The company is a copper-zinc explorer that sits in the best mining address in the world AT A GLANCE Company Name: Lux Copper Corp. Ltd Proposed ASX Code: LUX Raise: $8m – $15m @ $0.25/share (32m – 60m shares) Indicative Market Cap: ~$23.2m – $30.2m Prospectus lodged: 3 June 2026 | Offer closes: 25 June 2026 Expected ASX quotation: 17 July 2026 What you are looking at: A copper-zinc explorer whose entire story sits in one of the better mining addresses in the world — Alaska's Ambler district, home to Teck's Red Dog mine and Trilogy Metals' Arctic and Bornite deposits. Through its Alaskan subsidiary, Lux holds 100% of two projects: the flagship Baird (41 claims, ~2,600 ha) and the district-scale Ambler (368 claims). Baird already carries genuinely high-grade historical copper hits. The raise funds a maiden drill program at Baird and first-pass work at Ambler. Lead manager is Canaccord Genuity The strongest leg: The grade and the neighbourhood. Historical drilling at Baird's Omar prospect returned intercepts like 37.7m @ 2.45% Cu (including 4.9m @ 10.23% Cu) and 4.9m @ 9.83% Cu — high-grade copper, in a Fraser-Institute top-12 jurisdiction, next door to world-class deposits, with copper trading near record highs in 2026. The points of friction: No JORC resource on either project — this is a drilling story. The ground is remote, fly-in Alaskan terrain with a short field season and real permitting/claim-maintenance obligations. And as ever with a pre-revenue explorer, the rig has to deliver. 01/ The 60-Second Pitch Lux Copper Corp. Ltd (proposed ASX: LUX) is a Western Australian-incorporated explorer with a wholly American asset base: through its Alaskan subsidiary Lux Copper LLC, it owns 100% of two copper-zinc projects in the Northwest Arctic Borough of Alaska. It's raising $8m–$15m at $0.25 to drill them. The pitch for the Lux Copper IPO is built on two things that genuinely matter in exploration: grade and address. On address, Lux's ground sits in the Ambler Mining District — one of the most prospective base-metals belts in North America, anchored by Teck Resources' Red Dog (one of the world's great zinc mines) and the Lik deposit, plus Trilogy Metals' Arctic and Bornite copper deposits (Figure 1). Alaska itself was rated twelfth globally for mining investment attractiveness by the Fraser Institute in 2025: low sovereign risk, established mining law, a top-tier jurisdiction. Figure 1:Location of Projects within Alaska, United States (Source: IPO Prospectus) On grade, the flagship Baird Project is the reason to look. Historical drilling at its Omar prospect returned the kind of numbers that make copper geologists sit up — 37.7m at 2.45% Cu including 4.9m at 10.23% Cu, a separate 4.9m at 9.83% Cu including 3.3m at 12.12% Cu, and rock chips running above 30% copper and 20% zinc. Those are high-grade results, and Lux's first job after listing is a maiden drill program to test and extend them. The second project, Ambler, is a much larger land position — 368 claims across the Ambler metallogenic belt — held for early-stage, district-scale optionality rather than near-term drilling. What you are buying, as always with this kind of float, is not a resource. There's no JORC estimate on either project yet; that's the whole point of the raise. Lux is a high-grade drilling story in a great neighbourhood — with all the remoteness, permitting and execution risk that exploring in Arctic Alaska implies. 02/ Lux Copper IPO Snapshot Table 1: IPO Snapshot Item Detail Company Lux Copper Corp. Ltd (ACN 682 515 304) Proposed ASX Code LUX Offer Price $0.25 per share Raise (min / max) $8.0m / $15.0m (32,000,000 / 60,000,000 shares) Indicative Market Cap (min / max) ~$23.23m / ~$30.23m Existing Shares on Issue 60,912,468 Shares on Issue at Admission (min / max) 92,912,468 / 120,912,468 Free Float ~42% (not less than 20%) Lead Manager Canaccord Genuity (Australia) Limited Co-Managers GBA Capital; Peloton Capital Independent Geologist Piton Exploration LLC (Palmer, Alaska) Existing Cash (Prospectus Date) $994,372 Lodgement / Open / Close / Quotation 3 June / 11 June / 25 June / 17 July 2026 Underwritten? No Assets 100% Baird Project & Ambler Project, Northwest Arctic Borough, Alaska 03 / Capital Structure & Dilution The dilution here is moderate and scales with how much gets raised. Existing holders own 60.9 million shares; depending on subscription, the company ends up with either ~92.9m shares (minimum) or ~120.9m (maximum). That puts existing holders at roughly 66% at the minimum raise and about 50% at the maximum — i.e. new money takes between a third and a half of the company. Not a wash-out, but at the top end the public is buying close to half the register. Table 2: Capital Structure on Admission Security Min subscription Max subscription Existing shares 60,912,468 60,912,468 Public Offer shares 32,000,000 60,000,000 Total shares on issue 92,912,468 120,912,468 Options (Lead Manager / Adviser / Board) 27,500,000 27,500,000 Performance Rights 8,000,000 10,000,000 Market capitalisation ~$23.23m ~$30.23m The options and rights stack is worth a note. On top of the shares there are 27.5 million options (1.5m to the Lead Manager, 0.5m to the Adviser, 9m to board and management, plus the 16.5m existing) and 8–10 million performance rights to board and management. That's a meaningful overhang of potential future dilution if it all vests and exercises — standard for a float of this type, but it's there. One quietly interesting number: strip the cash out of the market cap and the implied enterprise value lands around $14m at either end of the raise (because raising more simply adds more cash). So the market is being asked to value the two Alaskan projects at roughly $14m — modest for high-grade ground next to world-class deposits, which is the bull's framing, but also a reminder that you're paying for drill targets, not a defined resource. Free float is expected to be ~42%. 04/ Use of Funds This is a tidy, exploration-led budget — most of the money goes into the ground, which is exactly what you want. Table 3: Use of Funds (2 years) Use of funds Min ($) % Max ($) % Exploration expenditure 6,100,000 68% 12,500,000 78% Costs of the Offers 903,235 10% 1,332,444 8% Directors' fees 400,000 4% 400,000 3% Working capital 1,591,137 18% 1,761,928 11% Total funds available 8,994,372 100% 15,994,372 100% Total includes ~$0.99m of existing cash. Exploration figure combines Year 1 and Year 2. Putting 68–78% of available funds into exploration is at the strong end for a float this size, and the weighting tilts harder to drilling as the raise grows (Year 2 exploration roughly doubles between the minimum and maximum cases). Costs of the offer (~8–10%) are typical for a non-underwritten small-cap, and directors' fees of $400k over two years are lean. The prospectus is explicit that the raise funds roughly two years of activity, and that — being pre-revenue — Lux will need to raise again down the track. 5/ The Projects Table 4: Project Portfolio Project Claims Area Stage Why it matters Baird 41 ~2,600 ha Maiden drilling High-grade historical copper at the Omar prospect; the flagship Ambler 368 District-scale Reconnaissance Large position in the Ambler belt, near Trilogy's Arctic & Bornite 5.1 Baird — The Flagship Baird is where the value case lives. It's a compact, 41-claim project (~2,600 ha) in the eastern Baird Mountains, and its Omar prospect carries the high-grade copper that makes the whole story. Historical drilling there (reported by Freeman, 2013) returned standout intercepts: BC-06: 37.7m @ 2.45% Cu, including 4.9m @ 10.23% Cu BC-05: 4.9m @ 9.83% Cu, including 3.3m @ 12.12% Cu BC-08: 9.8m @ 2.15% Cu plus intervals around 3.46% Cu and 2.78% Cu, and zinc up to 2.77m @ 8.11% Zn Historical surface sampling along the Omar–Frost–Deadfall corridor threw up rock chips exceeding 30% copper and 20% zinc, with silver credits. That's high-grade by any measure. The catch is the usual one: these are historical, selective, target-focused results, not a JORC resource — so Lux's maiden drill program is about validating and extending what's there, not banking it. Baird was acquired under the Baird Acquisition Agreement, so there's vendor and counterparty performance to rely on (a flagged contractual risk). Figure 2: Baird Project geology map (Source: IPO Prospectus ) 5.2 Ambler — The District-Scale Option Ambler is the bigger but earlier play: 368 claims across the Ambler metallogenic belt, the same belt that hosts Trilogy Metals' Arctic (a high-grade copper-zinc-lead-silver-gold VMS deposit) and Bornite (copper). Work here is first-pass — reconnaissance fieldwork, compilation, geophysics — rather than drilling in the near term. Treat it as cheap district-scale optionality: a large foothold in a proven belt, with the blue-sky that comes from being early, and the uncertainty that comes with it. 6/ The Exploration Budget The spend is genuinely drilling-led. Across the two years, exploration runs $6.1m (minimum) to $12.5m (maximum), and the prospectus earmarks it for the things that move an exploration story: access and claim maintenance, geophysics, soil sampling and fieldwork, drilling and assays, and metallurgical test work. The early emphasis is the maiden drill campaign at Baird to test the Omar copper, with reconnaissance at Ambler running alongside. At the maximum raise, Year 2 exploration jumps to $6.5m — that's the follow-up-drilling scenario, where a good first season gets pressed home. 7/ The Board & Related Parties Table 5: Board & Management Name Role Note Mark Williams Non-Executive Chair Largest individual holder (~14.3% pre-IPO); associated with the chair's private group used as the registered office Simon Dahrouge Non-Executive Director Nil shares at prospectus date; connected to the Dahrouge geological family, which provides services Troy Cavanagh Non-Executive Director ~4.4% pre-IPO James Warren Chief Executive Officer Runs the company day-to-day At the prospectus date, the directors and associates held roughly 18.7% of the company (Williams ~14.3%, Cavanagh ~4.4%), which dilutes down on admission. The structure is a non-executive board chaired by Williams with a CEO (Warren) driving operations. 