Drilling
Three programs, three different questions
JICA, 1988. The drilling arm of a three-phase Japanese government program that screened 30,000 km² and 25 sectors before choosing where to put a rig. 24 diamond holes for 1,204.8 m, average depth 50 m, a rig limit rather than a geological decision. Tundulu got the largest survey area of the three Chilwa carbonatite sectors: 7.5 km² and 243 ore samples, against 3.2 km² at Songwe Hill and 0.8 km² with no drilling at Kangankunde.
Optichem / Mota-Engil, 2014–15. 55 holes for 7,007 m, averaging 127 m, the deepest TU040 at 221.4 m. That stood as the deepest hole ever drilled at Tundulu until 2026. This crew was looking for phosphate. The rare earth intercepts are, in a real sense, a by-product of someone else's search.
AuKing, 2026. The first program designed to test the REE system on its own terms, and the first to go deep.
Where the historical collars come from. DY6 Metals published the full collar survey for every historical hole, together with the 2014 assay intercepts, in an ASX release on 27 May 2024. The holes on this map are those surveyed positions, not a compilation from figures. The survey lists 96 holes for 9,046 m: 55 from the 2014 campaign, 27 JICA holes, and 14 older Geological Survey holes whose operator and date the source does not state. JICA’s own published total of 1,204.8 m covers 24 of its 27 holes.
24 holes ended in mineralisation. Eight of those were still above 2 % TREO when they stopped. Use the "Flag holes open at depth" control on the map to pick them out.
Now it is the whole hill
On 9 October AuKing reported assays from nine more holes. The grades sit in the same band as the first two batches. What changed is that mineralisation is no longer confined to one line across the hill: it turns up on the western flank, out to the north-east towards the carbonatite core, and to the south-west beyond the footprint the company had interpreted.
Western flank, drilled towards the core
59 m @ 1.51 %
26NH001, from 13 m, including 24 m @ 2.02 % from 49 m, 17 m @ 2.46 % from 50 m and 5 m @ 2.96 % from 55 m.
This sits beside 26NH011, the hole drilled due west in September. Two holes on the same flank, both mineralised over tens of metres, make that side of the hill a zone rather than a single lucky intercept.
North-east, closest to the core
47 m @ 1.50 %
26NH006, from 26 m, including 14 m @ 2.00 % and 6 m @ 3.03 %, both from 40 m. A second zone lower in the hole returned 9 m @ 1.53 % from 128 m, including 4 m @ 3.33 %.
26NH006 and 26NH027 are the two holes closest to AuKing’s interpreted carbonatite core, 195 m and 169 m from it on the position measured from the company’s own plan. Both are mineralised, and 26NH027 is described as broad and continuous from surface, though no intervals were quoted for it.
South-west, outside the interpreted footprint
36 m @ 1.50 %
26NH030, from 85 m, including 19 m @ 2.04 % from 86 m and 6 m @ 3.14 % from 86 m.
AuKing describes this and 26NH009 as step-out holes that found high-grade mineralisation beyond the previously interpreted carbonatite footprint. The managing director singled out 26NH030, on the basis that it puts grade at depth well away from Nathace Hill and suggests the airborne magnetic anomalies are marking mineralisation rather than just host rock.
Two things this batch adds that grade alone does not. The first is shape: the holes carrying published intervals now spread about 470 m east to west and 400 m north to south, with 570 m between the two furthest apart. The second is depth. 26NH006’s lower zone at 128 m, and 26NH030’s from 85 m in a hole dipping 75 degrees, are the deepest published intervals so far, and the company says they give it confidence that the deeper holes will show continuous mineralisation past 400 to 500 m. That is the claim the 1,000 m hole is being drilled to test, and its collar is now being planned inside the core area.
What is in this batch and what is not. Per-metre tables were published for nine holes: 26NH001, 26NH002, 26NH006, 26NH007, 26NH009, 26NH012, 26NH027, 26NH030 and 26NH031. Headline intervals were quoted for only three of them. The tables are images in the release rather than text, so the per-metre values are not reproduced on this map; the intervals shown are the company’s own. Sixteen of the 31 RC holes have now reported.
The system got wider
On 21 September AuKing reported a second assay batch, from five holes on the western flank of Nathace Hill. The grades match the first batch. What changed is the size of the thing.
