Aterian

African Mineral Wealth

Here’s the truth about junior resource exploration that doesn’t make it into investor presentations: it’s expensive, it’s risky, and it takes years before you see a penny of financial reward.

It sometimes takes a few losses to learn this particular lesson.

We’ve all been there.

The typical explorer follows a predictable and often painful cycle. They raise capital at whatever valuation they can get, burn through it drilling holes in the ground, hope they hit something interesting enough to warrant another cap raise, and then repeat the process until either they make a discovery or they run out of runway.

For shareholders, this means perpetual dilution and the gnawing uncertainty about whether the company will even exist in two years.

Aterian has chosen a different path, and it’s this strategic choice that makes the company’s story interesting.

They’ve built a revenue-generating trading operation in Rwanda that sources responsibly mined tantalum and niobium — collectively known as coltan — from artisanal and small-scale miners, processing it to meet international standards, and selling it to global buyers through an established trading partner.

Q4 2025 saw $145,000 in gross profit from the Rwandan trading operations. Now, that is clearly not massive in absolute terms, but context matters.

This is a junior exploration company making instead of burning it. And they’re doing it while maintaining full compliance with OECD Due Diligence Guidance and the Responsible Minerals Initiative standards, which means every ounce of material they handle is fully traceable, conflict-free and audit-ready.

The operational setup in Rwanda is more sophisticated than you might expect. Through their wholly-owned subsidiary Eastinco, Aterian has built a complete mineral processing and verification facility.

They’ve partnered with organised groups of artisanal and small-scale mining cooperatives, providing them with equipment, capital investment, and training.

Walk into their facility and you’ll see the infrastructure of a real trading business: concentrate onboarding stations where material from artisanal miners is registered and logged, milling equipment that processes material to customer size specifications, portable X-ray fluorescence analysers verifying delivered concentrate grades, and independent oversight from ASIR representatives who witness and approve every step of the blending and packaging process before containers are sealed and shipped.

Every sample is prepared for laboratory analysis, every batch is documented, and every shipment meets the stringent traceability requirements that Western buyers increasingly demand.

The partnership with a major international trading house — a global player in metals and minerals trading specialising in non-ferrous and specialty materials — provides Aterian with immediate access to established distribution networks and downstream buyers.

They don’t have to build those relationships from scratch or figure out logistics and marketing on their own.

To fund the expansion of trading operations, Aterian secured $575,000 in mezzanine financing and the really clever part of this strategy becomes apparent when you consider what they’re trading: tantalum and niobium.

These aren’t commodity metals with transparent spot markets and deep liquidity. They’re specialty metals with concentrated supply, limited production, and growing demand from electronics manufacturers, aerospace companies, and specialised industrial applications.

These materials command premium pricing, especially when they come with full conflict-free certification and traceability documentation.

Trading volumes in Q4 2025 were admittedly below management’s internal targets, but the company has been explicit about why: they prioritised maintaining high traceability compliance and margin discipline over simply chasing volume.

This suggests management understands that reputation and compliance are worth more than short-term revenue spikes. They’re building a sustainable business, not trying to hit quarterly numbers by cutting corners.

The strategic significance extends beyond just the cash flow. Aterian is now the only London Stock Exchange-listed company with an operating presence and mineral trading facility in Rwanda.

They’re establishing themselves as the go-to partner for responsibly sourced Central African minerals while Western companies face mounting pressure to demonstrate supply chain transparency.

Aterian is positioning itself at the nexus of this trend, building the infrastructure and relationships that will be increasingly valuable regardless of what happens with their exploration programs.

Kalahari Copperbelt Play

If you’re not familiar with Botswana’s Kalahari Copperbelt, you should be. It’s one of the most exciting copper districts in the world, and yet it remains significantly underexplored compared to more famous copper provinces.

Think of it as the African equivalent of the Zambian Copperbelt —the legendary mining district that has produced copper for over a century — but largely hidden beneath windblown Kalahari sands until recent advances in geophysical technology made it possible to see through the cover.