8/ The Market — Copper, Zinc and Alaska The macro case is strong and topical. Copper has been trading near record highs through 2026 on a structural supply-demand squeeze — electrification, grid build-out and data-centre demand against a thin pipeline of new mines — and it's squarely a critical mineral for both the US and allied supply chains. Zinc, the other half of the story, is the metal that built Red Dog into one of the world's largest mines, just up the belt. Then there's the jurisdiction. Alaska is a genuine top-tier mining address — twelfth globally on the Fraser Institute's 2025 attractiveness ranking, with established mining law and low sovereign risk — and the Ambler district's pedigree (Red Dog, Lik, Arctic, Bornite) is exactly the kind of neighbourhood an explorer wants to be drilling in. The counterweight, and it's a real one, is remoteness and access. This is fly-in Arctic exploration — the prospectus flags an Aircraft Charter Agreement for getting to the ground — with a short summer field season, mandatory annual claim-maintenance spending, and exploration permits granted for fixed terms with reporting obligations. The Ambler district's access and permitting have been a long-running, politically sensitive story in their own right. The grade and the geology are there; getting at them, season after season, is the operational reality investors are signing up for. 9/ The Risks / Points of Friction No JORC resource. Both projects are pre-resource; the historical Baird hits are encouraging but unproven under modern standards. This is a drilling story. Pre-revenue, will raise again. Funded for ~2 years; as a pre-revenue explorer, further capital will be needed, with the usual dilution risk. Remote, seasonal, permit-dependent. Fly-in Arctic Alaska, short field season, annual claim-maintenance obligations, and permitting/access risk in the Ambler district. Contractual risk. Reliance on the Baird Acquisition Agreement vendors and the Aircraft Charter Agreement counterparties. Dilution / overhang. New money takes ~34–50% of the company depending on raise, plus 27.5m options and 8–10m performance rights as future dilution. Single-commodity-region concentration. The whole story rides on two adjacent Alaskan projects and the copper price. Samso Concluding Comments The Lux Copper IPO is a clean, high-grade exploration story with a genuinely good address. There are no promotive resource to bank, no production, no revenue but it is in sa great neighbourhood, a flagship project with eye-catching historical copper grades, and a budget built to drill. There is a lot to like about this exploration story. The Baird grades, 37.7m at 2.45% Cu including 4.9m at over 10% Cu, rock chips above 30% copper are good historical results that justify a drill program, not just nearology speak but indicative of the presence of potential. The Ambler district is a proven base-metals belt with world-class neighbours. I like Alaska as it is a well known top-tier jurisdiction. Copper and zinc are the right commodities at the right time, however, zinc has been a stop and start dance which has not been too electric for the market. The challenges are just as real, and they cluster around stage, location and structure. Nothing is a resource yet. The ground is remote, seasonal and permit-dependent, which makes exploration slower and costlier than it looks on a map. The register and service arrangements carry a related-party flavour that deserves a careful read. And like every explorer, Lux will be back for more capital before this is done. The natural thing to watch, as always, is the maiden drill program at Baird — whether the rig confirms and extends the Omar copper, and whether a good first Alaskan season can be pressed into something that grows toward a maiden resource. If it does, the combination of grade, district and copper price is a compelling one. If it doesn't, this is a remote, capital-hungry exploration play like any other. High grade, great address, real execution risk and the drill core will tell the story. 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. 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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

A radio hoax fooled millions in 1938. Nearly ninety years later, the things being fooled aren't human — and the web is quietly feeding them poison. Adapted from a talk by Ariel Shulman, Chief Product Officer, Bright Data SuperAI 2026 · Marina Bay Sands, Singapore In 1938, Orson Welles stepped up to a radio microphone with no television, no internet, and no special effects beyond a few sound cues. He convinced millions of listeners that Martians were invading Earth. War of the Worlds became proof that human beings can be made to believe something untrue simply because it arrives through a trusted channel (Figure 2). Nearly ninety years later, that vulnerability has a new target. It is no longer only humans who can be fooled by convincing information delivered at the right moment. So can AI agents — and unlike the radio audience of 1938, an agent has no instinct that something feels wrong. That is the unsettling thread running through the story Ariel Shulman tells. Shulman is the chief product officer of Bright Data, a company that has spent fifteen years collecting public information from the open web at an industrial scale. He argues that a quiet war has broken out between two versions of the internet — the old web, built for people, and the new web, increasingly populated by software agents acting on our behalf. In that war, the old web has learned a new and dangerous trick. https://commons.wikimedia.org/ A Life Measured in Machines To see where the new web is going, Shulman likes to start with where he came from. In 1981, when he was ten years old, his father brought home a ZX81, a small British computer with exactly one kilobyte of memory (Figure 2). There were no disks; you saved your programs to cassette tape and could literally hear the data screech past as it loaded. He wrote little games on it, and his parents were sure they had a genius on their hands. Remarkably, you could do real things with a single kilobyte. Then the machines kept coming. The Commodore 64. The IBM PC, with its 640 kilobytes of memory that was supposedly going to be enough forever. In those years, there was barely any way to connect one computer to another — just hobbyists wiring their modems into bulletin board systems, one machine dialing directly into another. But the thirst to be connected was already there. Connection arrived with the internet. Tim Berners-Lee more or less invented the World Wide Web single-handedly in 1989 — the URL, HTML, and much of the scaffolding the rest of us now take for granted. Before browsers existed, people searched through text-only tools with names like Gopher and Archie. Then came Mosaic, the first program to put images and text on the same page. After a kilobyte of tape, it felt like magic. https://commons.wikimedia.org/ The Problem Was Never Connection. It Was Order. As the web swelled, the hard question stopped being how to reach the information and became how to organise it. The first serious attempt was Yahoo, where two Stanford students hand-sorted websites into categories — about 23,000 of them, a figure that sounds almost quaint today. Others followed, including Ask.com, a search engine that has since shut down (Figure 3). By 1998, the web had entered the age of the portal: a single homepage crammed with categories, links, and advertisements that tried to show you everything at once. They look faintly embarrassing now. VersionMuseum.com It is worth pausing on the era. The NASDAQ sat at around 1,043 before the dot-com crash of 2000 reset everyone's expectations. Microsoft's MSN portal shipped with Windows, so practically everyone ended up with it — galleries, endless ads, and Hotmail accounts that some readers will remember fondly. Only one company, in Shulman's telling, truly cracked the problem of organising the web: Google. Watching screenshots of its homepage flick past across roughly twenty-nine years is a compressed history of the modern internet: AdWords, Google Images, AdSense, Gmail, Maps, the YouTube acquisition, Translate, the first Android phone, Chrome, the late and unlamented Google+, Waze, the first Pixel. Artificial intelligence slipped in first behind the scenes, then a chatbot, then Bard, then its rename to Gemini. What began as a stripped-down search box now hides staggering machinery behind a minimalist face. The Data Empire - And Its Reckoning Ask a room how many people used Android, Maps, YouTube, or Gmail in the last day, and nearly every hand goes up. That ubiquity is the point. Google holds something close to all the data in the world: text from email and Drive, images from Photos, video and audio from YouTube, shopping signals from Chrome, local knowledge from Maps, behavioral data across devices, even health data from Android and scholarly work from Google Scholar. All of it feeds the models, Gemini among them — and the company has said it will offer AI agents for everyone. Figure 4: The NeXT machine at CERN that ran the world’s first web server. (Source Photo: Henry Mühlpfordt Wikimedia Commons — CC BY-SA 3.0) Such an accumulation could not go unexamined. In 2025, a major antitrust case against Google was decided. Shulman is careful to say he is not a lawyer and that what follows is his own reading of the roughly 146 pages of opinion he worked through. As he interprets it, Google must share some of its data — but only once, and it keeps the secret sauce: PageRank, the spam-detection algorithms, the parts that actually make it work. Competitors will have to build crawlers, crawl the web, and process the data themselves. They will have to invest and innovate to proceed. That, paraphrasing the judge, is the catch for everyone else. You cannot simply help yourself to the organised knowledge of the web. If you want it, you have to go out and collect it — which means building the crawling and processing stack yourself. The ruling did not hand competitors an easy shortcut. It handed them an instruction to do the hard work. The 8:47 Monday Message Here is where the abstract becomes uncomfortably concrete. Almost everyone now builds things; vibe-coding an agent over a weekend is ordinary. Picture a Monday at a hypothetical travel site that compares hotel prices, and a message lands from the CEO at 8:47 in the morning: “Hey guys, I just built an autonomous pricing agent with Claude this weekend, in two hours. It scrapes the competitors, optimises our price, and it works perfectly. Let’s launch it!” The CEO is not entirely wrong. The interface will work. The logic will work. On the developer's own machine, the whole thing will look flawless. The bad news is that the old web is not going to welcome an agent — least of all once it reaches production. Figure 5: Two hours of weekend coding looks flawless on your own machine. (Source: Photo: Markus Spiske / Wikimedia Commons — CC0). The reason is foundational. The web of 1989 was built for humans, and until very recently, almost everyone visiting it was human. As the population of agents and bots grows, the web is genuinely unsure how to treat them. It is the question at the heart of Blade Runner: faced with something that behaves like a person, how do you decide whether it is one — and what do you owe it if it isn't? Quantum Mechanics, Inverted Shulman has a favourite way to describe why agents that work in testing fall apart in the wild. In quantum mechanics, he says, things behave normally at human scale and turn strange only when you zoom down to the very small. Web data collection is the mirror image. Everything behaves perfectly on your laptop and turns strange only when you scale up into production — at which point things break in ways you often cannot even diagnose. The Web Learned to Lie Some of what breaks is innocent. Websites redesign themselves, change their layouts, restructure their data. Fine. But the web also fights back on purpose. It throttles agents to slow them down. It blocks them with CAPTCHAs. And then there is the genuinely clever part — the move Shulman calls the most interesting development in the field. For decades, a site that suspected a bot would try to stop it: throw up a CAPTCHA, deny the request, slam the door. The newer strategy does the opposite. The site quietly runs its detection algorithms, decides whether the visitor is human, and then chooses what to serve. A human gets the truth. A suspected bot gets disinformation — a honeypot. The aim is not to turn the agent away. The aim is to let it believe it succeeded and to feed it poison. The idea is not to stop you. It is to let you think you won — and feed you poison. In other words, the web learned how to lie. Two examples make it vivid. A ticketing site — call it Sunny Tickets — shows a normal visitor that seats are available. The same page, requested from a suspected agent, reports that nothing is for sale. Or take a hotel: a person sees a room at $199 and plenty of availability, while an agent sees the same room listed at $399. This is garbage in, garbage out with a malicious twist — the garbage is being manufactured specifically for the machine, and bad inputs become confidently wrong decisions. AI Agents Don’t Fail the Way People Do This is the danger Shulman wants builders to feel in their stomachs. A human pricing analyst who sees a hotel room jump from $199 to $399 pauses. Something looks off; they double-check. That hesitation — the intuition that a number is wrong — is a safety feature humans get for free. An agent has no such instinct. It records “received hotel price: $399,” updates five thousand entries, fires off five thousand emails notifying customers of the change, and moves on, perfectly satisfied. By the time anyone notices, the damage is done and distributed. Poisoned data does not announce itself; it simply propagates at machine speed, which is exactly what makes it so hard to catch. Even True Data Goes Stale Suppose you clear every hurdle and obtain genuine, untampered data. You still face the clock. Web data has a shelf life, and different kinds of information rot at very different rates. Because Bright Data observes tens of millions of URLs continuously, Shulman says, it can watch that decay happen across markets. Social posts, e-commerce prices, and stock availability are good for roughly a day before they mislead more than they inform. News holds for a day or two. Financial information stays useful for perhaps five to seven days. General content — blogs, evergreen pages — can stay relevant for a long time. The lesson is that freshness is not a luxury; stale data quietly corrodes the experience. Users feel it immediately. A shopping agent that quotes $29.99 and then rings up $49.99 at checkout doesn't just annoy — it destroys trust. So does an item shown in stock that isn't, or a map confidently sending someone to a restaurant that closed an hour ago. Whether the data was poisoned or simply old, the customer's experience is the same: the system lied to them. So What Is a Builder Supposed to Do? Shulman's answer is, unsurprisingly, the business his company is in — but the logic stands on its own. If the new web is a crowd of agents, and the old web responds with blocks and lies, then the missing layer is trustworthy web-data infrastructure: a way to obtain data that is reliable, consistent, fresh, and scalable, delivered in whatever shape an application needs — HTML, JSON, markdown, CSV — without each developer having to win the arms race alone. It is also why a company like his keeps colliding with the law. Bright Data has argued, in court, for the right to collect public web data — by which Shulman means anything a person could reach through an ordinary browser, with no login, no password, and no paywall. The company has been sued, including by Meta and by Elon Musk, and says it prevailed in federal court in California in those cases — rulings it spent heavily to win and that are now cited elsewhere. Its claimed scale is the kind of number that resists intuition: more than 50 billion pages scraped a day, billions parsed and archived, a network of well over a hundred million IP addresses, around 2.5 petabytes pulled in every twenty-four hours. Three Thousand Times Around the Earth Humans are famously bad at feeling the weight of large numbers, so Shulman ends where he began — with the ZX81 and its single kilobyte. He asked ChatGPT to imagine converting a single day's haul, 2.5 petabytes, into physical kilobytes, each one a five-centimetre strip of that old cassette tape, laid end to end. The answer stretches almost to the Sun — enough tape to wrap around the Earth roughly 3,120 times. That is one day. Figure 5: 2.5 petabytes a day — a single day’s tape would wrap the Earth some 3,120 times. Image: NASA, “Blue Marble” - public domain. A modern laptop, he notes, is something like sixteen million times more capable than his childhood machine in memory and processing, and it has the whole of the world's information within reach. When he received that ZX81, he assumed the great challenge of the future would be raw computing power. He was wrong. Computing got cheap almost embarrassingly fast. The internet then gave us more information than we knew what to do with. Now a third era has begun, and its defining problem is neither power nor abundance but trust. The agents are clever and getting cleverer. The web has learned to lie to them. Somewhere between those two facts sits the real work of the next decade: making sure that the software now acting on our behalf is fed something true — because, unlike Orson Welles's listeners in 1938, an agent will never sense that the broadcast was a hoax. It will simply believe, act, and send the five thousand emails. 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 we 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. Support Page 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. 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 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. Samso News

