that lines up, you get a gold-rich copper deposit that happens to carry a little palladium. When it doesn't, the palladium — and usually the deposit — never shows up. Samso take Don't buy a porphyry story for its platinum-group elements — the contained tonnes are almost always modest, and PGE recovery is a by-product credit, not a thesis. The real value of this science is diagnostic. The same conditions that let a porphyry carry palladium — oxidised magma, late sulfide saturation, the right crustal setting — are the conditions that make a fertile copper-gold system in the first place. So when you see Pd/Pt assays, high Sr/Y, an oxidised alkalic suite, or talk of "chalcophile fertility" in the technical work, read them as what they are: a magma showing its receipts. The palladium is the tell, not the treasure. The honest caveat This Insight simplifies a research-grade subject so a non-specialist can follow the logic. The figures are original Samso illustrations of concepts and indicative values from the cited papers — not reproductions, and not a substitute for the primary literature. Specific numbers (grades, depths, tonnages) vary deposit-to-deposit and should always be checked against the original sources and each project's own disclosures. References & sources This Insight is built on two anchor works — a major review of porphyry-forming magmatic processes (Park et al., 2021) and the foundational survey of PGE in porphyries (Economou-Eliopoulos, 2005) — supported by the primary studies below. It also draws on a 2024 conference talk by Jung-Woo Park on PGE in porphyry deposits. All figures are original Samso illustrations of concepts and data drawn from these sources. Primary source (framework) — Park, J.-W., Campbell, I. H., Chiaradia, M., Hao, H. & Lee, C.-T. (2021). "Crustal magmatic controls on the formation of porphyry copper deposits." Nature Reviews Earth & Environment 2, 542–557. doi:10.1038/s43017-021-00182-8. (Crustal thickness, sulfide-saturation history, oxidation and chalcophile fertility; basis for Figs. 02, 04, 05.) Primary source (PGE potential) — Economou-Eliopoulos, M. (2005). "Platinum-group element potential of porphyry deposits." In: Mungall, J. E. (ed.) Exploration for Platinum-Group Element Deposits, Mineralogical Association of Canada Short Course 35, 203–245. (PGE-enriched porphyry framework; Skouries & Elatsite tonnage estimates; basis for Figs. 01, 08.) Eliopoulos, D. G. & Economou-Eliopoulos, M. (1991). "Platinum-group element and gold contents in the Skouries porphyry copper deposit, Chalkidiki Peninsula, northern Greece." Economic Geology 86, 740–749. (Skouries averages ~180 ppb Pd, ~26 ppb Pt.) Economou-Eliopoulos, M. & Eliopoulos, D. (2000). "Palladium, platinum and gold concentration in porphyry copper systems of Greece and their genetic significance." Ore Geology Reviews 16, 28–40. Tarkian, M. & Stribrny, B. (1999). "Platinum-group elements in porphyry copper deposits: a reconnaissance study." Mineralogy and Petrology 65, 161–183. (33-deposit survey; Pd detectable in ~70%, Pt in ~30%; IPGE below detection; merenskyite/sperrylite in chalcopyrite.) Park, J. W. et al. (2019). "Chalcophile element fertility and the formation of porphyry Cu ± Au deposits." Mineralium Deposita 54, 657–670. (Pd as a chalcophile-fertility indicator; basis for Figs. 03, 06.) Cocker, H. A., Valente, D. L., Park, J. W. & Campbell, I. H. (2015). "Using platinum group elements to identify sulfide saturation in a porphyry Cu system: the El Abra porphyry Cu deposit, Northern Chile." Journal of Petrology 56, 2491–2514. Jugo, P. J. (2009). "Sulfur content at sulfide saturation in oxidized magmas." Geology 37, 415–418. (The oxidation control on dissolved sulfur; basis for Fig. 04.) Mungall, J. E., Brenan, J. M., Godel, B., Barnes, S. J. & Gaillard, F. (2015). "Transport of metals and sulphur in magmas by flotation of sulphide melt on vapour bubbles." Nature Geoscience 8, 216–219. (The bubble-flotation mechanism; basis for Fig. 09.) Park, J. W., Campbell, I. H., Kim, J. & Moon, J. W. (2015). "The role of late sulfide saturation in the formation of a Cu- and Au-rich magma: insights from the platinum group element geochemistry of Niuatahi-Motutahi lavas, Tonga Rear Arc." Journal of Petrology 56, 59–81. (Natural evidence for sulfide–bubble association.) Hao, H. D., Campbell, I. H., Richards, J. P., Nakamura, E. & Sakaguchi, C. (2019). "Platinum-group element geochemistry of the Escondida igneous suites, Northern Chile." Journal of Petrology 60, 487–514. Sillitoe, R. H. (2010). "Porphyry copper systems." Economic Geology 105, 3–41. (Porphyry architecture; basis for Fig. 02.) New Afton / British Columbia alkalic Cu-Au PGE studies — e.g. LeFort, D. et al. (2011), Economic Geology 106 (Mount Milligan); Sykora, S. et al. (2018) and the two-part New Afton PGE-in-pyrite studies, Frontiers in Earth Science (2023). (Zoned pyrite/magnetite hosting; basis for Fig. 07B.) Holwell, D. A. et al. (2019). "A metasomatized lithospheric mantle control on the metallogenic signature of post-subduction magmatism." Nature Communications 10, 3511. (Post-subduction Pd enrichment of the lithospheric mantle — discussed as an active hypothesis.) Cocker, H. A., Valente, D. L., Park, J.-W. & Campbell, I. H. (2015). "Using platinum group elements to identify sulfide saturation in a porphyry Cu system: the El Abra porphyry Cu deposit, northern Chile." Journal of Petrology 56, 2491–2514. Open access: researchonline.jcu.edu.au/64318. Hao, H., Campbell, I. H. et al. (2017). "Platinum-group element geochemistry used to determine Cu and Au fertility in the Northparkes igneous suites, New South Wales, Australia." Ore Geology Reviews. sciencedirect.com. Cover photo: Platinum (GeoDIL number - 869), Darla Sondrol. CC0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Platinum_(GeoDIL_number_-_869).jpg). Reproduced photograph, shown faded under a navy overlay on the article thumbnail. 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Most importantly, investors need to be absolutely diligent in understanding their own risk-reward tolerance and capabilities. Never bite off more than you can chew. As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the Great Wall stood because it took centuries to complete. The Samso Philosophy: Stay curious. Stay sharp. And remember—digging deeper always uncovers the real value. In Life, there is no such thing as a Free Lunch. Never bite off more than you can chew is my parting comment. Happy Investing, and the only four-letter word you need to know is DYOR. To support our independent nature of our work, please head over to our Support Page and give us a helping hand in any of the ways listed. This is a new initiate for the Samso Platform, and it was always the concept of Samso when we started this journey in 2018. Disclaimer The information or opinions provided herein do not constitute investment advice, an offer, or solicitation to subscribe for, purchase, or sell the investment product(s) mentioned herein. It does not take into consideration, nor have any regard to your specific investment objectives, financial situation, risk profile, tax position and particular, or unique needs and constraints. Read full Disclaimer. Share to Grow: Your Bonus Samso has just released an eBook: How to Add Value to your Share Portfolio |A lesson on geological models sought by mining companies that gives insight and an understanding of which portfolios are better - and potentially more lucrative – investments. Click here to download this eBook.| Download eBook If you find this article informative and useful, please help me share the information. I try to write about topics that are interesting and have the potential to be of investment value. It is not easy to find stories that fit those parameters. If you or your organisation sees the benefit of what Samso is trying to achieve and has a need to share your journey, please contact me at noel.ong@samso.com.au. About Samso Samso is a trusted platform that equips dedicated investors with up-to-date industry knowledge and insigh0ts from top CEOs and thought leaders. By staying informed on business advancements and market trends, investors can enhance their financial decisions through a combination of expert guidance and their own research. Samso Insights | www.samso.com.au | An Investor Lens on ASX-Listed Companies

At SuperAI 2026, a European lab, a Chinese lab, and a veteran investor agreed the AI frontier has quietly moved — away from topping benchmarks, toward owning deployment, distribution, and the ground beneath the tokens. A panel discussion, moderated by Zixuan Li (Head, Z.ai), with: Geoff Soon, Mistral AI · Cherie Shi, MiniMax · Hemant Mohapatra, Lightspeed SuperAI 2026 · Marina Bay Sands, Singapore · 10 June 2026 For a few years, the word frontier had a simple meaning in artificial intelligence: whoever sat on top of the benchmark leaderboards that week was at it. The position was expensive to hold, it changed hands constantly, and an entire industry organised its marketing around the chase. That definition is now coming apart — and the people dismantling it are the ones who build and fund the models. Across forty minutes on a Singapore stage, a sales chief from Europe's flagship lab, a manager from one of China's fastest-rising labs, and a partner at a venture firm that has watched the whole cycle arrived at a shared and slightly vertiginous conclusion. Raw intelligence is on its way to becoming a commodity. The smartest AI model in the world may soon be one of the least valuable places to stand. The panel — “The Global Frontier of AI Models” — was moderated by Zixuan Li, who heads Z.ai. The voices were Geoff Soon, who runs revenue across Asia-Pacific for Mistral AI; Cherie Shi, a global business manager at MiniMax; and Hemant Mohapatra, a partner at Lightspeed who supplied the conversation's connective tissue — a set of frameworks about where value goes when a new resource stops being scarce.* The frontier stopped being a leaderboard Asked what “frontier” now means, none of the three reached for a benchmark. Soon argued the logic had inverted over the past year. Topping a leaderboard is costly and fleeting; what his customers actually care about is frontier deployment — what a government or an enterprise can put into production to drive real change. And in a world of chip shortages and uncertain API access, that question is inseparable from ownership: how much of the capability you own, how much you control, and how durable it is if the supply chain takes a shock. Figure 1: Frontier' has quietly shifted from reading a chart to owning what you can actually deploy (Source Wikimedia Commons). Shi's reframing was about to reach. For MiniMax, she said, the frontier is measured by how many people in the real world use the models every day — which is why the company optimises relentlessly for two things: agentic capability on genuine day-to-day tasks, and cost efficiency low enough that a user in any corner of the world can afford frontier-grade intelligence. The benchmark she cares about is adoption, not the leaderboard. Mohapatra zoomed out furthest, declining to answer directly and instead handing the room a lens. Every technological super-cycle, he said, opens with an extractive phase: you are pulling a new natural resource out of the ground, and decades of research go into finding it. Three hundred years ago, that resource was oil. Today it is intelligence — the AI token. In the extractive phase, the frontier is wherever you sit closest to the extraction, because that is where the value pools. Intelligence is the new oil The trouble — or the opportunity — is that extractive phases end. As the resource gets cheap and abundant, the cycle turns distributive. You stop competing to pump the most oil and start competing to put oil into machines and build better cars. The frontier migrates with it: being the best token-extractor stops mattering, and the question becomes whether you can actually solve a customer's problem. By Mohapatra's reading, that turn is happening now. Figure 2: Every super-cycle opens by extracting a new resource. Photo: Lakeview No 1 Gusher 1910 (Source: Wikimedia Commons) Watch the model layer commoditise in real time, he suggested: a model released the day before the panel was among the strongest ever, yet the gap between one generation and the next keeps shrinking. That is inevitable as raw intelligence approaches a ceiling, where each additional one percent costs ten billion dollars, then a hundred billion. Past that point, models compete on price rather than capability — and the only players who can win a price war are the ones with the balance sheets to fund it: the big clouds, OpenAI, xAI, Anthropic, Google, Microsoft. They will drag the model layer down to commodity economics. And, he stressed, you want that to happen, because it pushes the value up the stack. Commoditisation doesn’t mean cheap or free. It means fungible — oil from one station is no different from another. — Hemant Mohapatra, Lightspeed That distinction did a lot of work. A commodity is not worthless; it is interchangeable. Intelligence from one model becomes indistinguishable from intelligence from another, and the competition collapses to price against performance — exactly as it did for oil. Along the way, Mohapatra offered a deliberately provocative yardstick for artificial general intelligence: in his view, an AGI is something like an IQ of 98, a system that makes roughly the mistakes a human makes but carries human intuition. You then take that average-human mind and train it up to 150 on mathematics, on biology, on agentic work — until it becomes a specialist. Generality is the floor; the value is in what you build on top of it. The money is in scope, not scale - Smartest AI Model If the baseline models will soon solve the easy problems for everyone, where does a new company find an edge? Here Mohapatra drew his second line, between two kinds of problems. A scale problem is one you solve once and then deliver cheaply and abundantly to many — coding is the canonical example. A scope problem is messier and keeps moving: cancer research, mathematics, biology, material science. You can train an intelligence to beat one cancer, and then a new variant appears and your solution fails, so you iterate again, forever. Figure 3: Scope problems — biology, material science, mathematics — keep moving, and that's where the value migrates Photo: Molecular model of Penicillin by Dorothy Hodgkin. (Source: Wikimedia Commons) Baseline models will own the scale problems by default. So the firms worth backing now, he said, are the ones climbing a different intelligence curve entirely — physical world-models, large biology, material science, mathematics, physics, game simulation — fields where the token output looks nothing like a chatbot's. That is where the value has gone. The Swiss Army knife and the specialist tool Soon translated the same idea into a tool metaphor. A giant general-purpose model is a Swiss Army knife: perfect when you have a rough idea and want to prove out a hypothesis, flexible enough to get you there even if it is not the most efficient route. Once the use case is proven, you reach for a specialist tool — a smaller, sharper model that does one thing efficiently, which is where labs like Mistral and MiniMax come in. But the level that matters most, he added, is the one above the tool: the user, and the enterprise context you can feed into the specialised model to produce a real outcome. Figure 4: A giant general-purpose model is a Swiss Army knife (Source: Wikimedia Commons) This is also why Soon is sceptical of a single, monolithic super-intelligence. He expects many domain-specific super-intelligences instead. Within twelve to eighteen months, he predicted, AI may well perform many functions of a traditional call centre at superhuman levels — while a system capable of diagnostic surgery remains far off, with too many unsolved steps in between. The competitive question for a smaller lab is therefore not how to out-muscle a general model, but how to specialise knowledge, run it efficiently, and wrap enterprise context around it so a customer builds a genuine moat instead of merely renting a generic intelligence for a 10-to-30-per-cent productivity bump.* Two labs, two playbooks The labs on stage are pursuing that scope-and-specialisation frontier from opposite ends of the world, with strikingly different advantages. Figure 5: Two labs, two playbooks Mistral: Europe’s third option Soon leaned into geography. Europe is dense with industrial heavyweights, and partnering with them lets Mistral push to the frontier of fields like material science. At its first customer summit in Paris, the company announced a strategic partnership with Airbus — the kind of partner sitting on vast proprietary data that can be fused with Mistral's models to attack genuine scope problems. He was candid about the disadvantages too: a real gap in funding and liquidity versus a Silicon Valley that has refined capital-raising for decades, and a home market that is effectively 27 countries trying to behave as one, against the single regulatory and linguistic blocks that China and the United States enjoy. His closing point was almost diplomatic — a reminder that the world is not a two-horse race between China and the US, and that Europe is a credible third option for anyone choosing an AI partner. MiniMax: the cheapest intelligence in the world Shi's differentiators were modality and price. MiniMax built multimodal from day one — not just language but Hailuo, its video-generation model, plus speech and music — and she sees those modalities converging into single models that improve both generation and understanding at once, something she said very few companies can do. Its recent M3 release is pitched as both a strong agentic, tool-using model and a natively multimodal one. The second pillar is cost: she claimed M3 runs at roughly one-third to one-fifth the price of Sonnet 4.6 while handling comparable coding and agentic work, part of a deliberate strategy to keep every release among the most cost-competitive in the world. Behind the pricing sits an argument about return on investment. Many enterprises and AI-native users, Shi noted, are enthusiastic about models but have not yet had the hard internal conversation about ROI. When they do — and she believes they will — MiniMax wants the math to still work even at enormous token volumes. The company runs a hybrid model strategy to match: its language models, from M2 through M3, are open source, while video, speech, and music stay closed, where customers still look for a defining frontier. Open weights, she explained, are what let MiniMax serve the booming demand across Asia-Pacific and Southeast Asia for models deployed in local data centers under strict privacy rules — though for the very newest capabilities, the cloud version always ships first. Can you make money giving it away? That hybrid strategy opens onto the sharpest disagreement-by-degrees of the session: the economics of open source. Mohapatra split it cleanly into a philosophical case and a business one. Philosophically, you want AI available to everyone and the foundational layers commoditised rather than controlled by a handful of corporations charging the maximum, and open weights are simply the fastest route to that commoditization, because they let everyone tune and shape the intelligence. Closed models get there too, eventually; oil is controlled by a few players and is still a commodity. Open source just speeds the clock. The business case is where it gets hard. People want to consume intelligence on tap — open the tap, fill the glass — and the only way to make money selling tokens that way is to own what is under the tap. You can’t just sell water from a pond. You have to go all the way down to the GPU, the energy, the land. — Hemant Mohapatra, Lightspeed For a company selling an open-weight model as a model, that is a trap. Today open source is, for some, mostly a marketing posture — the moment there is something worth protecting, it goes private. The state-of-the-art gap is closing fast: six months ago open models trailed the closed frontier by six months, now by three, and the lead will keep shrinking until nobody pays a premium for a three-month edge that costs ten times as much. Which leaves the uncomfortable question Mohapatra does not think has a happy answer: can you make money in open source without owning every layer beneath it? He does not believe you can. Soon, notably, agreed — the way to monetise this technology, he said, is to win the full stack, from the GPUs through the inference layer to the harnesses on top. Ford, GM, and the horses To explain what kind of team wins as a cycle matures, Mohapatra went to Detroit. Henry Ford was an extractive-phase champion — any colour you like, as long as it's black — whose genius was scaling a single product flawlessly. Then General Motors arrived in the distributive phase with a different proposition: not whether you owned a car, but whether you owned one that stood out, a V6 against a V4. GM's real innovation was closer to planned obsolescence — making last year's styles feel dated and rolling out new ones — and it was a market-and-brand company far more than an R&D one. The lesson he draws is that the winning playbook changes with the phase, so he evaluates founders on two axes at once: where the cycle is, and whether the team fits the cycle's moment. Figure 6: Unidentified Location: Queensland, Australia Description: Ford Model T, one ton capacity truck (Source : State Library of Queensland) Which set up the panel's closing round — each speaker's most underestimated success factor, in a sentence. Soon's was distribution: having watched the scramble for GPUs, he thinks access to this capability could be just as disrupted in