The latest drilling results from Alma should have investors excited!

Drilling results from Alma Metals (ASX:ALM) have sent the stock tripling in a matter of weeks. Even though the company is at an early stage with its Briggs project, investors are confident that the company could be about to follow in the footsteps of Caravel Minerals (ASX:CVV).

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Recap of Alma Metals

Alma Metals has 51% of the Briggs Project in central Queensland and could earn up to 70% subject to meeting exploration expenditure requirements.

Briggs contains indicated and inferred resources (JORC 2012) of 932 million tonnes at 0.21% copper, 36 ppm molybdenum, and 0.6 g/t silver at a 0.15% copper cut-off. Briggs is is one of the few porphyry deposits in Australia, and one of the largest undeveloped examples of this important deposit class.

The project is well placed, being close to key infrastructure, including sealed roads, rail, grid power, gas pipelines, and a deep-water port at Gladstone. Briggs is one of Australia’s largest undeveloped copper projects, and it is located on freehold land used for cattle farming. And it has a major resource.

Briggs could come online at the right time

Even though it is a few years from being a producing mine, an eventual mine could come onto market at just the right timing. There is a copper deficit that is modest now but will grow in the years to come. BHP believes that copper demand will grow by around 70% to 50Mt a year by 2050.

Copper is fundamental for many modern technologies such as solar panels, wind turbines, EVs, AI and data centers and modern grid infrastructure. This is in addition to technologies already sold en-masse in consumer and industrial markets, but demand for which will keep growing including refrigerators, air conditioners, computers, smartphones, washing machines and lighting.

The latest drilling results from Alma look good

Alma has been progressively releasing assay results from its 2025 drilling program. The final set of results was released in January 2026, and these provide significant confidence that there is strong copper mineralisation, not just at Briggs generally but in the exact locations that the company’s geological model has predicted. The longest mineralised intersection was 620 m @ 0.25% copper and the highest-grade was 30m @ 0.90%.

The results are highly encouraging, not just because of individual grades but also because the occurrence of mineralisation was found to be in the exact location Alma’s geological model predicted.

What is next?

Alma’s immediate priority is upgrading the Briggs MRE to higher-confidence categories to support development studies and unlock value.
At present, approximately 80% of the current Briggs MRE is classified as Inferred at a 0.15% copper cut-off. The next drilling campaign, scheduled to commence in late March, is specifically designed to convert a substantial portion of this material into the Indicated category, with potential for Measured classification in targeted areas.

This work is critical to the delivery of a PFS by Alma. A PFS requires the majority of the Resource to be Indicated, and achieving this upgrade represents a key de-risking milestone and a likely catalyst for further re-rating.

The existing Resource already meets JORC requirements for reasonable prospects of eventual economic extraction. However, higher-confidence classification enables the application of mining, processing and economic assumptions necessary for mine planning and project evaluation.

The upcoming drilling will focus on infill and continuity, tightening drill spacing across known mineralisation and Alma’s recent results provide confidence of a reasonable expectation that the majority of Inferred Resources can be upgraded with continued drilling.
As confidence increases, the Resource can support mine planning, economic studies and development decisions, which will allow Alma to move from exploration to development.

There’s significant upside left

Our friend at Pitt Street Research initiated coverage last November, and since then, shares have more than tripled. Although Pitt Street considered it inappropriate to value Alma until a formal PFS, it noted there was significant upside including peer comparisons with Caravel, capped at over $250m at a post-DFS stage along with copper market dynamics. It has also done its own modelling of Briggs and found a post-tax NPV of >$1bn.

Key to unlocking this will be continued drilling success and an upgrading of the existing resource.

Alma Metals is a research client of Pitt Street Research. Pitt Street directors own shares.