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. 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. 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. 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 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. 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

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 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

Raising to $15m to explore newly reopened Sweden and the Athabasca Basin — timed to a uranium market near multi-year highs. Neu Horizon Uranium Limited (proposed ASX: NHU) is raising to $15 million to chase uranium in two of the more interesting addresses on the map: the structurally-controlled and black-shale uranium districts of northern Sweden, and the basement rocks along the northern rim of Canada’s Athabasca Basin — the highest-grade uranium district on earth. The float lodged its prospectus on 19 May 2026 and is targeting an ASX listing on 07 July 2026, with Canaccord Genuity as Lead Manager. The pitch lands at a moment that is hard to ignore. Uranium has run back toward multi-year highs, the nuclear-power narrative has rarely been louder and, most specifically of all, Sweden lifted its uranium mining moratorium in November 2025, reopening a country that has long sat on known uranium but banned anyone from mining it. (Figure 1). Neu Horizon is positioning to be there as the door opens. Figure 1: Uranium Futures dated 06/07/2026 (Source:Investing.com) At a Glance Item Description Company Neu Horizon Uranium Limited Proposed Ticker ASX: NHU The offer 60–75 million shares at $0.20 to raise $12m–$15m (before costs) Indicative market cap ~$31.99m (min) / ~$34.99m (max) on listing Enterprise value ~$20m either way (market cap less cash) Key dates Lodged 19 May 2026; offer closed 18 June; expected ASX quotation 07 July 2026 Lead Manager Canaccord Genuity (Australia) What it is A two-jurisdiction uranium explorer — northern Sweden (5 projects, 22 permits, 110,000+ ha) and the Athabasca Basin, Canada (option over 80% of 4 projects, 35,000+ ha) The timing hook Sweden lifted its 2018 uranium moratorium on 5 November 2025 — NHU is positioned to explore as the country reopens to uranium The Canada angle Basement-hosted uranium (plus a uranium-REE project) on the northern rim of the Athabasca Basin; held via option from Fortune Bay Corp Stage Pre-discovery — early work has confirmed anomalous uranium; no JORC resource yet. The prospectus states an investment should be considered “highly speculative” Use of funds ~65% (min) to ~80% (max) to exploration, Sweden-weighted, including maiden and follow-up drilling Strategic investor Aura Energy (ASX: AEE) made a $100k pre-IPO investment (Aura holds Swedish alum-shale uranium) Board Exec Chair Martin Holland (has listed 5 ASX explorers, raising >A$200m); Technical Director Adam Wooldridge; NED Michael Addison; CFO Brian Nizette; proposed CEO Conrad Ocker Capital structure 97.5m existing shares; ~160–175m on listing; ~18.9–19.3m options (incl. 13m director options); free float ≥20% Uranium backdrop Spot uranium has traded near multi-year highs, having reached ~US$100/lb, on nuclear-renaissance demand The 60-Second Pitch - Neu Horizon Uranium IPO Neu Horizon is a pre-discovery uranium explorer with a clean, thematic idea: get into premier, newly accessible uranium jurisdictions early, and use modern geophysics to chase district-scale targets that have known historical uranium but have never been properly explored with today’s tools. The portfolio splits across two countries. In Sweden, the company holds 22 active permits across five projects covering more than 110,000 hectares — three of them (Arvidsjaur, Hotagen and Berg) targeting structurally controlled, granitic-hosted uranium, and two (Vilhelmina and Krokom) targeting alum-shale (black-shale) uranium (Figure 3) Figure 3: Neu Horizon's Swedish Projects (Source: Company Website) In Canada, it holds an option to acquire 80% of four projects on the northern rim of the Athabasca Basin, including the Fir uranium-REE project and the Pine, Spruce and Aspen basement-hosted uranium projects (Figure 4). Figure 4: Neu Horizon's Swedish Projects (Source: Company Website) What you are buying is timing, ground position and a team - not a resource. Early work has confirmed anomalous uranium, but there is no JORC resource, and the prospectus is explicit that this is a highly speculative investment. The appeal is the setup: a uranium price near multi-year highs, a Swedish market that has just reopened after seven years closed, and a foothold in the world’s best uranium basin. The Offer, and the Dilution The IPO seeks a minimum of 60 million and a maximum of 75 million shares at $0.20, raising $12m–$15m before costs. On top of $0.5m of existing cash, that funds the company with roughly $12.5m–$15.5m. Indicative market capitalisation is $31.99m (min) to $34.99m (max) - and since the raise is $12–15m, the implied enterprise value lands at around $20m either way. That is the number to anchor on: the market is being asked to value Neu Horizon’s early-stage ground and team at about $20m before any resource exists. Table 1 — Capital structure on listing Capital structure Minimum Maximum Existing shares 97,466,669 97,466,669 New IPO shares 60,000,000 75,000,000 Consideration shares 2,500,000 2,500,000 Total shares on listing 159,966,669 174,966,669 Options on issue 18,875,667 19,325,667 Implied market cap $31.99m $34.99m On dilution, new IPO investors will own roughly 37.5% (min) to 43% (max) of the company on listing, with existing holders (97.5m shares) retaining the majority. Worth noting is the option overhang: about 18.9–19.3 million options, including 13 million director options — a meaningful incentive package that will dilute further if exercised. Free float will be not less than 20%. Use of Funds The spending plan is appropriately exploration-heavy. On the minimum raise, around 65% of funds go to exploration and development, with the balance on lead-manager fees, offer costs and working capital. On the maximum raise, the exploration share rises to about 80%. Either way, Sweden is the priority, and the budget explicitly covers maiden and follow-up drilling at priority targets — the activity most likely to generate news flow. Table 2 — Use of funds (two years post-listing) Use of funds Minimum Maximum Exploration & development — Sweden $4.81m (40%) $7.61m (51%) Exploration & development — Canada $2.93m (24%) $4.33m (29%) Lead Manager fees $0.62m $0.77m Costs of the offer $0.76m $0.77m Working capital $2.89m $1.53m Total raised $12.00m $15.00m The Swedish Catalyst This is the part of the story that gives Neu Horizon its “why now.” Sweden implemented a moratorium on uranium exploration and mining in 2018, effectively freezing a country that hosts substantial known uranium (its alum shales are among the larger uranium accumulations in Europe). On 5 November 2025, the Swedish parliament voted to lift that moratorium — reopening uranium to exploration and, in time, mining. For an explorer with 110,000+ hectares of Swedish permits already in hand, that is the catalyst the whole Swedish thesis rests on. It is also the risk: a freshly reversed ban means the regulatory and permitting framework for uranium is still being rebuilt, and what parliament gives, a future parliament can revisit. The strategic $100k investment from Aura Energy (ASX: AEE) — a company with its own Swedish alum-shale uranium history — is a small but notable vote of confidence in the jurisdiction (Figure 2). Figure 5: Global Importance of Swedish Uranium Deposits (Source: Company Website) Athabasca Angle If Sweden is the catalyst, the Athabasca Basin is the blue sky. The basin hosts the highest-grade uranium deposits on the planet, and the basement-hosted style Neu Horizon being targeted on the northern rim is the same broad model that produced the modern discoveries that re-rated the district. The company’s exposure here is via an option to acquire 80% of four projects from Fortune Bay Corp, with about 2.5 million consideration shares issued as part payment for that option. The important nuance: this is an option and a conditional acquisition, not outright ownership — the projects become the company’s only as the option conditions are satisfied. Figure 6: Image of an optioned project package known as “The Woods.” (Source: Company Website) The Board Neu Horizon’s board leans heavily on capital-markets pedigree. Executive Chairman Martin Holland is a Sydney-based mining executive who has listed five ASX exploration companies and collectively raised more than A$200m for greenfield exploration; he is also Executive Chairman of Cobre Ltd (ASX: CBE). Technical Director Adam Wooldridge is a geophysicist and geologist with 25+ years across Africa, the Middle East and Europe, and is CEO of Cobre. Non-Executive Director Michael Addison founded Endocoal, Carabella Resources and Genex Power, and is a former Rhodes Scholar. Brian Nizette is CFO, and the proposed CEO, Conrad Ocker, is an exploration geologist who has spent the past eight years