MEX’s Exploration Push Depends on Fresh Funding

Funding Risk Overshadows New Zealand Exploration Push

Minerals Exploration Limited (ASX/NZX:MEX) has made New Zealand gold and tungsten the centre of its business, but its first full-year report under that strategy comes with a blunt financial warning: the auditor has identified a material uncertainty related to going concern.

MEX recorded a net loss of $2.66 million for the year ended 30 June 2026, compared with a restated $1.05 million loss a year earlier. Operating activities consumed $949,097 in cash, while the company held $2.86 million at year-end. The directors say the group expects to meet its obligations over the next 12 months, but that assessment depends on raising additional capital and controlling expenditure if funding is delayed.

That is a significant qualification for an explorer whose next stage requires drilling, permitting and field work. The company explicitly warns that further equity financing would dilute existing shareholders, while a failure to secure funding could force it to reduce or defer exploration programs.

Waitekauri Drilling Finds Broad Gold, Not Yet a Feeder Zone

The operational centrepiece was Waitekauri, near Waihi in New Zealand’s Hauraki Goldfields. MEX completed 15 diamond holes for 2,625 metres across the Jubilee, Jubilee South and Scotia prospects. Results included 3.5 metres at 5.02 grams per tonne gold at Scotia and a narrower 0.5-metre interval at 10.5g/t gold at Jubilee.

The program also produced broader, lower-grade zones at Jubilee South, including 80.3 metres at 0.30g/t gold in TGW011 and 52.5 metres at 0.25g/t in TGW014. Those results followed the earlier Scotia drilling results, which had reported wide mineralisation and high-grade rock chips at Invincible.

MEX says the drilling has confirmed extensive altered and quartz-mineralised systems, but has not yet located the high-grade epithermal feeder structures thought to be responsible for historically mined gold at Waitekauri. An independent technical review of the historical and recent drilling is now under way and is intended to guide the next round of targeting. The reported intervals are downhole lengths, with true widths not yet established.

Tungsten Adds a Second Exploration Angle

On the South Island, the Invincible Gold-Tungsten Project offered some of the report’s most striking surface numbers. Sampling at the historic Davidsons Mine returned up to 2.63% tungsten, while selected material from the State Mine returned up to 37.4g/t gold. Three of 16 Davidsons samples returned at least 1% tungsten, although these are selective rock-chip and grab samples rather than a resource estimate.

MEX has applied for an exploration permit at Invincible, with approval expected in late 2026 according to the report, and says its current work is focused on mapping, data collection, land access and drill-target definition. Oturehua remains at an earlier stage, with historical mine plans being digitised ahead of an initial drilling program planned for early 2027.

Accounting Change Inflates Exploration Asset Base

The balance sheet now carries $14.09 million in exploration and evaluation assets, up from a restated $3.69 million a year earlier. Much of that increase reflects the $9.46 million acquisition value assigned to the Otagold projects and a voluntary change in accounting policy that capitalised eligible exploration expenditure rather than expensing it as incurred.

The accounting change does not create cash or remove the geological risk attached to the projects. MEX also recognised a $1.11 million impairment, including the full $715,246 carrying value of its South Australian uranium tenements, which the company resolved to relinquish after the reporting date. The remaining exploration assets depend on successful exploration, development or sale for their eventual recovery.

The Next Test Is Capital and Drill Conversion

MEX’s strategy is now relatively clear: concentrate resources on New Zealand gold and tungsten, use the Waitekauri review to refine targets, seek permission to drill Invincible and advance Oturehua toward its planned program. The harder question is whether the company can finance that sequence without materially diluting shareholders.

There are no reported mineral resources or reserves across the portfolio, and the company itself describes the projects as early-stage exploration. The next set of drill results may therefore matter twice: first for the geology, and second for whether they provide enough evidence to justify continued funding of an exploration balance that has grown sharply on paper.