The geology here is compelling for anyone who understands sediment-hosted copper systems. The Kalahari Copperbelt is a northeast-trending Meso-to-Neoproterozoic belt that stretches discontinuously from western Namibia into northern Botswana, running along the northwestern edge of the ancient Kalahari Craton.

We’re talking about a mineral system approximately 1,000km long and up to 250km wide. The copper-silver mineralisation is generally stratabound, hosted in metasedimentary rocks that have been folded, faulted, and metamorphosed during the Damara Orogeny.

The key target is the base of the D’Kar Formation where it contacts the underlying red beds of the Ngwako Pan Formation — a geological interface that has proven to host world-class deposits elsewhere in the belt.

The United States Geological Survey has designated the Kalahari Copperbelt as one of the world’s most prospective areas for yet-to-be-discovered sediment-hosted copper deposits.

More significantly, it’s one of only seven places on Earth hosting what geologists classify as ‘giant’ sediment-hosted copper deposits. The district has already yielded over eight million tonnes of identified contained copper, and sophisticated explorers believe there’s significantly more to be found beneath areas where Kalahari sand cover has historically frustrated exploration efforts.

What makes this district particularly interesting right now is the intersection of advancing technology and accelerating investment.

For decades, the sand cover made traditional exploration difficult and expensive. You couldn’t just walk around mapping outcrops and sampling rocks because everything was buried. But modern airborne geophysics — magnetic surveys, electromagnetic surveys and increasingly sophisticated data processing — now allows explorers to effectively map the geology beneath the cover. Combined with AI-driven interpretation and targeted drilling based on geophysical models, the district is yielding discoveries that would have been nearly impossible to make 20 years ago.

The major mining companies have noticed.

China’s MMG acquired the Khoemacau Copper Mine in 2024 for $1.7 billion and immediately announced plans to invest another $700 million to double output. Sandfire Resources operates the Motheo Mine complex, which along with the nearby A1 and A4 deposits hosts a combined mineral resource of 64.1 million tonnes grading 1% copper and 13.8g/t silver. BHP, one of the world’s largest mining companies, invested $25 million in Cobre in March 2025 specifically to fund exploration in the district, including expensive seismic surveys and deep diamond drilling.

When companies of that calibre are deploying capital at those scales, it tells you something important about the district’s potential and the confidence level among sophisticated operators.

Aterian’s position in the Kalahari Copperbelt has expanded dramatically over the past six months. In August 2025, they held seven prospecting licences. By January 2026, they controlled eleven licences covering nearly 2,700 square kilometres — one of the largest exploration footprints in the entire district.

These licences are strategically positioned adjacent to Sandfire and close to MMG.

The geology across Aterian’s licence portfolio varies, but several licences show particularly compelling features.

Take PL199/2025, for example.

This licence sits fifty kilometers north of Sandfire’s Motheo deposit and covers the northeastern end of an antiformal structure — a dome-like fold in the rock — that looks remarkably similar in magnetic signature to MMG’s Banana Zone, which hosts 150 million tonnes grading 0.93% copper and 12g/t silver.

The Banana Zone comprises several closely spaced copper-silver deposits extending over 25 kilometres of strike length, and the structural setting on Aterian’s ground suggests similar potential.

Geophysical interpretation on PL199/2025 has identified approximately 14 kilometers of strike length where the prospective D’Kar Formation contacts the underlying Ngwako Pan Formation.

Historical geochemical sampling, originally conducted by previous explorers in the area, reported copper-in-soil values exceeding 18 parts per million across a four-square-kilometre target area. The closure of the fold structure in the northeast is considered highly prospective for chalcocite-type copper mineralisation — the style of high-grade copper sulphide mineralisation that makes deposits economically attractive.

Another interesting licence is PL197/2025, which covers roughly 194 square kilometres near the town of Ghanzi. The underlying geology consists mainly of Ngwako Pan Formation rocks, except in the western corner where D’Kar Formation rocks appear.

