The Capital Brief | Featuring LM8 ECH AGR IPT & Stocks on Location

With February under way, the Australian share market is currently up more than 1 per cent year-to-date, with the usual cocktail of good and bad news pushing and pulling at benchmark indexes.

The rising commodity-price story hit a speed bump in late January, with both gold and silver suffering their biggest one-day slides in years, with gold falling 12 per cent to back below US$5,000 an ounce, and silver plunging 36 per cent in one trading day – for the mathematically minded, that is a data point multiple standard deviations from the mean, signifying a rare event in commodity markets.

On the economic front, Australia’s annual inflation rate unexpectedly rose to 3.8 per cent in the 12 months to December 2025, up from 3.4 per cent in November, driven by higher housing (up 5.5 per cent), recreation (up 4.4 per cent), and electricity costs (power costs soared 21.5 per cent over the year.)

The hotter-than-expected result, which kept annual underlying inflation above the RBA’s 2 per cent–3 per cent target range, gave the RBA another reason to tighten Australian monetary policy, which they subsequently did, with the Bank’s benchmark cash rate raised by 25 basis points (0.25 per cent), to 3.85 per cent.

The Australian dollar pushed to a three-year high, going up through 70 US cents, as domestic interest rates climbed..

Given the recent strength of commodity prices, four of Australia’s emerging resources stocks have issued upbeat announcements and quarterly reports over January through early February 2026 period.

Stocks on Location Royal Randwick featuring Lunnon Metals, Echelon Resources, Aguia Resources, and Impact Minerals.

March 2026 marks a milestone for The Capital Network with the fourth event in its Stocks on Location series set to take place late in that month.

Here, we have partnered with Foley Durham Executive Search & Board Advisory to create an exclusive events management business designed to connect investors, executives, and CEOs in some of Australia’s most iconic settings.

Stocks on Location: On Track will deliver a thrilling and unique afternoon combining live horse racing, ASX investor presentations, high-level networking with guests dressed in fashions on the field.

It will be complemented by lunch and beverages amidst the vibrant atmosphere of Sydney’s Autumn Carnival.

This exclusive investor luncheon will be held at The Chairman’s Club Royal Randwick on Wednesday 25 March between 12:15pm and 5:15pm.

Invitations to investors will be circulated next week for expressions of interest to attend.

Lady Herial to usher Lunnon Metals into gold producer ranks

Small cap resources company Lunnon Metals (ASX:LM8) has recently materially progressed its development plans. Following the release last month of the feasibility study into its Lady Herial gold project in Western Australia, the company’s board has greenlit the final investment decision (FID), enabling contracts to be signed and clearing/open-pit mining to commence.

Discovered in February 2024, Lady Herial is the company’s first gold discovery at its Kambalda Gold & Nickel Project (KGNP). It is a near-surface, high-grade gold deposit, hosted on granted mining leases. Lunnon Metals’ tenements sit at the very heart of the +16Moz St Ives gold camp, now owned and operated by the company’s major shareholder, Gold Fields Ltd, and a camp that has produced over 300kozpa for the last 32 years running.

The Lady Herial feasibility study envisages a short-life, high-grade, open-pit opportunity in which the deposit can be mined and processed within 8-10 months, generating operating free cash flow in the range of $40-48 million, based on an A$ gold price ranging between A$6,250–7,000/oz. To put that range in context, the ‘spot’ A$ gold recently soared above A$7,500/oz, before settling back to A$7,000/oz.

The initial proved ore reserve at Lady Herial sits at 268,250 tonnes at a grade of 1.89 grams per tonne (g/t) of gold, containing 16,270 ounces (14,806 ounces recovered).

The project is set for speedy development, with ore to be processed at the Lefroy gold plant at Gold Fields’ St Ives operation, located just seven kilometres away along an existing haulage route, offering an efficient processing solution for the project.

The modelled All-in-Cost is $2,354/oz of gold produced, which underpins the robust economics, as does the fact that 70 per cent of the potential free cash will flow Lunnon Metals’ way under the Ore Purchase Agreement (OPA) executed with Gold Fields Ltd, (30.15 % shareholder).

Production from Lady Herial will be the first production from the mineral-rich Foster belt, gold or nickel, in more than 30 years. Despite its historical significance as a nickel-producing area, the Foster belt is considered under-explored for gold, given Lunnon Metals’ lease package makes up around 10% of the total St Ives gold camp.

Lunnon Metals also updated the market on the progress of exploration at two of the company’s high-ranking targets at its St Ives property, namely the Hustler and the Plentiful prospects, with Hustler in-fill drilling results in particular further defining a prospective gold zone that could be a walk up target to follow Lady Herial in the mine schedule.

Echelon pushes start on new gas supply in Northern Territory

Wellington-based Echelon Resources (ASX:ECH) and its joint venture partners have accelerated the timeframe for gas production from the Mereenie and Palm Valley Joint Ventures (JVs), with the partners signing a non-binding, conditional Letter of Intent (LOI) with the Northern Territory’s Power and Water Corporation (PWC) for the sale of gas from the Mereenie and Palm Valley fields through to the end of 2034.

These new long-term gas sales arrangements cover firm volumes of up to 22.5 petajoule (PJ) (net to Echelon Group) from existing production. In support of these arrangements four new wells, two each in Palm Valley and Mereenie, targeting up to 13.3 PJ of additional supply, are in advanced planning stage with drilling expected to commence mid-2026.