the years ahead. Shi's was a mission more than a factor — to distribute frontier intelligence to every user in every corner of the world by driving the cost of tokens, energy, and infrastructure relentlessly down. Mohapatra's was the most pointed and the best note to end on. This resource, he said, has simply been handed to us; things that took weeks now take minutes, and tasks that took twenty steps can be done in one. Yet far too many founders are taking this miraculous new substance and using it to make the old thing marginally faster. Even companies that race from one to three million dollars in revenue in a year — a feat that was nearly impossible not long ago — are being passed over, because others are moving faster still, with better retention and a bigger vision. The resource is not the differentiator anymore. The imagination is. Too many founders take this amazing vial of oil and feed it back to the horses, hoping they’ll run faster. They won’t. — Hemant Mohapatra, Lightspeed Cover photo: Front of server racks at NERSC, Derrick Coetzee from Berkeley, CA, USA. CC0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Front_of_server_racks_at_NERSC.jpg) The Samso Way – Seek the Research Here at Samso, we pride ourselves on delivering content for investors that is independent and informed by over three decades of experience in the industry. Our content is well-researched and is only created if I see merit in discussing the company's story. Our mission is simple: cut through the noise and spotlight what matters—genuine stories, grounded insights, and real opportunity. Our content is well-researched and is only created if the team sees merit in discussing the company or concept. Investors can explore our three core platforms: Coffee with Samso Samso Insights Samso News There may be numerous paths to success in investing, but the common thread among successful individuals is that they remain committed to making informed decisions. Equip yourself with the right knowledge and tools, and you will be well on your way to achieving your financial goals. Most importantly, investors need to be absolutely diligent in understanding their own risk-reward tolerance and capabilities. Never bite off more than you can chew. As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the Great Wall stood because it took centuries to complete. The Samso Philosophy: Stay curious. Stay sharp. And remember—digging deeper always uncovers the real value. In Life, there is no such thing as a Free Lunch. Never bite off more than you can chew is my parting comment. Happy Investing, and the only four-letter word you need to know is DYOR. To support our independent nature of our work, please head over to our Support Page and give us a helping hand in any of the ways listed. This is a new initiate for the Samso Platform, and it was always the concept of Samso when we started this journey in 2018. Disclaimer The information or opinions provided herein do not constitute investment advice, an offer, or solicitation to subscribe for, purchase, or sell the investment product(s) mentioned herein. It does not take into consideration, nor have any regard to your specific investment objectives, financial situation, risk profile, tax position and particular, or unique needs and constraints. Read full Disclaimer. Share to Grow: Your Bonus Samso has just released an eBook: How to Add Value to your Share Portfolio |A lesson on geological models sought by mining companies that gives insight and an understanding of which portfolios are better - and potentially more lucrative – investments. Click here to download this eBook.| Download eBook If you find this article informative and useful, please help me share the information. I try to write about topics that are interesting and have the potential to be of investment value. It is not easy to find stories that fit those parameters. If you or your organisation sees the benefit of what Samso is trying to achieve and has a need to share your journey, please contact me at noel.ong@samso.com.au. About Samso Samso is a trusted platform that equips dedicated investors with up-to-date industry knowledge and insigh0ts from top CEOs and thought leaders. By staying informed on business advancements and market trends, investors can enhance their financial decisions through a combination of expert guidance and their own research. Samso News | www.samso.com.au | An Investor Lens on ASX-Listed Companies

SEDEX systems are the world’s most important source of lead and zinc and rank among the largest, richest orebodies on earth. Miramar Resources Limited (ASX: M2R) confirmed it had completed its first-ever auger drilling programme at the Joy Helen copper-lead-silver prospect, part of the 100%-owned Chain Pool project in Western Australia's Gascoyne region. The drill program rides on the back of the project's similarities with Sedimentary Exhalative (SEDEX) deposits in the Macarthur Basin. (Figure 1). Importantly, SEDEX systems are the world’s most important source of lead and zinc and rank among the largest, richest orebodies on earth. Miramar’s Managing Director, Ms Marion Bush said the key geological ingredients at the Chain Pool project, combined with evidence of mineralisation in old workings and on the surface at the Joy Helen prospect, have Miramar excited about the project’s potential to host a large SEDEX deposit. Figure 1: Joy Helen prospect showing auger drill holes in relation to carbonate alteration halos and highgrade mineralisation (Source: M2R ASX Announcement) This was the campaign we previewed in late May, when the rig was first turning. That loop has now closed: the drilling is done, the samples are on their way to a Perth laboratory, and assays are expected within three to four weeks. Table 1: Samso Summary Item Detail ASX Code M2R Announcement Chain Pool SEDEX Potential Tested with Successful Auger Drilling (3 June 2026) Prospect Joy Helen Cu-Pb-Ag, Chain Pool Project (E08/3676) Location ~275km northeast of Carnarvon, Gascoyne region, WA Programme 124 auger holes, completed in under two weeks, under budget Strike Known mineralisation ~300m, extended toward a potential ~700m Deposit Model Sedimentary Exhalative (SEDEX) Pb-Zn-Ag, hosted in the Irregully Formation Assays Submitted to Perth lab; results expected in 3–4 weeks Next Steps Ground gravity + passive seismic surveys, then RC or diamond follow-up So, What Exactly Is a SEDEX Deposit? SEDEX is short for Sedimentary Exhalative. The name describes how the metal gets there: hot, metal-rich fluids vent ("exhale") onto or just beneath the floor of a sedimentary basin, and the metals precipitate out among the soft, accumulating sediments. Picture an ancient seafloor sitting over a basin that is slowly pulling apart along deep faults. Those faults act as plumbing. Mineralised brines rise through them, hit the cooler, oxygen-poor water and mud near the surface, and drop their cargo of lead, zinc, silver — and sometimes copper — as layered sulphide ore. Three features tend to define the classic SEDEX setting, and all three are why this deposit type is such a prized exploration target: First, the basin. SEDEX systems form in rift-generated sedimentary basins — older clastic sediments overlain by a thick "sag-phase" sequence of black shales and calcareous mudstones. That stacked, layered architecture is what allows the ore to spread out as broad, stratiform (layer-like) bodies rather than narrow veins. Second, the growth fault. There is almost always a major long-lived fault at the basin margin that channels the mineralising fluids. Find the fault, and you have found the likeliest address for the metal. Third, the zoned halo. As the venting fluids cool and react with the surrounding rock, they leave a predictable chemical fingerprint. At the well-studied Lady Loretta deposit in Queensland, the orebody is wrapped in a proximal zinc-rich siderite halo up to 50m thick, then an ankerite/ferroan dolomite halo for another 50–100m, before grading out into ordinary dolomitic sediment, with broad manganese and thallium halos beyond. Geologists can effectively walk up the gradient of these halos toward the ore — a built-in treasure map, if you can read the chemistry. Why SEDEX Matters — to Geologists and to Investors Here is the part that should make any resources investor sit up. SEDEX deposits are the single most important source of lead and zinc on the planet, and a major source of silver and copper as well. When they work, they tend to be big, and they tend to be rich. The roll-call of SEDEX (and SEDEX-adjacent) giants is a who's-who of world-class mines: Sullivan in Canada, Red Dog in Alaska, Rammelsberg in Germany, and an Australian cluster that includes Cannington, George Fisher, Mount Isa and HYC (Figure 2). These are the kinds of orebodies that underwrite mining towns for decades. That scale is precisely why a junior explorer with a credible SEDEX thesis and a tight share register is interesting — the prize, if it exists, is large enough to re-rate a company many times over. The flip side, and it must be said plainly, is that "credible thesis" and "discovery" are separated by a lot of drilling, and most exploration ground never crosses that gap. Figure 2: Global distribution of SEDEX zinc-lead-silver deposits with proportional symbol showing contained zinc and lead in tons. Insets show distribution of deposits in the (A) Selwyn, (B) Belt-Purcell, (C) Rajasthan, and (D) Mt. Isa-McArthur basins.( Source: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report) Does Joy Helen Actually Fit the Model? This is where Miramar's announcement does its real work — not in the drill metres, but in stacking up the geological evidence against the SEDEX checklist. Joy Helen sits in carbonate rocks right against a major growth fault on the edge of the Edmund Basin. Tick the basin. Tick the fault. And, according to Technical Director Allan Kelly, the prospect shows the same zoned carbonate alteration halo — with base-metal values climbing toward a proximal siderite zone — that you would expect from the textbook SEDEX model. Tick the halo (Figure 3). Figure 3: Location and Geology of the Chain Pool Project ( Source: M2R ASX Announcement) There is also a neat explanation for what is missing. So far Joy Helen shows secondary copper and very little zinc, which at first glance seems odd for a lead-zinc deposit type. But metal zonation is normal in these systems: at Mount Isa, primary copper forms closer to the fluid vent, with lead and zinc further out. A copper-rich, zinc-poor signature at surface is therefore consistent with sitting near the "hot" end of a zoned system — potentially an encouraging place to be, rather than a red flag. It is a model-consistent observation, though one that drilling and assays still need to confirm rather than assume. Managing Director Marion Bush's framing is that the project now has all the key geological ingredients for a large SEDEX deposit, combined with real mineralisation in the old workings and at surface. The auger programme didn't prove a deposit — no auger programme does — but it was designed to test the scale of the system, and on the company's account it found enough structure to justify the next, more expensive round of work. Figure 4: Typical SEDEX deposit model adjacent to a major growth fault in a rift basin showing upper breccia and lower replacement orebodies and zoned geochemical halos ( Source: M2R ASX Announcement). What Happens Next Two things are running in parallel. While the assays are processed, Miramar plans a ground gravity survey and a passive seismic survey. Together these are meant to map the basement topography and faulting beneath the cover and, potentially, to directly detect deeper lead-zinc mineralisation. The company has flagged that the gravity survey alone might be enough to generate drill targets. Whatever the surveys and assays show will then shape a follow-up campaign using either an RC or a diamond rig — the heavier tools that can actually test for an orebody at depth. It is worth keeping expectations calibrated. Auger drilling is a near-surface reconnaissance tool; it is the opening move, not the checkmate. The value of the 3 June release is that it keeps the sequence moving and sets up a richer dataset — assays plus geophysics — before any capital goes into deeper drilling. Separately, the announcement carried a brief Eastern Goldfields update: Miramar is working through the drilling data at its 80%-owned Gidji JV Gold Project near Kalgoorlie to assess the potential for shallow gold resources beside the Goldfields Highway, with infill drilling pencilled in for the Highway target in the second half of the year. So the gold story that has driven much of M2R's recent news flow hasn't gone quiet — it is simply sharing the stage. Samso Concluding Comments Chain Pool is, at this stage, a thesis backed by a genuinely good-looking address: the right basin, the right fault, the right alteration halo, and high-grade rock chips already in hand. The 3 June programme did what early-stage exploration is supposed to do — it widened the search area cheaply and quickly, and it framed the next decisions around hard data rather than hope. The disciplined, low-cost manner of the campaign is consistent with how this team tends to operate. For investors, the watch-items from here are concrete and near-term: the assay results in the coming weeks, and the gravity/seismic survey outputs that should sharpen any drill target. Neither will, on its own, "make" the discovery — but together they are the difference between a compelling story and a defined target worth putting a diamond rig on. As always in exploration, the geology can be excellent and the outcome still uncertain. Patience, position sizing and your own research remain the only sensible companions. Reader who have been following Samso will know that Miramar Resources is my favourite explorer. A shareholder that still believes in a discovery, Miramar is definitely worth taking some time for the process of DYOR About Miramar Resources Limited Miramar Resources Limited (ASX: M2R) is a Western Australia–focused mineral exploration company searching for gold, copper and nickel-copper-PGE deposits across two of the state's most prospective regions: the Eastern Goldfields and the Gascoyne. The portfolio spans eight projects across the two regions. In the Eastern Goldfields, the anchor asset is the 80%-owned Gidji JV Gold Project, located roughly 15km north of Kalgoorlie, where recent reverse-circulation drilling has returned shallow, high-grade gold. In the Gascoyne, Miramar holds a cluster of base- and battery-metals projects, including the 100%-owned Whaleshark copper-gold (IOCG) project near Onslow, the Chain Pool copper-lead-silver (SEDEX) project, the Bangemall Ni-Cu-PGE project, Carnarvon Sands, and the recently optioned South Ashburton project. The company continues to actively manage its portfolio, recently completing the sale of its Randalls Project to Ore Resources Limited (ASX: OR3) in April 2026 as part of an ongoing strategy to rationalise its Eastern Goldfields ground and concentrate capital on its highest-priority targets. Cover photo: Pretty Rocks, Mary Lewandowski. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Drilling_occurred_at_Pretty_Rocks_in_2018._Core_samples_from_the_drilling_indicate_how_much_ice_underlies_this_part_of_the_(db7aa7dd-5660-41f2-8ced-0f001b7f2a6f).jpg) The Samso Way – Seek the Research Here at Samso, we pride ourselves on delivering content for investors that is independent and informed by over three decades of experience in the industry. Our content is well-researched and is only created if I see merit in discussing the company's story. Our mission is simple: cut through the noise and spotlight what matters—genuine stories, grounded insights, and real opportunity. Our content is well-researched and is only created if the team sees merit in discussing the company or concept. Investors can explore our three core platforms: Coffee with Samso Samso Insights Samso News There may be numerous paths to success in investing, but the common thread among successful individuals is that they remain committed to making informed decisions. Equip yourself with the right knowledge and tools, and you will be well on your way to achieving your financial goals. Most importantly, investors need to be absolutely diligent in understanding their own risk-reward tolerance and capabilities. Never bite off more than you can chew. As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the Great Wall stood because it took centuries to complete. The Samso Philosophy: Stay curious. Stay sharp. And remember—digging deeper always uncovers the real value. In Life, there is no such thing as a Free Lunch. Never bite off more than you can chew is my parting comment. Happy Investing, and the only four-letter word you need to know is DYOR. To support our independent nature of our work, please head over to our Support Page and give us a helping hand in any of the ways listed. This is a new initiative for the Samso Platform, and it was always the concept of Samso when we started this journey in 2018. Disclaimer The information or opinions provided herein do not constitute investment advice, an offer, or solicitation to subscribe for, purchase, or sell the investment product(s) mentioned herein. It does not take into consideration, nor have any regard to your specific investment objectives, financial situation, risk profile, tax position and particular, or unique needs and constraints. Read full Disclaimer. Share to Grow: Your Bonus Samso has just released an eBook: How to Add Value to your Share Portfolio |A lesson on geological models sought by mining companies that gives insight and an understanding of which portfolios are better - and potentially more lucrative – investments. Click here to download this eBook.| Download eBook If you find this article informative and useful, please help me share the information. I try to write about topics that are interesting and have the potential to be of investment value. It is not easy to find stories that fit those parameters. If you or your organisation sees the benefit of what Samso is trying to achieve and has a need to share your journey, please contact me at noel.ong@samso.com.au. About Samso Samso is a trusted platform that equips dedicated investors with up-to-date industry knowledge and insigh0ts from top CEOs and thought leaders. By staying informed on business advancements and market trends, investors can enhance their financial decisions through a combination of expert guidance and their own research. Samso News | www.samso.com.au | An Investor Lens on ASX-Listed Companies

