Switch Metals

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Good Morning Team.

Back in September, I introduced you to Switch Metals - a tiny £10 million market cap company sitting on what looked like a compelling tantalum opportunity in Côte d’Ivoire.

The thesis was straightforward: ethical, traceable tantalum from a stable African jurisdiction, with a bootstrap development strategy requiring just $5 million in capital to reach cash flow.

Mining the shallow placer deposits first to fund deeper hard rock development later- minimal dilution, fast payback, and positioning as the conflict-free alternative to DRC supply.

Switch has executed perfectly.

The market cap has crept up to £14.5 million - a 45% gain that sounds meaningful until you realize what’s actually been happening on the ground over the past six months.

Let me bring you up to speed.

Issia Methodical Execution

When we last covered Switch, they were preparing to begin their resource definition work at Issia.

The plan was to systematically prove up the shallow eluvial and colluvial tantalum deposits across two target zones before tackling the deeper hard rock pegmatites.

By September 2025, they’d completed the entire pitting and soil sampling program across both MRE Target 1 and MRE Target 2.

369 pits were excavated across a 100 x 100 metre grid spacing.

Cumulative depth hit 1,609 metres, with over 400 tonnes of representative soil material collected. Each sample weighed approximately 250 kilograms and contained various quantities of heavy minerals including tantalum.

The two target zones covered 3.8 square kilometres - MRE Target 1 at 2.5 km² and MRE Target 2 at 1.3 km².

These 3.8 square kilometres sit within the 112 km² Badinikro permit, which itself is only part of the 1,015 km² district-scale Issia Project.

Switch is systematically proving up the highest-priority zones first, building a resource estimate that can support near-term production while demonstrating the broader district potential.

This is proper, methodical exploration discipline, and the program came in on schedule and on budget.

Wash Plant: Samples to Concentrates

In December 2025, Switch announced that their pilot wash plant had been commissioned and was fully operational.

The five tonne per hour pilot plant - comprising a scrubber, jig and shaking table - processes those 400 tonnes of soil samples through a strict protocol.

Each metre of material is washed to produce a heavy mineral concentrate, which is then assayed for tantalum pentoxide (Ta₂O₅) grade estimation.

Switch uses their on-site XRF (X-ray fluorescence) analyser for initial rapid readings of tantalum, niobium, and associated heavy minerals. These samples then go to independent laboratories for verification, maintaining external data integrity for the resource estimate.

Interestingly, while they’re generating the assay data needed for the maiden Mineral Resource Estimate, they’re simultaneously producing actual tantalum concentrates that potential offtakers can evaluate.

This means they’re producing representative coltan concentrate right now that downstream users can assess for quality, recovery rates and commercial parameters.

Coltan concentrates are typically sold at approximately 30% Ta₂O₅ (tantalum pentoxide) equivalent. Tantalum prices are currently reported in excess of $250,000 per tonne - up from the $200,000 mentioned in earlier company communications and significantly higher than the November 2022 peak levels.

The ability to assess recoveries and produce market-ready concentrate during the resource estimation process provides early technical and commercial validation while the company continues evaluating scale across the broader Issia district.

By late January 2026, approximately 40% of the first MRE sample set had been processed.

Geological and resource modelling had commenced in parallel, with portable XRF screening results being progressively integrated into an evolving block model to identify higher-concentration zones.

The maiden Mineral Resource Estimate remains on track for delivery in Q1 2026.

That means we’re potentially weeks away from knowing exactly what Switch is sitting on.

Thinking Bigger: Alluvial Program

In October 2025, while the wash plant was being assembled, Switch launched an additional exploration program that revealed how they’re actually thinking about Issia.

The company started systematically sampling alluvial drainage basins within the Badinikro permit, targeting tantalum-rich coltan deposited in these basins by gravity over geological time.

The program covered 2,763 hectares - or circa 28 square kilometres - of drainage basin area across 491 samples, with approximately one sample collected for each five hectares of basin surface area. These samples were manually panned for heavy mineral concentrates followed by portable XRF analysis for tantalum and niobium content.

The results, announced this week, demonstrate exactly what Switch was looking for.

