Cobra's 60/40 Spend Split Tests Whether Warrants & Offtake Can Fund 2 Projects

• Cobra Resources plans to split spending over the next 12 months roughly 60/40 between its Wudinna rare earth project and its Manna Hill copper project, without a disclosed total budget behind those percentages.
• Management says the Manna Hill drill program, including additional holes added after recent assays, is funded, citing recent warrant exercises as a source of that capital.
• Wudinna has not yet secured development capital, and the company is targeting strategic offtake partnerships to support funding after a small-scale production study planned for the first quarter of 2027.
• Before the October 27 and November 3 exercises, Cobra had 145 million warrants outstanding at 2.0, 2.3 and 6.0 pence, against a 3.2 pence share price and a market capitalization of £35.06 million.
• Those exercises took shares in issue to 1,102,679,544; each exercise brings in cash without a placing and increases the share count.

2 Projects Drawing on a Single Treasury

Cobra Resources (LSE: COBR) is advancing 2 South Australian projects at different stages, each with its own capital needs. Manna Hill is a copper-gold-molybdenum exploration project where the company is drilling shallow skarn mineralization and testing an interpreted porphyry target at depth. Wudinna is an ionic clay-hosted rare earth project being designed for in-situ recovery (ISR), now with a maiden JORC resource and a production study ahead.

Management's stated plan for the next 12 months allocates roughly 60% of spending to rare earths and 40% to copper. Cobra has not disclosed the total budget behind that split, so the percentages describe intended allocation, not a quantified expenditure program. At a market capitalization of £35.06 million on October 26, 2026, the order in which the 2 projects draw on capital determines how much dilution existing shareholders absorb before each reaches its next value point.

The 2 projects also sit at different points on the funding curve. Management states the Manna Hill exploration program and its expansion are funded. Wudinna's development is not: Cobra has not yet secured offtake agreements or development capital for the project, and strategic offtake partnerships are the route it is targeting.

Warrant Exercises Fund the Drill Bit

On October 26, 2026, before the exercises described below, Cobra had 1,095,722,979 ordinary shares in issue and 145 million warrants outstanding at exercise prices of 2.0, 2.3 and 6.0 pence, with the share price at 3.2 pence. The 2 lower exercise prices were below the share price, giving holders of those tranches a reason to exercise.

Exercises followed. On October 27, 2026, Cobra issued 4,456,565 shares, of which 2,500,000 were at 2.0 pence and 1,956,565 at 2.3 pence, and shares in issue rose to 1,100,179,544. On November 3, 2026, the company issued a further 2,500,000 shares at 2.0 pence, with the total consideration paid to the company, and shares in issue reached 1,102,679,544. Both issues were made under Cobra's existing block listing.

Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Cobra Resources, Rupert Verco, confirmed that both the current copper program and its expansion are covered:

"Yes, absolutely. We're funded for this program, and we are funded for the additional holes. We've had quite a few warrants exercised recently, so it's drill, baby, drill."

The trade-off is direct. Each exercise brings cash into the company without a placing, and each one adds to a share count that already exceeds 1.1 billion. Exercise is at the holder's discretion, so the remaining warrants are a potential source of capital, not committed funding; the 6.0 pence tranche was above the October 26 share price, and Cobra has not disclosed the remaining warrant balance following the October 27 and November 3 exercises.

What the Expanded Drill Program Has to Prove at Manna Hill

Cobra has drilled approximately 7,500 meters at Manna Hill in 2026, with assays outstanding for approximately 3,000 meters. At Blue Rose West, one hole returned 32 meters at 0.70% copper and 0.07 grams per tonne of gold from 52 meters, about 600 meters beyond the 1.6 kilometers of strike already defined at Blue Rose and beside a large magnetic anomaly the company interprets as a possible porphyry intrusion. At Shadow Rose, another hole returned 58 meters at 0.46% copper and 0.15 grams per tonne of gold from 12 meters, with a potential 2-kilometer strike zone to test toward outcropping exposure to the west.

The expanded drill program has 2 jobs. The first is to show whether shallow skarn mineralization has enough continuity and scale to support near-surface economics, with 15 to 20 holes at Blue Rose and Shadow Rose. The second is to build evidence that justifies deeper drilling on the interpreted porphyry, with 6 to 10 holes testing that target and the first drilling at Netley Hill in more than 20 years, where historical drilling returned 350 meters at 0.1% copper, 0.015% molybdenum and 1 gram per tonne of silver.

The porphyry remains an interpreted target, not a defined deposit. Elevated rhenium, sulfides as deep as 320 to 350 meters in earlier diamond drilling, and hydrothermal breccia support the interpretation, while true widths, metallurgy and a Mineral Resource are all still to be established. Recovery testing, including flotation for sulfides, is scheduled to follow this round of drilling.

Why Rare Earths Take 60% of the Budget

Wudinna's maiden resource, reported under JORC (2012) with an effective date of October 22, 2026, totals 150 million tonnes at 470 parts per million total rare earth oxides (TREO), containing 70,400 tonnes of TREO. Indicated resources account for 60 million tonnes at 572 parts per million TREO, approximately 40% of the inventory, from the Boland and Head ore bodies, and the remainder is Inferred. Magnet rare earth oxides average 112 parts per million across the resource, including 101 parts per million neodymium-praseodymium and 10 parts per million dysprosium-terbium.

The total includes material assessed for both ISR and conventional mining. Within the Pidinga Formation, approximately 61% of ore tonnes and 57% of contained TREO are evaluated as ISR-recoverable. Cobra's flowsheet removes cerium to produce a mixed rare earth carbonate in which neodymium-praseodymium makes up 34.4% of TREO and dysprosium-terbium 4.5%, with cerium reduced to approximately 0.6%.