The ASX-listed developer says the designation could halve federal permitting time and open access to government financing for its Vale-backed magnetite project. Iron Bear Resources Limited (ASX: IBR) has applied to have its Iron Bear Magnetite Iron Ore Project in the Labrador Trough recognised as a Project of National Significance in Canada. The application, lodged with the Canadian Major Projects Office (MPO), is aimed at securing faster federal approvals and improved access to government financing for the company's magnetite iron ore and direct reduction (DR) pellet project. If granted, the designation is expected to reduce federal permitting timelines from about five years to two, improve coordination between federal and provincial authorities, and provide access to federal financing channels including the Canada Infrastructure Bank, the Canada Growth Fund and the Indigenous Loan Guarantee Program "The Iron Bear Project is a very strong candidate to be recognised as Project of National Significance in Canada," managing director Paul Berend said, adding that it could position the country "as the world leader for the supply of high value and low carbon direct reduction iron ore pellets." The application has not yet been granted. Iron Bear, formerly known as Cyclone Metals, did not provide a timeline for a decision by the MPO, which reports to the office of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. A Large Magnetite Resource In An Established Province The Iron Bear Project is located in the Labrador Trough, a long-established iron ore province near the border of Newfoundland and Labrador and Quebec, around 30 kilometres northwest of Schefferville (Figure 1). The region has produced iron ore since 1954 and hosts operations run by Rio Tinto, ArcelorMittal, Champion Iron and Tata Steel. Collectively, these operations produce on the order of 50 million tonnes of iron ore products each year. For Iron Bear Resources, this means the project is not located on a remote, untested frontier, but within a proven mining district with a deep operating history, established supply chains, skilled labour, and — critically — the rail and port infrastructure required to move bulk commodities to international markets. The project holds a JORC-compliant mineral resource of 13.6 billion tonnes grading 30% total iron, including 4.5 billion tonnes at 29.5% iron in the higher-confidence Indicated category. It lies within about 25 to 35 kilometres of an open-access heavy-haul railway connected to export ports at Sept-Îles and Pointe-Noire. Geologically, the deposit is a Lake Superior-type banded iron formation, composed predominantly of magnetite and haematite hosted within chert. Mineralisation in the defined Greenbush Zone extends across an area approximately 10 kilometres long and 5 kilometres wide, with thrust faulting stacking the mineralised units to more than 500 vertical metres. This combination of large surface footprint and significant vertical extent supports the prospect of a long-life, large-scale mining operation. Iron Bear has positioned the project to supply direct reduction (DR) grade material used in lower-emission steelmaking. Pilot-plant test work has produced a concentrate grading about 71% iron with low silica and low levels of deleterious elements, and the company has completed a pilot run producing direct reduction pellets. A separate study indicated the project's concentrator could be powered entirely by low-cost renewable energy. An August 2025 scoping study estimated a post-tax net present value of US$9.79 billion at an 8% discount rate, an internal rate of return of 18.6%, and pre-production capital expenditure of US$4.64 billion, based on planned production of 25 million tonnes a year. The figures are preliminary, and a Pre-Feasibility Study has yet to be completed. Figure 1: Location of the Iron Bear Project in the Labrador Trough, Canada (Source: IBR ASX Announcement) Policy Backdrop The application comes amid a broader push by the Canadian government to support critical minerals development. Canada added high-purity iron to its critical minerals list in June 2024, launched the Major Projects Office in August 2025, and in April 2026 announced the Canada Strong Fund, a sovereign wealth fund seeded with an initial C$25 billion to back nation-building projects including mines and critical minerals. Vale Partnership Underpins Funding Perhaps the single most transformative element of the Iron Bear story is the company's development partnership with Vale S.A., the world's largest iron ore producer. Following a non-binding memorandum of understanding in late 2024, a binding development agreement was executed in February 2025. Under the agreement, Vale may contribute up to US$138 million in funding across two phases to earn a 75% interest in the Iron Bear Project. The structure is staged and carefully designed. In the first phase, Vale funds up to US$18 million toward a Pre-Feasibility Study, resource drilling and environmental baseline studies, with an initial tranche received in 2025 supporting a drilling campaign of around 24,000 metres. Vale may then elect to proceed to the second phase, under which the parties form a joint venture — with Vale initially holding 30% — and Vale funds up to a further US$120 million toward a Bankable Feasibility Study, environmental impact studies and Impact Benefit Agreements with First Nations. Vale's interest rises to 75% on full contribution or upon a decision to mine, at which point it may either acquire the remaining interest at fair market value or carry the company through to production. The strategic significance of this arrangement is considerable. Vale is not only the world's largest iron ore producer but also one of the few global suppliers of premium DR pellets and low-carbon iron products. For a development-stage company, having a partner of this calibre fund the project through its most capital-intensive and technically demanding de-risking stages represents a powerful validation of both the asset and the strategy. It also addresses, in large part, the funding challenge that typically constrains junior developers facing multi-billion-dollar capital requirements. Infrastructure A large iron ore resource is only as valuable as the infrastructure available to develop and transport it, and here the Iron Bear Project again benefits from its setting. The project lies within approximately 25 to 35 kilometres of an open-access heavy-haul railway that connects directly to the open-access iron ore export ports at Sept-Îles and Pointe-Noire (Figure 2). Access to established, third-party rail and port infrastructure materially reduces the capital intensity and execution risk associated with developing a remote bulk commodity project. Figure 2: Iron Bear Projects connectivity to Sept-Iles and Pointe Noire (Source: IBR ASX Announcement) The company has also placed considerable emphasis on the carbon footprint of its proposed operation. A power de-risking study has indicated that the project's concentrator could be powered entirely by low-cost renewable energy, with potential access to hydropower from the Menihek facility in the region. The ability to combine a high-grade, low-impurity iron product with renewable power is central to the company's ambition of producing some of the lowest-carbon iron ore products in the world. What are DR Pellets? Direct reduction (DR) pellets are high-grade iron ore pellets made specifically for direct reduction ironmaking - a route that uses natural gas or hydrogen, rather than coke, to strip the oxygen from iron ore. Because it avoids the coke-fired blast furnace, the DR route produces significantly lower carbon emissions, which is why it sits at the centre of the global shift toward "green steel." The catch is that direct reduction is far more demanding about what it will accept. DR pellets need a higher iron content and much lower levels of silica and other impurities than the pellets used in conventional blast furnaces. That quality bar is high enough that the commercial DR pellet market is supplied by only a small group of established producers - most notably Vale, LKAB and Cleveland-Cliffs - and global supply of DR-grade material remains tight relative to the steel industry's decarbonisation ambitions. This is where the Iron Bear Project's product becomes relevant. Pilot-plant test work has produced a DR-grade concentrate grading around 71% iron with low silica and ultra-low deleterious elements, and the company has completed a pilot run producing DR pellets. In other words, the project is targeting exactly the premium, low-impurity feedstock that green steelmakers are short of — and doing so alongside Vale, one of the few incumbent DR pellet producers in the world. About Iron Bear Resources Iron Bear Resources Limited (ASX: IBR) is an Australian-listed iron ore development company focused on building one of the largest, highest-quality magnetite iron ore projects in North America. Headquartered in West Perth, Western Australia, and listed on the Australian Securities Exchange under the code IBR, the company was previously known as Cyclone Metals Limited and adopted its current name in January 2026 to reflect the central role its flagship asset, the Iron Bear Project, now plays in its strategy. The company's shares are also traded internationally, including on the OTC market (CMULF) and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (HM50). The company's purpose is straightforward but ambitious: to develop the Iron Bear Project in Canada into a long-life supplier of high-grade, low-carbon iron ore products for the global steel industry, with a particular focus on the premium direct reduction (DR) grade material that underpins the transition to lower-emission, or "green," steel. In doing so, Iron Bear Resources is positioning itself at the intersection of three powerful themes shaping the modern resources sector: the decarbonisation of steelmaking, the strategic importance of critical minerals, and the advantages of operating in a stable, supportive, tier-one mining jurisdiction. Cover photo: Magnetite and hematite - Magnetite and hematite with quartz, Darla Sondrol. CC0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Magnetite_and_hematite_(GeoDIL_number_-_1292).jpg) The Samso Way – Seek the Research Here at Samso, we pride ourselves on delivering content for investors that is independent and informed by over three decades of experience in the industry. Our content is well-researched and is only created if I see merit in discussing the company's story. Our mission is simple: cut through the noise and spotlight what matters—genuine stories, grounded insights, and real opportunity. Our content is well-researched and is only created if the team sees merit in discussing the company or concept. Investors can explore our three core platforms: Coffee with Samso Samso Insights Samso News There may be numerous paths to success in investing, but the common thread among successful individuals is that they remain committed to making informed decisions. Equip yourself with the right knowledge and tools, and you will be well on your way to achieving your financial goals. Most importantly, investors need to be absolutely diligent in understanding their own risk-reward tolerance and capabilities. Never bite off more than you can chew. As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the Great Wall stood because it took centuries to complete. The Samso Philosophy: Stay curious. Stay sharp. And remember—digging deeper always uncovers the real value. In Life, there is no such thing as a Free Lunch. Never bite off more than you can chew is my parting comment. Happy Investing, and the only four-letter word you need to know is DYOR. To support our independent nature of our work, please head over to our Support Page and give us a helping hand in any of the ways listed. This is a new initiative for the Samso Platform, and it was always the concept of Samso when we started this journey in 2018. Disclaimer The information or opinions provided herein do not constitute investment advice, an offer, or solicitation to subscribe for, purchase, or sell the investment product(s) mentioned herein. It does not take into consideration, nor have any regard to your specific investment objectives, financial situation, risk profile, tax position and particular, or unique needs and constraints. Read full Disclaimer. Share to Grow: Your Bonus Samso has just released an eBook: How to Add Value to your Share Portfolio |A lesson on geological models sought by mining companies that gives insight and an understanding of which portfolios are better - and potentially more lucrative – investments. Click here to download this eBook.| Download eBook If you find this article informative and useful, please help me share the information. I try to write about topics that are interesting and have the potential to be of investment value. It is not easy to find stories that fit those parameters. If you or your organisation sees the benefit of what Samso is trying to achieve and has a need to share your journey, please contact me at noel.ong@samso.com.au. About Samso Samso is a trusted platform that equips dedicated investors with up-to-date industry knowledge and insigh0ts from top CEOs and thought leaders. By staying informed on business advancements and market trends, investors can enhance their financial decisions through a combination of expert guidance and their own research. Samso News | www.samso.com.au | An Investor Lens on ASX-Listed Companies

First metallurgical tests suggest Murga’s low-iron scandium could be leached at atmospheric pressure — a cheaper, simpler alternative to the HPAL route its neighbours face. Rimfire Pacific Mining Ltd (ASX: RIM) has released the first metallurgical results from its Murga Scandium Deposit situated within the Fifield district of central New South Wales, Australia. The early read is the kind that matters in scandium: the rock appears to be cheap to process. Initial bottle-roll tests suggest that if the recovery rate seen over 14 days holds across a commercial timeframe, scandium recoveries of 60–90% could potentially be achieved. Importantly, this is at atmospheric pressure, rather than via the capital-hungry high-pressure route Murga’s neighbours are contemplating (Figure 1). For a company whose stated goal is to build “a globally significant scandium resource inventory” at Fifield, this is the first hint that the inventory might also be economically extractable. It is early, and Rimfire says so plainly - but the direction is encouraging. ▸ At a Glance Item Description Company Rimfire Pacific Mining Limited (ASX: RIM) — a critical-minerals explorer Focus Scandium — the Fifield District, central NSW (“Australia’s scandium epicentre”), ~70km NW of Parkes The deposit Murga Scandium Deposit — Inferred Mineral Resource of 11,900t (11.9Kt) scandium oxide The news First-ever metallurgical tests on Murga material — a 14-day bottle-roll leach at atmospheric pressure The result Recovery rate over 14 days indicates 60–90% scandium recovery may be achievable over a commercial timeframe (indicative, not definitive) Why it matters Murga’s low iron content (~16% Fe) raises the prospect of atmospheric heap/vat leaching — far less capital-intensive than High Pressure Acid Leach (HPAL) Point of difference Neighbouring deposits (Syerston, Flemington, Burra) are higher-iron (Burra ~34% Fe) and are contemplating HPAL; low iron is Murga’s key differentiator Resource inventory More than 16Kt Sc₂O₃ in total across Melrose (1.1Kt), Currajong (3.1Kt) and Murga (11.9Kt) What’s next Two longer Stage 2 bottle-roll tests (160–180 days) now underway; a possible column/vat leach test; and an agitated tank leach test as an alternative pathway Tenure Fifield Project (EL8935), 100%-owned by Rimfire, subject to an earn-in under which Golden Plains Resources (GPR) can earn 50.1% by spending $3.6m and arranging mine-development finance Leadership MD & CEO David Hutton; Chairman Ian McCubbing; metallurgy led by consultant Boyd Willis (40+ yrs, ~10 in scandium) Stage Early — first metallurgical test work; results indicative and to be confirmed by longer-duration testing; no economic study yet ▸ Rimfire's Pitch Scandium is a genuinely useful critical mineral - it makes aluminium alloys stronger and more weldable (aerospace, lightweighting) and is a key material in solid-oxide fuel cells — but it has never had a reliable, low-cost supply. Part of the reason is processing: most scandium sits in iron-rich laterite deposits that need High Pressure Acid Leaching (HPAL) to extract it, and HPAL is expensive, technically demanding and capital-hungry. Rimfire’s pitch with Murga is that it might sidestep that problem. Murga’s scandium sits in material with relatively low iron (~16% Fe), versus much higher iron at the other Fifield deposits. Iron is a major acid consumer and a key reason HPAL is needed. Lower iron raises the possibility that Murga could be leached at atmospheric pressure — using simpler, cheaper heap or vat leaching — and the first bottle-roll tests are the opening evidence for that thesis. Figure 1: Fifield Scandium Projects showing Rimfire and third-party projects, deposits, and prospects.(Source: RIM ASX Announcements) Managing Director and CEO David Hutton puts the distinction plainly. “Traditionally, scandium is recovered from the laterite-hosted nickel-cobalt-scandium deposits of the sort we’re dealing with here at Fifield through an upfront extraction process — typically a high-pressure acid leach, which is expensive and quite complicated,” he says. “Once the scandium has been dissolved into solution, that solution is passed through a solvent extraction process, which produces the scandium oxide. What we’re trying to do, which is a little different, is extract the scandium initially using atmospheric leaching rather than high-pressure acid leaching. The key reason is that atmospheric leaching techniques are less complex and less expensive.” Table 1 — Rimfire’s Fifield scandium inventory Deposit Scandium oxide (Sc₂O₃) Melrose 1.1 Kt Currajong 3.1 Kt Murga 11.9 Kt Total inventory >16 Kt ▸ What the Tests Actually Showed The work to date is Stage 1: two ~3.5kg composite core samples from Murga (drillhole FI2679) were subjected to bottle-roll leaching at atmospheric pressure and ambient temperature over 14 days (Figure 2). The first metallurgical examination of Murga material ever undertaken. Two findings stand out. First, the rate of scandium recovery over the 14 days was relatively constant, which is what lets the company extrapolate to 60–90% recovery over a commercially realistic leach cycle (heap leaching of these laterites typically runs 100–250 days). Second, iron extraction — the major acid consumer — was relatively low, which is exactly what you want to see for an atmospheric-leach economic case. The caveats are equally important, and Rimfire states them clearly: the results are indicative, not definitive, they rest on extrapolating a 14-day rate, and they require confirmation through longer-duration testing. This is an early guide to how the material might behave at scale, not a finished metallurgical answer. As Hutton describes it, “the outcome of these test results clearly demonstrates that there is potential to recover scandium from our Murga deposit using the atmospheric leaching technique… not only is there potential to recover scandium with atmospheric leaching techniques — which are less complex and less expensive than HPAL — but also there is merit in continuing the test work over longer and more commercial time frames to confirm the recovery amounts and extraction rates.” Figure 2: Photo of Murga Bottle Roll test in laboratory (Source : Rimfire ASX Announcement) ▸ Why Low Iron Is the Whole Story It is worth dwelling on the iron point, because it is the crux of the Murga thesis. At Rio Tinto’s nearby Burra deposit, the resource iron grade is around 34% Fe; Murga’s is roughly 16% Fe. High-iron scandium deposits at Fifield — Syerston, Flemington, Burra — are generally looking at HPAL, a process that works but carries heavy capital and operating costs and meaningful technical risk. If Murga’s lower iron genuinely enables atmospheric heap leaching, the capital and complexity of getting scandium out drop substantially. That is the “key point of difference” Rimfire is leaning on, and it is why a metallurgical result — not a drill result — is the news here. Table 2 — Atmospheric leaching vs HPAL Feature Atmospheric leaching (Murga’s potential route) HPAL (high-iron neighbours) Pressure & temperature Ambient pressure; low to moderate temperature High pressure; high temperature Capital intensity Lower Higher Complexity Less complex More complex, technically demanding Best suited to Low-iron material (iron is a major acid consumer) High-iron laterites Fifield example Murga (~16% Fe) — now under test Syerston, Flemington, Burra (~34% Fe at Burra) For Hutton, this is fundamentally about commercially de-risking the asset. “We have a large deposit, and its geological characteristics, primarily its low iron content, theoretically enable it to be extracted using atmospheric leaching,” he says. The update, in his words, “demonstrates that there is merit in continuing to examine atmospheric leaching as the preferred processing route, and it justifies the ongoing metallurgical test work.” ▸ The Path Forward Rimfire has already commenced Stage 2: two new bottle-roll tests running over a much longer 160–180 days with weekly sampling, designed to confirm whether the Stage 1 extraction rate holds over a commercial timeframe. Depending on those results, the company may run a column (vat) leach test — a 50kg sample over 3–6 months that simulates a full-scale heap/vat leach and reveals whether issues like slumping or loss of permeability appear. Running concurrently, an agitated tank leach test (higher acidity, 95°C) will be undertaken as a fallback atmospheric technique should heap/column leaching not deliver economic recoveries. In short: a staged, low-cost program designed to de-risk the processing question step by step, with regular updates promised along the way. Hutton is clear that heap leaching is the goal, with options if it doesn’t deliver. “We’re definitely trying to demonstrate that atmospheric leaching is the method that we want to use,” he says. “Heap leaching, or static heap leaching, is the typical method — but there are also other atmospheric leaching methods if the heap leaching doesn’t stack up. We can use what we call agitated tank leach as an alternative, which is still leaching at atmospheric pressures, but also introduces a bit of heat into the tank to aid the extraction.” Samso Concluding Comments The story for Rimfire is now going to be a test for investors patience. Unfortunately, this is going to be painful but as a long term investor myself, this is the stage that the investing community should be looking seriously. This release is about Rimfire trying to go through the process of finding a cheaper and more efficient flow sheet. It is a metallurgical update, and obviously not a discovery message. The encouraging news is that Murga’s low-iron scandium might be extractable by a cheaper, simpler route than its high-iron neighbours can use. This is a genuinely important question for scandium projects, because like all metal mining projects, scandium’s problem has never really been geology, instead it is about the cost and complexity of getting it out of the ground and into a saleable product. Samso’s observation is that the signal here is potentially looking good as the news indicate a relatively constant recovery over 14 days, low iron extraction, and a credible path to atmospheric leaching that would differentiate Murga in Australia’s scandium heartland. As David Hutton frames it, the update is about commercially de-risking the project and marking Rimfire’s “transition from pure exploration into pre-development.” The noise to resist is over-reading a 14-day, indicative result — the company itself is admirably clear that this needs confirming over a commercial timeframe, and the 60–90% range is wide for a reason. The next real markers are concrete: the Stage 2 long-duration bottle rolls, the column-leach test that follows, and ultimately, whether all of this converts into a costed, economic flowsheet. For now, Rimfire has taken the first step toward answering the most important question about its scandium inventory. The Scandium Market Backdrop The strategic logic behind consolidating scandium ground becomes clearer against the backdrop of how the metal's market actually works. Scandium sits in an unusual category — a market that is tiny in tonnage but disproportionately high in strategic value. Global scandium oxide production has been running at only around 40 tonnes a year, with annual consumption estimated in the range of roughly 15 to 25 tonnes (Figure 5). In a market measured in tens of tonnes, Samso notes that a single credible project can shift the entire supply narrative. Figure 3: Scandium Market Scale bar chart: 2022 (<40 t) vs 2024 (~40 t) with source notes. (Source: Samso) That value comes from function rather than volume. Adding a fraction of a percent of scandium to aluminium produces alloys that are lighter, stronger, more weldable and more heat- and corrosion-resistant — properties prized in aerospace, defence and advanced manufacturing — while scandium-bearing ceramics also play a role in solid oxide fuel cells used in clean-energy systems. Scandium appears on the critical minerals lists of Australia, Canada, the European Union and the United States. Supply, however, is highly concentrated, with China dominating primary production and refining, and most output historically recovered only as a by-product. Samso points to rising Western interest in securing alternative supply, including reported moves by the U.S. Defence Logistics Agency to buy scandium oxide for strategic stockpiles. Against that picture, New South Wales has emerged as Australia's most concentrated scandium province — described by Samso as the country's scandium hotspot, or the "Kalgoorlie of scandium" — hosting projects spanning exploration through to construction-ready assets, including those of Sunrise Energy Metals, Scandium International Mining and Rimfire. About Rimfire Pacific Mining Limited Rimfire Pacific Mining Ltd (ASX: RIM) is an ASX-listed critical minerals explorer focused on building a globally significant scandium resource inventory in Australia's Fifield Scandium District, located approximately 70km northwest of Parkes in central New South Wales. The company's scandium portfolio comprises three deposits — Melrose, Currajong, and Murga — together delivering a combined global resource inventory of 10.6Kt Sc (16.2Kt Sc Oxide). The Murga Scandium Deposit, the most recently updated, holds an Inferred Mineral Resource of 56.1Mt at 138ppm Sc for 7,760t Sc. Murga is notable within the Fifield District for its relatively low average iron content of approximately 16% Fe, which creates the possibility that its scandium could be extracted using Atmospheric Tank Leaching or Vat Leaching — simpler and less capital-intensive techniques than the High Pressure Acid Leaching (HPAL) methods being considered by operators of higher-iron deposits in the same district. A metallurgical study to investigate this pathway is now underway. The company also holds the Malamute Scandium Prospect approximately 40km north of Murga on its 100%-owned Rabbit Trap Project, offering regional resource growth optionality. Cover photo: Rareearthoxides, Peggy Greb, US department of agriculture. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rareearthoxides.jpg) The Samso Way – Seek the Research Here at Samso, we pride ourselves on delivering content for investors that is independent and informed by over three decades of experience in the industry. Our content is well-researched and is only created if I see merit in discussing the company's story. Our mission is simple: cut through the noise and spotlight what matters—genuine stories, grounded insights, and real opportunity. Our content is well-researched and is only created if the team sees merit in discussing the company or concept. Investors can explore our three core platforms: Samso There may be numerous paths to success in investing, but the common thread among successful individuals is that they remain committed to making informed decisions. Equip yourself with the right knowledge and tools, and you will be well on your way to achieving your financial goals. Most importantly, investors need to be absolutely diligent in understanding their own risk-reward tolerance and capabilities. Never bite off more than you can chew. As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the Great Wall stood because it took centuries to complete. The Samso Philosophy: Stay curious. Stay sharp. And remember—digging deeper always uncovers the real value. In Life, there is no such thing as a Free Lunch. Never bite off more than you can chew is my parting comment. Happy Investing, and the only four-letter word you need to know is DYOR. To support our independent nature of our work, please head over to our Support Page and give us a helping hand in any of the ways listed. This is a new initiate for the Samso Platform, and it was always the concept of Samso when we started this journey in 2018. Disclaimer The information or opinions provided herein do not constitute investment advice, an offer, or solicitation to subscribe for, purchase, or sell the investment product(s) mentioned herein. It does not take into consideration, nor have any regard to your specific investment objectives, financial situation, risk profile, tax position and particular, or unique needs and constraints. Read full Disclaimer. Share to Grow: Your Bonus Samso has just released an eBook: How to Add Value to your Share Portfolio |A lesson on geological models sought by mining companies that gives insight and an understanding of which portfolios are better - and potentially more lucrative – investments. Click here to download this eBook.| Download eBook If you find this article informative and useful, please help me share the information. I try to write about topics that are interesting and have the potential to be of investment value. It is not easy to find stories that fit those parameters. If you or your organisation sees the benefit of what Samso is trying to achieve and has a need to share your journey, please contact me at noel.ong@samso.com.au. About Samso Samso is a trusted platform that equips dedicated investors with up-to-date industry knowledge and insigh0ts from top CEOs and thought leaders. By staying informed on business advancements and market trends, investors can enhance their financial decisions through a combination of expert guidance and their own research. Samso News | www.samso.com.au | An Investor Lens on ASX-Listed Companies

Another Vale tranche lands - backing a 13.6Bt resource and premium DR-grade iron ore in Canada’s Labrador Trough. Iron Bear Resources (ASX: IBR) has banked another US$2.0 million funding tranche from Vale. The cheque size is not the story. The name on the cheque is. The Iron Bear story is now a common coverage for Samso and as previously disclosed, Samso is a very happy shareholder and is looking at the long term investment proposition. It is now coming to about three years of patience and I think with the upcoming PFS results, things should get very interesting. Vale is the world’s second-largest iron ore producer. And it is steadily funding Iron Bear’s flagship project in Canada’s Labrador Trough - paying its way to a 75% stake. Each tranche is another vote of confidence from a major that knows iron ore as well as anyone. With this payment, Vale has now put in US$16.7 million. A final US$1.3 million is due in July 2026, completing the Phase 1 contribution. For a junior, a backer like that is rare. It is also the kind of validation money usually can’t buy. At a Glance Item Description Company Iron Bear Resources Limited (ASX: IBR) — an emerging iron ore developer, based in Perth, WA Flagship The Iron Bear Project, in the Labrador Trough, Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada The news Vale has paid a fourth US$2.0m funding tranche; it has now contributed US$16.7m, with a final US$1.3m due July 2026 Cash Subsidiary Iron Block 103 Corporation holds ~A$3.6m for project development The partner Vale S.A. — under a binding Development Agreement (Feb 2025), Vale can fund up to US$138m across two phases to earn a 75% interest Resource JORC 2012: 13.6 billion tonnes at 30% Fe, including 4.5 billion tonnes at 29.5% Fe (Indicated) The product Metallurgy has produced 71% Fe direct-reduction (DR) concentrate at 1.2% SiO₂, plus premium low-carbon DR pellets — feed for green steel Infrastructure Less than 35km from an open-access heavy-haul railway linked to an iron ore export port Other assets Earlier-stage exploration interests in New Zealand and WA (gold, copper, nickel, PGE) Leadership Managing Director Paul Berend What the money does Funds an upcoming drilling campaign and completion of the Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) Stage Pre-development — PFS underway; no ore reserve or final investment decision yet The 60-Second Pitch Lets remind ourselves why Iron Bear Resoruces is still a very good investment position. Iron Bear has one very big asset. It is a 13.6-billion-tonne iron ore resource in the Labrador Trough, one of the world’s great iron ore provinces. The headline grade is modest - 30% Fe. That is normal for magnetite. Magnetite’s value is in what it becomes after processing. And Iron Bear’s test work has turned this ore into a 71% Fe concentrate with very low silica. That is premium feed for “green” steelmaking. The real hook is the partner. Funding a multi-billion-dollar iron ore mine off a junior’s balance sheet is close to impossible. So Iron Bear did a deal with Vale instead. Vale funds the work. Vale earns up to 75%. Iron Bear trades ownership for a fully-funded, de-risked project. Figure 1: Location of the Iron Bear Project (Source: IBR Website) The Vale Partnership This is the heart of the story. The binding Development Agreement was signed in February 2025. Under it, Vale can provide up to US$138 million across two phases to earn 75% of the project. The tranches landing now are Phase 1 - US$16.7 million in, US$1.3 million still to come. Table 1: The Vale Development Agreement Item Detail Agreement Binding Development Agreement, signed February 2025 Total Vale funding Up to US$138m, across two phases To earn A 75% interest in the Iron Bear Project Phase 1 has contributed to date US$16.7m (including the latest US$2.0m tranche) Final Phase 1 tranche US$1.3m, expected July 2026 Project cash on hand ~A$3.6m (held by subsidiary Iron Block 103 Corporation) For shareholders, it cuts both ways. The upside is real: Vale is one of the best iron ore operators on earth, and its funding removes the cash risk that kills most juniors. So is the trade-off: if Vale earns its full 75%, Iron Bear keeps 25% of its flagship. The bet is simple. A quarter of a project Vale will build beats all of a project a junior could never build. The Resource and the Product The resource is big - 13.6 billion tonnes at 30% Fe, including 4.5 billion tonnes at 29.5% Fe in the Indicated category. But 30% Fe is a low head grade. A magnetite project lives or dies on how cheaply it can be concentrated, and how good the final product is. Table 2: Resource and product Measure Result Mineral Resource (JORC 2012) 13.6 Bt @ 30% Fe Indicated portion 4.5 Bt @ 29.5% Fe DR-grade concentrate 71% Fe at 1.2% SiO₂ Pellet product Premium low-carbon DR pellets, ultra-low impurities That is why the metric work matters more than the tonnes. Iron Bear has produced a 71% Fe DR-grade concentrate at just 1.2% silica, plus premium low-carbon DR pellets. DR-grade is the high-value end of the market. It feeds direct-reduction steelmaking — the low-emission route that uses gas or hydrogen instead of coal. It is where steel is heading. Infrastructure and Location Logistics make or break iron ore. Here, location helps. The project sits in the Labrador Trough, a tier-one iron ore district. And it is less than 35km from an open-access heavy-haul railway that runs to an export port. For a bulk commodity, that proximity is real money saved — and real risk removed. Figure 2: Iron Bear Projects connectivity to Sept-Iles and Pointe Noire (Source: IBR ASX Announcement) What the Money Does The cash is already earmarked. Managing Director Paul Berend tied it straight to work on the ground: “The payment of the fourth tranche of funding demonstrates the strong ongoing commitment that Vale provides to the Project. This funding will support operational progress, including the upcoming drilling campaign and the completion of the Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS), building on the achievements made over the past several months.” In short, more drilling, and the study that turns a resource into a development plan. A De Grey Heavyweight Takes the Chair Iron Bear has landed a notable name. On 26 June 2026, the Company appointed Simon Lill as Non-Executive Chairman, effective 1 July. Lill chaired De Grey Mining for 12 years. I In that time, De Grey grew from a $1 million minnow into an ASX 200 developer, on the back of the world-class Hemi gold discovery (11.2Moz) — and was taken over by Northern Star for around $6 billion in May 2025. He replaces David Sanders, who stays on as a Non-Executive Director. To align him with shareholders, Lill was granted 15 million performance rights that vest on real milestones: Vale moving to Stage 2, and the share price reaching 10c and 15c. For a junior progressing a PFS with a major partner, attracting a chairman with that track record is a statement of intent. Samso Concluding Comments There is not much needed to say in terms of what the message is all about at this stage, other than to reiterate that a major iron ore producer, a Tier-1 iron ore producer is funding Iron Bear’s project, on schedule. In a sector where juniors run out of money before they prove anything, that takes the biggest risk off the table. The Vale relationship - not any single tranche - is the story. The signal is strong. A large resource in a tier-one district. Metallurgy that yields a premium DR-grade product. Infrastructure close by. And a major in writing the cheques. The placement of Simon Lill as the Chair is also a great feature being added to the Iron Bear story. Simon comes with a lot of support and he has been through the ins and outs of negotiations and will be a great asset to have on the Board when the discussion gets serious. Those that have made a lot of money from his previous appointments will be looking to back his next venture. The noise for investors to take note is mistaking backing for completion. The 30% grade still has to be processed economically. The PFS still has to land. And Iron Bear’s share of the prize is 25%, not 100%. The bet is clear — a smaller slice of a project a world-class partner will build. What to watch next is concrete: the final Phase 1 tranche in July, the drilling campaign, and the PFS that turns a giant resource into a costed plan. About Iron Bear Resources Iron Bear Resources Limited (ASX: IBR), formerly Cyclone Metals is an emerging iron ore developer listed on the Australian Securities Exchange and based in West Perth, Western Australia. The Company is focused on developing its flagship Iron Bear Project — a world-class, large-scale iron ore project in the Labrador Trough, in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. Iron Bear also holds several earlier-stage exploration assets across New Zealand and Western Australia, spanning gold, copper, nickel and platinum-group elements. The Iron Bear Project hosts a globally significant JORC 2012 Mineral Resource of 13.6 billion tonnes at 30% Fe, including 4.5 billion tonnes at 29.5% Fe in the Indicated category. The project benefits from strategic infrastructure access, sitting less than 35km from an open-access heavy-haul railway linked to an iron ore export port. Development is supported by a binding Development Agreement with Vale S.A., under which Vale can provide up to US$138 million in funding across two phases to earn a 75% interest in the project. To date, Vale has contributed US$16.7 million of its Phase 1 commitment, with a final US$1.3 million tranche expected in July 2026. Metallurgical test work has produced high-grade direct-reduction (DR) concentrate grading 71% Fe at 1.2% SiO₂, along with premium low-carbon DR pellets exhibiting excellent metallurgical performance and ultra-low impurities — feed essential for the production of high-quality, lower-emission steel. The Company is led by Managing Director Paul Berend and is advancing the project toward completion of a Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS), supported by an upcoming drilling campaign. Cover photo: Magnetite - Magnetite, Darla Sondrol. CC0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Magnetite_(GeoDIL_number_-_1390).jpg) The Samso Way – Seek the Research Here at Samso, we pride ourselves on delivering content for investors that is independent and informed by over three decades of experience in the industry. Our content is well-researched and is only created if I see merit in discussing the company's story. Our mission is simple: cut through the noise and spotlight what matters—genuine stories, grounded insights, and real opportunity. Our content is well-researched and is only created if the team sees merit in discussing the company or concept. Investors can explore our three core platforms: Coffee with Samso Samso Insights Samso News There may be numerous paths to success in investing, but the common thread among successful individuals is that they remain committed to making informed decisions. Equip yourself with the right knowledge and tools, and you will be well on your way to achieving your financial goals. Most importantly, investors need to be absolutely diligent in understanding their own risk-reward tolerance and capabilities. Never bite off more than you can chew. As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the Great Wall stood because it took centuries to complete. The Samso Philosophy: Stay curious. Stay sharp. And remember—digging deeper always uncovers the real value. In Life, there is no such thing as a Free Lunch. Never bite off more than you can chew is my parting comment. Happy Investing, and the only four-letter word you need to know is DYOR. To support our independent nature of our work, please head over to our Support Page and give us a helping hand in any of the ways listed. This is a new initiative for the Samso Platform, and it was always the concept of Samso when we started this journey in 2018. Disclaimer The information or opinions provided herein do not constitute investment advice, an offer, or solicitation to subscribe for, purchase, or sell the investment product(s) mentioned herein. It does not take into consideration, nor have any regard to your specific investment objectives, financial situation, risk profile, tax position and particular, or unique needs and constraints. Read full Disclaimer. Share to Grow: Your Bonus Samso has just released an eBook: How to Add Value to your Share Portfolio |A lesson on geological models sought by mining companies that gives insight and an understanding of which portfolios are better - and potentially more lucrative – investments. Click here to download this eBook.| Download eBook If you find this article informative and useful, please help me share the information. I try to write about topics that are interesting and have the potential to be of investment value. It is not easy to find stories that fit those parameters. If you or your organisation sees the benefit of what Samso is trying to achieve and has a need to share your journey, please contact me at noel.ong@samso.com.au. About Samso Samso is a trusted platform that equips dedicated investors with up-to-date industry knowledge and insigh0ts from top CEOs and thought leaders. By staying informed on business advancements and market trends, investors can enhance their financial decisions through a combination of expert guidance and their own research. Samso News | www.samso.com.au | An Investor Lens on ASX-Listed Companies

