Key Highlights

  • Exultant has moved most of its near-term effort to Watsons, a copper-zinc soil anomaly at Black Hammer that has never been drilled.
  • The final Balerion assays included 6.65 metres at 16.18 g/t silver, 1.07% zinc and 0.49% lead from 186 metres.
  • Cash stood at $2.73 million at 30 September, about 3.5 quarters of funding at the September quarter outflow rate.
  • The company has no mineral resources, and soil anomalies do not always convert into economic mineralisation once drilled.

Exultant Mining (ASX:10X) has finished its first drilling programme at the Balerion prospect and is now putting most of its near-term effort into Black Hammer, a project near Oberon in New South Wales. The centre of that work is Watsons, a copper-zinc soil anomaly that has never been drilled.

In an announcement on 21 October 2026, the company said portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) soil readings had extended the Watsons copper-zinc corridor from about 2.4 kilometres to about 3 kilometres, after a land access agreement opened up an adjoining property. These are field readings that have not been checked by laboratory assays, and they point to a drill target rather than a discovery.

What Exultant does

Exultant is an early-stage explorer based in Perth. It holds the 100%-owned Black Hammer project, about 390 square kilometres in the Macquarie Arc, and the Peak View project, both in New South Wales, plus Deep Dykes in Western Australia. The Macquarie Arc hosts major gold-copper mines such as Cadia Valley and Northparkes, but proximity to known deposits does not indicate that Exultant's ground holds similar mineralisation. The company has no mineral resources.

Balerion drilling results

The six-hole Balerion programme at Peak View totalled 1,370.3 metres and, according to the company, came in within budget. Five holes showed visible sulphides. The first two holes, reported on 13 August, returned generally low-grade zinc, lead, copper and silver.

Final assays released on 1 October were encouraging in places. Hole BLRCDD006 returned 6.65 metres at 16.18 g/t silver, 1.07% zinc and 0.49% lead from 186 metres, and BLRCDD005 returned 11.75 metres at 9.12 g/t silver and 1.05% zinc from 240.15 metres, including some core loss. The company says the main mineralised zone appears to thicken down dip and remains open. These are drilling intercepts, not a resource, and the results will feed into an updated geological model.

Separately, sampling of historic Tuglow drill core returned 21.1 metres at 0.18 g/t gold and 2.1 g/t silver from 3.4 metres, a low-grade result.

Cash position

According to its September quarter Appendix 5B, released on 23 October 2026, Exultant held $2.729 million in cash at 30 September, down from $3.5 million at 30 June. Net operating outflow, which includes expensed exploration, was $771,000. That equates to about 3.5 quarters of funding at that rate. There were no Debt facilities and no Equity raised in the quarter. Related-party payments were $36,000 in director and consulting fees.

The September quarter included a drilling programme, so future spending may differ depending on how quickly Watsons moves to geophysics or drilling. Exultant has 37.4 million shares on issue and 7 million Options exercisable at 30 cents.

Risks and next steps

Soil anomalies often Fail to translate into economic mineralisation once drilled, and pXRF readings can differ from laboratory results. Further work at Porters Retreat and Vermithor depends on land access arrangements. A new drilling campaign would probably require additional funding, which could dilute shareholders.

The company says its next steps at Watsons are to extend soil surveys to the north-east and assess suitable geophysics before any drilling. The Annual General Meeting is scheduled for 13 November 2026 in Perth. In September, 875,000 shares were released from escrow.