The abovementioned intended supply arrangements are designed to quickly deliver significant new gas volumes to the Northern Territory, while also enhancing gas supply security for customers throughout the region.

The parties intend to formalise and execute binding gas sale agreements (GSAs) by 20 February 2026.

Mereenie permits OL4/OL5 are owned by Central Petroleum (25 per cent equity and operator status), Echelon (42.5 per cent), Horizon Oil (25 per cent), and Cue Energy (7.5 per cent); while Central Petroleum holds 50 per cent equity in and operates Palm Valley permit OL3, in partnership with Echelon (35 per cent) and Cue Energy (15 per cent).

Echelon’s portfolio comprises a spread of wholly and partly owned onshore and offshore oil and gas assets, located in Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia. These stakes are held either directly by the company, or indirectly through its circa 50 per cent stake in Cue Energy (ASX:CUE).

Aguia Resources adding second commodity to its menu

Gold producer Aguia Resources (ASX:AGR) is poised to add another string to its bow, having advanced the Tres Estrades phosphate project in Brazil toward production, which is slated to begin in March. On that timetable, initial sales of the company’s flagship organic ‘Pampafos’ product are anticipated by mid-2026.

This would add to the revenue from Aguia’s Santa Barbara Gold Project in Colombia, a high-grade underground project that commenced production in January 2025.

Aguia recently completed a $5 million placement that will fund the advancement of both projects.

The company has encountered difficulties with the narrow-vein system it mines at Santa Barbara, and reported to shareholders in December that a comprehensive audit of the project it commissioned had resulted in notable improvements in operational performance, a significant reduction in headcount and strategic adjustments to mining and metallurgical processing, flowing through in turn to improved grade quality and increased gold recovery.

After restructuring, recovery improved by 45 per cent over the July-November average. Gold recoveries in December were 70 per cent: Aguia next intends to push recoveries through the 80 per cent level, then consolidate that improvement into more meaningful sales revenue and cash flow.

The Tres Estades phosphate project is located in the rich agricultural heartland of Rio Grande do Sul in southernmost Brazil. Tres Estades has a resource of 105 million tonnes of phosphate, of which the current project will only consume 5 million tonnes.

Aguia plans to produce more than 160,000 tonnes of the ‘Pampafos’ product a year, by 2027. The company says recent field trials showed Pampafos matches the performance of high-quality imported fertilisers, but at a fraction of their prices.

The product has been approved by Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture, and Aguia expects to receive its final operating licence from the Rio Grande do Sul state environmental authority in February or March, paving the way for initial mining and stockpiling.

The company is confident that the market for the product is strong. Seven letters of intent (LOIs) have been secured from customers in Rio Grande do Sul and Uruguay for 54,000 tonnes of Pampafos – an amount that is expected to rapidly increase as the company approaches first product, due to local demand.

Impact Minerals progresses HPA strategy, revives Broken Hill exploration

In a busy start to the year, Impact Minerals (ASX:IPT) has reported across the range of its multi-commodity portfolio, led by its Lake Hope high-purity alumina (HPA) project in Western Australia, where it hopes to produce 99.99 per cent pure HPA.

A constituent of the ‘critical mineral list’ in Australia, the European Union and the USA, HPA is used in lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles (EVs), micro-LED lighting and optical sensors, and semi-conductor manufacturing, solar battery storage and consumer electronics, and scratch-resistant synthetic sapphire, which is used in watches and smartphone camera glass. All of these are high-technology items with rising consumer demand, particularly in China, North America and Europe.

Impact Minerals has advanced technical and development work at Lake Hope, and shareholders are gaining clarity on potential downstream commercialisation initiatives. The company’s pre-feasibility study (PFS) on Lake Hope, released in June 2025, outlined a low-cost, 33-year initial mine-life producing 10,000 tonnes a year of HPA, with a post-tax net present value (NPV10) of $1.1 billion.

While that will be the flagship project, the company is also exploring the prospect of its half-owned subsidiary Alluminous P/L commercialising the patented HiPurA technology to produce 4N–5N HPA (4N is 99.99 per cent purity, 5N is 99.999 per cent) for batteries and advanced materials. Using a modular solvent extraction process that avoids mining, Alluminous aims to accelerate HPA market entry with a pilot plant in Perth.

During the December 2025 quarter, Alluminous signed a technology collaboration agreement with US-based battery innovator C4V to jointly develop and qualify HiPurA HPA for advanced battery applications.

Even better, Lake Hope could also host an additional mining project producing significant by-products in the form of potash and acid (either hydrochloric or sulphuric). During the December 2025 quarter, work under a CRC-P grant from the Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) – which provide funding for short-term research collaborations – yielded successful membrane crystallisation of potash generated from Stage 1 of Impact’s patented HPA process.

Elsewhere, Impact Minerals has renewed its focus on the Broken Hill area in western New South Wales, where it has bought a 100 per cent interest in a tenement covering most of the historic Huonville gold district, expanding its ground holding to 1,800 square kilometres. This further consolidates the company’s position surrounding the giant Broken Hill lead-zinc-silver deposit, one of the world’s most significant mines containing more than 500 million tonnes of massive sulphide mineralisation. Its wholly owned tenements are prospective for three different styles of mineralisation: Broken Hill-style silver-lead-zinc mineralisation; copper and platinum group metals (PGMs).

Impact Minerals has also updated the market on the Commonwealth gold–silver project in New South Wales, located in the Lachlan copper-gold belt. Joint venture partner Kuniko Limited, which can earn up to 70 per cent in the project, has completed a substantial work program at the project.