working in the Nordics, particularly Sweden — directly relevant for the flagship. One observation worth making plainly: much of the board (Holland, Wooldridge, Addison) is drawn from Cobre Ltd, so this is a closely-linked management group rather than an assembly of independents — common in junior floats, but worth knowing. The Uranium Backdrop The macro tailwind is real. Uranium has been in a structural bull market, with spot prices trading near multi-year highs after touching roughly US$100/lb, driven by a global re-embrace of nuclear power, life-extensions and new builds, small modular reactor ambitions, and the surge in electricity demand from data centres. (Figure 1) Against that backdrop, primary uranium supply has been slow to respond - which is precisely the gap a pipeline of new explorers is trying to fill. A rising uranium price lifts sentiment across the whole exploration cohort; the flip side is that the same sentiment can reverse quickly if the price rolls over. The Risks / Points of Friction ● Pre-discovery. There is no JORC resource. The company has anomalous uranium and prospective ground, and the prospectus itself flags the investment as highly speculative. ● Uranium price. As a pre-revenue explorer, sentiment and funding access are tightly tied to the uranium price, which is volatile and impossible to predict. ● Swedish regulatory risk. The moratorium was lifted only in November 2025; the permitting framework for uranium is nascent and politically reversible. ● Canada is an option. The Athabasca projects are held under a conditional option to acquire 80% — not outright ownership — until conditions are met. ● Dilution and options. ~19m options (including 13m director options) sit over a ~160–175m share base; further raisings are likely for a capital-hungry, two-country drilling program. ● Two jurisdictions at once. Running exploration across Sweden and Canada simultaneously stretches a junior’s management and capital. ● Related board. Much of the team comes from the same company (Cobre Ltd). Samso Concluding Comments Neu Horizon is an interesting IPO in that the Uranium sector for small-caps have had a flirtatious time with investors on the IPO. The uranium narrative has been more of a miss than a hit recently as the promise of a hot market has largely been ignored and in some ways forgotten. The seasoned investors who have been following the uranium story will attest that although the uranium news should be hot, it is very lukewarm. New Horizon does have the right theme of being in a good jurisdiction, with a team that knows how to list and fund explorers, but is 2026 the right timing? The key consideration is the Swedish timing - a 110,000-hectare permit position in a country that has just reopened to uranium after seven years is a genuine point of difference, and the Athabasca optionality adds blue-sky in the world’s best basin. At an enterprise value of around $20m, the market is paying for ground, theme and team rather than ounces. Samso’s job is to keep the market noise balanced so while this pre-discovery explorer do have the prospective permits with encouraging uranium anomalies are, nothing has been defined, and appropriately, the prospectus do says so in plain terms. The Swedish catalyst is real but young, and a newly-lifted ban is not the same as an established, predictable permitting regime. The Canadian ground is an option, not yet an asset. And the path from here runs through more capital and a lot of drilling. Hence, for investors who understand the uranium cycle and the nature of early-stage exploration, Neu Horizon offers leverage to a strong theme at the riskiest, earliest point of the curve. The things to watch are concrete: the first drilling programs in Sweden, progress on satisfying the Athabasca option conditions, the uranium price, and how quickly the Swedish permitting framework firms up now the moratorium is gone. Right theme, right addresses, right moment and all the work still ahead. 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

Since coming across the Tungsten industry in the second half of 2011, I have been a firm advocate on its place as a member of the critical metal space. Tungsten is one of the hardest metals to understand, in terms of market direction and the demand and supply directions. It is also the metal with the highest density property. Tungsten’s other special property is that there is no viable substitute and the demand for the metal is traditionally very inelastic to price changes. Historically, when prices were rising, demand followed but from about 2014, prices dropped and we have not seen a recovery. Annually, the global market is between 80,000 to 100,000 tonnes of metals used so it’s a small market. China is (was ?) a major user of the metal, China holds the largest resource in the world but during that price rising period, China was also a net importer of tungsten concentrate. So we are told… to me that did not make any sense. In my past life as the Managing Director of Siburan Resources Limited (ASX: SBU), I watched the price of tungsten rise to an all-time high of nearly USD $460/mtu (metric tonne per unit) to a low of sub-USD $240/mtu. If I am not mistaken, it could have gone below USD $200/mtu. “ In the context of an approximately 80,000-ton annual market with 3% growth, you need 2,400 tons of additional tungsten metal per year in supply, and with 5% growth you need 4,000 tons. That’s one new big tungsten project per year. It is difficult to see where that supply could come from. In the current market, miners can’t get the financing needed to take projects from a bankable feasibility study to construction. It’s a big problem. .” In 2011, The British Geological Society published a list of what it considers the 52 most critical metals in the world. The list was compiled based on global abundance, location of production, reserves and supply risk associated with the political stability in the jurisdictions where the metal occurs. Tungsten was second on that list. The report highlighted that tungsten (as well as rare earth) has lower recycling and low substitutability. The supply risk for tungsten stems from China’s role in the industry. China accounts for approximately 83% of global tungsten concentrate production and about 62% of global tungsten reserves. China became a significant player in tungsten production in the mid-1980s. By the late 1990s, it had flooded the global market with tungsten causing concentrate prices to plunge below most western producer’s variable cost. As a result, the vast majority of western mines were closed. These were all the good thoughts at that time however, the market came crashing down which sort of made these comments questionable. What is a good Tungsten grade? The majority of tungsten deposits contain less than 1.5% tungsten trioxide (WO3), and most have grades of only a few tenths of a percentage point. A very high grade would be over 1%, like North American Tungsten’s Cantung mine. If I am not mistaken, the Cantung mine may be the only producing mine that had that kind of grade. What’s interesting in the Tungsten world? Have a look at the Northcliff project called Sisson in New Brunswick, Canada (http://www.northcliffresources.com/i/pdf/NCF_FactSheet.pdf). It’s a Tungsten-Molybdenum project that has a total resource of 334MT at 0.066% WO3 and 0.021% Mo The other is the Nui Phao project in Vietnam owned by the Masan Group (Apparently they make their money from 2-minute noodles). It has a total resource of 97.4MT @ 0.1% WO3. It has Tungsten, Flurospar, Bismuth and Copper. Outlook The issue with Tungsten is the market price. There is no spot market and it is very hard to measure or predict the direction of the price. What is apparent is that whatever you do, you need a large resource to sustain any mining activities. In my opinion, you need a Sission-type kind of deposit. Small deposits with high grades will find it extremely hard to make it work. Look at the old mines in China, they are all large scale and low grades. In conclusion, like all mineral resource projects… Make sure they are mining the mineral in the ground and not the one on the stock market ……. 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. www.samso.com.au If you find this article informative and useful, please help me share the information. I try and 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 see the benefit of what Samso is trying to achieve and have a need to share your journey, please contact me on noel.ong@samso.com.au. About Samso