Step-out, drilled away from the target
72 m @ 1.51 %
26NH011, from surface, including 50 m @ 2.03 %, 20 m @ 4.26 % and 16 m @ 5.52 % TREO, all of them from surface. That last interval is the highest grade reported at Tundulu so far.
The hole was collared on the western edge and drilled at an azimuth of 270 degrees, due west, pointing away from the known system. It was mineralised from the first metre anyway. A hole aimed away from a deposit that hits regardless is stronger evidence of scale than a hole aimed at it.
Its scissor partner 26NH002, collared three metres away and fired due east, returned 22 m @ 1.50 % TREO from surface, including 8 m @ 3.39 % from 2 m and 8 m @ 2.09 % from 32 m. Those assays cover the first 73 m of a 150 m hole; the rest is still at the laboratory. 26NH003, further north on the same flank, is reported to have hit significant mineralisation at greater depth.
What that does to the footprint
Take the 14 September holes at the eastern end and the 21 September holes at the western end, and mineralisation is now confirmed from surface at both ends of a roughly 400 m east to west section at Nathace Hill. The 9 October assays widened that again, to a footprint of roughly 470 m east to west by 400 m north to south. 26NH011 runs about 41 m westward from its collar, which puts the western edge of known mineralisation near 800,718 mE; 26NH004 sits at 801,111 mE.
Three separate holes are now mineralised from the first metre: 26NH029 in the east, 26NH011 and 26NH002 in the west. Near-surface mineralisation at both ends of a 400 m span is the kind of geometry that decides strip ratios, and it is a better sign for eventual economics than any single high-grade interval.
The priority target is still to report. Between the two ends of the section, 26NH014 returned several mineralised intervals at lower grade, and 26NH001, almost on the line, is still at the laboratory. AuKing’s own priority target is a large central core north of the first batch. Five 2026 holes were drilled into it from its edges, including the two deepest on the project, 26NH032 to 510.6 m and 26NH023 to 400 m, and only one of the five has reported. The deepest holes Tundulu has seen were aimed at its priority target, and their results are still to come.
The western flank also carries less historical drilling than the eastern side, so this is ground that sixty years of previous work largely skipped.
The first assays
On 14 September 2026 AuKing reported assays from the first four RC holes. They validate the historical record and, in places, beat it.
26NH00591 m @ 1.51 % TREO
From 40 m, including 43 m @ 2.00 % from 77 m and 15 m @ 3.40 % from 90 m. Drilled beside historical ground to test whether the old record could be trusted.
26NH02980 m @ 1.54 % TREO
From surface, including 30 m @ 2.00 % from surface, 11 m @ 4.33 % from 2 m, 26 m @ 2.03 % from 53 m and 12 m @ 2.74 % from 56 m. Mineralised from the first metre.
26NH00420 m @ 2.06 % TREO
From 113 m, including 12 m @ 3.24 % from 113 m, and separately 10 m @ 2.86 % from 84 m. This is the twin of historical hole TU071.
26NH014step-out
Collared well south of Nathace to test a magnetic low. Several mineralised intervals, at lower grade, inside the anomaly. No headline intercept was quoted.
Set against the historical best of 41.1 m @ 3.68 % and 30 m @ 4.03 %, these are comparable grades over comparable widths, from holes sited to check the old work rather than to flatter it. Two of the three cored the mineralisation from surface or near it.
The whole record, metre by metre
Annexure B of that release publishes every one-metre sample. Below is the full downhole profile for each of the four holes: TREO grade as bars, the HREE+Y share of the basket as the green trace, and the announced intercepts bracketed down the right edge.
What the profile shows that a highlight box cannot is how the grade is distributed. 26NH029 is mineralised continuously from surface. 26NH005 carries a broad zone through the middle of the hole. 26NH004 has its best rock at the bottom, still going when the hole stopped at 145 m. And the green trace runs opposite to the bars in places: the heavy share tends to peak where TREO does not, which is the apatite signature rather than the carbonatite one.