Magnetic data clearly maps a tight Z-fold—a geological structure that’s prospective for both mineralisation concentrated in the fold hinge zone and hanging-wall/footwall contact-style mineralisation.

What makes this licence intriguing is its proximity to an inferred basin margin. Recent thinking among Kalahari Copperbelt explorers suggests that Tier 1 copper deposits might be preferentially associated with basin margins, which explains the renewed interest in gravity and seismic surveys across the belt.

The target contact between D’Kar and Ngwako formations extends for 10.5 kilometres across this licence, with historical soil samples reporting copper values greater than 28 parts per million occurring right on the western border.

The newest addition to the portfolio, PL265/2025 awarded in December 2025, generated significant excitement when an independent geophysical study was completed this month.

The study confirmed that the licence sits within a proven, world-class copper-silver district, located approximately 60 kilometres south of Sandfire’s Motheo Mine and directly along strike of known mineralisation.

The interpretation of airborne magnetic data identified multiple sub-parallel ENE-WSW trending thrust structures and associated folding — exactly the kind of structural architecture that controls copper mineralisation elsewhere in the belt.

Three priority target areas were designated as critical for follow-up exploration. Target Area A features a tight folding structure in the inferred D’Kar Formation that truncates against the southernmost thrust fault. The area around the intersection of this tight fold and the thrust is considered highly prospective for chalcocite-dominated copper sulphides.

Target Areas B and C show copper-in-soil geochemical anomalies that cluster along the northernmost thrust structure.

Legacy airborne electromagnetic data highlights near-surface conductive horizons interpreted as carbonaceous units of the Lower D’Kar Formation — the same stratigraphic package that hosts copper mineralisation in producing mines elsewhere in the district.

The structural interpretation indicating truncation of Lower D’Kar Formation sediments against basement units is a recognised geological setting for copper deposits in the region. This isn’t speculative targeting based on broad regional concepts. This is focused, evidence-based target generation that dramatically reduces early-stage technical risk. The company is now planning a first-phase exploration program comprising detailed ground or drone-based magnetic surveys across the three target areas, followed by targeted electromagnetic surveys to delineate conductive horizons and refine drill targets.

What makes Aterian’s Kalahari Copperbelt position particularly compelling from an investment perspective is the combination of scale, location, and validation.

They’ve assembled significant ground adjacent to billion-dollar deposits in a district that’s attracting major company attention and capital.

Morocco: High-Grade Copper and Silver

While the Kalahari Copperbelt represents the large-scale, district-wide opportunity, Aterian’s Moroccan portfolio offers something different: high-grade copper and silver mineralisation at or near surface in an established mining jurisdiction.

The Anti-Atlas region of Morocco has been producing copper since ancient times — we’re talking pre-Roman era mining activity. The difference now is that modern exploration techniques, geophysical interpretation, and systematic sampling are uncovering extensions of known mineralisation and entirely new deposits that historical miners simply couldn’t find.

Aterian controls 897 square kilometres across multiple projects in Morocco.

The company is currently prioritising four wholly-owned projects focused on copper and silver, though several licences also show gold and lead-zinc potential.

What’s immediately striking about the Moroccan results is the grade - rock chip samples reporting double-digit copper grades, accompanied by significant silver and occasionally gold credits.

The Agdz Project, covering 34 square kilometres, sits approximately 14 kilometres southwest of the Bou Skour copper-silver mine and eighty kilometres southwest of the world-class Imiter silver mine.

The geology here features five primary prospects that have returned truly exceptional grades from surface sampling:

26.5% copper, 484g/t silver, and 3.74g/t gold.

Those are bonanza-grade intercepts from surface rock chip sampling.

Now, rock chip samples always need context. They’re selective by nature — geologists pick rocks that look interesting and mineralised. They don’t represent average grades across a deposit.

But what they do represent is proof of concept.

They demonstrate that high-grade copper-silver mineralization exists in the area, and they provide vectors for more systematic exploration.

