AUZ adds five drill targets to “one of the highest grade scandium projects in the world”

Our Investment Australian Mines (ASX: AUZ) now has five NEW drill targets at its scandium project in NSW.

AUZ's project is already one of the highest grade scandium projects in the world.

It also happens to sit right next door and on the same geological structure as $2.7BN capped SRL's scandium project.

That's the project that received US$400M funding commitment from the US government last month to help develop its project.

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AUZ’s project has a resource that is higher grade relative to SRL - al-beit smaller in terms of size.

Here is how the projects rank against one another:

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Today, AUZ identified five priority targets which will be included in AUZ’s upcoming drill program to drill out (and hopefully) extend AUZ’s resource.

Here is a look at the planned drilling areas:

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Exploration isn’t necessarily a big part of why we Invested in AUZ - because its project is already well advanced.

But IF AUZ can make new discoveries and grow its resource, the comparisons to SRL’s deposit could start to get stronger - especially if its sitting on the same geology as SRL’s deposit.

AUZ expects drilling to start as soon as final approvals come in - so we wont have to wait too long to find out if thats the case either…

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The 9 reasons we are Invested in AUZ

1. AUZ has one of the highest-grade scandium resources in the Western world
2. AUZ’s neighbour has 80x’ed in the last 18 months
3. AUZ’s neighbour has an offtake option with Lockheed Martin and a US$400M loan commitment from the US government
4. AUZ’s project has a scoping study with an NPV of up to US$2BN
5. Scandium is a critical mineral dominated by China who has export controls in place
6. Scandium is used in AI data centres (the biggest driver of demand)
7. Scandium also has military applications
8. We think AUZ’s asset is suited to a US listing or M&A
9. AUZ went to a ~$235M market cap before on one of its other projects
10. We also like AUZ’s gold project too

There is also a demand side story with $95BN capped US listed Bloom Energy that could see itself requiring more than the current global scandium supply in coming years.

And it needs to find non Chinese sourced supply, which is why we have backed AUZ and the Flemington Project, you can find out more in our initiation article:

We covered the full AUZ story in our launch note: Our Latest Investment is Australian Mines Ltd (ASX: AUZ)

What else do want to see AUZ deliver?

Progress the scandium project through to development

We want to see AUZ progress its scandium project through to being development ready.

The next major catalyst being a Pre Feasibility Study (PFS)

Here are the milestones we are tracking:

✅ PFS formally commenced and fast-tracked (May 2026)

🔄 Mine optimisation, metallurgical testwork, infrastructure

🔄 Assessment of 180tpa scale-up case

🔲 PFS completed (~Q1/Q2 2027)

Commercial progress for scandium asset

We also want to see AUZ execute the SRL playbook and convert:

🔄 Offtake / strategic partner discussions

🔲 First offtake, MOU or government-linked funding

Corporate - progress toward a US facing listing

This one is all about building up the company to get listed on a major US stock exchange OR become a takeover target for one of the big US listed critical minerals players (OR SPAC’s).

This one is out of AUZ’s control to some extent but we would like to see some progress toward a listing.