Heavy rare earths, where they sit
Across the mineralised zones HREE+Y runs to roughly 8 % of TREO, with discrete intervals far above that. 26NH005 returned 8 m @ 16.09 % HREE+Y/TREO from 68 m, 7 m @ 12.75 % from 80 m and 6 m @ 8.88 % from 120 m. 26NH029 returned 42 m @ 11.46 % from 13 m, 4 m @ 9.45 % from 60 m and 12 m @ 8.54 % from 68 m. Over their full intercepts the two holes average 2.92 % and 4.53 % HREE+Y/TREO.
The elevated heavy grades track P₂O₅ across all three holes, which is consistent with the HREE-bearing apatite documented at Tundulu since the 1970s. That is the phosphate co-product and the heavy rare earth story turning out to be the same rock.
One correction. The HREE column printed for 26NH014 in Annexure B does not reconcile with the element data in the same rows; it runs about ten percentage points low. The profile above recomputes it from the reported oxides for that hole only. The other three holes reconcile exactly, as do all eleven announced TREO intercepts.
How the samples were assayed
Worth knowing, because rare earth assays are easy to get wrong. Some REE minerals are refractory, so a partial digestion undercounts them. AuKing used lithium-borate fusion, a total digestion, with preparation at Intertek's Kitwe laboratory in Zambia and the fusion and finish at Intertek Perth by ICP-OES and ICP-MS.
- Certified reference materials (AMIS0356 and AMIS0939) inserted one in every twenty samples, and coarse blanks one in twenty.
- QAQC samples made up 12.5 % of everything submitted, and the Competent Person reports the returns within acceptable limits.
- Continuous 1 m sampling irrespective of lithology, riffle split to 2 to 4 kg, with a documented spear protocol where wet or clay-rich ground defeated the splitter.
- Reported intercepts are downhole lengths. True widths are not yet known, and no top cut or cut-off grade was applied.
What the 2026 rigs found
The hit rate held as the rigs moved away from Nathace. At the 27-hole mark it stood at 26 of 27, and every hole drilled into the Kamilala and Tundulu Hill step-outs came back with carbonatite, including multiple intrusions on both the western and eastern sectors of Tundulu Hill, 800 m east of the historical ground.
Drilling has now delineated carbonatite across three of the six interpreted complexes: Nathace, Kamilala and Tundulu Hill. Makhanga, Namuka and Chigwakwalu have still never been drill-tested. Cumulative logged carbonatite passed 2,000 m at the 27-hole mark and exceeded 2,100 m by the end of the RC phase.
Three things from the first half of the program are worth separating out.
- The old data checks out. The first two holes, 26NH004 and 26NH005, were deliberately collared beside historical holes to test whether the inherited record could be trusted. No previous explorer had kept any RC chips or core, so there was nothing physical to re-log. Mafic dolerite intersections came in within a few metres of the depths previously reported.
- Kamilala delivered on its first test. Two RC holes for 298 m into a target that had never been drilled, sited off the airborne magnetics rather than off historical workings, both intersecting carbonatite. That is the exploration model verifying itself.
- The system is bigger than the old footprint. Carbonatite was logged well west and north-east of Nathace Hill, in ground historical drilling never touched.
Managing Director Paul Williams has framed the striking feature of the early drilling as carbonatite appearing across almost all holes, not just around Nathace, and Tundulu therefore having potential to be a much larger system than first thought.
An early field signal, heavily qualified. A video field update from senior geologist Derek Halford, posted to the company's social media rather than released to the ASX, reported portable XRF readings taken during drilling detecting rare earth elements in quantities of interest at Kamilala and Tundulu Hill.
Portable XRF is a screening tool used at the rig. It is indicative, not quantitative at these levels, and it is not a substitute for laboratory assay. Treat it as a pointer that the newly confirmed carbonatite may carry mineralisation rather than simply being favourable host rock, and nothing more than that.
Switch on the hole-trace layer to see collar azimuth and the surface projection of each angled hole.
Down to 510.6 m
Diamond drilling opened with 26NH032, a hole already drilled by RC to 150 m. The plan was a 150 m diamond tail for 300 m total. Logging kept finding carbonatite past that point, so the hole was extended, and it finished at 510.62 m. That is 210 m beyond plan, on a rig that costs real money per metre and is not drilling another target while it sits there. Paying for those metres is a stronger signal than any wording in a highlights box.
How it finished matters more than how deep it went. Core photographed from roughly 505.2 m to the end of hole shows variably altered carbonatite and carbonatite breccias running to the bottom. The hole was stopped because the program had the data it needed at this stage, not because the geology ran out.
