Key Highlights

• Noble Helium is progressing rig mobilisation for the planned Kinambo drilling programme.

• The campaign targets helium prospects within the company’s Tanzanian acreage.

• Prospective resource estimates describe exploration potential and do not represent a discovery.

• Rig arrival, spudding and well results are the key milestones for the campaign.

Six weeks of road building, a 56-person camp raised largely from local materials and labour, and a water-bore rig due to travel south from Kenya. That is what a frontier helium wildcat looks like before anyone has drilled a metre.

Noble Helium (ASX:NHE) Limited told the ASX on 18 August 2026 that the access road and camp at Kinambo, south-west Tanzania, were finished and the well pad on schedule, keeping a mid-September spud in view. Shares changed hands at 2.8 cents on 8 September 2026.

The company had not, by that date, announced the rig's arrival on location or a spud. The gap between a contracted rig and a turning bit is where small explorers most often slip.

What has actually been contracted

According to the announcement lodged with the ASX on 10 May 2026, Noble contracted BoreXpert to Supply a Schramm T130 XD rig for two firm exploration wells, with Options over two more.

The design is deliberately modest: the Kinambo B structure at roughly 430 metres and the deeper Kinambo K structure at about 1,500 metres, drilled with water-borehole equipment rather than a conventional oil and gas spread. Management says that should keep costs well below its maiden two-well programme.

SLB, formerly Schlumberger, has been engaged for wireline logging and wellsite services, with equipment due on site this month. The wells are called Kinambo-1 and Kinambo-2.

Prospective volumes are not a discovery

Noble's headline numbers come from an independent July 2025 assessment by Netherland, Sewell and Associates: unrisked prospective helium volumes with a best estimate of 118 billion cubic feet and a mean of 225.5 billion across the North Rukwa licences.

Prospective resources sit at the most speculative end of the petroleum classification system. They describe volumes that might be there, with no assurance that a well will find gas, that gas will flow, or that anything found can be sold.

Its own history illustrates the point. Mbelele-1 and Mbelele-2, drilled in 2023, returned helium readings of two to three per cent in exsolved gas, far above typical industry levels, yet no commercial discovery was declared.

Funding, dilution and a second commodity

Noble raised A$12 million in April 2026 through a two-tranche Placement priced at 2.9 cents, alongside conversion of roughly A$6 million of Debt into equity. The company said the June quarter left its Balance Sheet stronger.

That came at a heavy cost to existing holders, and more shares are coming. On 21 August the company agreed to acquire Earth Source Hydrogen for 88,867,333 shares, adding Western Australian natural hydrogen acreage to a helium-only portfolio.

The smaller tranche, issued to a related party, requires Shareholder approval. Despite the diversification, the registered name and the ASX Code remain unchanged.

Why helium, and why now

Helium is a byproduct Business almost everywhere it is produced, which makes supply brittle. The shutdown of Qatar's Ras Laffan complex from March 2026 put an estimated 11 per cent of world supply at risk, with Force Majeure flagged for years.

Tight markets flatter the Economics of a would-be new source. They do not build a liquefaction plant or an export route out of a remote Tanzanian basin, and Noble has yet to demonstrate either.

The next confirmed milestones

The nearest checkpoint is the spud, guided to mid-September 2026, then logging results from the two Kinambo wells, each expected to take around ten days.

Shareholders must also vote on the related-party Tranche of the hydrogen Acquisition by 20 November 2026. The North Rukwa position rests on prospecting licences administered by Tanzania's Mining Commission, six of which were renewed in 2023 for three years with scope for two more.

For now, investors are pricing a road, a camp and a contracted rig. The drill bit will do the rest of the talking.