A Madaouela Partner Could Help Fund Muntanga, Atomic Eagle's 58.8 Million-Pound Flagship

• Atomic Eagle plans to advance traditional debt and equity sources for both its Muntanga and Madaouela uranium projects.
• Depending on how it is structured, a Madaouela partnering and financing process has the potential to return money to help fund Muntanga in part or in whole.
• More strategic investors are expected to have entered the uranium market by the time Muntanga seeks financing, by management's estimate.
• Cash stood at A$11.5 million on September 30, 2026, before about A$10.9 million from Menel's option exercise.
• Madaouela's converted JORC resource and scoping study are expected in the first quarter of 2027.

What Has Happened

Atomic Eagle (ASX: AEU | OTCQX: AEUXF) ended the September 2026 quarter with A$11.5 million in cash and no loan, credit standby, or other financing facilities. After the quarter, its largest shareholder exercised options for about A$10.9 million, and the company made its initial US$5 million payment to the Republic of Niger under the Madaouela Mining Convention.

The converted JORC resource for Madaouela and a scoping study with updated economic outcomes are both expected in the first quarter of 2027. Alongside those dates, Atomic Eagle plans to advance traditional debt and equity for each of its 2 uranium projects while it pursues strategic partners. Depending on how it is structured, a Madaouela partnering process has the potential to return money to help fund Muntanga in part or in whole.

Madaouela as a Possible Source of Muntanga Funding

Madaouela supplies the scale and grade in Atomic Eagle's portfolio, and the company links its partnering process to how Muntanga is paid for. Madaouela hosts a foreign estimate of 116.5 million pounds (lb) of uranium oxide at 1,282 parts per million, with an effective date of July 1, 2022. It was prepared under NI 43-101 and is not yet reported under the JORC Code. Behind it are about 600,000 meters of drilling and about US$160 million of earlier spending. Muntanga, the 100%-owned flagship in Zambia, has a JORC resource of 58.8 million lb at 309 parts per million.

A new exploitation permit for Madaouela has been granted to Madaouela Mining Company SA, the Nigerien subsidiary in which Atomic Eagle owns 60%. The Republic of Niger owns the other 40%: a 15% free-carried interest and a 25% contributing interest that is diluted if the state does not fund its share. A US$40 million credit applies against the government's future equity contributions and is not an additional upfront cash payment.

Chief Executive Officer of Atomic Eagle, Phil Hoskins, ties a source of money for Zambia to how a Madaouela partnering deal is structured:

"Madaouela's obviously got huge strategic appeal in terms of size and grade, and depending on the sort of partnering and financing transaction process that we go through with Madaouela, there is the ability to potentially take money off the table that could then come back and help us fund Zambia in part or in whole."

Atomic Eagle presents the pair as a simple heap leach development in Zambia alongside a high-grade scale opportunity in Niger, with multiple future financing pathways. The order in which the 2 projects are developed and financed is likely to be the advantage of holding them together, in management's view.

Debt, Equity & Strategic Routes in Parallel

Atomic Eagle plans to run conventional and strategic financing at the same time for each project. For Muntanga, management expects both traditional debt and equity and strategic investors of the kind Bannerman brought in to be available.

Hoskins argues that relying on a single route costs shareholders the best deal:

"My view on financing of both assets or any asset is that you need to have as many options on the table as possible. The day you have 1 option is the day that the shareholders won't get the best deal, and so we'll make sure in all assets that we'll be advancing traditional debt and equity sources."

For Madaouela, the Mining Convention provides the framework for financing and development, and a strategic financing process is among the project's next steps. Under the convention, Madaouela has legal and tax stabilization for the life of mine, long-term tenure security, and internationally recognized dispute resolution, and its offtake rights are defined. Management reads those rights as giving any party on arm's-length terms open access to offtake. The historical arbitration has been withdrawn, which ICSID has since confirmed. After its larger study work, Atomic Eagle intends to run a financing process and engage strategic investors, whether American or Chinese.

The choice between routes will be made on numbers. Management expects the board to weigh the options across low, medium, and high uranium price cases, and that a higher market capitalization generally gives a company a stronger hand in negotiating with strategic partners. Bidders for 1 asset sometimes look at the total market capitalization instead and offer a premium for both. Atomic Eagle is prepared to take projects through development and construction, with shareholder value as the test it applies.

Cash, Options & Spending Before the Studies

The study period is funded from cash and option proceeds, with no financing facility in place at quarter end. The September 30, 2026 balance excludes the Menel proceeds. On that balance and the quarter's operating outflows, Atomic Eagle had 4.5 quarters of funding available.

Menel Energy and Resources Limited, a Zambian pension fund that held 9% of the company in October 2026, has exercised 35,149,113 options at A$0.31 for about A$10.9 million. About 16.8 million options in the same category remain at A$0.31, expiring May 5, 2027, and their full exercise would bring in about A$5.2 million. The Menel exercise keeps the company fully funded, probably into early 2028, by management's estimate. Exploration spending was about A$2.0 million in the September quarter.

Muntanga's development budget is untouched. The A$3,880,000 set aside in the prospectus for project development costs had no spending against it by September 30, 2026, and A$14,782,970 of the prospectus estimate remained to be spent overall. Atomic Eagle is on track to meet its planned business objectives. The next Niger payment, US$5 million, is due at the start of construction, which is a couple of years away.

Broader Context

State-linked buyers are taking positions in uranium supply, and CNNC has made a strategic investment in Bannerman. Management regards Bannerman as the nearest technical analogy for Muntanga. Beyond that deal, India has signed a large long-term supply deal with Kazatomprom and a 22 million lb deal over 9 years with Cameco, and China has 58 operating reactors and 30 under construction.

Hoskins weighs the offtake terms that come with conventional debt and equity against the structure Bannerman reached with CNNC:

"Obviously they will bring certain types of offtake agreements that come with those that might not leave the best value on the table for equity shareholders, and that's why I think the route that Bannerman went down to be able to get a market-based offtake with CNNC to be able to approach financing and be debt-free with a big strategic partner like that I think has real appeal."

Zambia takes no free carried interest in mining projects, and Muntanga's resources sit on granted mining licenses with environmental and resettlement action plan approvals in place. In October 2026, the long-term uranium price had risen 12% in the calendar year, while uranium equities had fallen by more than half since January. Management expects the uranium market to be in a different place by the time Muntanga seeks financing, a couple of years from now, and that more strategic investors will have entered it by then.

What to Watch Next

Drilling at the current Muntanga North targets is expected to finish in the fourth quarter of 2026, with the large Targets 6, 7, and 8 still to be tested. Muntanga then moves to an updated JORC resource in the first quarter of 2027, updated feasibility studies through 2027, and financing in 2028, which management expects would bring Muntanga online by 2031.

At Madaouela, the converted JORC resource and the scoping study are expected in the same quarter. The scoping study is the first output of the optimization program and will include updated economic outcomes and plans for future feasibility work. Atomic Eagle also plans to update Madaouela's feasibility studies and environmental approvals while it progresses financing. The remaining Menel-category options expire on May 5, 2027.

By the end of the first quarter of 2027, Atomic Eagle aims to have a JORC resource for each project and a Madaouela scoping study with updated economic outcomes in hand.

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