Board approved, not yet drilled
1,000 m
On 15 September 2026 the AuKing board approved planning for a single diamond hole to roughly 1,000 m, to test the system at significantly greater depth. It sits inside the current drilling budget rather than requiring new funding.
For scale: that is nearly double 26NH032, which stopped at 510.62 m with carbonatite still in the core, and it would be the deepest hole ever drilled at Tundulu by a factor of about seven against the 1988 JICA average of 50 m. No collar, no timing and no rig allocation have been published.
Every meaningful grade number in this project's history comes from a shallow hole, and many of those holes stopped while still in mineralisation. 26NH032 is the first to go looking underneath, and it found carbonatite for its entire length without reaching the bottom of the system. The company's own framing shifted accordingly: the surface footprint initially strengthened the district-scale interpretation, and the depth extension now indicates the complex may be significantly larger than previously interpreted. The model grew on both axes at once.
One detail to watch, and to not over-read. Red-orange alteration phases are visible in the core at around 449 m downhole. They remain subject to detailed logging and analytical confirmation. Alteration is not mineralisation, and visual observation is not assay.
Where the samples actually are
The assay pipeline crosses three countries, which is most of the reason it has been slow. The position as at the 17 August 2026 release:
1,270At Intertek Perth, being assayed
4,165Export approved, 7 permits
357Still with the MMRA
CoreSampling started, none reported
The first two RC batches are in Perth with priority processing requested for the first four drillholes. The bulk of the rest is at or in transit to Intertek's sample preparation facility in Zambia, with one permit covering 357 samples still with the Malawi regulator.
Diamond core is logged, photographed and cut lengthways, with half submitted for analysis and half retained in labelled trays. Sampling runs on nominal 1 m intervals, flexing between 0.5 m and 1.5 m to honour geological and mineralisation boundaries, and core stays under company supervision through to AuKing's core processing and storage facility at Zomba. Thompson Drilling is running the diamond rig on NQ-diameter core. None of this is glamorous, and all of it is what a defensible resource estimate is built from.
Best historical intercepts
AuKing cites three headline historical intercepts when describing the project: 41 m at 3.7 % TREO from 8 m, 35 m at 2.7 % TREO from 15 m, and 30 m at 4.03 % TREO from surface. The first and third are JMT-22 and TU014 below. The hole behind the second is not identified in the public summaries. The 2026 assays above now sit alongside these rather than beneath them.
Surface sampling
| Sample | TREO | Detail |
|---|
| 7Y386 | 6.41 % | JICA 1988, Nathace Hill. Highest single surface sample |
| 7Y196 | 6.07 % | JICA 1988, Tundulu Hill east flank, 5.6 % P₂O₅. Highest grade from a hill nobody had drilled |
| TUTR10 | ≤ 3.35 % | Trench, Oct 2024. 63 samples over 83 m; P₂O₅ to 27.5 %; HREO ~13 % of basket |
| Sat-1 | 3.10 % | Kamilala Hill satellite target |
| BC2B | 2.56 % | DY6 reconnaissance, carbonatite |
| 7Y380 | 2.06 % | JICA, carbonatite breccia |
| Tundu-1 | 1.80 % | DY6 reconnaissance, brecciated fenite |
Of 85 rock chips assayed by JICA, 25 came back above 1 % TREO.
The 1989 historical estimate
From that drilling on the eastern slope of Nathace Hill, JICA published a preliminary estimate of about 0.6 Mt at 2.09 % REO across three ore bodies, plus roughly 0.5 Mt at 17.0 % P₂O₅. It is a keyhole number: one hillside, outcropping zones only, a 1 % REO cut-off and an assumed 50 m depth limit, and the report says plainly that it cannot be compared with operating mines. Songwe's equivalent 1988 estimate of 1.4 Mt has since become 21 Mt. The full context, with the scanned pages, is in the JICA 1987 panel.
The 2026 program
31 holesRC, complete 31 Jul 2026
4,300 mRC metres
28 / 31Holes with carbonatite
2,100 m+Cumulative logged carbonatite
510.6 m26NH032, ended in carbonatite
400.4 m26NH023, ended in carbonatite
Both diamond holes were planned to 300 m and both were extended because logging kept finding carbonatite. Core from them is earmarked for metallurgical and mineralogical testwork as well as assay.