Following up on these rock chip results, Aterian conducted a scout drilling program in autumn 2025. The drilling confirmed mineralisation across multiple target areas, with one particularly interesting intersection reporting three metres grading 1.24% copper and 100g/t silver. That’s near surface, and it’s within a thickness that could potentially be economic depending on continuity and scale.

The company is now planning follow-up exploration to define prospect-scale drilling targets. The strategy appears sound: use high-grade surface showings to identify targets, test them with scout drilling to confirm mineralisation extends at depth, and then design larger programs to test continuity and scale.

This is textbook exploration in a proven mining district, which typically carries lower risk than true greenfields exploration in frontier areas.

The Tata Project, significantly larger at 154 kilometres, sits thirty kilometres south of the Azrar copper-silver project and has indicated the presence of stratiform sedimentary copper mineralisation along a strike length that has now been extended to 32 kilometers.

That’s the kind of scale that suggests potential for multiple deposits rather than isolated showings.

Exploration results from rock chip sampling have reported up to 7% copper. A December 2025 update reported that approximately twenty line-kilometres of traverse mapping and rock sampling had extended the cumulative strike length from 18 kilometres to 32 kilometres and discovered additional copper mineralisation over apparent thicknesses of up to 8.5 metres in the south of the project area and six meters in the north.

Sedimentary copper deposits like those targeted at Tata can offer certain advantages over other deposit types. The mineralisation tends to be stratabound — meaning it follows specific sedimentary layers — which can make it more predictable once you understand the stratigraphy.

If you find copper mineralisation in a particular formation at one location, you have a reasonable basis for expecting similar mineralisation elsewhere along strike where that same formation is present. The challenge, of course, is that not all of that strike length will host economic grades, and the thickness and continuity can vary significantly. But 32 kilometers of mineralised horizon provides a lot of opportunity to make discoveries.

The Azrar Project, comprising 100 square kilometres and located 45 kilometers southeast of the Tizert copper mine, has yielded multiple high-grade copper and silver intercepts from various locations across the licence area.

Fieldwork identified 2.8% copper and 23g/t silver from a fault-related breccia cutting through the project’s central area. Fault-related breccias can be interesting from a metallurgical perspective because the copper mineralisation is often coarse-grained and relatively free of problematic deleterious elements.

The November update reported additional discoveries including point 8.2g/t gold and 0.6% copper over nine meters from surface chip channel sampling that targeted northerly striking quartz veins.

Consider the Azrar results’ variety of geological settings showing mineralisation: fault breccias, quartz veins and stratiform horizons. This suggests an active hydrothermal system with multiple mineralising events, which often correlates with better chances of finding economic deposits.

Complex systems tend to concentrate metals more effectively than simple single-event mineralising processes.

The Jebilet Est Project, covering 74 square kilometres, has yielded copper grades of 4.4% from rock chip sampling. Geological mapping has identified an extensive vein system in the western part of the project area.

Vein-hosted copper deposits can be attractive development targets if they’re high-grade, relatively continuous, and occur in favorable structural orientations that allow selective mining.

The Jafra Project covers 29 square kilometres about 35 kilometres east of the historic Roc Blanc silver mine, which was a significant producer in its time.

Rock chip sampling at Jafra has reported high-grade silver and lead values up to 170g/t silver and 22% lead. While Aterian’s primary focus is copper, silver-lead deposits can be highly profitable when they occur with these kinds of grades, and lead concentrate provides another potential revenue stream.

The Moroccan portfolio offers several strategic advantages beyond just the geology. Morocco has a long history of mining, established mining law, and relatively straightforward permitting processes compared to many African jurisdictions. Infrastructure is generally good, with road access to most project areas and proximity to ports for concentrate export. And the country has been actively encouraging mining investment as part of economic diversification efforts away from agriculture and phosphates.

Perhaps most importantly, the combination of high-grade surface showings, confirmed mineralidation from drilling, and extensive target generation across multiple projects provides significant exploration optionality.

Not every target will become a mine, of course.