Depth, repetition and a recognised name are not marketing slogans. They are some of the most heavily evidenced ideas in marketing science and behavioural finance. Here is what the published research supports Samso Research and where it pushes back. By Noel Ong · Founder, CEO & Lead Researcher · Samso A NOTE ON THE PIECE — DISCLOSURE OF ORIGIN This is a Samso editorial piece about Samso's own method. In line with our Editorial Charter, we make it clear that we have an obvious interest in the conclusion. So we have made sure that our thoughts in the blog below is sourced to independent, published research, peer-reviewed finance journals, marketing-science institutes and large-scale industry studies. We have included the places where that research qualifies or contradicts the approach. Read the sources. If the evidence does not hold up, the method does not deserve your attention either. The Samso Research Method makes the following claim; That depth beats hype. That a story builds recognition through three principles we call the three Rs — recency, relevancy and repetition. That an owned audience matters more than mass reach. That a name, covered consistently and seriously over time, becomes a name investors recognise without prompting. Those are pleasant things for a research house to say about itself. The fair question is whether they are true or just the in-house language every media business uses to justify what it sells. Our aim is for Samso to stand out from the crowd and offer a different form of engagement to allow balance in the research and "Make News Simple". The reason we have taken this approach to write this piece is to showcase out evidence for our strategy. Today, we want to allow public domain literature to show that the strategy of the Samso Research Media House is not the reinvention of the wheel. The marketing science on repetition and frequency, the behavioural-finance research on how investors actually choose, and the large industry studies on what decision-makers trust is our backbone. Where the evidence backs the method, we say so and cite it. Where it sets limits, we say that too. THE MECHANISM — PART ONE Recognition is built by repetition - Samso Research Media House The third R — repetition — is the one that sounds most like a sales pitch and is, in fact, the best documented. In 1968 the social psychologist Robert Zajonc described the mere-exposure effect: repeated, unreinforced exposure to a stimulus is enough, on its own, to make people regard it more favourably. Familiarity, in his words, breeds liking. The relationship he measured took the shape of a positive but decelerating curve — the first exposures do the most work, later ones less. Fittingly for a research house whose mark is a Chinese pictogram, one of Zajonc's original experiments used Chinese-style characters; people came to prefer the ones they had simply seen more often. [2] This is not a one-study curiosity. By Bornstein's 1989 meta-analysis the effect had been replicated across more than two hundred studies, on words, faces, sounds and objects. [3] In advertising the same intuition was formalised by Herbert Krugman, who argued that exposures move a person through three psychological stages — curiosity ("what is it?"), recognition ("what of it?"), and finally a reminder that primes a decision. [1] Figure 1: The Recognition Curve - The first exposures move a name furthest; the curve flattens as familiarity is established, and can decline if the same weak message is simply repeated. The Samso method does not rely on a magic number of touches — it relies on the underlying mechanism this curve describes. Sources: Zajonc (1968); Bornstein (1989) meta-analysis; Krugman three-exposure framework. See refs [1]–[3]. THE HONEST LIMIT The popular "rule of seven" or "rule of three" is the part of this story to be sceptical of. Krugman himself resisted the literal reading that three advertisements equal a result; he was describing psychological stages, not media-buying maths. [4] Modern audiences are also far noisier than the 1970s ones the early studies measured. And Zajonc's curve has a ceiling: past a point, exposure satiates and can even erode liking. The takeaway is not "repeat anything often enough." It is that repetition is necessary but not sufficient — which is precisely why for the Samso Research Media House, the other two Rs exist. THE MECHANISM — PART TWO Most investors aren't ready today If recognition is built slowly, the obvious objection is: why bother, when most people aren't buying anyway? The answer comes from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science. In 2021 Professor John Dawes set out what is now called the 95:5 rule: at any single moment, roughly 95% of potential buyers in a category are not in the market, and only about 5% are actively choosing. [5] Dawes is explicit that the figures are illustrative, not literal. [6] But the structural point is hard to argue with, and it maps almost exactly onto how investors behave. A given investor is not deciding whether to add your company to their portfolio this week. They will be ready months, sometimes years, from now — at a placement, a re-rate, a capital raise, a sector rotation. The job in the meantime is what Ehrenberg-Bass call building mental availability: being the name already in their head when their own moment arrives. A campaign run entirely at the 5% who are deciding today reaches a tiny slice of the people who will eventually matter. Figure 2: The 95:5 Reality - Only a sliver of any investor audience is "deciding" at a given moment. Consistent, depth-led coverage is how a company stays mentally available to the far larger group who will decide later — the logic behind treating coverage as a campaign rather than a one-off event. Source: Dawes (2021), the 95:5 Rule, Ehrenberg-Bass Institute / LinkedIn B2B Institute. See refs [5]–[6]. THE MECHANISM — PART THREE In investing, familiarity is the motivation Most marketing evidence is about products. Investing has its own, and it is blunt. In a 2001 paper in The Review of Financial Studies, one of the most cited journals in finance, Gur Huberman titled his findings "Familiarity Breeds Investment." [7] After the AT&T break-up, he showed, shareholders disproportionately held the regional phone company that served their own region. The same pattern runs through the data: investors over-weight their home country, employees pile into their employer's stock, and people in a company's home town own more of it than chance allows. Huberman's conclusion is that people invest in the familiar, frequently in preference to what diversification theory would tell them to do. [8] For an ASX small- or mid-cap, that is the entire commercial case for recognition stated in the language of finance, not marketing. A name an investor recognises and feels they understand has a measurable edge over an equally good name they have never heard of. "People invest in the familiar while often ignoring the principles of portfolio theory." — the finding, in plain terms, from Huberman's study. THE HONEST LIMIT Read carefully, this is a warning as much as a tailwind. Familiarity bias is a documented error: it leads investors to under-diversify and to back what they recognise over what they have examined. A research model that simply manufactured familiarity would be exploiting that error. This is the exact line the Samso method is built to stay on the right side of. Recognition earned through genuine understanding geology, strategy, numbers, and the risks named out loud, is recognition an investor can defend. Recognition manufactured by noise is the bias Huberman is warning about. The first is what depth-led coverage produces; the second is what a press-release mill produces. The mechanism is the same; the responsibility is not. THE MATERIAL — PART ONE Depth is what decision-makers actually trust The second R, relevancy, or depth, is where the claim is least like conventional promotion, and the evidence here is recent and large. The annual Edelman–LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report surveys around 3,500 management-level professionals across seven countries. The 2024 edition found that 73% of decision-makers consider an organisation's thought-leadership content a more trustworthy basis for judging its capability than its own marketing materials and product sheets. [9] The same study found that 90% of decision-makers and C-suite executives (e.g., CEO, CFO, COO) become more receptive to a company that consistently produces high-quality thought leadership, and that 70% said a single substantive piece had, at least occasionally, made them question whether to stay with an existing supplier. [10] Roughly half of these senior people spend an hour or more every week reading this kind of material. The appetite for substance among the people who actually move capital is not a hope. It is measured. Figure 3: What Decision-Making Do with Depth - Substantive, expertise-led content does not merely raise awareness — it shifts trust and consideration among the senior people making decisions. Depth is the lever; the volume of selling is not. Source: 2024 Edelman–LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report (~3,500 respondents, 7 countries). See refs [9]–[10]. THE MATERIAL — PART TWO Long-form is how the work travels Depth tends to mean length, and there is large-scale evidence that long-form work is also what spreads and endures. A joint study by BuzzSumo and Backlinko analysed over 900 million articles. It found that long-form content earned roughly 56% more social shares than pieces under a thousand words, and that articles beyond 3,000 words attracted about 77% more referring domains — the links from other sites that signal a piece is worth citing. [11][12] 56% 77% 912M More Social Shares For Long-Form vs. Short Content More Referring Domains For 3000+ Word Pieces Articles Analysed In The Study THE HONEST LIMIT Length is not the lever — thoroughness is. Google's own engineers have said word count is not a direct ranking factor; comprehensive content simply tends to be longer as a by-product of covering a subject properly. [13] The same study found that the rewards concentrate heavily: a small fraction of "power posts" earn the great majority of shares and links. Padding a thin story to 3,000 words does nothing. A genuinely deep one, that happens to be long, is what travels. That is a standard, not a word target. THE DISTRIBUTION Owned audience is the multiplier - So Says The Samso Research Media House The work at the Samso Research Media House argues that an owned audience matters more than borrowed reach. The marketing literature broadly agrees, for reasons that have nothing to do with vanity. Owned media which means your own site, podcast, email list, channels you control earns credibility over time as the work proves consistent, remains live and keeps returning value long after publication, and is the largest single contributor to organic, non-paid discovery. [14] Marketers consider owned formats like email newsletters among the most effective channels for establishing genuine authority, ranking them significantly higher than paid placements.