Xtract Resources
Three mines, cash in hand and exploration aplenty
Good Morning Team.
We’re going to take a gander at Xtract today - a new stock for 2026 - but one I’ve held since May 2024.
In that time the stock has barely moved, but the time to increase from a small position to a substantial one, is, in my opinion, now.
As ever, none of this is financial advice, and there is an elevated level of risk with all junior resource investing.
But I’d hope you’d know that by now.
So what do we get with Xtract?
First, a seriously strong cash position.
As of 30 June 2025 (yes, a while ago), the company had circa £1 million in cash, but was spending a little more than this every half.
However, XTR also raised £2.2 million in mid-November, at 0.6p per share with warrants attached at 1.2p per share for three years from admission. This was some punchy dilution, with net shares in aggregrate worth nearly 40% of the previously issued share capital.
But what makes this placing interesting, instead of aggravating, is why it was done.
For context, a couple of years ago, Xtract agreed to sell its 23% interest in the Manica Gold Project for up to $15 million.
To date, the company has received $9.325 million from this sale.
This includes an initial payment of $3.325 million that released Xtract from the mining collaboration agreement, plus eight quarterly payments of $750,000 each (total $6 million) received between March 2024 and December 2025.
Looking forward from January 2026, Xtract is due to receive up to $5.675 million more. This includes four remaining quarterly payments of $750,000 each, running from March 2026 through December 2026, which will bring in $3 million.
On top of this, there’s a $3 million payment that has now been split into three installments of $1 million each, due in March, June, and September of 2027.
The final $3 million is contingent on the buyer’s decision to build a sulphide processing plant. This amount will be paid in six installments ranging from $250,000 to $750,000, triggered either when specific construction and production milestones are achieved or by backstop dates between December 2026 and December 2028, whichever comes first.
There was also a February 2025 amendment to consider, which was made to give the buyer more time and flexibility as mining operations transition from simpler oxide ore to more complex sulphide ore.
The key changes were splitting the large $3 million balloon payment into three smaller payments spread across 2027, and restructuring the sulphide plant consideration from three payments ending in 2026 into six payments with extended deadlines through December 2028.
So (to cut a long story short) there’s millions in cash to come in.
Why place?
Executive Chair Colin Bird explained:
‘This fundraising has been initiated in order to enable us to continue to develop our mine project in Morocco and invest in our joint venture with our partners in Silverking in Zambia and in particular, to complete construction of a processing plant at Silverking whilst continuing with exploration on the general licence area. The Board expects that the Silverking plant will be commissioned and mining start in 2026 to take advantage of current copper prices. In Morrocco, exploration will continue while Government approval is obtained to redevelop the Amghas mine and construct a floatation plant.’
Copper, silver and antimony are all rocketing. Time may be of the essence.
Let’s start with Silverking.
Silverking plans
Xtract is finally shifting from talking about potential to building actual infrastructure. And the timing is perfect - copper and silver are both at record highs - in paper terms, but driven by real, physical demand.
There’s four key points to grasp:
The grades are there. Phase 1 drilling returned intercepts including 54.1 metres at 3.18% copper and 40.3 g/t silver. For context, many large-scale copper mines operate at grades below 0.5% copper. When you’re hitting 3-6% copper over tens of metres, you’re talking about ore that essentially processes itself.
The mineralisation is near-surface. The best intercepts from Phase 1 started at depths of 56-111 metres. This is open-pit territory, where you can move quickly from discovery to production.
The metallurgy appears straightforward. The presence of oxide mineralisation (malachite, native copper) and supergene enrichment zones means that at least part of the orebody should respond well to conventional processing. Native copper can literally be gravity-separated while oxide copper minerals are amenable to heap leaching or tank leaching. Easy.
The infrastructure context is favorable. Zambia is the Copperbelt region, with over a century of mining history. The neighboring Kitumba deposit attracted $58.5 million from Chinese investors in 2024. The roads, power, labour pool and supply chains exist because this is an established mining district (though with some jurisdicitonal risk).
So what does ‘complete construction of a processing plant’ actually mean in this context?