But when you have this many high-grade copper and silver intercepts across this much ground, the probability of defining economic deposits increases materially.

And because the projects are in Morocco rather than in more challenging jurisdictions, the path from discovery to development tends to be shorter and more straightforward.

AI Revolution in Mineral Exploration

The company has also positioned itself at the cutting edge of applying artificial intelligence to geological discovery, and they’ve done it in a way that costs their shareholders nothing while potentially multiplying the effectiveness of every dollar they spend on exploration.

In December, Aterian signed a binding heads of terms for what they’ve called a ‘transformational’ joint venture with Lithosquare SAS, a Paris-based next-generation exploration company that combines what they call ‘foundational AI’ with advanced data science and deep geological expertise.

Lithosquare is a serious exploration technology company with proprietary AI mineral-system modelling, geophysical data enhancement capabilities and anomaly mapping algorithms that have been specifically developed for mineral exploration applications.

Lithosquare will fund up to €1.4 million in exploration work across eight priority Aterian projects spanning both the Kalahari Copperbelt and Morocco’s Anti-Atlas copper belt.

That’s approximately 3,000 square kilometers of highly prospective ground that will be explored using cutting-edge technology at zero cost to Aterian shareholders.

The initial tranche of €500,000 will be deployed for AI-driven target generation, geophysics, geological mapping, and scout drilling specifically designed to identify high-value copper and critical mineral targets rapidly.

An additional €900,000 is earmarked for follow-up drilling to advance successful targets identified in the initial phase.

Lithosquare starts with a 20% project interest and a 0.5% net smelter return on the joint venture projects. They can earn up to 49.9% equity and up to 2% net smelter return, but these additional interests are strictly tied to exploration success and value creation catalysts.

In other words, Lithosquare only earns more of the projects if they actually deliver results that create value.

Their incentives are perfectly aligned with Aterian’s shareholders.

If they generate great targets that lead to discoveries, they earn a larger stake. If their technology doesn’t deliver, they’re limited to their initial position.

But what exactly does ‘foundational AI’ mean in the context of mineral exploration? Traditional mineral exploration involves geologists examining rock samples, analysing geochemical data, interpreting geophysical surveys, and making educated guesses about where to drill based on their understanding of ore deposit models.

It’s part science, part art (and often shitloads of luck), heavily dependent on the experience and intuition of the geologists involved. It’s also expensive and time-consuming, with high failure rates even in proven districts.

AI approaches this problem fundamentally differently.

Instead of relying primarily on human pattern recognition and geological intuition, machine learning algorithms can analyse vast datasets — historical drilling results, geochemical surveys, geophysical data, structural interpretations, satellite imagery, and more — to identify patterns and correlations that humans might miss.

The algorithms can process information at scales and speeds that would be impossible for human geologists, and they can identify subtle multi-variate correlations that aren’t immediately obvious from traditional analysis.

Lithosquare’s specific approach involves what they describe as multimodal AI, which means the system can integrate multiple types of data simultaneously: magnetic data, electromagnetic surveys, gravity data, geochemical samples, geological maps and structural interpretations.

The system builds probabilistic models of where mineralisation is most likely to occur based on the characteristics of known deposits in similar geological settings, then applies those models to unexplored or under-explored ground to rank targets by probability of success.

The practical implications are significant.

Instead of drilling dozens of holes across a large project area hoping to hit something, you can use AI to identify the three or four highest-probability targets and focus your drilling there. Instead of spending months having geologists manually interpret geophysical data, you can have AI rapidly process the data and flag anomalies that warrant human review. And instead of making decisions based on limited data and geological hunches, you can make decisions based on quantitative probability assessments derived from large datasets.

Aterian and Lithosquare will be using this technology to select and advance the eight highest-potential targets across Morocco and Botswana. The program aims to convert high potential licences into advanced, drill-ready targets over short work cycles, significantly accelerating the company’s exploration roadmap across multiple copper belts.

The work is already underway, with Lithosquare’s team actively processing historical data and beginning to generate target packages.