[15] A collection of substantial coverage is not a cost centre with an expiration date; instead, it is an asset that grows over time, which is precisely the argument made in the prospectus for the back catalogue. This is not a thought, the monopoly of media in 20206, Google, has always valued owned media at a much higher status that its own paid content. The organic nature or content has always been the most valued source of content as it carries weight of independency. Figure 4: The Trust Spectrum, and Where Samso Site - Owned media's weakness is that audiences know the brand controls it. Independent, third-party coverage carries the highest inherent trust precisely because it doesn't. Samso's editorial charter — disclosure of origin, both sides required, editorial control retained, every piece labelled — is the mechanism that lets even paid membership coverage retain credibility closer to the independent end. Framing draws on the paid / owned / earned media literature. See refs [14]–[16]. THE HONEST LIMIT Owned media has a real weakness that should never gloss over: because the brand controls it, it carries less inherent trust than genuinely independent, third-party coverage. [16] A research house that takes membership fees is, structurally, closer to owned media than to journalism. There is only one credible answer to that, and it is not to pretend the tension away. It is the Editorial Charter: disclose the origin of every piece, require both the upside and the risks, keep editorial control out of the member's hands, and label the work so readers always know which path they are reading. That is what allows the paid work to be worth reading — and what lets the independent coverage keep its full weight. THE SYNTHESIS Why the three Rs compound If we put the evidence together and the three Rs stop being a slogan and become a description of three separate, well-documented mechanisms working on the same audience. Figure 5: Three Mechanisms - One Compound Effect - Each R answers to a different body of evidence — mental availability (recency), trust through depth (relevancy), and the mere-exposure effect (repetition). None is powerful alone. Sustained together, they produce the slow build the prospectus calls recognition. Synthesis of refs [1]–[16]. Recency keeps a company mentally available, so it is in the room when an investor finally enters the market — the 95:5 lesson. Relevancy supplies the depth that the Edelman data shows decision-makers actually trust and act on. Repetition does the patient work of the mere-exposure effect, turning a name into a familiar one. And familiarity, Huberman's finance research tells us, is not a vanity metric in this industry — it is something that demonstrably affects where capital goes. No one of these closes the loop. Run consistently, over time, through owned channels that keep the archive working, they compound. SAMSO CONCLUDING COMMENTS What the evidence does and does not say When all is said and done, the Samso method is not magical, and an honest review of the literature prevents us from claiming it is. There is no silver bullet that will ensure that our methods will work. There is no rule of seven that ensures success. Experience clearly show us that Repetition without substance becomes mere satisfaction that leads to a sugar hit at the very most. Length without depth is just noise and at most times encourages boredom. Unchecked familiarity of topics and real experience in the industry can lead investors astray instead of aiding them. It is a well known fact that Owned Media alone is less trustworthy than independent journalism. What the evidence does indicate is that the individual mechanisms on which the Samso method relies — creating mental availability before the purchase moment, gaining trust through depth rather than quantity, the gradual accumulation of recognition through consistent exposure, and the documented influence of familiarity on investment decisions — are among the most well-supported concepts in their fields. The Samso method is not a new invention. It is the undervalued application of these mechanisms to ASX-listed companies, that is lost in the midst of constant hype. Hype will give companies the instant glorification but as we all know, any credible story will always be a long term proposition. Hype will garnish instant valuation re-rating but when the profit taking takes place, the majority of credible stories never recovers. The Samso approach is to allow our form of research to create a balanced argument that will be valid even after the profit taking. It allows investors to gain confidence on the company story as there are real facts to digest creating evidence of credibility. What The Samso Research Media House Do Not Do is create the "Sugar Hit Experience". There is no hype and there is no discussion of "Moving The Price". The ASX market investing market is constantly looking for the short term manifestation of value creation but real companies with real projects always refer the slow appreciation of value as it is something that can be sustained. As a former practitioner of being a ASX company director, I can vouch for that thought. The ultimate aim of this blog is to highlight the science on why depth, repetition, and a credible source of information are effective. The charter is what makes our independence defensible. Remove either, and the argument collapses. Together, they are why we believe research conducted in this manner is the path worth supporting — and the sources are right below, allowing you to make your own decision. SOURCES AND FURTHER READING Krugman, H. E., "Why Three Exposures May Be Enough" — summarised in the effective-frequency literature. Journal of Targeting, Measurement and Analysis for Marketing (Springer). link.springer.com/article/10.1057/jt.2012.1 Zajonc, R. B. (1968), "Attitudinal Effects of Mere Exposure," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 9(2, Pt.2), 1–27 — overview via The Decision Lab. thedecisionlab.com/biases/mere-exposure-effect Bornstein, R. F. (1989), meta-analysis of mere-exposure research (200+ studies), Psychological Bulletin, 106(2), 265–289 — cited in The Decision Lab (ref 2). Julius, L., "The Three Frequency Myth" — on Krugman's own caution against the literal three-exposure rule. linkedin.com/pulse/three-frequency-myth-larry-julius Dawes, J. (2021), "The 95:5 Rule," Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science. marketingscience.info Dawes, J., "The 95:5 Rule" (author note on illustrative figures). johndawes.info/the-955-rule Huberman, G. (2001), "Familiarity Breeds Investment," The Review of Financial Studies, 14(3), 659–680. academic.oup.com/rfs/article-abstract/14/3/659 Huberman, G., "Familiarity Breeds Investment" (working paper, full text, Columbia Business School). columbia.edu (PDF) Edelman & LinkedIn (2024), B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report (full report PDF). edelman.com (PDF) LinkedIn Business, "Reach Beyond the Ready: 2024 B2B Thought Leadership Research." linkedin.com/business Backlinko & BuzzSumo (2019), "We Analyzed 912 Million Blog Posts." backlinko.com/content-study BuzzSumo / Backlinko study, press release. prnewswire.com Content Length Statistics 2025 (on word count vs. thoroughness; Google guidance). ranktracker.com Adobe, "Paid, Earned & Owned Media" — owned media and organic discovery. business.adobe.com Content Marketing Institute data, via DesignRush, "Content Marketing Statistics." designrush.com TVEyes, "Owned vs. Earned Media" — relative trust of media types. tveyes.com/owned-vs-earned-media Disclaimer: This is a Samso Insights editorial piece concerning Samso's own research methodology, and Samso therefore has a direct interest in its conclusions. It is published in keeping with the Samso Editorial Charter, which requires disclosure of origin and the weighing of both sides; the limitations of each argument have been included accordingly. All empirical claims are attributed to the independent third-party sources listed above. Nothing here is financial advice, and no specific security is recommended. Readers should consult the primary sources and form their own view. 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. 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 | Independent research media for the ASX. Depth over hype.

