Black Bear Minerals Delivers High-Grade Silver and Gold Hits Across US Projects

Black Bear Minerals Delivers High-Grade Hits and Resource-Expanding Drilling Across Two US Projects in Q1 2026

The Black Bear Minerals Q1 2026 activities report Shafter Silver and Independence Gold drilling results reveals a period of meaningful progress across both its Shafter Silver Project in Texas and Independence Gold Project in Nevada. The report shows a company actively executing on its exploration programmes, unlocking polymetallic potential beyond existing resource boundaries, and laying the groundwork for a potential operational restart at Shafter — all while maintaining a cash position of ~A$8.87 million at quarter end.

Shafter Silver Project: High-Grade Results and a Bigger Picture Emerging

The standout result of the quarter comes from the Shafter Silver Project in Presidio County, Texas, where Black Bear's targeting model delivered a drill intercept that meaningfully outperforms the historic holes in its immediate vicinity.

Does Drillhole SFD002 Confirm the Structural Corridor Theory?

Drillhole SFD002 was planned to test a structural corridor east of the Mina Grande Fault and outside the existing 17.57 Moz Foreign Mineral Resource Estimate. It returned the following results:

Critically, these results are wider and higher-grade than the proximal historic drillholes in the same area:

The SFD002 intercept is more than three times the width of S-12-432 and carries a grade premium, providing strong support for Black Bear's thesis that high-grade mineralisation extends beyond the current resource envelope.

Furthermore, management describes this as confirming a "shallowly-dipping, continuous tabular mineralised body" with localised grade increases near major fault structures — a structural model with meaningful implications for future resource growth.

Polymetallic Potential: More Than Just Silver

One of the more strategically significant developments this quarter is the growing recognition of Shafter as a polymetallic system. The existing Foreign Mineral Resource accounts only for silver, but initial results are pointing to a materially broader commodity profile.

Results from the southwest portion of the project, targeting areas prospective for base metals, returned:

The high-grade 501 g/t Ag interval within SFD002 also returned 4.3% Zn, 2.0% Pb and 0.2 g/t Au, reinforcing that the silver mineralisation is accompanied by economically meaningful base and precious metal credits.

In addition, Black Bear has commenced re-logging and re-sampling available historic core to better quantify the distribution of all commodities across Shafter, with a view to incorporating results into a maiden JORC-compliant Mineral Resource Estimate that captures the full polymetallic potential of the system.

Restart Planning Gains Momentum: Ausenco Engaged

Alongside active exploration drilling, Black Bear is simultaneously progressing the development pathway at Shafter. During the quarter, global engineering firm Ausenco was engaged to conduct a comprehensive operational restart assessment covering:

• A detailed site inspection of mechanical, structural, and electrical infrastructure across the crushing, milling, leaching, and Merrill-Crowe extraction circuits
• A dilapidation study verifying asset conditions and remaining useful life of on-site equipment
• Development of an order-of-magnitude capital cost estimate for equipment refurbishment and facility restart

This is the first phase of a staged development programme and runs concurrently with Phase 1 exploration drilling. The goal is to understand what it would take to bring Shafter back into production, leveraging significant existing infrastructure from a mine that historically produced 35.2 million ounces of silver at an average grade of 521 g/t Ag between 1883 and 1942.

All Key Permits Confirmed Active and in Good Standing

A detailed regulatory and administrative verification programme completed during the quarter confirmed that all material permits referenced in a 2018 Preliminary Economic Assessment of Shafter are valid, current, and transferable where required.

Minor administrative and restart-specific permits are to be finalised as part of the ongoing restart strategy being undertaken with Ausenco. This permit status is a meaningful de-risking milestone, removing a potential source of uncertainty around the restart timeline.

Independence Gold Project: Strike Extension Confirms System Scale

At the Independence Gold Project in Lander County, Nevada, drilling delivered important findings from the Rebel Trend — a zone that had not been drill-tested under the assumption that prospective host rock had been faulted out. That assumption has now been invalidated.

Rebel Trend: 280m Northward Strike Extension Confirmed

Assay results from four drillholes — JBRC016 through JBRC019 — confirm that the epithermal host rock (Pumpernickel Chert) is present along the Rebel Trend and that gold-silver mineralisation continues consistently northward. The results represent a 280m northward strike extension to previous drilling along the trend:

These intercepts extend gold mineralisation up-dip toward surface relative to lodes previously intercepted beneath the 419.6 koz near-surface Mineral Resource Estimate. The Rebel Lodes are shown to extend for at least 450m at North Hill and 560m at Yukon Hill, and remain open down-dip, pointing to genuine scale potential.

The Independence Project's broader JORC 2012 Mineral Resource Estimate stands as follows:

The near-surface component carries combined Indicated and Inferred resources of approximately 385,000 oz AuEq, and the Rebel Trend drilling is aimed directly at expanding this envelope.

Understanding Manto-Style Mineralisation: Why Shafter's Geology Matters

For investors less familiar with the mineralisation style at Shafter, it helps to understand what manto deposits are and why they can be economically attractive.