Verco explained what drives the heavier rare earth weighting:

"Between the rare earth project and the copper, we expect the spend to actually be 60/40, with a pilot study coming up or small-scale production study on the rare earth for in situ recovery."

The small-scale production study, planned for the first quarter of 2027, is designed to validate ISR parameters and support feasibility studies. It also supplies the commercial case: Cobra's schedule runs product qualification and negotiation of commercial terms in the same second half of 2027 to 2028 window as demonstrating field performance, so field results and the offtake process advance together. Separately, a conceptual Exploration Target of 665 to 1,447 million tonnes at 376 to 478 parts per million TREO across Boland and Head is not a Mineral Resource, and its conversion is uncertain.

Offtake Is Targeted, Not Secured

Cobra has not yet fixed a development financing structure for Wudinna. The board will assess the rare earth financing strategy and put a strategic plan to the market, with offtake as the targeted route.

Verco outlined that process:

"We as a board will assess what the financing strategy is there for the rare earth, and there will be a process that we will put to the market around a strategic plan there. What we anticipate is we will work through a process around strategic offtake partnerships to support the funding of that project."

Several steps separate that plan from funded development. The indicative schedule targets engaging strategic partners and prospective customers in 2027, qualifying product and negotiating commercial terms in the second half of 2027 through 2028, and finalizing bankable offtake before an investment decision. Across Cobra's strategy pillars, offtake is paired with debt project financing, strategic capital and government support, staged, production-backed scale-up, and investment linked to development milestones. The company describes these as indicative planning windows, not committed dates, with progress toward an investment decision in 2029 subject to feasibility, commercial arrangements, approvals and funding.

Product value is Cobra's main argument to prospective partners. The company's internal margin estimate against 2024 rare earth pricing remains positive, while most emerging projects plotted on an Argus Metals margin curve do not generate a positive margin on their reported pre-feasibility all-in sustaining costs (AISC). Cobra states that bottom-quartile costs are a strategic objective rather than a demonstrated cost position.

Funding Sources Ranked by Certainty

Cobra’s capital sources outside a conventional placing differ in timing and certainty, and they are not equivalent to cash already held. The most certain is cash already received from completed warrant exercises, including the November 3, 2026 issue. Next come Barton Gold (ASX: BGD) shares, with Cobra to own 6.45 million at final settlement of the sale of its gold assets, and a further A$9.5 million in future payments due from the same transaction. The remaining warrants are discretionary capital that holders may or may not exercise, while strategic offtake partnerships for Wudinna’s development are targeted but not yet secured.

The next 12 months of spending include the expanded Manna Hill drill program, petrophysics and follow-up metallurgy, the Wudinna small-scale production study, the Scoping Study and further resource drilling, and Cobra has not disclosed how much of that spending each source will cover. Offtake is aimed at a different and later need: development capital for Wudinna. With no total budget disclosed, the funded statement on Manna Hill is the only explicit coverage statement for this program of work.

What Will Test the Funding Model

Technical uncertainty remains on both projects. No Ore Reserve has been estimated at Wudinna, everything outside the approximately 40% Indicated portion is Inferred, and ISR performance has yet to be validated in the field. At Manna Hill there is no Mineral Resource, true widths depend on drilling that confirms the dip and dip direction of the new zones, and recovery testing has not started.

3 events will test the structure. Results from the expanded drill program will set the case for further copper spending. The small-scale production study will determine what product Cobra can take to prospective offtake partners. The board's strategic plan will show how Wudinna's development capital is to be raised and on what terms.

The Investment Thesis for Cobra Resources

• Cobra Resources plans to split spending over the next 12 months roughly 60% to its Wudinna rare earth project and 40% to its Manna Hill copper project, without a disclosed total budget behind those percentages.
• Management states the expanded Manna Hill drill program is funded, while development capital for Wudinna has not yet been secured.
• Warrant exercises at 2.0 and 2.3 pence in October and November 2026 brought in cash without a placing and took shares in issue to 1,102,679,544, while remaining warrants are a discretionary source of capital, not committed funding.
• Cobra will own 6.45 million Barton Gold shares at final settlement of its gold asset sale and is due a further 9.5 million Australian dollars in future payments, neither of which is cash on hand.
• Wudinna's maiden resource of 150 million tonnes at 470 parts per million total rare earth oxides includes 60 million tonnes of Indicated resources at 572 parts per million, and a small-scale in-situ recovery production study is planned for the first quarter of 2027.
• Cobra is targeting strategic offtake partnerships to support Wudinna's development funding, with progress toward an investment decision in 2029 subject to feasibility, commercial arrangements, approvals and funding.

Manna Hill exploration has a stated funding source today, while Wudinna's development capital depends on converting a field-validated in-situ recovery product into strategic offtake. Drill results, the 2027 production study and the board's financing plan for Wudinna will show whether that structure can carry both projects without heavy reliance on new equity.

TL;DR

Cobra Resources is splitting spending roughly 60/40 between its Wudinna rare earth project and its Manna Hill copper project. Management states the expanded copper drill program is funded, helped by warrant exercises at 2.0 and 2.3 pence that took shares in issue to 1,102,679,544. Wudinna holds a maiden resource of 150 million tonnes at 470 parts per million TREO, but it has not yet secured development capital, with a small-scale ISR production study planned for the first quarter of 2027 ahead of targeted strategic offtake partnerships.

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