Samples travel Malawi to Zambia to Intertek in Perth. Management has publicly acknowledged shareholder frustration at how long that chain has taken, while arguing it has still moved faster than the regional norm. The current position is set out below.
Surveyed collars
Collar positions for the first 21 RC holes were published in the announcement of 2 July 2026 and are plotted here at their surveyed coordinates, converted from WGS 84 UTM Zone 36 South. Holes prefixed 26NH sit in the Nathace Hill area, 26KH at Kamilala. The remaining ten holes of the 31-hole RC program are not yet published at collar level.
Grid is WGS 84 UTM Zone 36 South. Reported depths are downhole; true widths are not yet known. Historical collars are the surveyed positions published by DY6 Metals. Geological outlines on this map remain schematic, compiled from public releases rather than survey data.
JICA 1987
A government survey got here first
Between 1986 and 1988 the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the Metal Mining Agency of Japan ran a three-phase exploration program across southern Malawi: 30,000 km² of ground, 25 target sectors, roughly 1,000 geochemical samples assayed for 60 elements, and drilling of the best targets in the final phases.
It covered the same ground that now carries Kangankunde and Songwe Hill. Its conclusions about Tundulu were reached decades before any current owner held the licence, which makes them useful in a way that company-sponsored work is not.
Tap any excerpt to read it full size.
Four of 25 sectors made the top tier
Combining geology and geochemistry, Phase 1 placed only four sectors in its highest category, those having high potentiality of the carbonatite deposit: Tundulu, Songwe, Chilwa Island and Kangankunde. Tundulu was listed first, and was one of only four sectors where massive, large-scale carbonatite was confirmed at all.
On geochemistry, Tundulu outranked Kangankunde
Fifteen elements were chosen as carbonatite pathfinders: Ce, Dy, Eu, La, Lu, Nd, Nb, P, Sm, Sr, Tb, Th, U, Yb and Y. Three sectors returned anomalous values in every one of the fifteen: Tundulu, Songwe and Chilwa Island. Kangankunde sat a tier below, anomalous in some elements but not all.
Tundulu ran heavy where Kangankunde ran light
The detail matters more than the ranking. Tundulu's strong anomalies were dysprosium, terbium, yttrium and niobium: three high-value heavy rare earths plus a critical mineral in its own right. Kangankunde's strong anomalies were cerium, lanthanum, strontium and uranium, the light-REE signature that defines its monazite orebody today.
The heavy-leaning character now reported at Tundulu was measured by an independent government survey in 1987, well before anyone had a reason to want that answer.
The two were benchmarked against each other
Each sector chapter independently described the other as its peer. The Tundulu chapter assessed its carbonatites as being as large as those at Chilwa Island and Kangankunde. The Kangankunde chapter described its own carbonatite as one of the large deposits alongside Tundulu. In 1987 these were treated as equivalent-class systems.
Phase 1 said: drill Tundulu
The closing recommendation was explicit. Geological, geochemical, radiometric and trench surveys plus drilling, to confirm the dimensions, grades and underground conditions of the carbonatites at the promising sectors, Tundulu among them.
Then it drilled, and invoked Bayan Obo
Phases 2 and 3 drilled three of the four top sectors: Songwe, Tundulu and Chilwa Island. Kangankunde was the exception. It was never drilled by JICA.
AuKing reproduced the Phase 2 survey table itself on 15 September 2026, and the split is stark. Tundulu: 7.5 km² surveyed, 500 m of trenching, 24 holes for 1,204.8 m, 243 ore samples. Songwe: 3.2 km², 11 holes for 558.95 m. Kangankunde: 0.8 km², no holes at all. Tundulu took more than two thirds of the drilling across the whole program.
At Tundulu, drilling on the eastern slope of Nathace Hill defined rare earth and phosphorus zones, and the 1989 consolidated report published a preliminary estimate of about 0.6 Mt at 2.09 % REO across three ore bodies, one of them above 3 % REO. The report's own comparison was to Bayan Obo, still the largest rare earth mine in the world.
The tonnage is small by construction, and the report says so. It covered one slope of one hill, assumed mineralisation extends just 50 m below surface, and counted only outcropping zones above a 1 % REO cut-off. On those assumptions, the report cautions, the figure cannot be compared with real mines.