If this were Aterian’s only AI initiative, it would already be noteworthy. But it’s not.

In August 2025, Aterian announced a separate memorandum of understanding with a stealth-stage machine learning startup spun out from the University of Cambridge.

This company, backed by the Royal Academy of Engineering and Entrepreneurs First — a global talent investor co-founded by Matt Clifford, who served as AI Opportunities Advisor to UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer — specialises in advanced computational modelling for mineral exploration.

The Cambridge startup brings a different technological approach focused on what they describe as ‘multimodal, explainable network inference technology.’

The explainable part is actually quite important. One of the challenges with some AI systems is that they’re essentially black boxes — they give you an answer, but you can’t really understand why they reached that conclusion. For mineral exploration, where you’re making expensive drilling decisions based on AI recommendations, you want to understand the reasoning.

Explainable AI systems can show you which factors and data points drove the model’s predictions, allowing geologists to evaluate whether the AI’s reasoning makes geological sense.

Under the Cambridge partnership, there’s a multi-phase pilot program with initial focus on Aterian’s Moroccan portfolio. Phase One will use historical exploration data from Morocco to develop and back-test a machine learning model designed to identify promising drill targets. The goal is to achieve significant reductions in drilling requirements while maintaining or improving resource estimation confidence.

If you can drill fewer holes and still define resources with similar or better confidence, you’ve dramatically improved the economics of exploration.

Phase Two, subject to successful completion of Phase One and agreement on commercial terms, will adapt the model to planned future exploration across Aterian’s portfolio of pipeline projects.

The algorithms have been developed by a team with deep expertise in geophysics, artificial intelligence, and energy transition infrastructure, specifically designed to enhance exploration efficiency, reduce costs, and mitigate project development risks.

So Aterian now has two separate AI partnerships with two different technology providers using complementary approaches.

Lithosquare is actively deploying their technology across eight projects with fully funded exploration programs.

The Cambridge team is developing and testing their models on Moroccan data with plans to expand across the portfolio. Both programs are structured to minimize or eliminate costs to Aterian shareholders while potentially delivering breakthrough improvements in exploration efficiency.

They’re not doing this as a science experiment — they’re doing it with serious technology partners who have real capabilities and funding commitments.

If the AI approaches deliver even modest improvements in target generation and hit rates, the implications for shareholder value are substantial. And if they deliver breakthrough improvements —which is certainly possible given how early we are in applying these technologies to mineral exploration — Aterian could establish a significant competitive advantage over traditional explorers still relying primarily on conventional geological methods.

Rwanda

The Rwanda story demonstrates something important about Aterian’s strategic approach and their ability to extract value from setbacks.

Getting Rio Tinto interested in your project is a significant validation event for any junior explorer. Having them invest millions of dollars and deploy their technical expertise is even better. And having them hand the project back to you along with all the data they generated?

That can actually be the best outcome of all if you know how to capitalise on it.

Between August 2023 and October 2025, Rio Tinto held an earn-in joint venture on Aterian’s HCK Project in Rwanda’s Southern Province.

Under the joint venture agreement, Rio Tinto could earn up to a 75% interest in the project by funding a $7.5 million exploration program. They exercised their Stage One earn-in rights in July 2025 after completing the initial exploration program, earning a 51% interest by incurring close to $5 million in exploration-related expenses.

Rio completed multiple phases of surface geological mapping and geochemical sampling, collecting 277 rock chip surface samples and more than 3,000 geochemical soil samples across the 2,750 hectare permit. They conducted ground-based geophysical surveys to better understand the subsurface geological architecture. And they completed four diamond drill holes totaling 1,180 metres across two target areas designated HCK-1 and HCK-2.

The drilling results were actually quite encouraging from a technical perspective.

At the HCK-1 target, all three drill holes encountered multiple pegmatite intersections with downhole thicknesses up to 80 metres.

Pegmatites are coarse-grained igneous rocks that often host lithium mineralisation in the form of spodumene, and finding thick pegmatite intersections is always interesting.

