Temas Resources Corp (ASX:TIO): Here’s why this company could follow in Metallium’s footsteps

Temas Resources (ASX:TIO) has two critical minerals projects in Quebec and a metals processing technology that could be useful to advance the company’s own projects and those of others. Investors would be aware of the success of Metallium (ASX:MTM) and potentially wondering which company could be the next one. In our view, Temas is at the stage Metallium was exactly 18 months ago.

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Temas Resources’ RCL Technology

Temas got into this space in April 2021, buying 50% of the company that owned the up – the balance would be acquired in 2025. RCL (Regenerative Chloride Leach) is a technology that involved adding a mixed chloride media to ore, which raises the ‘redox potential’ of the metals in the ore, and this allows the metals to be easier to leach out of any solution. That’s the very simple version of how it works.

What’s so special about RCL? It is faster, more efficient, more environmentally friendly and less costly (from a monetary perspective). And it does not compromise on product quality. Temas’ intention was to use this in relation to titanium but this could be just the beginning. There is evidence it works well with other critical metals including vandium, gallium and scandium.

All of these are used to strengthen steel and can do so even in small quantities but also have their own unique uses. They are also all minerals where the West has not had a supply chain sufficient to keep up with demand. Take titanium for instance – the US has only one titanium sponge producer that can only produce 500 tonnes a year, whilst the EU has an import-to-export ratio of 10:1. With supply from titanium deposits in Ukraine disrupted and export restrictions from China, there is a need for sources of critical minerals. RCL could help with this.

Where Temas is at now

Our friends at Pitt Street Research have declared that Temas could be the next Metallium. Metallium has its own metals processing technology (FJH of Flash Joule Heating). Temas is roughly where Metallium was back then in having conducted pilot testing that has demonstrated the potential of the technology although lacking commercial agreements and its own commercial pilot plant.

But Metallium ended up achieving both feats, re-rating to $114.6m by mid-January 2025 (just 3 months after our initiation and weeks after its first commercial collaboration with Indium) and then to $422.6m by mid-July 2025 and to over $600m by mid-January 2026.

Metallium executed on virtually everything it promised investors, and received a further tailwind in the form of Donald Trump’s tariffs which (even prior to implementation) promised significant savings to metals processing companies. So, it goes without saying Temas’ execution will need to be near-perfect (if not perfect) for the company to realise any upside. But even now, we think the company is undervalued relative to what it has already done.

In 2026, Temas has several goals it aims to achieve to advance RCL including: signing the first third-party IP Licensing Agreements, filing additional patents, beginning the process to select the site for a pilot plant and testing the technology with further metals.

In our view, all of these could be value-accretive but progress toward a commercial pilot plant will be the most important of these towards realising long-term shareholder value if peer precedent (specifically Metallium) is anything to go by. Even so, all the other goals (if achieved, of course) will be important and value-accretive too.

Temas’ projects

Temas has two exploration projects in Quebec: La Blache and Lac Brule. Both are promising projects in their own right and could be further enhanced by Temas’ RCL technology. They will also serve as testbeds for RCL, proving the technology’s worth to potential customers. To understand where these projects fit into the picture, we will first describe the project’s individual potential and then outline where RCL could make a difference.

La Blache has an Inferred Resource of 208.5 million tonnes grading 16.7% TiO2, 0.2% V2O5 and 41.5% FE2O3 as well as historical Measured and Indicated Resources not in the resource right now but planned to be included in the next feasibility study.

A 2024 PEA found a C$6.6bn post-tax NPV, although the company was forced to withdraw its reliance on it when listing on the ASX given the ASX’s caution in allowing companies to use Inferred Resources. This doesn’t mean the grades were wrong, the project was uneconomic or there were defects in the report.

In 2026, Temas has been relogging historical drill core and shipping assays for sampling. It will be updating the PEA to include this as well as the historical Measured and Indicated Resources in other parts of the deposit not included in the 2024 PEA. The first results in March 2026 gave investors significant hope.

As for Lac Brule, it is at an earlier stage. It does not have a resource right now but has promising metallurgical bench-testing results, and the company plans to advance the project to a PEA stage.

Significant upside

Our friends at Pitt Street Research see significant upside in Temas – to over $1 per share. Specifically, it sees RCL as being worth $0.84 based on a probability-weighted valuation assuming the set up on a single titanium dioxide processing facility using RCL. As for the projects, Pitt Street only ascribed value to La Blanche and a highly conservative 1% of the NPV prescribed to the project – Pitt Street found La Blanche could be worth A$4.3bn and this was only based on the 2024 PEA.

)Of course it is too early to simply say investors should attribute A$4.3bn in value to the project. It will cost significant time and money to get the project operating (over C$1bn). The IRR assumed all required financing would be equity based and even if there was a 50-50 split between debt and equity, it would still be significantly dilutive. Nonetheless, our model did find that such a mine could be lucrative.

We encourage investors interested in finding out more to check out Pitt Street’s report!

Temas is a research client of Pitt Street Research. Pitt Street directors own shares in Temas.