How conservative that method was sits one valley over. Songwe's equivalent 1988 estimate was 1.4 Mt at 1.74 % REO. Modern drilling has since turned that same hill into a 21 Mt measured and indicated resource. Tundulu, which JICA graded higher than Songwe, has still never had a modern resource published.
A phosphate co-product above Araxá
The same drilling defined a separate phosphorus estimate of about half a million tonnes at 17.0 % P₂O₅, which the report benchmarks above Brazil's Araxá mine at 15.01 %, and describes as having high potential to be exploited. Its final recommendation for Tundulu was further detailed drilling to define the extent, reserve and grade of the mineralised zones, aiming at increasing the reserves. That is close to a description of the program running now.
How the survey saw today's three projects
| JICA 1986–88 | Tundulu | Kangankunde | Songwe |
|---|
| Evaluation | Top tier,
listed first | Top tier | Top tier |
| Geochemistry | All 15
elements | Some only | All 15
elements |
Strong
anomalies | Dy, Tb, Y, Nb
(heavy) | Ce, La, Sr, U
(light) | Dy, Eu, Sm,
Tb, Yb, Y, Th, U |
| JICA drilling | Drilled | Not drilled | Drilled |
Estimate
published | 0.6 Mt
@ 2.09 % REO | None | 1.4 Mt
@ 1.74 % REO |
| Status 2026 | Maiden REE
drilling | 261 Mt,
building | 21 Mt M+I,
DFS done |
The first five rows paraphrase the 1987 and 1989 reports. The last row is publicly disclosed project status as at September 2026 and does not come from them.
The pattern is hard to miss. The program's preliminary numbers badly understated Songwe, whose 1.4 Mt keyhole estimate became 21 Mt. Kangankunde, which it could not drill at all, became 261 Mt. Tundulu is the sector it listed first, graded above Songwe, and compared with Bayan Obo, and it is the one whose modern drilling chapter is being written right now.
Cautionary statement. The above summarises the Report on the Cooperative Mineral Exploration in the Chilwa Alkaline Area, Republic of Malawi, Phase 1 (March 1987) and Consolidated Report (March 1989), by the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the Metal Mining Agency of Japan.
These are historical exploration results and historical estimates of mineralisation. They predate the JORC Code 2012 and were not prepared in accordance with it. A Competent Person has not done sufficient work to classify them as Mineral Resources or Ore Reserves under JORC, they must not be relied upon as such, and it is uncertain that further exploration will result in the estimation of Mineral Resources.
The 1989 estimates were expressly preliminary: mineralisation was assumed to extend only 50 m below surface, a 1 % REO cut-off was applied to outcropping zones on one slope of Nathace Hill, and the report itself states the figures cannot be compared with operating mines. The Bayan Obo and Araxá comparisons are statements by the 1989 report's authors, not by AuKing or by this page. Geochemical anomalies are statistical classifications relative to the survey's own sample population, not measurements of grade. Kangankunde and Songwe Hill are owned by unrelated third parties.
Sources. The reports are public via the Japanese government's JICA repository: Phase 1 part 1 and part 2, the Phase 2 report of March 1988 that AuKing cites, and the consolidated report. Excerpt images are unaltered scans reproduced for reference.
Company
The company
AuKing Mining Limited is a small ASX-listed explorer, managed by Paul Williams and based in Brisbane. Tundulu became its flagship in April 2026 and it has been buying ground around it ever since.
ASX: AKNAuKing Mining Limited
~2.13 bnShares on issue, Jul 2026
A$5.0 mPlacement, oversubscribed
A$0.025Placement price, Jul 2026
Market capitalisation has moved with the share price through 2026, at roughly A$60 m around the July raise and near A$42 m at 1.8 c in August. Check a live quote rather than relying on any figure on this page.
Capital structure
- July 2026 placement: 200,000,000 shares at A$0.025 raising A$5 m, oversubscribed, plus 35,000,000 options at A$0.006 expiring 31 December 2026 issued to GBA Capital and Whairo Capital.
- 2,311,190 shares issued at A$0.025 to settle road maintenance fees at Tundulu under the Mkaka service contract.