More importantly, hole MWOG0002 intersected fresh, spodumene-bearing pegmatite at 170 metres depth with high-grade lithium mineralisation: 6.9m grading 2.1% lithium oxide.

Those are genuinely good grades.

Lithium deposits with grades above 1% lithium oxide are generally considered potentially economic, and grades above 2% are typically classified as high-grade. The coarse spodumene crystals observed in the core—some up to fifteen centimetres long, averaging three to four centimetres — suggest good metallurgical characteristics that would likely respond well to conventional processing.

But there were complications. The drilling revealed that the subsurface weathering profile was more extensive and reached greater depths than anyone had anticipated, particularly in areas associated with structural features like faults and shear zones.

Weathering is important because lithium is a mobile element.

When spodumene weathers, lithium can be released from the crystal structure and either leached away or redistributed into clays and iron-manganese oxides in the surrounding regolith.

This makes resource modelling more complex and potentially impacts the economics if large portions of the deposit are too weathered to process effectively.

Additionally, the geometry and thickness of the pegmatites proved variable along the strike length that was tested, and only two of the twelve prospect areas identified during Rio Tinto’s fieldwork were actually drilled. Hole MWOG0004 at the HCK-2 target failed to intersect the pegmatite target entirely, missing the down-dip extension of what appeared from surface to be extensive artisanal workings.

In October 2025, Rio Tinto and Aterian jointly decided to terminate the joint venture.

Much like one might jointly decide to end a relationship with Margot Robbie.

Rio Tinto’s assessment was that the local region did not have the potential scale to support a mine meeting the lithium resource specifications required by a tier one mining company.

A smaller, high-grade deposit with some geological complexity doesn’t fit their strategic criteria even if it might be perfectly viable for a smaller operator.

For Aterian, Rio Tinto’s decision to exit, while painful for the share price, has actually created opportunity rather than destroyed long-term value.

Control of the project returned entirely to Aterian, along with the complete exploration database and all drilling results —representing $4.7 million dollars of work completed at no cost to Aterian shareholders.

The company inherited enhanced geological knowledge, geophysical data, drill core, assay results, and importantly proven high-grade lithium intersections that confirm the area’s mineralisation potential.

And while Rio was focused exclusively on lithium, the HCK Project also hosts significant tantalum and niobium mineralisation. These are the exact same metals that Aterian is already trading through their Rwandan operations. And the project area has historically supported artisanal mining of these metals, demonstrating that economic mineralisation exists and can be extracted.

Aterian’s view is that regaining control of HCK provides an exceptional opportunity to unlock the broader value of the licence area beyond just lithium. They can now directly capitalise on Rio Tinto’s extensive exploration investment while pursuing a development strategy that makes sense for a company of their size and capabilities.

Instead of trying to define a world-class lithium resource that would require hundreds of millions of dollars in capital to develop, they can focus on the high-grade tantalum-niobium systems that integrate directly with their existing trading platform.

The strategy going forward involves several complementary elements.

First, advance exploration across HCK with renewed focus on tantalum, niobium, and associated byproducts in markets where Aterian already has established trading networks and customer relationships.

Second, integrate Rio Tinto’s technical data into Aterian’s regional datasets to fast-track mineral target generation and prioritisation across their broader Rwandan portfolio.

Third, engage with new strategic and commercial partners to monetise the broader Rwandan opportunity, including potentially becoming a dedicated conflict-free supplier of coltan from formal mining operations rather than just aggregating artisanal production.

Fourth, continue scaling the critical mineral trading platform in Rwanda under their current ESG and traceability frameworks.

Aterian is positioning itself as the only London Stock Exchange-listed company with an operating presence and mineral trading facility in Rwanda. They’re building the infrastructure and relationships to become a dedicated formal supplier of conflict-free coltan backed by full traceability and OECD compliance.