An established, cash-generating gold producer has begun a 4,350m surface drilling campaign at Maldon - a historic, high-grade Victorian goldfield adjacent to a processing facility it already owns. Kaiser Reef Limited (ASX: KAU) has kicked off a surface diamond drilling campaign at its Quill Gold Target within the Maldon Gold Project in Victoria, marking a renewed exploration effort at one of Australia’s highest-grade historic goldfields. The Maldon field has historically produced approximately 1.75 million ounces of gold at an average grade of 28g/t - an exceptional grade by any measure - yet much of the district remains underexplored following decades of limited activity. The campaign is designed to test that potential systematically, and from a position of operational and financial strength. Figure 1. Drill Rig at the Quill Target (Source: KAU ASX Announcement) At a Glance Item Description Company Kaiser Reef Limited (ASX: KAU) — a profitable, multi-asset Australian gold producer The news Surface diamond drilling has commenced at the Maldon Gold Project (Victoria), beginning with the new Quill target The campaign Approximately 4,350m planned across four targets in an initial phase; drilling to continue through 2026 Producing asset The Henty Gold Mine, Tasmania — an underground operation producing ~30,000oz per annum, with a 300ktpa plant and a 199koz Probable Ore Reserve Growth asset The Maldon Gold Project, Victoria — a fully permitted 200ktpa CIL processing facility, existing underground access, and high-grade exploration potential Maldon pedigree The field has historically produced 1.75moz at 28g/t Au Group resource 625koz Au in total (Henty 438koz; Maldon/Union Hill 187koz) First target Quill — generated from TSF sterilisation drilling; an earlier hole returned 8m @ 4.16g/t Au (incl. 2m @ 9.90g/t) Other targets Union Hill North, Nuggetty South and Nuggetty (the Nuggetty Reef historically produced ~301koz at ~187g/t) Why it matters A producer with cash flow and two processing facilities is funding exploration internally — growth without the funding risk typical of junior explorers Leadership Managing Director Brad Valiukas Stage Established producer undertaking exploration for organic growth; Maldon mill and access already in place Overview Kaiser Reef is, first and foremost, a gold producer. Its Henty Gold Mine in Tasmania is an established underground operation producing approximately 30,000 ounces per annum, supported by a 199koz Probable Ore Reserve and a conventional 300ktpa processing plant. Henty generates the cash flow that underpins the wider business. The Maldon Gold Project, in Victoria’s historic Golden Triangle, provides the company’s principal growth optionality. Kaiser owns a fully permitted, operating 200ktpa carbon-in-leach (CIL) processing facility at Maldon, together with existing underground access. With the processing infrastructure already established, the key requirement is additional mineable ore — and the district’s history indicates considerable scope to define it. The result is an unusual profile for an exploration story: a cash-generating operation on one hand, and a high-grade, under-drilled district with its own processing facility on the other. The current campaign is intended to convert that latent potential into defined resources, funded from internal cash flow rather than dilutive equity raisings. Table 1 — Group resource & reserve Asset & category Tonnes (Mt) Grade (g/t Au) Au (koz) Henty, Tasmania — Resource 4.11 3.32 438 Maldon (Union Hill), Victoria — Resource 1.31 4.4 187 Group total — Resource 5.42 3.59 625 Henty, Tasmania — Ore Reserve (Probable) 1.89 3.28 199 Why Maldon Matters Maldon is not a speculative greenfield prospect. It is a proven goldfield that produced approximately 1.75 million ounces at 28g/t before activity wound down — a grade profile rarely encountered in modern exploration. Kaiser’s thesis is straightforward: an extended period of limited exploration has left a district-scale opportunity adjacent to processing infrastructure the company already controls. Figure 2: Maldon Gold Project (Source: Kaiser Reef Website) The existing resource base reinforces the case. The Union Hill deposit hosts 187koz at 4.4g/t, while the historic Nuggetty Reef is estimated to have produced around 301koz at approximately 187g/t. Importantly, most of the project’s reef systems remain untested at depth and along strike, and it is these extensions and repetitions that the drilling program is designed to evaluate. The Drilling Campaign The initial phase comprises approximately 4,350 metres of surface diamond drilling across four targets, and is expected to be extended and to continue through the remainder of 2026. Kaiser has indicated that it intends to maintain a surface drilling rig over the long term, complementing its ongoing underground activities. Figure 3: Quill Target and TSAC_021 location (Source: KAU ASX Announcement) The first target is Quill, a newly defined prospect. It was generated during sterilisation drilling for a proposed tailings storage facility, when hole TSAC_021 returned 8m @ 4.16g/t Au from 10m, including 2m @ 9.90g/t. A subsequent reconnaissance electrical resistivity survey identified a north-south trending zone of high resistivity - interpreted as a potential quartz reef - coincident with that intersection, and this now forms the focus of the follow-up drilling. Drilling will then progress to Union Hill North, Nuggetty South and Nuggetty. Additional surface targets are being developed through mapping, soil sampling and a planned heli-magnetic survey. Table 2: The four drill targets Target What is being tested Quill New target from TSF sterilisation drilling; earlier hole 8m @ 4.16g/t (incl. 2m @ 9.90g/t); resistivity-defined reef Union Hill North Northern extensions to the Eaglehawk Reef mineralisation Nuggetty South 170m of untested strike; historical results of 3.4m @ 34.0g/t and 4.3m @ 11.2g/t along plunge Nuggetty West lode and remnant targets; the Nuggetty Reef has produced ~301koz at ~187g/t Management Commentary Managing Director Brad Valiukas characterised Maldon as a long-term, district-scale opportunity. “Maldon represents a district-scale gold opportunity for Kaiser, with numerous historical mines and lines of working that remain substantially underexplored, despite having historically produced an enviable 1.75moz at 28g/t,” he said. “We are committed to generating the most value from the entire project… aiming to unlock the district after decades of exploration neglect.” Mr Valiukas also emphasised the company’s broader strategy, noting its intention to retain a surface rig for the long term, and to maintain a balance sheet capable of supporting both organic growth and potential acquisitions. Samso Concluding Comments The Kaiser Reef story is slowly developing and in the midst of a depreciating gold price, the story is just all about doing the business of producing gold. Kaiser Reef Limited is a profitable producer with its Henttyu operations in Tasmania and this release is all about advancing exploration across a historically high-grade, underexplored goldfield adjacent to processing infrastructure it already owns. This is a combination that allows it to pursue growth without the funding pressures typically faced by junior explorers. Maldon is a substantial history of high-grade production, multiple untested reef systems, an encouraging new target at Quill, and an exploration program funded from internal cash flow. As always, Samso highlights that the principal caveat is equally clear is that historical bonanza grades should not be assumed to reflect what modern drilling will deliver, and the program’s results remain to be demonstrated. As we digest the information, the key milestones from here are well defined. The initial assays from Quill, followed by results from Union Hill North and the Nuggetty targets as the campaign progresses are what investors should be watching. The Samso perspectiuve is always about the geology. Taking away the semantics of "mining the market", the technicals are what the market still requires. As they always say, good geology will always lrevail over hype. Hence, for Kaiser Reeef, a producing company with an established mill and a goldfield of Maldon’s pedigree, the forthcoming drill results will be the opportunity. A Second Exploration Front: Regional Work Begins at Henty On 1 July 2026, the Company appointed Colin Skidmore as Exploration Manager at the Henty Gold Mine in Tasmania - a dedicated role focused on regional exploration beyond the immediate mine footprint. Skidmore is an experienced exploration geologist with more than 25 years in senior positions across Australia, Kazakhstan, Canada, the United States, South America and Kosovo. The appointment gives effect to the regional exploration program flagged in the Company's February 2026 Strategic Plan. Henty sits within the Mount Read Volcanics, one of Australia's most richly endowed mineral belts. This belt is host to the Rosebery, Mount Lyell, Hellyer and Que River mines - and Kaiser regards its holdings, which contain numerous gold and base-metal occurrences both north and south of the mine, as materially under-explored. Managing Director Brad Valiukas emphasised the opportunity: "Regionally, Henty has some fantastic exploration potential… as part of a much larger mineralised trend that has received very limited work in modern times," adding that any success would "leverage off our significant infrastructure and existing operating capacity at Henty." As at Maldon, the work will begin with a period of data consolidation and early-stage activity ahead of drilling, which the Company expects to commence during the coming summer, running in parallel with ongoing in-mine exploration. About Kaiser Reef Limited Kaiser Reef Limited (ASX: KAU) is an Australian gold producer and exploration company with operating assets in Tasmania and Victoria. The company presents itself as a multi-asset gold producer with a growing production base, supported by annual production of more than 30,000 ounces from the Henty Gold Mine and a high-grade Maldon Gold Project with a fully operational 200ktpa processing plant. In Tasmania, Kaiser owns and operates the Henty Gold Mine, an established underground gold operation with a processing facility and associated exploration tenure. Henty has become a key production asset for the company and provides Kaiser with operating exposure to the Australian gold sector. In Victoria, Kaiser is advancing the Maldon Gold Project, located in the historic Victorian goldfields. Maldon includes the Porcupine Flat Processing Plant and the Union Hill underground mine area. The project has a long mining history and is reported by Kaiser to have produced approximately 1.75 million ounces of gold at 28g/t from quartz reefs. Kaiser’s stated focus is on production growth, reserve expansion and building value from its Australian gold asset base. The company’s project portfolio gives it exposure to both current gold production and exploration upside across two established mining jurisdictions. Its published core values are integrity, respect, responsibility and performance. Cover photo: Gold bullion 1, Szaaman. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gold_bullion_1.jpg) The Samso Way – Seek the Research Here at Samso, we pride ourselves on delivering content for investors that is independent and informed by over three decades of experience in the industry. Our content is well-researched and is only created if I see merit in discussing the company's story. Our mission is simple: cut through the noise and spotlight what matters—genuine stories, grounded insights, and real opportunity. Our content is well-researched and is only created if the team sees merit in discussing the company or concept. Investors can explore our three core platforms: Coffee with Samso Samso Insights Samso News There may be numerous paths to success in investing, but the common thread among successful individuals is that they remain committed to making informed decisions. Equip yourself with the right knowledge and tools, and you will be well on your way to achieving your financial goals. Most importantly, investors need to be absolutely diligent in understanding their own risk-reward tolerance and capabilities. Never bite off more than you can chew. As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the Great Wall stood because it took centuries to complete. The Samso Philosophy: Stay curious. Stay sharp. And remember—digging deeper always uncovers the real value. In Life, there is no such thing as a Free Lunch. Never bite off more than you can chew is my parting comment. Happy Investing, and the only four-letter word you need to know is DYOR. To support our independent nature of our work, please head over to our Support Page and give us a helping hand in any of the ways listed. This is a new initiative for the Samso Platform, and it was always the concept of Samso when we started this journey in 2018. Disclaimer The information or opinions provided herein do not constitute investment advice, an offer, or solicitation to subscribe for, purchase, or sell the investment product(s) mentioned herein. It does not take into consideration, nor have any regard to your specific investment objectives, financial situation, risk profile, tax position and particular, or unique needs and constraints. Read full Disclaimer. Share to Grow: Your Bonus Samso has just released an eBook: How to Add Value to your Share Portfolio |A lesson on geological models sought by mining companies that gives insight and an understanding of which portfolios are better - and potentially more lucrative – investments. Click here to download this eBook.| Download eBook If you find this article informative and useful, please help me share the information. I try to write about topics that are interesting and have the potential to be of investment value. It is not easy to find stories that fit those parameters. If you or your organisation sees the benefit of what Samso is trying to achieve and has a need to share your journey, please contact me at noel.ong@samso.com.au. About Samso Samso is a trusted platform that equips dedicated investors with up-to-date industry knowledge and insigh0ts from top CEOs and thought leaders. By staying informed on business advancements and market trends, investors can enhance their financial decisions through a combination of expert guidance and their own research. Samso News | www.samso.com.au | An Investor Lens on ASX-Listed Companies

As the ASX small-cap market is showing a slowness in hype, is Encounter Resources simply a case the market may be missing the potential value to come. Encounter Resources sits on a globally significant niobium resource next door to the most celebrated discovery on the ASX critical-minerals board, the WA1 Resources Limited (ASX: WA10, Luni Niobium Project. . Yet it trades at a fraction of its neighbour's value, and the gap has widened even as the resource has grown. This Insight asks a simple question: is that discount a fair read of a lower-grade, less-advanced asset — or is the market overselling a story that is about to add the one thing it is missing, confidence? Samso News Sector & Commodity Pillar Critical Story - Niobium Sector & Commodity Pillar WHAT THIS PIECE COVERS 1.00 THE FRAME A discount that grew while the asset did. 2.00 WHY NIOBIUM, AND WHY IT'S WATCHED A small market with an outsized strategic problem. 3.00 THE NEIGHBOURHOOD West Arunta, and the shadow Luni casts over it. 4.00 WHAT ENCOUNTER ACTUALLY HAS From a 19 Mt system to a 120 Mt system in one season. 5.00 THE VALUATION GAP Roughly three times the value per tonne in the ground. 6.00 THE OTHER SIDE Four reasons the share price has fallen anyway. 7.00 THE CATALYST THE MARKET IS UNDERWEIGHTING Thirty thousand metres aimed at the one word the resource is missing. 1.00 — THE FRAME A discount that grew while the asset did - The Encounter Resources Issue There is a particular kind of mispricing that small-cap resource investors learn to watch for: the moment when a company keeps delivering good news and the share price keeps drifting the other way. Encounter Resources (ASX: ENR) has spent the past year growing its niobium resource by more than half, posting strong metallurgy, lodging a mining lease, and signing a battery partnership, while its shares fell from a 52-week high near $0.62 to about $0.255 by mid-June 2026 (Figure 1).1,2 If you take the longer term view of the share price since early 2023, which was the start of the strings of discoveries, ENR has only just doubled its value and pretty much wiped out all the gains since that time (Figure 1). Figure 1: The share price chart for Encounter Resources Limtied as of 2nd July 2026. (Source: Commsec). As investors reading this Samso Insight, the discussion that is being highlighted is whether this fall in valuation is something that opportunistic investors should take note. The obvious sight now is that when the operational news and the share price point in opposite directions for long enough, one of two things is true: either the market knows something the announcements don't, or the announcements contain something the market hasn't yet priced. Lets lay out both readings from Encounter's own public record, and try and identify the single event most likely to settle the argument. What this note is — and isn't This is a research and education piece in Samso's Sector & Commodity pillar. Every project figure below is sourced to an Encounter ASX release or a named third party. It is deliberately a two-sided read: the bull case is stated plainly because it is under-discussed, and the bear case is given its own section rather than buried. It is not a recommendation. Do your own work. 2.00 — WHY NIOBIUM, AND WHY IT'S WATCHED A small market with an outsized strategic problem Niobium is a quiet metal with a supply story into the steel, a micro-alloy that makes structural steel lighter and stronger which is a smaller, faster-growing tail of high-tech uses across superconductors, aerospace, medical imaging and, increasingly, batteries.3 The reason it sits high on critical-minerals lists is concentration, not scale. The entire global market is only around US$5 billion, yet supply comes from essentially three mines (Figure 1.1) two in Brazil, where CBMM is the dominant producer, and one in Canada.3,4 Ferroniobium fetches roughly US$30,000/t and niobium oxide about US$45,000/t.3 A market that small, supplied by that few, is exactly the kind of supply chain that governments now want diversified — which is why a new, high-grade source in a Tier-1 jurisdiction like Western Australia attracts attention out of proportion to the tonnes involved. Figure 1.1: The western niobium supply base is tiny and high-margin: three producers (two in Brazil, one in Canada) anchor a ~US$5 bn market, which is why a new high-grade source draws attention out of proportion to its tonnes. (Source: ENR investor presentation, 2 Mar 2026). There is also an optionality layer the market has started to notice. Niobium-anode battery technology which is led by Cambridge-based Echion Technologies, backed by CBMM has been moving from the lab toward commercial deployment, with applications in fast-charging, long-life cells and grid-scale storage.5 On 27 May 2026 Encounter signed an MoU with Echion and Perth-based Switch Technologies to work toward an integrated lithium-niobium battery industry in Australia anchored on Aileron.5 That is not a revenue line; it is a signal about where downstream demand could go, and it sits as free upside on top of the resource story. Samso take Niobium's investment case is the inverse of most commodities: the prize isn't a giant market, it's a strategically fragile one. For an explorer, that means the bar to relevance is "can you be a credible non-Chinese-aligned, non-Brazilian source of high-grade material" and on grade, Encounter is trying to make its case. The battery angle is the call option, not the thesis. 3.00 — THE NEIGHBOURHOOD West Arunta, and the shadow of Luni To understand Encounter's valuation you have to understand WA1 Resources. In a remote corner of east-central WA, WA1 made the Luni niobium discovery in November 2022. WA1 made a find of global significance that turned a roughly $7 million company at IPO into one carrying a market cap above A$1 billion.4 Luni rewrote what the market thought the West Arunta was for both WA1 and Encounter (Figure 2)had originally gone there hunting iron-oxide copper-gold and orogenic gold, and found niobium instead.4 Luni is the benchmark every other West Arunta niobium project is now measured against: a mineral resource of 220 Mt at 1.0% Nb₂O₅ in the Indicated category, with higher-grade subsets capable of becoming starter pits, and a company already in mine-design and study stage.4 I feel that one of the main issue for Encounter is that the asset is "the other one" and being the other one to a market darling may be Encounter's biggest tailwind (it validated the province) and its heaviest weight (it framed ENR as the runner-up). Figure 2: Aileron sits within the West Arunta carbonatite province, immediately along strike from WA1's Luni — the discovery that re-rated the whole belt. (Source: ENR investor presentation, 2 Mar 2026) 4.00 — WHAT ENCOUNTER ACTUALLY HAS From a 19 Mt system to a 120 Mt system, in one season Encounter's maiden Aileron resource, confirmed in its 2025 Annual Report, was modest but striking on grade: 19.2 Mt at 1.74% Nb₂O₅.6 A single season of drilling later, on 21 April 2026, the company lifted the combined Inferred resource by 54% to 120 Mt at 0.77% Nb₂O₅ (0.25% cut-off), including a high-grade core of 26 Mt at 1.7% Nb₂O₅ (1.0% cut-off) across a cluster of deposits anchored by Green and Crean (Figure 3).7,8 Figure 3: Green and Emily MRE outline in plan view. (Source: ENR 22 April 2026) Two things matter in that picture. First, the dilution of grade is real and is the heart of the bear case — a big, low-grade Inferred inventory is valued very differently from a small high-grade one. Second, and less discussed, the 26 Mt high-grade core at 1.7% is grade in the same league as Luni's higher-grade subsets, and it is exactly the material the company intends to stand up as starter pits.7,8 A project is rarely valued on its average grade; it is valued on the grade of the first thing it will mine. Figure 4: Green Block Model in isometric view. (Source: ENR 22 April 2026) The supporting work has kept pace. Metallurgical testwork at Green (Figure 4) has returned strong recoveries at high concentrate grades across multiple composites representing anticipated starter-pit sections.9 The company has lodged a Mining Lease application over the proposed mining, processing and infrastructure area, and sketched a conceptual site layout including processing plant, tailings storage, ponds, stockpiles, an airstrip, camp and a solar farm.10,11 These are the unglamorous artifacts of a project moving from "discovery" toward "development." 