The company consolidates majority ownership and management of Avondale while turning the geophysics on across the heart of its district holdings. At a Glance Item Description Company Rimfire Pacific Mining Limited (ASX: RIM) Focus Scandium, gold and copper — Fifield District, central NSW Location ~70km northwest of Parkes, within the Lachlan Orogen Key development Moving to 60% ownership and the manager role of the Avondale Project as partner Golden Plains Resources vests its 40% interest Avondale deposits Melrose (1.1Kt Sc₂O₃), Currajong (3.1Kt Sc₂O₃), plus part of the Murga Scandium Deposit (12Kt Sc₂O₃) Other assets in district Kars and Forest View Scandium Prospects; Kara Kara Gold Copper Prospect; Sorpresa Gold Silver Deposit (74.3Koz Au, 3.44Moz Ag) Current work 2D seismic survey along a 9km traverse across the Fifield and Avondale Projects, run by Velseis Pty Ltd Survey targets Margins of the Murga Intrusive Complex; northeast-oriented structures linked to gold mineralisation Neighbours Rio Tinto's Burra Scandium Deposit; Sunrise Energy Metals' Syerston Scandium Deposit Market context Global scandium oxide production ~40tpa; scandium on critical minerals lists of Australia, Canada, the EU and US Next steps Seismic processing and interpretation, feeding into drill targeting Rimfire Pacific Mining (ASX: RIM) is sharpening both its ownership position and its geological understanding of the Fifield District in central New South Wales. The company has confirmed it will move to a 60% interest in the Avondale Project after its exploration partner, Golden Plains Resources (GPR), gave notice of its intent to vest a 40% interest under the terms of the Avondale Earn-In Agreement. The move leaves Rimfire holding the majority stake and operational control of the project going forward. At the same time, a seismic survey is now underway at Fifield, approximately 70km northwest of Parkes — a program designed to map the geological architecture partly beneath the very ground the Avondale transaction consolidates, and to feed directly into the planning of forthcoming drilling programs. How the Deal Is Structured Under the terms of the Earn-In Agreement, GPR's 40% interest will vest once it satisfies its expenditure obligations. Once vested, the two parties will establish an unincorporated joint venture, with Rimfire serving as Manager. Both parties will then fund future work programs on a pro rata basis. Avondale: Majority Ownership in the Scandium Epicentre The Avondale transaction consolidates Rimfire's position in one of the most strategically located scandium addresses in the country. Avondale sits within the Fifield District — described by the company as Australia's scandium epicentre — roughly 70km northwest of Parkes in central New South Wales. The project lies adjacent to Rio Tinto's Burra Scandium Deposit and Sunrise Energy Metals' Syerston Scandium Deposit (Figure 1). Figure 1: Fifield Scandium Projects showing Rimfire and third-party projects, Scandium Deposits and prospects (Source: RIM ASX Announcement) Avondale is not a greenfield holding. The project hosts the Melrose and Currajong Scandium Deposits, carrying 1.1Kt and 3.1Kt of scandium oxide respectively. It also contains the Kars and Forest View Scandium Prospects, along with the Kara Kara Gold Copper Prospect. In addition, the north-western portion of the larger Murga Scandium Deposit — which holds 12Kt of scandium oxide — falls within the Avondale Project boundary. (Figure 2). Figure 2: Fifield and Avondale Projects showing location of Scandium and Gold Deposits, and key prospects (Source: RIM ASX Announcement) Seismic Survey Underway at Fifield With majority ownership of Avondale secured, Rimfire's attention turns to the subsurface. The seismic survey aims to strengthen the company's understanding of the area's geological architecture and the geological setting of the numerous scandium, gold and copper mineral occurrences within the district, with the data to be used in planning upcoming drilling programs. The program has two specific targets. First, the survey will examine the geometry of the margins of the Murga Intrusive Complex, which hosts the Murga Scandium Deposit and its 12Kt of scandium oxide. Second, it will test the significance of several northeast-oriented structures thought to host localised gold mineralisation — such as the Sorpresa Gold Silver Deposit, which carries 74.3Koz of gold and 3.44Moz of silver (Figure 3). Figure 3: Fifield Scandium Projects showing Rimfire and third-party projects with the area of seismic survey highlighted in Yellow (Source: RIM) The 2D survey is being run along a 9-kilometre, southeast-oriented traverse through the central portion of the Fifield and Avondale Projects by specialist contractor Velseis Pty Ltd, using its Mini-SOISE system (Figure 4). Acquisition is expected to take at least three field days, with processing and interpretation to follow shortly after. The company has flagged a further update once results are in hand. Figure 4: Velseis Pty Ltd Mini-SOISE system (Source: RIM ASX Announcement) The geography is worth noting. The traverse crosses ground spanning both the Fifield and Avondale Projects — meaning the structural picture it produces will inform drill targeting on the very tenements over which Rimfire has just assumed the Manager's role. 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 4: 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. Why It Matters Securing majority ownership and management of a project that already contains defined scandium resources — and which sits shoulder to shoulder with major-company deposits held by Rio Tinto and Sunrise Energy Metals — strengthens Rimfire's standing in the Fifield scandium district. In a supply-constrained market where new, Western-aligned sources carry outsized strategic weight, district-scale consolidation of defined resources and exploration targets is the kind of positioning that matters. The seismic survey adds the next layer. Taken together, the picture is of a company moving in sequence: secure control of the ground first, then build the structural understanding needed to drill it intelligently. With Rimfire stepping in as Manager, the company gains direct say over how that next phase of work is planned and executed across the Avondale tenements — and before long, it should have a much clearer picture of what lies beneath them. Samso Concluding Comments To understand the Rimfire Pacific Mining story, potential investors and existing shareholders need to know the most important aspect of "investing" in this sector and that is patience. Projects such as what Rimfire Pacific Mining is proposing will take time and we are talking about multiple years. There is nothing going to happen in weeks nor months. The increasing in ownership of Avondale is a good start and it is a "cheap" way to develop what may become a significant critical mineral story. When the "Critical Mineral" slogan starting its journey, there was a plethora of "minerals" being touted as of importance but in reality, there are only a few that is actually of importance. The actual rareness of the minerals have been confused with a economic and geopolitical bottleneck as opposed to be rare geologically. Lithium and the Rare Earths is prime example. There is not a lack of but rather than a downstream issue which is actually the problem in the chain. Check out the Coffee with Samso conversation what I had with Tim Craske where he clearly lays out the insights we all should have when we talk about the Critical Metals conversation. Understanding what the term "Critical Metals" in the context of what Rimfire Pacific Mining could deliver is important. The two mineral that I see as geologically rare is Tungsten and Scandium. Some say Copper is critical and I agree but the metal copper is not rare geologically. Rimfire Pacific Mining, for Samso, is all about consolidating an economical deposit that is literally the jewel in the crown. As we have established, the Fifield are is a Tier-1 global location for Scandium. The likes of Rio Tinto wanting to spend a large sum of money developing a downstream process in the area is prove that if you want Scandium, this is the place to be. Hence, we all know that companies like Rio Tinto invest in the long term and their outlook for developing projects are always measured in multiple of years to decades, investors look for leverage for their investments must start to investigate the merits of Rimfire Pacific Mining and start the DYOR process. About Rimfire Pacific Mining Limited Rimfire Pacific Mining Limited is an ASX-listed critical minerals exploration company advancing a portfolio of projects across the Lachlan Orogen and Broken Hill districts of New South Wales, with its principal focus on the Fifield District, approximately 70km northwest of Parkes in the state's central west. Fifield sits within one of Australia's most significant mineral provinces. The district lies along the Lachlan-Cadia Lineament, in a region that hosts major operations including the Cadia Valley gold-copper mines and the Northparkes copper-gold mine, and has a mining history stretching back more than a century. More recently, the district has emerged as Australia's premier scandium address, hosting deposits held by Rio Tinto, Sunrise Energy Metals and Rimfire itself. The company's portfolio combines 100%-owned and earn-in ground. Its wholly owned projects comprise the Green View Cobalt Project, the Valley Project and the East Cowal Copper Gold Project. Its earn-in interests cover the Avondale and Fifield Projects, which together host multiple scandium deposits — including Melrose, Currajong and the Murga Scandium Deposit — alongside gold and copper prospects. Rimfire is also credited with the greenfields discovery of the Sorpresa Gold Silver Deposit at Fifield, which remains part of the district's exploration story. Rimfire's strategy is to build a district-scale position across scandium, gold and copper in central New South Wales — consolidating ownership, deepening the geological understanding of its ground, and advancing its assets through systematic exploration. The company is led by Managing Director and CEO David Hutton, a geologist with more than three decades of experience in the minerals industry. 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. 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

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. 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