Based on the geological characteristics and Bird’s timeline, Xtract is likely planning a relatively straightforward operation:
Stage 1: Target the oxide zones. The Phase 2 results from Kopje showed leached oxide zones with native copper — this is the low hanging fruit. A processing plant focused on oxide ore could use:
Gravity concentration for native copper
Heap leach or agitated tank leach for oxide copper minerals
Minimal crushing and agglomeration
In other words, not a massive crushing-grinding-flotation complex.
Stage 2: Expand to sulphide processing. Once cash flow is established from oxide ore, the operation can expand to process primary sulphide mineralisation (chalcopyrite, chalcocite) through conventional flotation. The Phase 1 results showed plenty of higher-grade sulphide ore that would justify this investment.
Parallel play: While the plant is being built and commissioned, drilling continues. The House Grid and Solar anomalies identified in Phase 2 represent potential satellite deposits. The second breccia pipe 800 metres from the main body remains untested. And the Worm prospect’s 2km structure could be another Kitumba-scale target.
This is the classic ‘drill, build, expand’ model that has worked for numerous mid-tier mining companies.
Get into production with what you know, then use exploration success and cash flow to grow the operation.
The upside is obvious.
If they can commission a plant and start mining in 2026 while copper prices remain elevated, the economics could be exceptional. High-grade near-surface copper in a processing-friendly mineralisation style is about as good as it gets.
Early cash flow funds further exploration and development, potentially unlocking a district-scale copper camp.
On the other hand, the execution risk is very real. Going from drill results to production in under two years requires everything to go right:
Permitting streamlined
Metallurgical testwork must confirm processing assumptions
Plant construction must stay on schedule and budget
Copper prices need to co-operate
Resource definition must support a mine plan
A lot of mining companies have announced ambitious timelines only to hit delays in permitting, construction, or commissioning.
Remember though, this isn’t just Xtract’s show. Silverking is a joint venture with Oval Mining, and Cooperlemon Consultancy holds rights to earn back interest by participating in expenditures.
Xtract has just met the $500,000 threshold to earn 51% and has the option to reach 70% by spending another $1 million over two years.
Building a processing plant will blow through that $1 million pretty quickly. Even a modest oxide processing plant could require $5-15 million in capital expenditure. This means additional fundraising (which Bird explicitly mentioned) and likely means the joint venture partners need to make some decisions:
Does Cooperlemon participate and maintain their interest?
Do the partners bring in additional strategic investors?
Does the funding come through equity dilution, debt, or streaming agreements?
These questions matter because they’ll determine who owns what percentage of the eventual cash flows.
Bird is betting that the commodity cycle window is open now, and that copper prices won’t wait for a perfect, fully-studied, exhaustively-permitted mine plan. He’s willing to deploy capital aggressively to capture value during a favourable market.
This is fundamentally opportunistic.
But is it aggressive? Absolutely.
Is it the right plan? We want money, not exploration, so yes.
Can XTR pull this off? Complete construction and pre-commissioning in H1, then ramp up to commerical produciton in H2? It is very tight, but not impossible. Plenty of small-to-mid scale mines have achieved 12-18 month construction timelines when the geology cooperates and management executes well.
And if it works, remember that Silverking sits in the same geological terrane as Kitumba (27.9 million tonnes at 2.2% copper). If ongoing exploration defines similar-scale resources across multiple breccia pipes and structures, you’re potentially looking at a decades-long mining operation.
But there is execution risk.
Good news - there’s mutiple shots on goal.
Moroccan Antimony
While copper and silver are at record highs, the antimony market makes them look like they’re standing still. And Morocco might just be sitting on the next big supply story.
Antimony is a critical metal used in everything from flame retardants to semiconductors, battery storage and defence. China controls 63% of global production and has started restricting exports. The US has zero domestic production.
And prices? They’ve gone parabolic, forcing Western nations to scramble for alternative supply.
For a small-cap miner like Xtract, this presents a generational opportunity.
Enter Morocco’s ‘Antimony Triangle.’
Bounded by the cities of Rabat, Fez, and Khenifra in northern Morocco, the Antimony Triangle is an area rich with historical antimony mining activity. Think abandoned mines from the 1950s, visible high-grade veins at surface, and a network of underground workings that have never been fully exploited.