5.00 — THE VALUATION GAP Roughly three times the value, per tonne in the ground Here is where the "cheap" argument earns its keep. In late April 2026, with the upgraded resource freshly out, veteran resources columnist Barry FitzGerald put numbers on it: WA1 carried a market value around A$1.08 billion, Encounter about A$154 million at 27.5c, a gap of roughly A$854 million and asked whether that gap still made sense given Encounter's world-class resource scale and larger ground position.4 Figure 5: A back-of-envelope normalisation at two dates. Dividing each company's market value by its contained Nb₂O₅ (tonnes × grade) put WA1 near A$491/t and Encounter near A$167/t in late April; by late June both had drifted lower to roughly A$459/t and A$154/t. The discount didn't narrow — it held at about 3× even as Encounter's resource growth, metallurgy, mining-lease lodgement and battery MoU all landed. Samso calculation from disclosed resources and market values: April per FitzGerald / Stockhead, 26 Apr 2026; June per market data (stockanalysis.com / Yahoo Finance, ENR A$142.6m at $0.255 on 15 Jun 2026, WA1 ~A$1.01bn mid-Jun 2026); resources per ENR & WA1 ASX disclosures. In-ground metrics ignore confidence category, metallurgy and dilution and are indicative only. The concluding thought that should interest a value-minded reader is that the gap has not shrunk. When you look at the numbers two months on, in late June 2026, the picture barely moved. Both stocks drifted lower together (WA1 to about A$1.01 billion, Encounter to about A$143 million), so the per-tonne discount didn't close at all. It held at roughly 3×, and on an absolute per-tonne basis Encounter is fractionally cheaper than it was in April — despite the resource upgrade, the metallurgy, the mining-lease lodgement and the battery MoU all arriving in between.1,4 Good news landed; the re-rate didn't. The market's implied logic is a "one winner" assumption: that the West Arunta produces a single developed niobium mine and it will be Luni, so WA1 deserves the premium and Encounter the scraps.4 In some ways, it does make sense, WA1 is more advanced, higher grade and higher confidence. However, the potential error with this line of thinking is that it ignores three things Encounter Resources can point to in its valuation. Firstly, there is a resource still actively growing, second, a rare-earth and copper-gold upside across a dominant ground position, and finally, a high-grade core that doesn't need the whole 120 Mt to work.4 For context on how the market once saw the upside, in August 2025 broker Argonaut carried a 70c valuation on the stock which is multiples of where it trades today.12 Samso take A discount to WA1 is correct. The size of the discount is the debating point. When a higher-grade, more-advanced peer trades at ~3× your in-ground value, the gap can close two ways — the peer de-rates, or you prove enough to deserve a re-rate. Encounter can't control the first. Section 6 is about the second. 6.00 — THE OTHER SIDE Why the share price has fallenFour factors behind the decline Encounter's share price fell from a 52-week high near $0.62 to about $0.255 by mid-June 2026. The decline is not attributable to any single announcement. As far as I can understand, there may be four separate factors account for it, and each remains a genuine risk to the investment case. Figure 6: Three reference points over the past year: the 52-week high (~$0.62), the November 2025 placement price ($0.45), and the price in mid-June 2026 (~$0.255). Samso illustration; prices per ENR ASX placement disclosure (Oct–Nov 2025) and market data (stockinvest.us, 15 Jun 2026). Four factors behind the decline 1. Grade dilution. As the resource grew, the average grade fell from 1.74% to 0.77% Nb₂O₅. Niobium projects are valued heavily on grade, so a larger, lower-grade resource is valued differently from a smaller, higher-grade one.6,7 2. Placement dilution. In October–November 2025 Encounter issued 54,444,444 shares at $0.45 to raise about $24.5 m (the first tranche of a $25 m placement). This increased the shares on issue and established a reference price below the earlier highs.13,14 3. Resource confidence. The entire 120 Mt resource is classified as Inferred, the lowest-confidence category under the JORC Code, and cannot yet support a development study.7,8 4. Pre-revenue status. Encounter is several years from production, and will be funding expenditure for a while to come. Its share price therefore moves with sentiment toward junior critical-minerals explorers, which has weakened since the 2024 niobium boom.1 Each of these factors relates to the project's current stage of development rather than to the quality of the orebody. Three of the four reasons, grade perception, resource confidence and market sentiment, would be directly affected by an upgrade of the resource from Inferred to Indicated at higher grades. That upgrade is the stated purpose of the drilling program described in the next section. 7.00 — THE CATALYST THE MARKET IS UNDERWEIGHTING 30,000 metres aimed at the one word the resource is missing In June 2026 Encounter put two rigs on the ground as the front end of a planned ~70,000m 2026 program. What I like is the 40,00m of regional drilling chasing the next discovery which is one asset that Encounter has and WA1 Resource do not, exploration upside. The number that matters for valuation is the 30,000 m of infill drilling across the potential starter-pit areas at Green, with an explicit purpose to upgrade the resource from Inferred to Indicated and unlock the more detailed technical studies that an Inferred resource cannot support.10,11,15 Figure 7: The infill program targets the rung the valuation is stuck on. An Inferred-to-Indicated upgrade at the high-grade starter-pit zones is the event most likely to force a re-rate of how the resource is priced. Samso illustration of ENR's stated program (ASX activity update, June 2026; mining.com.au; smallcaps.com.au). This is important because the extra drilling should upgrade the resource to higher confidence and hopefully allow the grade to be more attractive. The infill program is aimed at the high-grade starter-pit zones as well and hence, create a dual benefit in time. Converting Inferred to Indicated will help the project be put into the economic studies that institutions actually underwrite. It is, in plain terms, the difference between "interesting tonnes" and "a project you can value." The market is pricing the resource as Inferred today because that is what it is. The catalyst is the moment that sentence changes. Figure 8: "Conceptual Site Layout for the Aileron Project" (processing, TSF, ponds, airstrip, camp, solar farm). (Source ENR 16 June 2026 ASX release) Figure 9: "Aileron Magnetics (RTP) showing prospects to be tested in 2026 and major regional faults." The layout signals the explorer-to-developer shift; the magnetics map shows where the rigs are going in 2026 to test regional prospects. Investors should look at the simple fact that upgrading the resource make the 2026 pipeline read less like a single drill-result lottery and more like a sequenced de-risking. The de-risking process will be a process that includes the infill to lift confidence, a third rig in Q3 for the geotechnical, hydrogeological and metallurgical samples that feed engineering, a mining lease already lodged, environmental baseline studies underway, and 40,000 m of regional drilling holding the blue-sky option open across niobium, REE and copper-gold.10,11,15 If even the confidence upgrade lands as intended, the most-quoted reason for the discount, "it's all Inferred" — stops being true. Samso take — the thesis in one paragraph Encounter looks oversold not because the factual case is wrong, but because the factual case is time-limited. Typically, for investors, especially the more sophisticated versions, the grade, confidence and sentiment are the three legs of the discount. Hopefully the infill program aimed squarely at the high-grade starter-pit zones will be sufficient to knock out two of them in one campaign. The market is pricing today's Inferred resource so hopefully, the 30,000m will move the valuation up as Encounter moves its resource from inferred to indicated and beyond. I think that is the potential catalyst that will change the markets view of Encounter. The risk will come from a disappointing infill drilling result where grade continuity does not hold, a faulty Indicated upgrade (less grade, less tonnes), and a continued market depression in the commodity or the market in general. The continued decrease in gold price will create a negative general market sentiment which will put weight on the share price of a broader range of ASX companies such as Encounter Resources. How to read the next six months The cleanest test of this thesis is specific and public: watch for the updated Mineral Resource Estimate that carries an Indicated component at the Green starter-pit zones, and the grade it reports there. If that lands and the discount to WA1 doesn't narrow, the "oversold" read was wrong. If it lands and the gap closes, the market was simply early to sell and late to look. References & sources Every project figure in this Insight is drawn from Encounter Resources' public ASX disclosures or a named third party, listed below. Company geological and site figures are referenced for insertion from the original releases rather than recreated, as the company's own diagrams are authoritative. All charts marked "Samso illustration/calculation" are our own renderings of disclosed data. Share-price range, current price and pre-revenue/loss status — market data, ENR.AX (stockinvest.us; stockanalysis.com; Yahoo Finance), price ~$0.255 on 15 Jun 2026, 52-week high ~$0.62. Operational momentum vs price drift — synthesised from the ENR announcement timeline below. Niobium market structure, pricing, end-uses and supply concentration — B. FitzGerald (Garimpeiro), "Why Encounter's niobium story is more than WA1 nearology," Stockhead, 26 Apr 2026; Resources Rising Stars, Aug 2025 (US$5 bn market scale). WA1 / Luni comparison, market values, $854 m gap, "one winner" framing, Luni 220 Mt @ 1.0% Nb₂O₅ Indicated — FitzGerald, Stockhead, 26 Apr 2026. Niobium-anode batteries; Echion Technologies / Switch Technologies MoU (27 May 2026); CBMM backing; haul-truck trial — Kalkine, 27 May 2026; smallcaps.com.au (Jun 2024, CBMM/VW testing). Maiden Aileron MRE 19.2 Mt @ 1.74% Nb₂O₅ — ENR 2025 Annual Report (reported via smallcaps.com.au, 17 Feb 2026). Resource upgrade to 120 Mt @ 0.77% Nb₂O₅ (Inferred, 0.25% cut-off) incl. 26 Mt @ 1.7% (1.0% cut-off) — ENR ASX, "Aileron Resources Grow by Over 50% to 120Mt," 21 Apr 2026. Resource detail, starter-pit intent, higher-grade subsets — ENR ASX (21 Apr 2026); smallcaps.com.au, 12 Jun 2026. Strong metallurgical recoveries at Green — ENR ASX, "Strong Metallurgical Recoveries at Aileron – Green," 17 May 2026. Mining Lease application; conceptual site layout (processing, TSF, ponds, airstrip, camp, solar farm) — ENR ASX activity update, June 2026; smallcaps.com.au, 12 Jun 2026. 70,000 m program: 30,000 m infill at Green (Inferred→Indicated, starter pits) + 40,000 m regional + third rig Q3 2026 (geotech/hydro/met) — ENR ASX activity update, June 2026; mining.com.au, 12 Jun 2026. Argonaut 70c valuation on ENR — Resources Rising Stars, Aug 2025. $25 m placement: 54,444,444 shares at $0.45 (first tranche ~$24.5 m) — Globe and Mail / TipRanks, 6 Nov 2025. Raise context, treasury to ~$38 m — miningnews.net, 30 Oct 2025. 2026 program / catalyst framing and confidence-category logic — ENR ASX activity update (June 2026); discoveryalert.com.au; smallcaps.com.au; mining.com.au. Announcement timeline (Feb–Jun 2026) — ENR ASX releases via stocklight.com / Market Index: "High-Grade Niobium Extends Over 4km at Green" (17 Feb), "Aileron Resources Grow by Over 50% to 120Mt" (21 Apr), "Quarterly Activities Report" (29 Apr), "Strong Metallurgical Recoveries at Aileron – Green" (17 May), "Niobium-Lithium Battery Development MOU" (26 May). Primary sources are Encounter's ASX announcements, available on the ASX platform and the company's investor page. Where this note cites a secondary outlet, it is because that outlet aggregated or commented on the underlying ENR disclosure; readers should verify against the original release. Cover photo: Rareearthoxides, Peggy Greb, US department of agriculture. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rareearthoxides.jpg) The Samso Way – Seek the Research Here at Samso, we pride ourselves on delivering content for investors that is independent and informed by over three decades of experience in the industry. Our content is well-researched and is only created if I see merit in discussing the company's story. Our mission is simple: cut through the noise and spotlight what matters—genuine stories, grounded insights, and real opportunity. Our content is well-researched and is only created if the team sees merit in discussing the company or concept. Investors can explore our three core platforms: Coffee with Samso Samso Insights Samso News There may be numerous paths to success in investing, but the common thread among successful individuals is that they remain committed to making informed decisions. Equip yourself with the right knowledge and tools, and you will be well on your way to achieving your financial goals. Most importantly, investors need to be absolutely diligent in understanding their own risk-reward tolerance and capabilities. Never bite off more than you can chew. As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the Great Wall stood because it took centuries to complete. The Samso Philosophy: Stay curious. Stay sharp. And remember—digging deeper always uncovers the real value. In Life, there is no such thing as a Free Lunch. Never bite off more than you can chew is my parting comment. Happy Investing, and the only four-letter word you need to know is DYOR. To support our independent nature of our work, please head over to our Support Page and give us a helping hand in any of the ways listed. This is a new initiate for the Samso Platform, and it was always the concept of Samso when we started this journey in 2018. Disclaimer The information or opinions provided herein do not constitute investment advice, an offer, or solicitation to subscribe for, purchase, or sell the investment product(s) mentioned herein. It does not take into consideration, nor have any regard to your specific investment objectives, financial situation, risk profile, tax position and particular, or unique needs and constraints. Read full Disclaimer. Share to Grow: Your Bonus Samso has just released an eBook: How to Add Value to your Share Portfolio |A lesson on geological models sought by mining companies that gives insight and an understanding of which portfolios are better - and potentially more lucrative – investments. Click here to download this eBook.| Download eBook If you find this article informative and useful, please help me share the information. I try to write about topics that are interesting and have the potential to be of investment value. It is not easy to find stories that fit those parameters. If you or your organisation sees the benefit of what Samso is trying to achieve and has a need to share your journey, please contact me at noel.ong@samso.com.au. About Samso Samso is a trusted platform that equips dedicated investors with up-to-date industry knowledge and insigh0ts from top CEOs and thought leaders. By staying informed on business advancements and market trends, investors can enhance their financial decisions through a combination of expert guidance and their own research. Samso Insights | www.samso.com.au | An Investor Lens on ASX-Listed Companies

I started to look at the world of Artificial Intelligence (AI) seriously 12 months ago with a trip to the SuperAI Conference in Singapore in 2025. This event was so impactful that I will be attending again this year on the 10th and 11th June 2026. As part of the AI revolution for the Samso Platform, I sought out practitioners of the industry to join me for a Coffee with Samso. My goal was to get an "AI for Dummies" approach to kickstart our journey into AI. I found Eric Starling, who provided a solid introduction to the world of AI. It's not that the general public lacks understanding of AI and its implications; rather, I wanted insight into how industry players perceive the world of AI. Check out the Coffee with Samso with Eric Starling: What I learned from Eric Starling, who was then the Principal Innovation Advisor at Amazon Web Services (AWS), was that AI is essentially coding, now referred to as English. The concept is simple: programming has advanced significantly over the last decade, aided by technological improvements in hardware and the proliferation of data centres. This evolution has enabled the resolution of various software issues. Understanding AI from an Investor's Perspective As an investor, I wanted to delve deeper into the mechanisms, components, and levels of AI's workings. I am particularly interested in what is currently fueling the excitement among AI stakeholders. Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare, AI Health, digital healthcare provider, telemedicine, medical technology (source: ChatGPT) There are moments in markets when investors become so focused on price charts, quarterly earnings, and the latest headlines that they overlook the deeper structural changes taking place. The current excitement surrounding artificial intelligence feels like one of those moments. Many people look at NVIDIA and see a company whose share price has surged due to its production of chips essential for AI systems. While this observation is accurate, it is also incomplete. NVIDIA GTC Washington, DC: Live Updates on What’s Next in AI (source: NVIDIA) The Insights of Jensen Huang To truly understand what is happening, investors must step back from the noise and listen closely to Jensen Huang, the CEO of NVIDIA. Huang does not speak like a typical executive trying to sell a product cycle. Instead, he describes a transformation in industrial architecture. His language consistently revolves around platforms, factories, infrastructure, ecosystems, and the future shape of productivity. This message is vastly different from merely selling faster semiconductors. I watched Jensen Huang speak at the PMWC 2025 (Precision Medicine World Conference) and thought he was spot on. While it appeared to be a speech at a healthcare and precision medicine conference, it was about AI transcending the technology sector and integrating into the operational frameworks of real industries. Jensen Huang is a well-known figure in the semiconductor world, but it is essential to remember that other semiconductor giants also exist. Companies like TSMC, Broadcom, AMD, Samsung, and Intel dominate key areas such as foundry services, logic chip design, and memory. While NVIDIA is the leading fabless designer, TSMC is the world's largest manufacturer (foundry) of advanced AI chips. Companies like ASML are critical for providing the lithography machines necessary for production. Here is a good summary of the list of semiconductor players that matter: 10 Biggest Semiconductor Companies Readers and investors must realize that the world of data centres and the energy required to power our children's and grandchildren's futures will differ significantly from our current world and that of our great-grandparents. The Market Sees Chips. NVIDIA Sees Infrastructure. The simplest way to understand NVIDIA is to say it designs GPUs. This explanation may have sufficed years ago when graphics processors were mainly associated with gaming and visual computing. Today, however, this definition is outdated and no longer represents the true source of value. What NVIDIA increasingly provides is infrastructure for machine intelligence. The chips are just one part of the stack. Surrounding them are software, networking, developer tools, data centre architecture, robotics frameworks, digital twin environments, and a developer ecosystem that has taken years to build. This complexity is why many of NVIDIA's competitors find the story harder than expected. Designing a chip is challenging, but replicating an ecosystem is even more difficult. Investors often underestimate this distinction because financial markets prefer neat classifications. They want to categorize companies into sectors. Yet some companies evolve beyond their original categories. The efficiency of AI hinges on the database from which the AI is trained, and this is a crucial aspect that investors often overlook. Companies like Echo IQ Limited (ASX: EIQ) can have an "AI Agent" that makes a difference because they train their AI using an exclusive dataset that is unparalleled in their field of influence. Achieving milestones validated by rising market capitalisation is the ultimate recognition of success. Check out the latest Coffee with Samso with Echo IQ Limited: In this context, NVIDIA has transformed from a semiconductor company into an enablement company. It assists others in building the future more rapidly. The recent partnership with Nokia clearly illustrates NVIDIA's vision. By adding value to its business chain, NVIDIA is redefining its role. The NVIDIA AI Revolution - Why Semiconductors Have Become Strategic Assets For many years, semiconductors were viewed as crucial but largely invisible components of the global economy. Consumers cared about phones, laptops, gaming consoles, and internet services, but few considered the chips inside them. Today, advanced semiconductors influence military systems, cloud computing, scientific modelling, industrial automation, language models, robotics, and national competitiveness. The chip sector is no longer a quiet supplier in the background; it has become a frontline player in economic power. On equity exchanges such as the ASX, the mere mention of "semiconductor" can impact price and company valuation, rendering the term itself a significant factor. News headlines aligning the global concern of the supply of semiconductors. The extent of its importance has led governments to discuss semiconductors in strategic terms. One might even think that wars could be sparked by who controls semiconductor production, similar to oil and minerals. Export controls, domestic manufacturing subsidies, supply chain resilience, and sovereign capability are now common policy themes. The world has recognized that computational power is not just a commercial advantage; it is a geopolitical asset. AI and the Semiconductor industry are now joined at the hip. (source: ChatGPT) When markets grasp this shift, valuations across the semiconductor ecosystem begin to make more sense. This is no longer merely about cyclical demand for consumer electronics; it is about controlling the digital production layer of the next economy. It is about how the NVIDIAs of the global semiconductor sector manage their business infrastructure and influence the way humanity will function as we transition into a new era of coexistence with machines. AI and The NVIDIAs - Why