Mandrake Resources Limited (ASX:MAN) has told shareholders that it is prepared to fight for every acre of its 93,000-acre Utah Lithium Project after discovering that a rival entity has staked approximately 70 unpatented US federal placer mining claims that overlap a small but deliberately targeted portion of Mandrake's long-held tenure. In an announcement released to the Australian Securities Exchange on 24 April 2026, the Perth-based developer named the competing entity as Utah Brine Corporation (UBC), a body corporately connected to ASX-listed Neometals Ltd (ASX:NMT) and to a third party, Omaha Value Inc. Mandrake has engaged US mining-law counsel and issued formal demand letters calling on UBC to file abandonment notices for the overlapping claims.

The stakes, at first glance, are modest: the contested ground covers roughly 1.5 per cent of the overall Utah Lithium Project footprint. But the overlap occurs within the highest-grade, most advanced portion of Mandrake's inferred mineral resource, at a project whose claimed 3.3-million-tonne lithium-carbonate-equivalent (LCE) inferred resource already places it among the largest lithium brine developments on the ASX. In other words, while the contested acreage is small in hectares, it is not small in dollars, ounces of LCE or strategic significance.

A project built on federal placer claims

The Utah Lithium Project sits in the Paradox Basin of southeastern Utah, an extensive Permian-age evaporite sequence that hosts lithium-enriched subsurface brines within the Pennsylvanian Paradox Formation. Mandrake has assembled its tenure over several years using the United States' federal general mining law framework, which allows a prospector to stake unpatented placer claims on federal public land administered by the Bureau of Land Management. Each placer claim covers up to 160 acres and must be maintained through annual fee payments of US$165 per claim to remain in good standing. A claim can be allowed to lapse by failing to pay those fees or by filing a formal notice of abandonment.

Mandrake's tenure comprises approximately 500 unpatented placer claims covering about 93,000 acres, or roughly 379 square kilometres. The resource estimate released in 2025 relied on historical exploration data, new drilling programmes, and brine geochemistry to support a JORC 2012-compliant inferred mineral resource of 3.3 million tonnes of LCE — a scale that places Utah Lithium within a peer group of large, relatively undeveloped lithium brine projects in North America.

Enter Utah Brine Corporation

The competing claimant, Utah Brine Corporation (UBC), has been building its position on federal land within the same basin. Mandrake's own review of the BLM's claims database has identified approximately 70 placer claims held by UBC that directly overlap Mandrake's earlier-staked claims. Mandrake says the UBC claims were staked well after its own claims were filed, making Mandrake the senior claimant under US mining law.

Mandrake's announcement identifies UBC as a corporate entity with a declared connection to ASX-listed Neometals Ltd (ASX: NMT), a lithium-processing and battery-materials company with long-standing interests in hydrometallurgical brine technology, and to Omaha Value Inc. Public filings indicate that UBC's declared purpose is to advance lithium projects in the Paradox Basin, and that Neometals and Omaha Value are shareholders of UBC.

Mandrake chose not to escalate the dispute publicly as soon as the overlap was detected. Instead, the company appointed experienced US mining-law counsel to evaluate the priority of Mandrake's claims relative to those held by UBC. The resulting legal opinion, summarised in the announcement, supports Mandrake's position that its claims are senior under the principles of "first in time, first in right" and that UBC's subsequent staking on the same ground is invalid to the extent of the overlap. Counsel has written to UBC setting out the seniority argument, identifying each overlapping claim, and demanding that UBC file notices of abandonment for those claims so that the public record reflects the priority position.

Why seniority matters in US mining law

Australian investors used to the "exclusive possession" framework of WA tenement law sometimes find the US placer system unfamiliar. The US Mining Law of 1872 establishes a relatively open right to stake claims on federal land and allows claims to exist side-by-side across jurisdictional boundaries, with seniority — and thus effective exclusive possession — established by whoever was first to comply with the staking and recording requirements for a specific parcel. In practice, disputes are resolved not by a central registrar but through competing filings and, where necessary, litigation. An entity that files later on ground already lawfully claimed is regarded as having filed a nullity to the extent of the overlap, and is generally expected to abandon those overlapping portions either voluntarily or under judicial order.

Mandrake's US counsel has advised that the company's claims were properly staked, properly maintained and publicly recorded before UBC's overlapping claims were filed. If that view is correct — and Mandrake has provided detailed supporting information to its shareholders — the resolution should ultimately be an administrative one: UBC files abandonment notices, the public record reflects Mandrake's seniority, and exploration work can continue unimpeded.

If UBC does not voluntarily abandon the overlapping claims, Mandrake's announcement indicates that the company is prepared to pursue its rights through the relevant US courts. Such litigation can be slow, but the precedent from comparable cases in the US lithium and uranium sectors suggests that senior claimants tend to prevail where their chain of title is clean and their annual maintenance fees have been paid on time.