The program identified 28 priority drainage basins exceeding a technical cut-off grade of 1.5 g/m³ tantalum, with elevated tantalum and niobium values. These priority basins cover a combined area of 7.04 km² - adding significant shallow, free-dig, near-term resource growth potential at Issia.

Critically, the most anomalous drainage basins align perfectly with the previously interpreted 16 km-long Issia pegmatite corridor trending northwest to southeast. This observation confirms Switch’s interpretation of Issia as a district-scale tantalum system, where shallow placer mineralisation is derived from the historic weathering of tantalum-rich hard rock pegmatites.

Why does this matter? Because it demonstrates Switch isn’t just focused on getting to a maiden resource estimate and calling it a day.

They’re systematically mapping out a district-scale tantalum system.

The really valuable mining districts aren’t single deposits. They’re systems - multiple deposit types across a broader geological structure that can support decades of production.

Switch is proving that Issia fits this pattern.

The first MRE work focuses exclusively on the priority eluvial and colluvial target zones. But the alluvial basin work has now ranked drainage systems according to tantalum and niobium prospectivity and defined the follow-up programs for additional resource targeting.

The next phase will focus on bulk sampling and recovery tests using the Company’s pilot wash plant, with systematic pitting across each of the 28 priority drainage basins to delineate additional shallow tantalum resources and further evaluate the scale and continuity of near-surface mineralisation at Issia.

The combination of shallow eluvium, colluvium, and alluvium resource targeting supports Phase 1 production plans, to be followed by hard rock exploration for Phase 2 development.

This is multi-decade thinking being implemented systematically.

Xcelsior Partnership: Capital Validation

In November 2025, Switch signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Xcelsior Capital Advisors, partnered with Wogen Resources Limited.

This deserves your full attention.

Xcelsior provides financing to producers of critical metals and minerals including miners, processors, refiners, recyclers and manufacturers.

Wogen Resources is a global physical commodities trader specialising in off-exchange critical metals and minerals, including tantalum and niobium, with more than £400 million in annual turnover.

The MoU outlines collaboration on three key objectives:

• securing exploration and development funding to develop Switch’s portfolio with priority on Issia

• market support developing marketing strategies to achieve material sales and enhanced pricing particularly of Issia’s coltan concentrate

• technical and ESG support applying the most up-to-date practices to achieve superior production ethics and technical performance

On signing the MOU, Switch issued Xcelsior 450,000 warrants to subscribe for ordinary shares at an exercise price of £0.10, expiring four years from signing.

Xcelsior isn’t only taking advisory fees; they’re taking equity exposure through warrants.

And they have form. They previously backed Lavotto Resources, which has delivered >tenbagger returns over the past couple of years.

They understand the technical risks, the market dynamics, the offtake challenges and the jurisdiction issues.

They have their pick of projects.

And they chose Switch.

Liam Farley, Founder and CEO of Xcelsior, was explicit in his comments:

‘Switch is in the right place at the right time as a mining company focused on critical technology and battery minerals in Côte d’Ivoire. It is one of the country’s largest land holders covering tantalum and niobium along with other critical metals prospects. In particular, Switch is well-positioned to become an alternative, fully-traceable, long-term and potentially premium supplier of tantalum to the global markets.’

The emphasis on premium supplier isn’t marketing fluff. Ethical, traceable tantalum concentrates command premiums versus standard concentrates.

Switch is positioning itself to capture those premiums, and Xcelsior provides the commercial pathway to actually realise them through Wogen’s trading network.

February 2026 Plot Twist

Last week, Switch announced a lithium discovery at Issia.

The Kabore discovery, made during a pitting and mapping programme near a tantalum-rich drainage basin, exposed spodumene-bearing pegmatites with grades between 1.00% and 2.58% lithium oxide (Li₂O) in multiple grab samples, tested using a portable Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy analyser.

Samples were immediately sent to Thin Section Lab in Nancy, France, who confirmed the spodumene identification using X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis for detailed mineral characterisation.

Interestingly, the same discovery trench showed coltan occurrences with 82% tantalum content using portable XRF analysis.

This means that the Issia pegmatites aren’t just tantalum deposits. They’re dual-commodity lithium-tantalum systems.

The Kabore discovery sits within the north-west trending Issia pegmatite corridor, near previously mapped pegmatite occurrences and tantalum-rich heavy mineral anomalies. Notably, the drainage basins surrounding the Kabore spodumene discovery also show elevated tantalum responses in the alluvial program results - further confirmation of the geological model and the multi-commodity potential of the system.