Healthcare Was Such an Important Signal When Huang spoke at PMWC, it was evident that he foresaw the significance of the healthcare setting. Healthcare is not known for adopting change quickly; it is regulated, complex, data-heavy, and rightly cautious. If artificial intelligence can gain traction in such an environment, it suggests that the technology has moved beyond novelty. Medicine generates vast amounts of information. Imaging scans, pathology results, genetic data, patient histories, treatment responses, and administrative workflows all create layers of complexity that traditional systems struggle to process efficiently. AI is well-suited for environments where patterns are hidden within large datasets. Healthcare and Artificial Intelligence (source: Hospital Magazine) This means the real opportunity may not be a robot replacing doctors, as some headlines imply. Instead, it may involve systems that improve diagnosis speed, identify risks earlier, streamline workflows, support clinical judgement, and reduce waste. From a Samso perspective, this is where investors should focus. The best technologies often do not create the loudest headlines; they are the ones that quietly solve expensive problems. What This Means for the Wider Semiconductor World For investors and the global community, the need for NVIDIAs to succeed is just the beginning. The demand for data infrastructure and the energy required to support this exponentially growing industry is just the tip of the iceberg. This is a thought that should not be underestimated. A large AI buildout pulls demand through multiple layers of industry. Chip designers need foundries. Foundries require equipment. Servers need memory. Data centres need cooling, electricity, land, and network connectivity. Software companies need complete access. Enterprises require consultants and integration partners. The fear of humans being replaced by machines is exaggerated. The relationship between machines and humans is more interconnected than the narratives circulating in the media suggest. The Interaction of Humans and Artificial Intelligence. (source: Arquimea) This is why significant structural themes rarely reward only one company. Railways created demand for steel, coal, engineering, land development, and finance. The internet generated opportunities in hardware, software, logistics, media, payments, and advertising. AI is likely to do the same. This broader perspective is important because investors often arrive late to headline names and overlook the surrounding ecosystem where value may still be emerging. NVIDIA and Nokia: The Marriage that will Drive The Future Digital Infrastructure Story This partnership should serve as a wake-up call for investors examining this sector. What we once labeled as the AI sector can no longer be categorized in that manner. If I were to put on my thinking "hat," this sector is evolving into something beyond just AI and software. Nvidia has unveiled its Aerial RAN Computer Pro (ARC-Pro), an accelerated computing platform for 6G including connectivity, computing, and sensing capabilities, giving telcos a software-upgrade path to move from 5G-Advanced to 6G. (source: TheNextPlatform) The AI narrative is no longer solely about better software. It is transforming into a story about power, chips, networks, data centres, fibre, edge computing, and the capacity to move intelligence closer to decision-making. This is what the NVIDIA and Nokia combination could set as a trend for the future of communications. NVIDIA is constructing the compute layer of the AI world. Its Blackwell architecture is designed for large-scale generative AI and accelerated computing, featuring GPUs, CPUs, and networking built as a full-stack data-centre platform. Nokia and NVIDIA announce their partnership that could position the two tech giants as leaders of the future generational communication and technological revolution. (source: Telco Magazine and Telecoms.com) Nokia, on the other hand, is focused on the connectivity layer. Its AI-RAN strategy aims to integrate artificial intelligence into the radio access network, ensuring that future 5G-Advanced and 6G networks are not merely communication pipes but intelligent infrastructure. Nokia describes AI-RAN as three components: AI improving the network, AI operating on the network, and AI sharing infrastructure with the network. “It’s driven by two exponentials,” [two growth curves happening simultaneously.] Huang stated. “We now have visibility. I think we’re probably the first technology company in history to have visibility into half a trillion dollars of cumulative Blackwell and early ramps of Rubin through 2026. As you know, 2025 is not over yet, and 2026 hasn’t started. This is how much business is on the books. Half a trillion dollars worth, so far. We’ve already shipped 6 million of the Blackwells in the first several quarters. . . . We still have one more quarter to go for 2025 and then we have four quarters [referring to 2026]. So the next five quarters, there’s $500 billion, half a trillion dollars. That’s five times the growth rate of Hopper [NVIDIA Hopper was already one of the fastest-selling enterprise compute platforms in history.].” Or, put simply: Demand for AI is exploding, and the computing needed for each AI system is also exploding. Those two forces together are creating unprecedented order momentum for NVIDIA. The key takeaway is this: AI will not transform the world by remaining confined within a data centre. It needs to travel. It requires reduced latency. It demands edge processing. It requires network reliability. It needs energy-efficient infrastructure. This is why NVIDIA’s US$1 billion investment in Nokia in October 2025 is significant. This partnership aims to accelerate AI-RAN innovation and facilitate the transition from 5G to 6G. For investors, this represents a crucial shift in perspective. The AI opportunity extends beyond models and applications; it also encompasses the essential backbone: data centres, optical networks, telecom equipment, high-performance chips, cooling, power, and software-defined networks. Nokia’s recent comments underscore this point. Its CEO cautioned that Europe risks falling behind the US and China if it does not develop sufficient AI data-centre and connectivity infrastructure. This indicates that AI is now regarded as national infrastructure, not merely a technology sector. The NVIDIA–Nokia relationship also hints at a future where telecom networks become integral to the AI economy. Nokia and Orange are already collaborating with NVIDIA on AI-RAN use cases that may enhance spectral efficiency, radio performance, and new services like integrated sensing and communication. My Samso view is straightforward. The next phase of AI will be dominated by those who control both intelligence and delivery. NVIDIA provides the AI world with processing power. Nokia aims to make the network intelligent enough to carry that power into the physical world. This is why digital infrastructure is crucial. Without it, AI remains powerful but centralized. With it, AI becomes distributed, responsive, and embedded into everyday systems — factories, hospitals, vehicles, cities, mining operations, logistics, defence, and communications. The future AI landscape may not be defined solely by who has the best model. It may be shaped by who possesses the best infrastructure to make AI practical in the real world. The Australian Perspective It is unlikely that Australia will host the leading global GPU designer. However, this does not mean Australia is excluded from the narrative. Some companies may emerge, but the race will be dominated by the giants mentioned earlier. Australia can, however, play a significant role in components that are part of the future AI-driven pathway. Plans are underway to construct the nation’s largest data centre in the remote northern area of Western Australia to support large-scale artificial intelligence (AI) training, including platforms like ChatGPT (ABC News). Plans to build a large data centre in Western Australia. (source: ABC News) Project Meridien, powered by wind, solar, and natural gas, is expected to provide approximately 240 megawatts of IT capacity and involve an investment of billions of dollars. This "AI factory" is planned to be developed in stages on Karajarri land, located south of Broome in the Kimberley, approximately 2,000 kilometers north of Perth, with an expected opening in 2032. The proposed new Data Centre in the northern part of Western Australia (source: Gingerah Energy) Gingerah Energy, the joint venture leading the project, is spearheaded by chief executive Jop van Hattum. He mentioned that the project would expand on the initial 240 megawatts of IT capacity. "Ultimately, the project will be four times larger," he stated. "The chosen site allows for a 1 gigawatt IT facility." Every major technology cycle requires raw materials, energy, infrastructure, and specialist applications. Australia has relevance in each of these areas. Copper, rare earths, nickel, uranium, and high-quality iron ore all intersect with industrial modernization in various ways. Reliable energy becomes increasingly important as data centres consume more power. The Australian Critical Minerals Story. (source: Geoscience Australia) Beyond resources, Australia may also produce niche software and healthcare technology businesses that apply AI to specific problems rather than attempting to build global foundational models. In many cases, this can be the more practical commercial path. Samso readers should remember that not every winning investment must be the inventor of the platform. Sometimes, it is enough to own a business that benefits from the platform becoming essential. The Risk of Believing Every AI Story - A Reality Check For Investors No significant investment theme arrives without exaggeration. Markets are inherently enthusiastic, and promoters quickly learn to attach themselves to fashionable narratives. This means investors need discipline. Not every company mentioning AI has a defensible product. Not every high valuation reflects durable earnings power. Not every pilot program evolves into a real business. The challenge lies in distinguishing genuine utility from borrowed excitement. This requires asking grounded questions. Does the technology address a genuine pain point? Will customers pay for it? Can it be deployed at scale? Is the competitive advantage real? Can management execute? These questions matter more than whether the presentation deck uses the letters A and I fifty times. The Samso View Jensen Huang’s significance may ultimately have less to do with one company’s market capitalisation and more to do with how clearly he has articulated the next phase of computing. He has consistently framed AI as infrastructure, not entertainment. As productivity, not novelty. As industrial capacity, not a fleeting software trend. This framing is worth understanding. Markets will overshoot at times. Valuations will fluctuate. Competitors will emerge. Cycles will come and go. But structural shifts tend to endure despite the surrounding volatility. The current AI era may be remembered less as the rise of chatbots and more as the moment intelligence became embedded into the operating systems of industry. That is a much larger narrative than one chip company. Samso Final Thoughts Investors often ask whether they have missed NVIDIA. That may be the wrong question. A better question is whether they understand what NVIDIA represents. If AI becomes foundational infrastructure, opportunities will continue to arise across semiconductors, power, resources, software, healthcare, logistics, and automation. The winners may not always be obvious in the early stages. The real edge comes from recognizing the second-order effects before the crowd does. That is usually where thoughtful investing begins. Cover photo: National Semiconductor 24-bit flat panel display link - (Emtec Gdium Liberty 1000) (49849213136), Martijn Boer from Netherlands. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:National_Semiconductor_24-bit_flat_panel_display_link_-_(Emtec_Gdium_Liberty_1000)_(49849213136).jpg). Reproduced photograph, shown faded under a navy overlay on the article thumbnail. The Samso Way – Seek the Research Here at Samso, we pride ourselves on delivering content for investors that is independent and informed by over three decades of experience in the industry. Our content is well-researched and is only created if I see merit in discussing the company's story. Our mission is simple: cut through the noise and spotlight what matters—genuine stories, grounded insights, and real opportunity. Our content is well-researched and is only created if the team sees merit in discussing the company or concept. Investors can explore our three core platforms: Coffee with Samso Samso Insights Samso News There may be numerous paths to success in investing, but the common thread among successful individuals is that they remain committed to making informed decisions. Equip yourself with the right knowledge and tools, and you will be well on your way to achieving your financial goals. Most importantly, investors need to be absolutely diligent in understanding their own risk-reward tolerance and capabilities. Never bite off more than you can chew. As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the Great Wall stood because it took centuries to complete. The Samso Philosophy: Stay curious. Stay sharp. And remember—digging deeper always uncovers the real value. In Life, there is no such thing as a Free Lunch. Never bite off more than you can chew is my parting comment. Happy Investing, and the only four-letter word you need to know is DYOR. To support the independent nature of our work, please head over to our Support Page and give us a helping hand in any of the ways listed. This is a new initiative for the Samso Platform, and it was always the concept of Samso when we started this journey in 2018. Disclaimer The information or opinions provided herein do not constitute investment advice, an offer, or solicitation to subscribe for, purchase, or sell the investment product(s) mentioned herein. It does not take into consideration, nor have any regard to your specific investment objectives, financial situation, risk profile, tax position, and particular or unique needs and constraints. Read full Disclaimer. Share to Grow: Your Bonus Samso has just released an eBook: How to Add Value to your Share Portfolio A lesson on geological models sought by mining companies that gives insight and an understanding of which portfolios are better - and potentially more lucrative – investments. Click here to download this eBook. Download eBook If you find this article informative and useful, please help me share the information. I try to write about topics that are interesting and have the potential to be of investment value. It is not easy to find stories that fit those parameters. If you or your organization see the benefit of what Samso is trying to achieve and have a need to share your journey, please contact me at noel.ong@samso.com.au. About Samso Samso is a trusted platform that equips dedicated investors with up-to-date industry knowledge and insights from top CEOs and thought leaders. By staying informed on business advancements and market trends, investors can enhance their financial decisions through a combination of expert guidance and their own research.

Coffee with Samso – John Anderson and the Thinking Behind the Paris Silver Discovery There are mining discoveries, and then there are stories about why discoveries happen. The difference matters. In this episode of Coffee with Samso, I sat down with John Anderson, the geologist most closely associated with the discovery of the Paris Silver Deposit on South Australia’s Eyre Peninsula. John is not just another explorer who drilled a successful hole. He represents a generation of geologists who instill the life of geoscientists into the exploration industry through persistence, pattern recognition, and the willingness to challenge accepted geological thinking. This conversation in this Coffee with Samso was less about one silver deposit and more about how discoveries are made when ideas are allowed to mature over decades. The Geologist Behind the Discovery John Anderson was born in South Australia and developed an early fascination with rocks, fossils, and the natural world. He graduated from the University of Adelaide in 1975 with studies in geophysics and geology before starting a career that would take him through some of Australia’s most important mining districts. His early years included underground work at Broken Hill, nickel exploration around Kalgoorlie, tin projects, and later senior exploration roles with major mining groups. These experiences shaped a style of thinking John repeatedly referenced in our discussion — understanding how systems form, not simply where anomalies sit on a map. That distinction is critical. Many people talk about targets. Fewer talk about mineral systems. In the words of Samso, get your favourite beverage and sit and listen to another great insight from Coffee with Samso. Coffee with Samso - Episode 217 | The Discovery of the Paris Silver Deposit | Adelaide | South Australia Audio Podcast Coffee with Samso - Episode 217 | The Discovery of the Paris Silver Deposit | Adelaide | South Australia Chapters 00:00 Start 01:59 Introduction to John Anderson 04:01 The Tin Connection and the see of Mienral System. 07:35 The Discussion of Mineral System Thinking? 11:38 The Investigator Resources Connection 13:22 The thinking behind the Discovery of Paris 14:22 The Beginning of the Search for A Paris Discovery 15:42 The Use of PEMA or EPMA - Electron Probe Micro-Analysis 25:30 The Diamond Drilling that proved Mineralisation. 26:41 Was there any pussback to the exploration? 29:27 Did The Discovery of Paris changed the thinking of Gawler Geology. 32:29 Is there more of the Olympic Dam scale or hybrids of smaller IOCGs 33:04 The potential of variance of the IOCGs, Porphyrys - Discovery of Hybrids. 33:54 WIll the BHP Funding Initiatves Help Discovery of the Hybrids. 35:05 John Anderson Theory for the Gawler Graton 38:19 Can we find a Cadia in the Gawler? 40:08 The Double Subduction Model 41:19 Similarities of Olympic Dam and the Paris System 44:38 The Galwer - Olympic Dam Tectonic Environment 45:39 What would John say to the Younger Generation of Geoscientists? 49:04 Lack of Boots on The Ground. 50:28 Last Words from John Anderson 51:34 Conclusion The Samso Way – Seek the Research Here at Samso, we pride ourselves on delivering content for investors that is independent and informed by over three decades of experience in the industry. Our content is well-researched and is only created if I see merit in discussing the company's story. Our mission is simple: cut through the noise and spotlight what matters—genuine stories, grounded insights, and real opportunity. Our content is well-researched and is only created if the team sees merit in discussing the company or concept. Investors can explore our three core platforms: Coffee with Samso Samso Insights Samso News There may be numerous paths to success in investing, but the common thread among successful individuals is that they remain committed to making informed decisions. Equip yourself with the right knowledge and tools, and you will be well on your way to achieving your financial goals. Most importantly, investors need to be absolutely diligent in understanding their own risk-reward tolerance and capabilities. Never bite off more than you can chew. As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the Great Wall stood because it took centuries to complete. Always read the announcement, understand the geology, and follow the development pathway before forming an investment view. The Samso Philosophy: Stay curious. Stay sharp. And remember—digging deeper always uncovers the real value. In Life, there is no such thing as a Free Lunch. Never bite off more than you can chew is my parting comment. Happy Investing, and the only four-letter word you need to know is DYOR. To support our independent nature of our work, please head over to our Support Page and give us a helping hand in any of the ways listed. This is a new initiative for the Samso Platform, and it was always the concept of Samso when we started this journey in 2018. Disclaimer The information or opinions provided herein do not constitute investment advice, an offer or solicitation to subscribe for, purchase or sell the investment product(s) mentioned herein. It does not take into consideration, nor have any regard to your specific investment objectives, financial situation, risk profile, tax position and particular, or unique needs and constraints. Read full Disclaimer. Share to Grow: Your Bonus Samso has just released an eBook: How to Add Value to your Share Portfolio A lesson on geological models sought by mining companies that gives insight and an understanding of which portfolios are better - and potentially more lucrative – investments. Click here to download this eBook. If you find this article informative and useful, please help me share the information. I try to write about topics that are interesting and have the potential to be of investment value. It is not easy to find stories that fit those parameters. If you or your organisation sees the benefit of what Samso is trying to achieve and has a need to share your journey, please contact me at noel.ong@samso.com.au. About Samso Samso is a trusted platform that equips dedicated investors with up-to-date industry knowledge and insights from top CEOs and thought leaders. By staying informed on business advancements and market trends, investors can enhance their financial decisions through a combination of expert guidance and their own research.