The Neometals angle

The inclusion of Neometals Ltd (ASX: NMT) in the story gives the dispute an unusual cross-border dimension. Neometals is a long-standing participant in lithium-processing technology development and has been active in battery-materials recycling, direct lithium extraction (DLE) and related hydrometallurgical processes. Utah Brine Corporation's positioning in the Paradox Basin is consistent with the view that Neometals sees the basin as prospective for DLE applications. Put simply, Neometals and its partners appear to have wanted a foothold in the same rocks that Mandrake has been developing.

Public exchanges between the companies to date have been measured. Neometals itself has not made an announcement on the dispute, and Mandrake's notice is careful to set out the facts as it understands them without pre-judging Neometals' position or actions. Mandrake's decision to go public now, rather than pursuing the claim confidentially, suggests a preference for transparency with its own shareholders and a desire to put public pressure on UBC to resolve the matter without further delay.

Financial position

Mandrake has the resources to prosecute its claims without forcing a capital raise. The company's announcement confirms a market capitalisation of approximately A$14.4 million and cash reserves of approximately A$11.9 million at the date of the notice. Those figures place Mandrake in an unusual position: its enterprise value, net of cash, is essentially zero, even before any credit for the inferred LCE resource. In other words, the market is giving the project negligible positive value while the company sits on enough cash to fund legal work, ongoing staking and maintenance, and a modest amount of field exploration.

Managing director James Allchurch used the announcement to reassure shareholders that the dispute does not affect the company's exploration budget or the project timeline in any material way. He noted that the overlapping area is small relative to the project footprint and that Mandrake's holding remains contiguous, highly prospective, and well-maintained.

A reality check on valuation

The Mandrake situation is instructive for observers of the broader ASX lithium peer group. Lithium prices have compressed significantly from their 2023 highs, and many developers have seen their equity values dwindle even as their underlying resources remain intact. Mandrake's cash-adjusted enterprise value is a reminder that investors have been discounting inferred lithium resources almost to zero in some cases, particularly in jurisdictions where permitting timelines are long. That said, the Utah Lithium Project has significant technical merits: it is in a stable US jurisdiction, the basin has long-documented lithium enrichment, the federal mining law framework is well understood, and the grade and scale of the inferred resource are material.

If Mandrake prevails on the UBC matter — as its legal position indicates it should — the outcome will be twofold. First, Mandrake's tenure will be unambiguously secure across the entire project, removing an overhang that has irritated some US institutional investors. Second, the process itself will have demonstrated that Mandrake is prepared to defend its claims assertively, which tends to discourage opportunistic staking by other entrants in a basin where the prospectivity is no longer a secret.

The ASX disclosure angle

The announcement is notable for the volume of information it provides. Mandrake has included maps showing the overlap, an outline of the legal basis for seniority, and excerpts from counsel's correspondence with UBC. That level of detail — unusual for a tenure dispute — is presumably intended to satisfy both the ASX's continuous-disclosure expectations and the curiosity of shareholders who may otherwise worry that the dispute is more consequential than it is.

What happens next

Three scenarios are in play. In the first, UBC responds to Mandrake's demand by filing abandonment notices for the overlapping claims within a short window, quietly resolving the dispute. In the second, the two parties negotiate a commercial arrangement that acknowledges Mandrake's seniority while providing some form of co-operation or data-sharing going forward. In the third, UBC declines to act and Mandrake files proceedings in the appropriate US court, at which point the dispute becomes slower, more expensive, and more public.

Mandrake's announcement makes clear which outcome the company would prefer: the first. But the commentary from Mr Allchurch and the legal team indicates a willingness to pursue the other two pathways if required. For a company whose market capitalisation is currently less than its cash balance plus any reasonable project NPV, defending the project's tenure is not just prudent — it is essential. A clean tenure title is the difference between being able to strike commercial partnerships on good terms and having to discount any future deal for litigation risk.

Broader context for US lithium development

The dispute also lands in the middle of a US policy moment that is unusually favourable to domestic lithium developers. The Inflation Reduction Act and related federal measures have directed incentives toward North American battery-materials production, and the Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office has been actively financing domestic lithium projects, particularly those involving direct lithium extraction from brines. Against that backdrop, every hectare of well-staked, permitted lithium brine ground in the Paradox Basin carries real strategic value — which is very likely why the dispute has arisen in the first place. Expect more, rather than fewer, similar tenure contests as competition for proven subsurface inventory intensifies in the basin over the next twelve to twenty-four months.

Mandrake's 24 April update is framed in careful legal language, but the underlying message is direct. The company believes its Utah lithium claims are senior, it has US counsel saying so, and it expects the rival claimant to abandon the overlapping claims. The dispute does not derail the project, but it does reveal how competitive the Paradox Basin has become as a lithium brine address — and it tees up a test of Mandrake's willingness to defend its ground. For holders of MAN shares, the simplest conclusion is that the project and the cash balance remain intact while the board takes measured, transparent steps to protect shareholder value.