The geological setting - part of the Leo-Man Shield within the West African Craton - is the same formation that hosts major gold mines and, increasingly, significant lithium deposits across the region.

The key geological event happened 2.2 billion years ago during the Eburnean Orogeny, when continents crashed together creating massive heat and pressure that concentrated rare metals like lithium, tantalum, and niobium into granite-pegmatite systems.

Leo Lithium’s Goulamina project in neighbouring Mali sold to Chinese giant Ganfeng. Atlantic Lithium is advancing projects in Ghana on identical geology.

Switch’s neighbours at Tiassalé include Atlantic Lithium and Lithium Africa Resources partnered with Ganfeng, the world’s third largest and China’s largest lithium compounds producer.

What makes the Kabore discovery particularly interesting is the location. Issia sits approximately four hours north of San Pedro mineral port, where lithium spodumene concentrate from Mali is currently being exported.

Mali’s operations are more than seventeen hours’ drive from the same port.

Switch just found a free option on lithium, co-located with high-grade tantalum, in a location with superior logistics to existing West African lithium operations.

As Akueson noted at the time:

‘Whilst we knew the tantalum rich area could be associated with other critical elements, as it occurs with certain pegmatites, we did not expect to unveil a hard rock discovery at this early stage and at no additional cost.’

The timing couldn’t be better. Lithium prices crashed from their 2022-2023 peaks but are showing signs of recovery. Albemarle forecasts 15-20% annual demand growth through 2030 driven by electric vehicle adoption.

The current price weakness has created opportunities for well-positioned developers to build market share while majors pull back on expansion plans.

Switch now has optionality across multiple critical metals - tantalum as the primary near-term cash flow driver, with lithium and niobium providing additional upside as markets evolve.

Bouaké and Tiassalé

While Issia commands the immediate attention, Switch controls two other significant projects that provide additional optionality.

The Bouaké project covers 1,164 km² in central Côte d’Ivoire and targets multiple metals: lithium, tantalum, niobium, and rare earth elements.

With the pilot wash plant now operational at Issia, part of the technical team has been remobilised to advance Bouaké. Initial scouting activity has commenced at the 100% owned Bouaké licence (PR 934), which includes the 370 km² Botro Licence, to refine coltan targets for follow-up work.

At Tiassalé - the 990 km² project located just two hours from Abidjan port - Switch is resuming preparation and Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) assaying of over 4,000 soil samples collected earlier in the year. Early soil sampling had already identified multiple lithium anomalies.

Tiassalé again sits right next door to licenses held by Atlantic Lithium and Ganfeng joint ventures. Being early and pegging good ground during the lithium downturn, adjacent to major players advancing their own projects, is exactly where you want to be.

The combined portfolio makes Switch one of the largest land holders by area covering tantalum, lithium, and other critical metal prospects in Côte d’Ivoire - and potentially in West Africa.

Market Opportunity: Right Place, Right Time

The timing for Switch couldn’t be better, and it’s worth understanding exactly why.

Tantalum is genuinely scarce. Current global production is dominated by artisanal mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda, which account for an estimated 60-70% of global supply.

In December 2024, the DRC filed criminal complaints against Apple in European courts over alleged conflict minerals in its supply chain.

Recent mine closures in Australia are further tightening supply. Meanwhile, demand continues growing driven by military and defence applications, 5G infrastructure rollout, aerospace expansion, and advanced electronics requiring the specific properties that make tantalum difficult to substitute.

Current tantalum prices above $250,000 per tonne represent significant recovery from the lows but remain approximately 90% below November 2022 peaks, suggesting considerable upside potential as supply tightens and strategic demand accelerates.

Critically, tantalum processing is controlled by the United States, Germany, and Japan - not China. This matters enormously in the current geopolitical environment where critical minerals supply chain security has become a matter of national strategic importance.

The lithium market tells a different but complementary story. Prices crashed from their 2022-2023 peaks as new supply came online and EV demand growth moderated. But the structural long-term demand case remains intact. Albemarle’s forecast of 15-20% annual demand growth through 2030 hasn’t changed - it’s just being delivered with more volatility than the 2021-2023 hype cycle suggested.