- Issued capital of roughly 2.134 billion ordinary shares after those issues, plus unquoted options and performance rights.
- An EGM on 19 October 2026 in Brisbane seeks ratification of the placement shares, the service-contract shares and the broker options.
- This is a pre-resource explorer funding itself with equity. Further dilution should be the base case, not the exception.
The wider portfolio
AuKing has assembled a Malawi critical minerals position rather than a single asset, with Tusker Minerals on the other side of the whole lot. Two separate agreements, announced two weeks apart, do the work:
- Machinga, 4 August. A$750,000 cash and A$750,000 in shares on completion, A$1.25 m cash within 12 months, and A$1.25 m in performance shares on a 10 Mt at 0.65 % TREO resource within three years. Roughly A$4 m in total.
- Green Exploration, 18 August. The structure changed: rather than buying the Machinga licences, AuKing agreed to buy the Malawian company that holds them. Consideration is a further A$50,000 cash and A$250,000 in shares on completion, 10 million shares at A$0.025 under 12 months of escrow, A$500,000 in performance shares tied to Ngala Hill drilling, and another A$50,000 cash within three months. About A$850,000 on top of the Machinga terms, for a combined figure near A$4.85 m.
Green Exploration also holds the Tundulu licence, so the same transaction settles title to the flagship. Three of its four licences sit in southern Malawi within reach of the Zomba base: one field team, one logistics chain and one set of government relationships now cover four projects instead of one. That is the commercial argument, and it is a reasonable one for a company this size.
What comes with it
- Machinga. Heavy rare earths and niobium, 200.4 km². Covered below.
- Salambidwe. EL 0518, 24.9 km², on the Mozambique border. A ring complex roughly 6 km across of syenites and nepheline-syenites with an agglomeratic core, so a different style again to both Tundulu and Machinga. Globe rock chips returned 2.05 % TREO and, separately, 7,924 ppm Nb₂O₅ at a 33.2 % HREO:TREO ratio, with zirconium and tantalum through the same samples. DY6 collected 514 soil and rock samples across a 50 km grid in 2024 with 45 line-km of airborne EM and radiometrics, defining an eastern zone about 1,700 m long and a western trend over 2 km. It has never been drilled.
- Ngala Hill. EL 0510, 16.4 km², about 35 km south-south-west of Blantyre, near the Nacala corridor and grid power. An outcropping palladium-rich ultramafic chonolith, 2.4 by 0.7 km, with a Main Zone over roughly 2 km of strike, a massive sulphide zone and a western sill. Trenching in 1999 and 2000 returned 64 m at 1.41 g/t PGE+Au and 70 m at 1.12 g/t including 8 m at 3.3 g/t. Read the risks panel before treating those numbers as a guide to what lies beneath.
- Karonga. EL 0782/24, 36 km², about 440 km north of Lilongwe and a long way from everything else. Greenfield copper with malachite and azurite alongside sulphides in quartzite.
Ngala Hill and Karonga are earmarked for a proposed copper-focused spin-off alongside AuKing's existing copper interests. For a company holding rare earths, copper, PGE, uranium and tin, separating the copper is a rational answer to the discount that diversified juniors carry.
Outside Malawi
- Koongie Park copper-zinc-silver, Western Australia, held as a 49 % joint venture with Cobalt Blue Holdings.
- Mkuju uranium, southern Tanzania.
- Big Wilson tin-tungsten, north-western Tasmania.
Performance hurdles worth reading
Both deals put a meaningful slice of consideration behind exploration outcomes rather than signatures. Machinga's A$1.25 m converts on a JORC resource of at least 10 Mt at 0.65 % TREO within three years. Ngala Hill's A$500,000 converts only if AuKing announces any two drill intercepts within three years clearing one of: 20 m at 1.5 g/t 3E or better, 15 m at 2.0 g/t, 10 m at 2.5 g/t, or at least 20 m carrying 1.0 g/t 3E together with 0.5 % copper. Conversion is A$0.025 divided by the 90-day VWAP, capped at one ordinary share each.
Cash out the door on completion of the Green Exploration deal is A$100,000 across two instalments. Most of the value only transfers if the ground performs.
Machinga, the heavy half
Machinga is not a second Tundulu. It is a different deposit type carrying a different basket, which is rather the point of owning both.