If they can develop the HCK Project as a small-scale but high-grade tantalum-niobium mine feeding directly into their trading and export infrastructure, they could create a vertically integrated business model that captures margin at multiple points in the value chain while providing exactly the kind of responsible sourcing that Western buyers increasingly demand and are willing to pay premiums for.

Lithium Optionality: Sua Pan

Aterian also holds three lithium brine licences covering the Makgadikgadi Pans in Botswana through their 90% owned subsidiary Atlantis Metals.

The Makgadikgadi is one of the largest salt pan complexes in the world, a vast expanse of dried ancient lakebed that creates unique conditions potentially favorable for lithium brine accumulation.

Brine deposits form when lithium-bearing groundwater accumulates in closed basins with high evaporation rates, concentrating the dissolved minerals over time.

In November 2025, Aterian commenced a groundwater reconnaissance and brine sampling program through Aqualogic, a Botswana-based hydrogeology and geochemical consultancy with specific operational experience in the Makgadikgadi Basin.

The program involves sampling from existing wells and shallow auger locations within the three prospecting licences, establishing baseline hydrogeochemical data including lithium concentrations.

The work includes field measurement of physicochemical parameters like pH, electrical conductivity, temperature, and total dissolved solids, along with laboratory analysis of major ions and selected trace elements including lithium. Hydrochemical interpretation and spatial assessment will identify areas warranting follow-up exploration.

Simple, systematic, low-cost reconnaissance to establish whether lithium concentrations and hydrogeological conditions justify more expensive follow-up work.

If results are encouraging, the company can advance the project or potentially partner with a specialist in brine extraction who brings technical expertise and capital. If results are mediocre, they can maintain the licences at low cost or eventually relinquish them with minimal sunk investment.

The Bottom Line

The Aterian story is based on three distinct value drivers operating over different timeframes, providing multiple paths to value realization rather than relying on a single binary outcome:

1. Short term: The Rwandan trading operation provides cash generation and validates the business model. The fourth quarter 2025 gross profit of $145,000 demonstrates commercial viability. Management expects volumes to increase in 2026 subject to working capital availability. As the trading platform scales, it should generate increasing cash flow that can partly self-fund corporate operations and reduce dependence on external financing. This de-risks the exploration story by providing cash flow support during the multiyear timeline required for exploration programs to mature.

2. Medium term: The AI-powered exploration programs across 2,898 square kilometres of highly prospective ground in the Kalahari Copperbelt and Morocco create multiple catalyst opportunities throughout 2026 and into 2027. These programs are fully funded with zero shareholder dilution. Lithosquare is actively working across eight priority projects using their foundational AI technology. The Cambridge team is developing and testing machine learning models on Moroccan data. Both programs should generate results, target packages, and potentially drill results that could serve as share price catalysts. Given the scale of ground under exploration and the quality of some of the targets—particularly those adjacent to producing copper mines in the KCB — the probability of making commercially interesting discoveries seems reasonable rather than purely speculative.

3. Long term: Aterian is building a vertically integrated critical metals platform in stable African jurisdictions with established operations, infrastructure, relationships, and strategic optionality. They’re creating a business with multiple components that have standalone value. The trading operations in Rwanda have value even if exploration never yields a mine. The exploration portfolio has value even if trading never scales beyond current levels. The data and technical work completed on projects creates value even if Aterian doesn’t ultimately develop them — projects with completed work packages can be sold or optioned to larger companies looking for drill-ready targets. The strategic positioning across copper, tantalum, niobium and lithium provides exposure to multiple energy transition metals rather than single-commodity concentration risk. The focus on stable jurisdictions reduces political and operational risk relative to many African exploration stories. The AI partnerships position Aterian at the technology frontier of mineral exploration potentially delivering breakthrough improvements in discovery efficiency. And the revenue-generating trading platform provides financial stability and patience capital allowing exploration programs to unfold over appropriate timeframes without forcing premature asset sales or dilutive financings during market weakness.

Yes, the share price has fallen sharply over the past year with the Rio exit, and liquidity is weak.

But this is where I like to position.

And give it time.