ValOre Maps an 8-Kilometer Trend While Its Pedra Branca Study Nears

• ValOre Metals Corp.'s 2026 work program at Pedra Branca in northeastern Brazil pairs district-scale exploration with development studies.
• The exploration side advances new ground through geological mapping, rock and soil geochemistry, and auger drilling.
• A target named Pitombeiras, described as an 8-kilometer mineralized trend, is being advanced through mapping, geochemistry, and auger drilling.
• Development work covers metallurgical and engineering studies, preliminary water and power supply studies, and re-logging of historical drill core at three deposits.
• ValOre is targeting a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) for the fourth quarter of 2026, with a resource update due in the third quarter.

ValOre Metals Corp. (TSXV: VO | OTCQB: KVLQF | FSE: KEQ0) has laid out a 2026 exploration and development program at its Pedra Branca palladium, platinum, and gold project in Brazil, running district-scale target generation and development studies in parallel. The program's focus is district-scale growth, project de-risking, and the transition toward development. It ends with a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026.

The 2026 Exploration & Development Program

The program splits into two tracks. On the exploration side, ValOre is intensifying its use of VRIFY technology to guide regional prospecting across the Pedra Branca property, with follow-up prospecting, surface geochemistry, and Trado auger drilling. Auger drilling recovers shallow material using a rotating screw rather than a diamond-tipped core barrel. The company is working to identify and advance new shallow targets in bedrock across the district, and to advance a target named Pitombeiras, described as an 8-kilometer mineralized trend, through geological mapping, rock and soil geochemistry, and auger drilling. 

Vice President of Exploration of ValOre Metals, Thiago Diniz, credited the pace of the field work to the conditions the team is working in:

"We've been pretty successful in deploying this exploration program, and it's pretty straightforward." 

The development track is study and re-logging work. ValOre is advancing metallurgical and engineering studies to support development planning, continuing preliminary water and power supply studies, and re-logging historical drill core across the Curiu, Esbarro, and Cedro deposits to refine geological and mineralization controls and the assumptions behind mine planning.

Pedra Branca & Ceará State

The project covers 51,096 hectares in Ceará State, in northeastern Brazil. Project operations run from Capitão Mor, a settlement of about 900 people, and the property lies about 4 hours by paved highway from Fortaleza, which has an international deep water port and an international airport. Highways BR-020, BR-122, and BR-226 serve the area.

Diniz pointed to the climate as the reason the ground is quick to work: 

"It's a pretty dry region of Brazil, so you don't really need to worry too much about water or about vegetation."

Brazil now graduates more mining engineers than the US and Canada combined.

Study Sequence & Development Work 

ValOre has published a milestone sequence with three steps ahead of the project. A resource update covering recently drilled targets is scheduled for the third quarter of 2026, the PEA for the fourth quarter, and licensing and environmental impact assessment work for the first quarter of 2027. The company appointed an engineering firm for the study in the fourth quarter of 2025, and metallurgical testwork began in the same quarter.

Diniz measured the local engineering market by the independent specialists who sign off on technical reports:

"The various listed companies working in Brazil have no issues in getting technical reports done and completed with the QPs that are available in Brazil." 

Flotation and leaching testwork is running in partnership with the University of Cape Town. Flotation separates valuable minerals from waste rock by attaching them to air bubbles in a water slurry, and leaching dissolves the metal from the ore using a chemical solution. Both routes feed the engineering work behind the study.  

Significance for Investors  

Pedra Branca is at an earlier stage than the listed platinum group metal projects in its peer group. Its latest milestone is a 2022 resource estimate update. Luanga in Pará reached a PEA in 2025, Marathon in Ontario a feasibility study in the same year, and Waterberg in South Africa a definitive feasibility study in 2024. Stillwater West in Montana is the one project at a comparable stage, on a 2023 resource estimate.     

Concentration is the backdrop. About 90% of the world's platinum group metal reserves are in South Africa; several major platinum operations have closed or been suspended since 2016; and only two major greenfield platinum group metal mines have near-term production. Against that, above-ground platinum and palladium stocks have been drawn down by 42% and now amount to less than five months of coverage, with the shortfall at a multi-year deficit of 500,000 to 700,000 ounces.   

Both of the upcoming milestones fall within the same calendar year. A shareholder holding through 2026 would see the updated metal count and a costed case on the project arrive within two quarters of each other.  

Market Reaction

ValOre's shares were priced at $0.08 as of September 1, 2026, within a 52-week range of $0.065 to $0.160. The company had 255 million shares outstanding and a market capitalization of $20 million on that date, and held less than $0.8 million in cash. Fully diluted, the count rises to 304.2 million shares, including 20 million options at $0.12, expiring in October 2030, and 29.2 million warrants at $0.10, expiring in October 2027. 

Resource Base & Exploration Targets 

The 2022 estimate holds 2.2 million ounces of combined palladium, platinum, and gold, at a grade of 1.08 grams per metric ton over 63.3 million metric tons. It covers 7 near-surface resource zones, supported by more than 40,000 meters of drilling, 4 of which are core deposits: Esbarro, Curiu, Cedro, and Cana Brava, together holding more than 1 million ounces. Trapia and Massape, larger zones to the south, account for more than 1 million ounces between them.   

Five zones drilled in 2023, over more than 6,000 meters, are not in that estimate. Neither is the Salvador target, a discovery in the same cluster, nor Pitombeiras, the trend the 2026 program is mapping. 

ValOre invested US$10 million in exploration between 2020 and 2024 and drilled 23,534 meters over that period. Targeted drilling doubled the inferred resource from 1.1 million ounces to its current level.  

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