Where Tundulu is a carbonatite ring complex, Machinga is peralkaline, on the north-eastern margin of the Zomba-Malosa intrusive complex. Rare earths sit in eudialyte, a zirconosilicate, together with bastnäsite and xenotime, inside a hydrothermal breccia striking north-west and dipping about 35° to the north-east. Mineralised zones thicken at depth and continue into the second licence. The described analogues are Strange Lake in Quebec and Bokan Mountain in Alaska.
200.4 km²EL 0529 + EL 0705
8,588 mHistorical drilling, 79 holes
~29 %HREO share of TREO
3.6 %Dy + Tb share of TREO
Globe Metals and Mining drilled 36 RC holes for 4,045 m plus 1,635 m of trenching between 2010 and 2012. DY6 Metals followed in 2023 with 35 RC holes for 3,643 m and 8 diamond holes for 900 m. The averages above were struck at a 0.25 % TREO cut-off, on hard-rock grades of 0.6 to 1.4 % TREO.
MDD00715.1 m @ 1.01 % TREO
From 23.9 m, with 0.36 % Nb₂O₅ and 27.7 % HREO. Includes 4 m @ 1.75 % TREO and 0.63 % Nb₂O₅. Mineralogy on this interval also returned 15.2 % NdPr oxide, so close to a fifth of the contained oxide is magnet metal.
MDD0065.2 m @ 1.61 % TREO
From 41.4 m, with 0.66 % Nb₂O₅ and 30.7 % HREO. Includes 1 m @ 2.67 % TREO and 1.01 % Nb₂O₅, the peak of the project.
MR0117 m @ 1.42 % TREO
From 65 m, with 0.49 % Nb₂O₅ and 29.0 % HREO.
MDD0089 m @ 1.11 % TREO
From 41 m, with 0.41 % Nb₂O₅ and 27.6 % HREO. Includes 3 m @ 1.56 % TREO at 31.0 % HREO, the strongest heavy skew in the dataset.
MR0046.1 m @ 1.09 % TREO
From 22.5 m, with 0.4 % Nb₂O₅.
MR02411 m @ 0.74 % TREO
From surface, at 27.7 % HREO.
Surface work keeps pushing the system outward. Rock chips in 2024 ran to 3.22 % TREO and 0.75 % Nb₂O₅, and a December 2025 program 3 km south-east of the drilling returned niobium to 6,649 ppm Nb₂O₅. Dysprosium oxide has been reported to 740 ppm inside high-grade intervals.
Very little of it has been drilled. Soil geochemistry defines multiple parallel zones over 2.7 km, nothing has been drilled west of the main road, and the Machinga South and Lingoni radiometric anomalies are effectively untouched.
Terms
- On completion, A$750,000 cash plus A$750,000 in shares, being 30 million at A$0.025 with 12 months of voluntary escrow.
- A further A$1.25 m cash within 12 months of completion.
- A$1.25 m in performance shares converting only on a JORC-compliant resource of at least 10 Mt at 0.65 % TREO within three years. The resource target is written into the deal, which is a useful read on what vendor and buyer both think is achievable.
- Completion needs MMRA approval of the licence transfers under Malawi's Mines and Minerals Act 2023.
On the Bokan benchmark
Material circulating with the acquisition compares Machinga to Bokan-Dotson Ridge in Alaska, owned by Ucore Rare Metals (TSXV: UCU), on shared peralkaline geology. The geological comparison is warranted.
Machinga's drilled grades of 0.6 to 1.4 % TREO sit above Bokan's resource grade, its mineralisation starts at surface where Bokan is contemplated underground, and Bokan has a defined resource where Machinga has none at all. Reading a peer's market capitalisation across to a pre-resource exploration licence is a rhetorical device rather than an analysis.
Technical sign-off. Exploration results from the 2026 Tundulu drilling are reviewed by Mark Mitchell, a member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists and an independent consultant to AuKing, as Competent Person. The historical results for Salambidwe, Ngala Hill and Karonga were reviewed by Ian Hodkinson, also AIG.
General information only. Nothing here is investment, financial, legal or tax advice and does not consider your objectives, financial situation or needs. Published by Bullseye Analytics, independent of AuKing Mining Limited, and compiled from public sources. Read the ASX announcements in full and seek advice from a licensed financial adviser before investing.