The Pre-Start
Lynas has had its Malaysian operating licence renewed for 10 years by the Malaysian Department of Atomic Energy (LYC)
Black Cat increased the Eastern zone resource 95% to 26kt Sb, with Ag to 1.2Moz and Pb to 39kt, prompting follow-up drilling (BC8)
Galan said HMW Phase 1 construction is 92% complete, with substantial brine inventory positioning it for first lithium chloride concentrate in H1 2026 (GLN)
Orezone produced 110koz gold in FY25, reporting revenue of US$377m, net earnings of US$77m and EBITDA of US$174m (ORE)
Meteoric delivered an MREC bulk sample from Caldeira to MagBras for magnet production trials, while Brazil's govt signalled support for downstream (MEI)
Syrah signed a 7-year conditional binding offtake with NextSource for 34-68kt priced as a quarterly premium to an index and conditional on NextSource's Abu Dhabi anode plant reaching commercial production (SYR)
Many Peaks drilling expanded the Ferké Ouarigue corridor to >1.1km strike, highlighting potential bulk-tonnage growth, hitting 49m at 1.84 g/t from 324m (MPK)
Waratah reported step-out drilling expanded the Consols and Spur gold systems, with notable intercepts including 74m at 1.6 g/t Au from 453m (WTM)
Riversgold was granted a tenement adjacent to its Northern Zone, while agreeing a Right to Mine with MEGA Resources for 50/50 profit-share funding (RGL)
Astron updated its resource and reserves for Donald, reporting heavy mineral grades of 4%, TREO 1.4%, with 18.2% NdPr (ATR)
Resouro reported met testwork at the Tiros project delivered fine-fraction TREO extraction of 89–95% and TiO₂ recovery of 71–94%, with a 76.8% TiO₂ coarse concentrate and PEA possibly paused for optimisation (RAU)
Red Hill declared an ordinary dividend of $0.116 per share (RHI)
Core Lithium announced Paul Brown would become MD & CEO effective immediately, while Mark Hine was added as a NED (CXO)
Stephen Pearce commenced as Chair of South32 (S32)
High Grade It
The fast‑moving conflict across the Middle East is heightening investor anxiety and strengthening the case for safe‑haven trades such as Treasuries, gold and the Swiss franc (Bloomberg)
OPEC+ agreed to resume oil production increases at a slightly accelerated pace as the conflict threatens to bolster a rally in crude prices (AFR)
Oil prices surged on Monday in Asia, with crude up 9% to ~US$80 a barrel in volatile trading, while US futures slid (Reuters)
Top lithium producer SQM said it sees world demand for the battery metal growing about 25% this year (Bloomberg)
The US is not planning to tap its strategic oil reserve as Iran war risks prices surging (FT)
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Wheelin’ n Dealin’
L1 will front investors this week ahead of a potential initial public offering for a new ASX-listed gold and precious metals investment company (AFR) The unlisted gold fund manages $500m+; up 183% since inception 1 year ago
Greatland is pumping its exploration dollars into gold rather than a copper JV with Rio, and looking to sell the O’Callaghans tungsten deposit (Australian)
Kingfisher will sell 100% of its Gascoyne rare earths project to Dreadnought for $2m in Dreadnought shares plus up to $1.5m in milestone cash payments (DRE)
Rattlin’ the Tin
Word on the Decline
Lindian slipped into a halt on Friday pending a mysterious material acquisition.
After a bit of amateur sleuthing, the dots lined up. It looks to us like the rare earths developer has found itself a cracking facility.
Which naturally raises the question, where does one pick up an established MREC cracking plant these days? Gumtree was a bust. Facebook Marketplace had only air fryers and broken jet skis.
So if our hunch is right, the answer is Kazakhstan.
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In the Weeds
Stan Druckenmiller interview (YouTube) Anything Druck is compulsory listening for us. He’s long copper; the metals, not equities
PhD Survey (Qualtrics) If you are or have been an operator, board member, or investor, help advance the mining industry by completing this quick questionnaire
Jamie Holman on How Wartime Footing is Forcing Capital Back into the Mine (YouTube) Highlights potential “junior royalty roll up” backed by Tether
Jeff Currie (MacroVoices) The great rotation… revenge of the “old economy”
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Devil’s in the Detail
Never thought we’d see 3 beer names in the first line of an ExploreCo announcement