The current price weakness is creating opportunities for well-positioned developers to build market share and advance projects while majors pull back capital spending.

Switch’s Kabore discovery and the Tiassalé project position the company to benefit from lithium market recovery without requiring it for the near-term cash flow story.

Niobium remains dominated by Brazil and Canada, which control 98.5% of global production, but new applications in high-strength steel and battery anodes are driving demand growth. CBMM recently opened a niobium anode manufacturing plant, validating its commercial battery potential beyond the traditional steel applications.

Switch offers exposure to all three critical metals - tantalum, lithium, and niobium - from a single stable jurisdiction with clear development pathways and management that actually understands how to navigate the territory.

Switch’s original development strategy remains intact and has been validated through execution:

Phase 1, targeted for 2025-2028, focuses on mining the shallow placer deposits using gravity separation. The target is 100 tonnes of annual tantalum production - representing approximately 2.5% of current global supply. Capital cost is estimated at approximately $5 million, which in mining terms is remarkably modest.

Projected annual revenue at current tantalum prices exceeds $25 million. Cash margins are expected to be 50-70%, delivering payback in under 24 months.

Phase 2, post-2028, develops the hard rock pegmatites for multi-decade production and scales up to become a significant global supplier.

This means that Phase 1 generates cash to fund Phase 2, minimising dilution and financial risk.

The timeline remains: 2025 bulk sampling, resource definition, and metallurgical testing (underway); 2026 mining license application and feasibility study; 2027 construction begins; 2028 first production and cash flow.

Four years from exploration to cash flow would be lightning speed in mining terms. Switch is currently in early 2026, with the maiden resource estimate due, putting them squarely on track.

The Next Six Weeks

Switch Metals is approaching an inflection point.

The maiden Mineral Resource Estimate is due in Q1 2026 - meaning we’re potentially weeks away from knowing exactly what the company is sitting on at Issia.

Initial batches of portable XRF screening results are expected in the near term. Selected samples will progress to independent laboratory assay as priority zones are defined, with results forming part of the maiden MRE dataset.

Geological modelling is already underway, with XRF screening results being progressively integrated into an evolving block model.

Meanwhile, follow-up work on the 28 priority alluvial drainage basins is underway, with systematic pitting planned to delineate additional shallow tantalum resources alongside the maiden MRE work.

If the MRE confirms what the preliminary work suggests - and given the systematic, professional approach Switch has taken, there’s good reason to expect it will - the company will become a near-term producer with a clear commercial pathway.

The strategic financing is lined up through Xcelsior. The commercial pathway exists through Wogen’s trading network. The CEO has already successfully built and exited a similar company. The jurisdiction works. The pilot plant is operational and producing concentrates.

The timeline to production is 24 months from funding.

All the pieces are in place. We’re just waiting for the resource estimate to confirm the size and quality of what they’ve found.

The Bottom Line

We’re living through a fundamental restructuring of global critical metals supply chains. The concentration of supply in geopolitically unstable or strategically unreliable jurisdictions isn’t sustainable.

The DRC-Apple legal case isn’t an isolated incident - it’s the leading edge of ESG and traceability requirements becoming legally and commercially binding.

Western companies need alternative sources of critical metals. Not just for cost reasons, but for strategic supply security and legal compliance.

Tantalum is essential for semiconductors, aerospace, defence, and medical applications where substitution is extremely difficult or impossible.

The concentration of 60-70% of global supply in Central African artisanal mining creates strategic vulnerability that governments and corporations are increasingly unwilling to accept.

Only one London-listed company I know of is trying to deliver ESG-compliant and traceable tantalum from Rwanda - Aterian - but it can’t supply the world alone.

Switch Metals is building exactly what the market needs: ethical, traceable, industrial-scale critical metals supply from a stable jurisdiction with clear commercial pathways.

If you believe in pattern recognition - proven management, specialist financiers with 10x track records, systematic execution, critical metals supply chain security and strategic timing - then this setup is difficult to ignore.

The market is currently valuing Switch at roughly one year of projected Phase 1 cash flow.

Either the market is completely missing what’s coming, or it’s waiting for the MRE to validate the opportunity before repricing the stock.

The next few weeks should be illuminating.