Xtract, through its 80%-owned venture Wildstone SARL, has assembled a portfolio of 24 exploration licences covering approximately 380 square kilometres across this region. The licences sit within the Fez-Meknes and Beni Mellal-Khenifra directorates — areas that have seen limited modern exploration despite their obvious geological potential.
The Morocco story has moved fast. On 26 February 2025, the company announced it had acquired a 50% stake in Wildstone SARL. By 15 July that stake had jumped to 80%.
Why the rapid escalation? The Moroccan partners were impressed. Xtract committed to spend $900,000 over three years (the minimum required spend on the original licences), then added another $300,000 commitment after Wildstone acquired four additional licences in May 2025.
The Moroccan partners saw Xtract’s technical and financial commitment and granted the full 80% equity ahead of schedule.
Translation: they wanted skin in the game, and they wanted it fast.
The real catalyst came on 16 September when Xtract announced the acquisition of the Amghas Licences — two exploration permits covering 32 square kilometres in Khenifra Province.
Amghas is a former producing mine that operated until the late 1950s. Multiple high-grade antimony sulphide veins are visible at surface and in underground workings. Historic miners only extracted the ultra-high-grade material (>40% antimony) (they hand-sorted ore and ignored lower grade disseminated mineralisation in the wallrock).
That’s the opportunity. Modern processing techniques can extract value from material the old-timers left behind. And structural mapping has identified vein systems extending kilometres beyond the historic mine workings, connecting to other historical sites along strike.
Xtract is now moving to reinstate the mining licence at Amghas. A baseline environmental study and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) have been initiated. The company plans to establish a Mineral Resource estimate and publish it publicly — a critical step toward production.
And the joint venture agreement isn’t just about exploration — it’s designed for rapid monetisation through a dual-track strategy:
Small-Scale Mining (Near-Term)
Capital requirement: $200,000 (funded by Xtract)
Xtract recovers capital via 75% of free cashflow
Once repaid, Xtract gets 60% of all profits
Uses existing contractors and basic processing equipment already common in Morocco
Larger-Scale Development
Criteria: Minimum 5-year mine life, 150,000 tonnes annual throughput
Required economics: Payback under 18 months, ROI above 20%
Xtract funds 100% of the estimated plant construction
For the first 18 months (or until capital is repaid), Xtract receives 60% of cashflow with the balance split 70/30
After 18 months, profit-sharing shifts to 80% Xtract, 20% to Moroccan partners
This structure means Xtract can generate cashflow from small-scale operations while simultaneously exploring for larger resources.
The company has completed a 90-day reconnaissance programme across all Wildstone licences. The team confirmed widespread antimony mineralisation, active and historic small-scale mining, and completed ground magnetic orientation surveys to establish geophysical signatures for antimony targets.
The exploration team now consists of seven people (including newly appointed Moroccan geologists with antimony expertise), soon to be joined by a mining engineer.
Part of the fundraise is noted to be explicitly:
‘Exploration will continue while Government approval is obtained to redevelop the Amghas mine and construct a floatation plant.’
The next six months will be telling. If Xtract can publish a resource estimate at Amghas, secure mining licence reinstatement, and demonstrate production capability, Morocco could emerge as a legitimate new antimony supply source at exactly the moment the world needs it most.
For investors willing to stomach early-stage risk, the Antimony Triangle might just be the most interesting metal story nobody’s talking about.
Western Foreland & side shows
It’s also worth mentioning the Western Foreland copper project in Northwestern Zambia, after its successful Phase 1 exploration campaign.
The company has systematically advanced its understanding of this 173,586 hectare land package across five licences, establishing a solid foundation for what promises to be an intensive Phase 2 drilling programme in the coming months.
The Phase 1 work completed in 2024 has proven transformative. Three strategic diamond drillholes totalling 529 metres on licence 29123-HQ-LEL, combined with extensive surface mapping, successfully delineated the lithological and structural architecture underlying the licences.