A manto deposit (from the Spanish word for "blanket" or "mantle") is a type of carbonate replacement deposit where mineralising fluids — typically hot, metal-rich hydrothermal solutions — migrate laterally along permeable carbonate layers such as limestone or dolostone. When these fluids encounter chemically reactive zones, they precipitate metals in tabular, stratiform bodies that can be remarkably continuous and high-grade.

At Shafter, manto-mineralisation is hosted in the Mina Grande Formation, and its formation is controlled by fault intersections — specifically where the northeast-trending MacDaniel Fault meets the north-trending Mina Grande Fault.

The key implication for investors is that this fault-controlled geometry gives exploration teams a predictable structural model to follow. When Black Bear identifies a parallel structural corridor and drills into thick, high-grade mineralisation as it did in SFD002, that is direct confirmation that the targeting model is working — and that the deposit footprint may be substantially larger than what has been captured in the existing resource.

Financial Position and Exploration Spend

The company deployed A$3.023 million into exploration activities during the quarter, reflecting a high operational tempo across its US projects. The cash runway of approximately 2.4 quarters, based on the current outgoings rate, indicates that funding will be a near-term consideration for the company as it advances its programmes.

Glossary of Key Terms

• MRE (Mineral Resource Estimate): A formal estimate of the quantity and grade of mineralisation in the ground, prepared according to a recognised reporting code such as JORC or NI 43-101.
• Foreign Mineral Resource Estimate: A resource estimate prepared under a foreign reporting code (in this case, Canadian NI 43-101) that has not yet been classified under the JORC Code 2012. Further evaluation is required before it can be reported as a JORC-compliant resource.
• AuEq (Gold Equivalent): A method of expressing the combined value of gold and silver (or other metals) as a single gold-equivalent grade, using prevailing metal prices and assumed recoveries.
• Manto Deposit: A carbonate replacement deposit formed when hydrothermal fluids replace reactive carbonate rock, typically producing tabular, blanket-like ore bodies.
• RC Drilling (Reverse Circulation): A drilling technique in which air is pumped down through a drill rod and returns up through an inner tube, bringing rock chips to surface for sampling. It is faster and more cost-effective than diamond drilling for near-surface exploration.
• Merrill-Crowe Process: A silver and gold recovery process used in leaching operations, involving precipitation of dissolved metals from solution using zinc dust.
• Dilapidation Study: An engineering assessment of the physical condition of existing infrastructure, used to estimate refurbishment costs and remaining useful life.

What's Ahead: Near-Term Catalysts to Watch

The Black Bear Minerals Q1 2026 activities report Shafter Silver and Independence Gold drilling results make clear that exploration programmes at both projects remain active, with several catalysts that investors should monitor:

1. Outstanding assays from Shafter — Results from additional drillholes beyond SFD002, SFD007, SFD010, and SFD011 remain pending, with the company targeting further extensions to mineralisation across the project.
2. Re-logging and re-sampling of historic Shafter core — This work is designed to define the distribution of zinc, lead, gold, and potentially vanadium across the project, informing what could be a materially expanded JORC Mineral Resource Estimate.
3. Ausenco restart assessment outcomes — The capital cost estimate and dilapidation study results will provide the market with a clearer picture of what it would cost to bring Shafter back into production.
4. JORC conversion of the Shafter resource — Black Bear is working to convert the existing 17.57 Moz Foreign Mineral Resource Estimate to JORC standard, which would be a significant de-risking event for the project.
5. Continued drilling at Independence — Exploration continues targeting down-dip and along-strike extensions to the Rebel Lodes, with the system remaining open in multiple directions.

The Investment Thesis: A Multi-Asset Explorer at a Value Inflection Point

Black Bear Minerals presents investors with exposure to two distinct and progressing assets in well-regarded US mining jurisdictions, at a stage where exploration results are actively expanding known resource boundaries at both.

At Shafter, the combination of a high-grade historic production track record (35.2 Moz at 521 g/t Ag), a 17.57 Moz silver Foreign Mineral Resource, active drill results exceeding historic intercepts in both width and grade, confirmed polymetallic upside, active permits, existing infrastructure, and a formal restart assessment creates a multi-layered value proposition.

Furthermore, the project sits in a geological belt that is home to Newmont's Peñasquito operation — the world's fifth-largest silver-producing mine — providing important geological context for the scale of system that may be present.

At Independence, the confirmation that the Rebel Trend hosts continuous gold mineralisation across a 280m northward strike extension — with lodes remaining open down-dip at both North Hill and Yukon Hill — points to a resource that is likely to grow as drilling continues. The adjacency of Nevada Gold Mines' (Newmont-Barrick JV) Phoenix Mine Complex provides further geological and jurisdictional credibility.

The Black Bear Minerals Q1 2026 activities report Shafter Silver and Independence Gold drilling results collectively advance both projects in ways that matter: more ounces, a larger footprint, a better understanding of commodity diversity, and a clearer pathway toward development at Shafter.

Key Takeaway: Black Bear Minerals has demonstrated in Q1 2026 that its targeting models are working at both its US assets. With high-grade silver hits exceeding historic results at Shafter, a growing polymetallic picture, and a meaningful gold strike extension at Independence, the company is building the geological case for resource growth. With a restart assessment underway, active permits, and further drill results pending, Black Bear is a multi-asset explorer worth following closely through the coming quarters.

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