EchoSolv AS Enters Mount Sinai Health System: A Deployment Inside One of the United States' Leading Cardiovascular Networks Samso News | ASX: EIQ | Source: Echo IQ Limited ASX Release, 28 April 2026 Samso has been following the Echo IQ since September 2025. The research that went into preparing for the first Coffee with Samso with Dustin Haines was the eye opener for myself. It became very clear that this was a business that just needed validation and the first was the FDA submission which I now understand is not something that is caually done. The proecess and the acceptance of the request for approval in itself was a strenous process and is almost a tick of approval on acceptance for the requrest. It was at that stage that my thoughts was that this is a matter of time and not a need for pprove of concept. The acceptance for partnership or acceptance of their product into the Mayo Clinic and now the Mount Sinai system is the ebst validation that I can think of, in my humble opinion anyway. The product targets severe aortic stenosis — a condition that carries meaningful consequences when it goes undetected. The commercial model is predicated on integration into existing echocardiography workflows rather than requiring new infrastructure, which reduces the barrier to adoption inside hospital systems. The Mount Sinai engagement confirms that leading cardiovascular institutions are willing to put this software into active clinical use. Echo IQ Limited (ASX: EIQ) has confirmed the deployment of EchoSolv AS into Mount Sinai Health System, a major healthcare network based in New York, United States. This announcement represents the company's most significant US institutional placement to date. Mount Sinai Health System operates seven hospitals, more than 400 outpatient practices, and over 3,760 beds across its campuses. Its affiliate, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, is a globally recognised medical school. Mount Sinai Hospital The system services millions of patient interactions each year and is consistently positioned among the top hospital networks in the United States across multiple clinical specialties, with cardiology and heart surgery among its most prominent areas. The significance of this deployment is grounded in the specific ranking of Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital at The Mount Sinai Hospital. According to U.S. News & World Report's 2025–26 Best Hospitals rankings, it holds the No. 1 position in New York and No. 2 in the nation for Cardiology, Heart and Vascular Surgery. For a company commercialising AI-based decision support software for the assessment of severe aortic stenosis, placing that product inside the second-ranked heart hospital network in the United States is a measurable step in its stated US commercial strategy. Severe aortic stenosis is a condition in which narrowing of the aortic valve restricts blood flow from the heart. It can go undetected or be inconsistently assessed in high-volume clinical environments, and when left untreated, patients cannot benefit from the therapeutic options available. EchoSolv AS is designed to operate as an adjunct within existing echocardiography workflows, providing a measurement-based second review to assist physicians in identifying cases that may otherwise be missed. The software is not intended to replace physician judgment but to augment the assessment process. Echo IQ Limited Mt Sinai Health System Highlights of the Echo IQ Asx Release - 28th April 2026 EchoSolv AS finds hidden cases Management Commentary - Echo IQ and EchoSolv AS What the Company's Leadership Said About the Mount Sinai Deployment Nick Lubbers, US President and General Manager of Echo IQ, addressed the strategic context of the deployment. He described the engagement as an important step in the company's US commercial growth, noting that it reflects increasing interest from cardiologists in tools that can support assessment within routine echocardiography workflows. Lubbers characterised EchoSolv AS as a practical, measurement-based second look for physicians assessing severe aortic stenosis, and stated the company intends to demonstrate the product's utility at scale through its work with Mount Sinai Health System. He also framed the Mount Sinai engagement as consistent with Echo IQ's broader trajectory of building partnerships with leading hospitals and expanding access to AI-enabled decision support in cardiology. "Mount Sinai is the kind of institution that helps set the standard for clinical excellence and innovation." — Nick Lubbers, US President and General Manager, Echo IQ Limited Clinical commentary was provided by Dr. Stamatios Lerakis MD, PhD, Director of the Cardiovascular Imaging Program and Imaging for Structural and Valve Interventions for Mount Sinai Health System. Dr. Lerakis noted that EchoSolv AS can highlight cases of aortic stenosis that may otherwise be under-diagnosed and remain untreated, meaning affected patients would not benefit from the therapeutic advances available in the management of aortic valve disease. He described the software as an adjunct for the echocardiographer, confirming that the physician retains final interpretive authority, and stated that the product would strengthen patient care. "This product can highlight patients with aortic stenosis that can be otherwise under-diagnosed, remain untreated and as a result, not benefit from the tremendous therapeutic advancements in the space of aortic valve diseases." — Dr. Stamatios Lerakis MD, PhD, Director Cardiovascular Imaging Program, Mount Sinai Health System Disclosure noted in the ASX release: Dr. Stamatios Lerakis serves as a paid key opinion leader, speaker, and advisory board member for Echo IQ Limited. Near-Term Milestones to Watch What Investors Should Monitor Following This Deployment Announcement Near-Term Milestones to Watch Map illustrating Mount Sinai Health System's New York footprint across its seven hospitals and outpatient practices. Samso Concluding Comments Putting the Mount Sinai Deployment in Context To say that the deployment of EchoSolv AS into Mount Sinai Health System is a significant step for Echo IQ would be an understatement. The relevance of the institution is well documented in the medical profession and the narrative of importance whenever you hear thatat some person of significance has been admited to a Mt. Sinai hospital, To the intiated, this hospital system may be ranked second in the nation for cardiology and heart surgery by U.S., however to the "nomral people, the everday population, the mention of Mt. Sinai represents the upper tier of the US without stipulating the cardiovascular landscape. For Echo IQ Limited with a product designed specifically for cardiologists operating within echocardiography workflows, gaining access to a system of this standing reflects the product's ability to meet the standards required by a top-level clinical institution. Shareholders should be sitting back rubbing their hands already knowing that the ASX release uses the language of deployment, which denotes active clinical use. For now, I think that Echo IQ Limtied is enjoying the spotlight of good compnay stories on the ASX. Previous Samso News Coverage Samso has followed Echo IQ across multiple ASX releases. The following represents our prior published coverage of the company: April 16, 2026 - Echo IQ – AI Diagnostics, Mayo Clinic & Hypergrowth March 26, 2026 - Echo IQ – Mayo Clinic Agreement Expands Commercial Pathway for EchoSolv HF After FDA Clearance January 30, 2026 - Echo IQ Limited — FDA 510(k) Submission Lodged Following Mayo Clinic Validation - Catalyst for Market Acceptance ? - Time to get On Board the EIQ Train December 15, 2025 - EchoIQ (ASX:EIQ) — New Clinical Data Reinforces Market Potential of EchoSolv™ AS November 26, 2025 - Is this A for Gift Shareholders of Echo IQ Limited - EchoSolv HF Validated at Mayo Clinic Platform – Lining Up for FDA 510(k) Submission October 25, 2025 - Echo IQ (ASX: EIQ): Strong Operational Momentum & Regulatory Milestones. Recent Setback May Be A Discount Opportunity for Investors - Diagnosing Heart Disease. September 7, 2025 - Coffee with Samso - An AI Solution to a Cardiovascular Problem | EchoIQ Limited (ASX: EIQ). About Echo IQ Echo IQ Limited (ASX: EIQ) — AI-Driven Decision Support in Cardiology Echo IQ is a Sydney-based AI and medical technology company. Its lead product, EchoSolv AS, is an AI-based decision support software indicated as an adjunct to echocardiography for the assessment of severe aortic stenosis. The software is designed to be used by qualified healthcare professionals alongside existing clinical tools, providing a measurement-based review to assist physicians in identifying cases of severe aortic stenosis that may otherwise go undetected. EchoSolv AS holds FDA 510(k) clearance in the United States. The company's commercial strategy centres on deploying the software at high-volume cardiovascular institutions and cardiology practices across the US market. Cover photo: Sonography Machine Donation from Raleigh Radiology-22, waketechcc. CC0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sonography_Machine_Donation_from_Raleigh_Radiology-22.jpg) The Samso Way – Seek the Research Here at Samso, we pride ourselves on delivering content for investors that is independent and informed by over three decades of experience in the industry. Our content is well-researched and is only created if I see merit in discussing the company's story. Our mission is simple: cut through the noise and spotlight what matters—genuine stories, grounded insights, and real opportunity. Our content is well-researched and is only created if the team sees merit in discussing the company or concept. Investors can explore our three core platforms: Coffee with Samso Samso Insights Samso News There may be numerous paths to success in investing, but the common thread among successful individuals is that they remain committed to making informed decisions. Equip yourself with the right knowledge and tools, and you will be well on your way to achieving your financial goals. Most importantly, investors need to be absolutely diligent in understanding their own risk-reward tolerance and capabilities. Never bite off more than you can chew. As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the Great Wall stood because it took centuries to complete. The Samso Philosophy: Stay curious. Stay sharp. And remember—digging deeper always uncovers the real value. In Life, there is no such thing as a Free Lunch. Never bite off more than you can chew is my parting comment. Happy Investing, and the only four-letter word you need to know is DYOR. To support our independent nature of our work, please head over to our Support Page and give us a helping hand in any of the ways listed. This is a new initiate for the Samso Platform, and it was always the concept of Samso when we started this journey in 2018. Disclaimer The information or opinions provided herein do not constitute investment advice, an offer, or solicitation to subscribe for, purchase, or sell the investment product(s) mentioned herein. It does not take into consideration, nor have any regard to your specific investment objectives, financial situation, risk profile, tax position and particular, or unique needs and constraints. Read full Disclaimer. Share to Grow: Your Bonus Samso has just released an eBook: How to Add Value to your Share Portfolio A lesson on geological models sought by mining companies that gives insight and an understanding of which portfolios are better - and potentially more lucrative – investments. Click here to download this eBook. Download eBook If you find this article informative and useful, please help me share the information. I try to write about topics that are interesting and have the potential to be of investment value. It is not easy to find stories that fit those parameters. If you or your organisation sees the benefit of what Samso is trying to achieve and has a need to share your journey, please contact me at noel.ong@samso.com.au. About Samso Samso is a trusted platform that equips dedicated investors with up-to-date industry knowledge and insigh0ts from top CEOs and thought leaders. By staying informed on business advancements and market trends, investors can enhance their financial decisions through a combination of expert guidance and their own research. . ---

Black Swan Processing Hub Refurbishment Funded and Underway: Maritana Minerals Limited Presents Its Pathway to Standalone Gold Production in the WA Goldfields Samso News | ASX: MRT | Source: Maritana Minerals Limited - Investor Presentation - Mining Forum Europe , 15 April 2026 Maritana Minerals Limited (ASX: MRT) was Horizon Minerals Limited (ASX: HRZ) before a name change announced on the 10th April 2026. The company was on a Coffee with Samso in August 2025, where Grant Haywood, the Managing Director and CEO, shared with us the business that was to become what is now called Maritana Minerals Limited. My interest in the story stems from the fact that at that time, this was a gold-producing story that was pretty much "undervalued" in terms of a business that was pretty much producing gold. For those who remember, the gold price was "surging" at that time at USD $3200 per ounce. It reached a high of USD $5,600 and is now currently sitting at USD $4,600 per ounce. Similarly, the share price of Maritana Minerals rose from AUD $0.67 to a high of AUD $1.51 and with the falling gold price, the share price is now at AUD $0.75 with a market capitalisation of AUD $277M. At the time we published the Coffee with Samso, the market capitalisation of Maritana (then Horizon Minerals Limited) was around AUD $100M. The increase in market capitalisation has increased with an aggressive capital raise since that time. Is it time to have a relook at this opportunity? The Business of Maritana Minerals Limited Maritana Minerals operates in a space where the key risk variables for a development-stage gold company are resource definition, processing infrastructure, funding, and permitting. In the strict terms of being a gold producer, Maritan is not quite there yet, and for those that have been following their story, is this a case of on-risk or de-risking situation? From a Samso point of view, the potential positives are that Maritana Minerals' Black Swan Processing Hub is now 100%-owned with the potential of a 2.2Mtpa processing facility that removes the need to build a new plant from the ground up, cutting both capital requirements and development timelines relative to a greenfield approach. The company's A$175M equity raise has been completed, placing the project in a funded position ahead of construction. The study results have been published, FEED is underway, major approvals are in place, and long lead items have been ordered. For a development-stage company, the number of open variables is potentially materially lower than is typical at this stage. The Black Swan refurbishment approach is a model that Samso considers worth tracking as the company moves toward its mid-2027 first gold production target. Maritana Minerals Limited (ASX: MRT) — West Australian Gold Developer Targeting Standalone Production via Refurbished Processing Hub - The Facts. Maritana Minerals is a West Australian gold developer that holds a 1,167km² land package centred around the Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie regions of Western Australia, underpinned by a 1.9Moz Mineral Resource at 1.7g/t Au. Its cornerstone asset is the Black Swan Processing Hub — a 2.2Mtpa processing facility currently in care and maintenance, located approximately 50km northeast of Kalgoorlie. The company's stated strategy is to refurbish Black Swan and convert it to gold processing, using a hub-and-spoke model to draw ore from multiple deposits across its landholding. A feasibility study supports an operation producing an average of approximately 102,000 ounces of gold per year over a five-year mine plan, with first gold targeted for mid-2027. The company is fully funded for plant refurbishment and mine development, having completed an A$175M equity raise in February 2026. In addition to its gold assets, Maritana holds the Nimbus Silver-Zinc deposit located 44km from Black Swan, which contains 20.2Moz of silver and 104kt of zinc. Introducing the Presentation Maritana Minerals Limited presented its April 2026 investor presentation at the Mining Forum Europe, setting out the current status of the Black Swan Processing Hub development and the company's pathway to first gold production. The presentation consolidates the key milestones reached since the company's rebrand from Horizon Minerals and details the funded position, study results, resource base, and construction timeline that underpin the company's stated plan to become a standalone West Australian gold producer by mid-2027. The core of the presentation is the Black Swan Processing Hub, a 2.2Mtpa facility currently in care and maintenance, located approximately 50km northeast of Kalgoorlie. The company's strategy is to refurbish and convert this plant to gold processing, avoiding the cost and timeline associated with a new build. The study results support a project-level pre-tax NPV of approximately A$631M at an 8% discount rate and an IRR of 83%, using a base case gold price of A$5,500 per ounce. At the time of the presentation, spot gold was reported at A$7,300 per ounce. Pre-production capital has been estimated at A$160.5M, with a capital intensity of approximately A$1,500 per ounce, and payback of 18 months from plant commissioning at the base case gold price. The company completed an A$175M equity raise in February 2026, with a further A$4.65M raised through a Share Purchase Plan, placing the project in a fully funded position for plant refurbishment and mine development. Front End Engineering Design (FEED) is underway, the Final Investment Decision (FID) is expected in the second quarter of 2026, and plant construction is scheduled to begin in the third quarter of 2026. The company has also reported that major environmental and regulatory approvals are in place, and that long lead items — including motors and variable speed drives — have been ordered. Ore stockpiling at Boorara has commenced, with 460,000 tonnes at 1.21g/t gold reported as a de-risked startup inventory ahead of plant commissioning. Highlights Highlights of the Maritana Minerals Business - April Investor Presentation - Mining Forum Europe - 15th April 2026 The Balck Swan Processing Hub Strategy. (souce: Maritana Minerals Limited) Management Commentary Grant Haywood, Managing Director and CEO of Maritana Minerals, has framed the Black Swan Processing Hub as the foundation of the company's plan to become a standalone West Australian gold producer. The investor presentation positions the project as a low capital intensity, expedited pathway to production, with Haywood and the board pointing to the use of existing processing infrastructure as the key differentiator relative to a greenfield development. "All elements in place to support aspirational target to become a ~100kozpa GOLD producer." — Maritana Minerals Limited, April 2026 Investor Presentation The presentation highlights that the project benefits from key approvals already being in place, long lead items having been ordered, and FEED studies being underway. Maritana Minerals Limtied has communicated that construction is expected to commence from mid-2026, with commissioning in early 2027 and first gold production by mid-2027. The board and management team, which includes a Project Director and Project Manager in addition to executive leadership, has been presented as having operational experience relevant to mine development and production in the Western Australian goldfields. On the subject of project economics, the company has highlighted that the base case study was run at A$5,500/oz gold and that the spot price at the time of the presentation was A$7,300/oz. The company has not presented updated economics at the spot price, but has included a sensitivity analysis showing that gold price is the most significant variable affecting NPV — with a 20% increase in the gold price producing an optimistic NPV materially above the A$631M base case figure. The Maritana Minerals Limited Business Model. (source: Maritana Minerals Limited) Near-Term Milestones to Watch Key Delivery Points Between Now and First Gold Production at Black Swan Near-Term Milestones to Watch Key Milestones and Timing (source: Maritana Minerals Limited) Samso Concluding Comments Putting the Black Swan Development in Context Despite the recent fall in share price which is consistent with the gold price pulling back, Maritana Minerals, as of April 2026 is still a story that a number of development-stage gold companies in Western Australia have sought but fewer have reached at this point in the cycle. Maritana has published feasibility study, a funded balance sheet, major approvals in place, long lead items ordered, and a concrete construction timeline. Readers should remember that the Black Swan Processing Hub does represent an estimated replacement value of over A$200M. The company is acquiring access to that asset for a refurbishment capital cost of approximately A$101M. The pre-production capital total of A$160.5M, which includes mining capital, is funded without debt from the capital raise completed in February 2026. Refurbishment versus new build comparison table (cost, timeline, approvals, sustainability (source: Maritana Minerals Limited) The current mine plan is for five years and 546,000 ounces. The Burbanks high-grade underground mine, with its 465,500-ounce Mineral Resource and historical production grade of 22.7g/t, is not included in that plan and while it sits as a real potential to add ounces, this is still a work in progress. I would probably prefer to keep this as a pie in the sky for now. A Mineral Resource for Burbanks upgrade is scheduled for mid-2026 and is expected to be incorporated into a combined pre-feasibility study and updated life of mine plan. If that process proceeds on the stated timeline, investors should have a clearer picture of the mine life beyond the initial five years by the end of 2026. The Black Swan site itself has also been identified as carrying gold prospectivity that has not been systematically tested. Grnt did mention this as early as the Coffee wiht Samso that only 5% of historical drill assays at the site tested for gold, and a 6.5km gold trend has been identified adjacent to the existing infrastructure. Neither of these represents a confirmed resource addition at this stage, but both represent additional optionality within the existing landholding. Black Swan exploration potential map showing North, East, West, and South gold anomalies with soil results and the Mt Monger Fault (source: Maritana Minerals Limited) The economics presented in the feasibility study are based on a gold price of A$5,500 per ounce. The spot gold price at the time of the investor presentation was reported at A$7,300 (Currently AUD $6300) per ounce, so at the current state of the market, this has to be considered. The AISC of A$3,353/oz at base case, against a spot price of A$7,300/oz, did represent a margin that was meaningful to track as construction capital is committed and cash costs are refined through FEED. Study outcomes chart showing closing cash position by financial year and gold produced (koz) alongside the NPV sensitivity tornado chart. (source: Maritana Minerals Limited) With the changing dynamics that is always full of surprise, if the view is that the gold price will continue to move upwards with time, then this may be a situation of a second chance to get in on the story; however, if the gold price did move further downwards, then waiting may be the right mvoe for investors. In the space of mining, the details are important. Previous Samso News Coverage Samso has followed Maritana Minerals (formerly Horizon Minerals) across multiple ASX releases. The following represents our prior published coverage of the company: October 8, 2025 - Horizon Minerals (ASX: HRZ) — Burbanks drilling returns spectacular grades - The Early Steps to Build a Gold Mining Story. September 2, 2025 - Horizon Minerals (ASX: HRZ) – Advancing the Black Swan Pre-Feasibility Study - A Gold Mining Hub. August 21, 2025 - Horizon Minerals Expands Strategic Footprint Near Black Swan with Gordons Dam Acquisition - Creating a Gold Mining Hub. August 1, 2025 - Coffee with Samso - An Emerging Gold Mining Story | Horizon Minerals Limited (ASX: HRZ) July 27, 2025 - Horizon Minerals Limited (ASX: HRZ) – 2025 Growth Strategy in Action - An Undervalued Gold Miner Story ? June 29, 2025 - Horizon Minerals: Strategic Pivot Towards Standalone Gold Production Cover photo: Gold bullion bars, Stevebidmead. CC0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gold_bullion_bars.jpg) The Samso Way – Seek the Research Here at Samso, we pride ourselves on delivering content for investors that is independent and informed by over three decades of experience in the industry. Our content is well-researched and is only created if I see merit in discussing the company's story. Our mission is simple: cut through the noise and spotlight what matters—genuine stories, grounded insights, and real opportunity. Our content is well-researched and is only created if the team sees merit in discussing the company or concept. Investors can explore our three core platforms: Coffee with Samso Samso Insights Samso News There may be numerous paths to success in investing, but the common thread among successful individuals is that they remain committed to making informed decisions. Equip yourself with the right knowledge and tools, and you will be well on your way to achieving your financial goals. Most importantly, investors need to be absolutely diligent in understanding their own risk-reward tolerance and capabilities. Never bite off more than you can chew. As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the Great Wall stood because it took centuries to complete. The Samso Philosophy: Stay curious. Stay sharp. And remember—digging deeper always uncovers the real value. In Life, there is no such thing as a Free Lunch. Never bite off more than you can chew is my parting comment. Happy Investing, and the only four-letter word you need to know is DYOR. To support our independent nature of our work, please head over to our Support Page and give us a helping hand in any of the ways listed. This is a new initiate for the Samso Platform, and it was always the concept of Samso when we started this journey in 2018. Disclaimer The information or opinions provided herein do not constitute investment advice, an offer, or solicitation to subscribe for, purchase, or sell the investment product(s) mentioned herein. It does not take into consideration, nor have any regard to your specific investment objectives, financial situation, risk profile, tax position and particular, or unique needs and constraints. Read full Disclaimer. Share to Grow: Your Bonus Samso has just released an eBook: How to Add Value to your Share Portfolio A lesson on geological models sought by mining companies that gives insight and an understanding of which portfolios are better - and potentially more lucrative – investments. Click here to download this eBook. Download eBook If you find this article informative and useful, please help me share the information. I try to write about topics that are interesting and have the potential to be of investment value. It is not easy to find stories that fit those parameters. If you or your organisation sees the benefit of what Samso is trying to achieve and has a need to share your journey, please contact me at noel.ong@samso.com.au. About Samso Samso is a trusted platform that equips dedicated investors with up-to-date industry knowledge and insigh0ts from top CEOs and thought leaders. By staying informed on business advancements and market trends, investors can enhance their financial decisions through a combination of expert guidance and their own research. . ---