Critically, this work identified several prospective horizons capable of hosting redox fronts — the geological sweet spots where high-grade, Kamoa-style copper mineralisation occurs.
These redox boundaries, situated between oxidised and reducing strata, represent the primary exploration targets that have yielded spectacular results at Ivanhoe Mines’ Kamoa-Kakula complex just 100 kilometres along strike in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
With Ivanhoe having now discovered 48 million tonnes of copper in that district, the geological analogy provides reasonable evidence for the Western Foreland’s potential.
Equally significant was the identification of eight distinct stream-sediment copper anomalies across four adjoining licences within the Fold & Thrust Belt domain.
These anomalies suggest potential for bulk-tonnage, Kolwezi-style copper deposits (a different but equally valuable mineralisation style).
The convergence of two distinct copper deposit models within Xtract’s licence package substantially de-risks the exploration thesis and provides multiple pathways to discovery.
The company will report on Phase 2 exploration in 2026, which will involve detailed ground electromagnetic and magnetic surveys along selected profiles, followed by targeted diamond drilling on the most prospective redox boundaries and anomalies identified during Phase 1.
Keep an eye out for news.
Other assets include:
Dump Material Purchase: $300,000 agreement to purchase and test Copperbelt dump material (valued at US$1.15/tonne).
Chilibwe Joint Venture: 27,527ha licence currently in legal dispute; contingent 25% interest opportunity once resolved.
Kakuyu Cu-Co Project: Small-scale mining licence near Mumbwa with historic open pit; ongoing assessment for future operations.
These three may have value in the future but at present are not core to the investment case.
The Wildcard
The word ‘Bushranger,’ works to activate investor PTSD like certain codewords might on a Russian sleeper agent.
Nevertheless, it’s worth revisiting this asset.
Xtract’s market cap, even after the recovery, is less than £10 million. And Bushranger is now worth far more than this. Better, it’s likely on somebody’s shopping list.
Bushranger sits in a rare sweet spot, both in terms of where it sits geographically and geologically.
You’ve got 1.3 million tonnes of contained copper - equivalent split between two discovered porphyry centres — the Racecourse Prospect (512Mt @ 0.22% CuEq) and the Ascot Prospect (87Mt @ 0.22% CuEq) just 1km to the south.
Optimal Mining Solutions ran the numbers in late 2023 using Deswick Pseudoflow and concluded the project could generate ‘significant free cash flows’ at 20Mtpa or greater mining rates, at copper prices of $10,000/t and above. With copper now trading north of $13,000, that’s a 30% price cushion that transforms this from marginal to get it before someone else does.
The location alone makes this a target. The Lachlan Fold Belt is home to Cadia-Ridgeway (3.5Bt @ 0.26% Cu & 0.4g/t Au), North Parkes (597Mt @ 0.58% Cu & 0.2g/t Au) and a string of world-class deposits.
Excellent infrastructure.
Proven mining district.
New South Wales regulatory environment.
When Alkane Resources discovered their Boda deposit in 2019 (624Mt @ 0.51g/t AuEq), it proved the belt is still yielding major discoveries. Xtract did the same with Ascot in 2021. For a major looking to deploy capital, you’re buying into a demonstrated mining province where the geological model is understood and the infrastructure already exists.
Better year, the NovaCell coarse particle flotation breakthrough.
Altrius Consulting recently did a two-stage review of pre-concentration options and tested multiple technologies (pre-screening, dense media separation and gravity separation). NovaCell™ demolished them all. The results were stunning:
78% of copper recovered into only 5% of the mass, upgrading to a 2.8% Cu pre-concentrate.
That’s 30% better copper recovery than conventional flotation.
The Optimal Mining Study looked at 5Mtpa, 20Mtpa, and 25Mtpa scenarios. They concluded 20Mtpa was the sweet spot. With NovaCell pre-concentration, you’re essentially processing what would have been a 20Mtpa operation through what might be closer to a 1Mtpa final processing plant.
The study explicitly noted ‘considerable upside possible through optimisation of plant capacity, capital costs, operating costs and metallurgical recoveries, along with potential incorporation of ore pre-concentration methods.’ Well, they’ve now proven the pre-concentration works.
The metallurgy itself is robust. The scoping study showed 89-90% copper recovery consistently — that’s excellent for a porphyry copper-gold system. The copper occurs as chalcopyrite, finely disseminated, associated with pyrite and pyrrhotite. Initial rougher flotation hit 92-96% Cu recovery into concentrate grading 5-6% Cu. Cleaner flotation achieved 12-27% Cu grades with 81-92% recovery. Gold recovery runs 35-55% to concentrate with grades of 0.30-5.4 g/t Au.
This is all based on extensive test work across multiple drill holes (BRDD21-036, BRDD22-053, BRDD21-022) covering the resource variability.
Then there’s the high-grade zone. Buried in the resource is 191Mt @ 0.33% CuEq at a 0.2% CuEq cut-off. That’s 50% higher grade than the overall resource. For mine planning, that’s your starter pit — the high-margin ore that generates early cashflow to fund the rest of the operation.
You could easily envision a staged development: start with the 191Mt high-grade zone, prove the operation, then expand into the larger 512Mt Racecourse resource.
Xtract has completed over 35,000m of diamond core drilling across two phases since acquisition. That’s serious money already spent de-risking the geology. The drilling didn’t just expand Racecourse, it discovered an entirely new porphyry system at Ascot.
You’ve got two porphyry centres 1km apart in the same geological system and the project is described as ‘geologically open in most directions’ with ‘several nearby untested exploration targets for the identification of a cluster of similar resources.’
So a buyer is not buying a single deposit. They’re buying a mineralised system with proven district-scale potential. The Macquarie Arc in the Lachlan Fold Belt formed 450-380 million years ago, and these porphyry copper-gold systems tend to cluster.
Cadia has multiple deposits. North Parkes has multiple deposits. Xtract has already found two.
What if there are three more? What if Ascot, currently at 87Mt, grows to 200Mt with another drill program? For a major, that exploration upside represents production growth potential beyond the initial mine plan.
The financial setup is textbook acquisition target. The November 2023 study showed NPV positive at $10,000/t copper. They haven’t published an updated study at $13,000+ copper prices yet — Bird said they’d ‘rework financial and technical plans to re-assess the break-even copper price’ once test results came in. The NovaCell results came in positive.
We’re still waiting on that updated financial model.
Here’s what that likely means: Xtract is building the data room.
At 20Mtpa mining rate over a ~25-30 year mine life, assuming 89% recovery with typical mining dilution and recovery factors, you’re looking at roughly >30,000 tonnes of copper production annually.
This will sell for substantially more than the market cap.
It’s shovel-ready in Australia, in the middle of a copper supply crisis, with 35,000m of drilling done, positive economics proven, metallurgy de-risked, and a clear 25-30 year production profile.
You could have this in production within 3-5 years versus spending 10+ years and millions trying to discover and prove up something equivalent.
How do I know a sale is being worked on?
If it weren’t, we’d have an RNS on building a third mine.
The bottom line
Xtract has:
£2.2m+ cash after recent raise, with $5.675m more due from Manica asset sale through 2027-2028.
Silverking JV targeting 2026 copper production with exceptional drill results (3-6% copper grades vs 0.5% industry average).
Copper, silver and antimony at record highs creating a perfect timing window for rapid mine development and commissioning.
Morocco antimony portfolio spans 380km² in historic Antimony Triangle as China restricts exports and prices go parabolic.
Amghas mine reinstatement could generate near-term cashflow via small-scale mining ($200k capex) while developing larger operation.
Western Foreland (173,586 hectares) targets Kamoa-style copper with Phase 2 drilling upcoming in proven geological corridor.
Bushranger copper project (1.3m tonnes contained metal) now economic at current prices with NovaCell breakthrough improving recoveries 30%.
Bushranger worth more than entire £10 million market cap and likely sale candidate given shovel-ready status in tier-1 jurisdiction.
Multiple revenue streams de-risk execution: three potential mines across two continents in copper/silver/antimony.
Aggressive 2026 timeline requires flawless execution but captures commodity cycle at peak with proven management team.
It’s cheap.
For now.