Commencement of Resource Focused Aircore Drilling

Cobra (LSE: COBR), the mineral exploration and development company advancing a potentially world-class ionic Rare Earth Elements ("REEs") discovery at its Boland Project in South Australia, is pleased to announce it has commenced resource focused aircore drilling at Boland.

This follows the completion of highly successful bench scale metallurgical studies which demonstrated the potential for the recovery of critical rare earth metals from Boland through low-cost and low impact in situ recovery (ISR) mining.

Highlights

• Initial drilling of 20 holes (~1,000m) before Christmas aimed at:

o Extending the mineralisation footprint peripheral to the established Boland Wellfield where high grade mineralisation (0.44% TREO) delivered high recoveries (68%) of valuable magnet rare earths ("MREOs") at pH3 with low acid consumption and low levels of impurities in the bench scale ISR studies

o Testing and improving the Company's model that interprets this favourable ionically bound REE mineralisation within permeable sands across a sizeable footprint

• This month's activity comprises part of Stage 1 of a funded 12,000m programme to support a maiden resource at the Company's Boland Project as a precursor to undertaking initial economic evaluations in the form of a scoping study in late 2025
• Positive initial geological observations have been made with the unit hosting Zone 3 mineralisation being intersected ~1km south of previous drilling
• Balance of Stage 1 aircore holes to be completed in January 2025
• First assays expected in or around February 2025 - these results will underpin the location and design of further sonic core drilling to provide scaled density and metallurgy samples to support resource evaluation

Rupert Verco, Managing Director & CEO of Cobra, commented:

"Drilling is the next part of an exciting journey for Cobra's shareholders throughout 2025 as we focus on defining a scalable resource of valuable REEs. The advantage of focusing on metallurgy first is we have already derisked key features of the deposit and can now drill out a resource of size with a measure of confidence in the future economics.

Our ionic REEs are hosted within permeable sands which is the critical enabler of ISR as an extraction method to bypass the challenges of handling and treating clay ores. This reduces both infrastructure and operational costs, positioning Cobra for a potential bottom quartile cost mining operation.

We are well funded to advance the Boland Project. This programme is aimed at defining both scale and grade and we are delighted to get some holes under our belt even before year-end. Drilling will provide important metrics that will support a scoping study in late 2025."

Figure 1: (A) Aircore drilling underway at the Boland Project. (B) Aircore chips from drillhole CBAC0187 defining the geological target (Zone 3) - reduced organic rich Pidinga Formation containing coarse, permeable sands 38 - 42m

Boland Project

Follow this link to watch a short video of CEO Rupert Verco detailing the company's planned drilling programme: https://investors.cobraplc.com/link/aP386y

• Wudinna Project Update: "2nd Bench Scale ISR Study & £1.7M Placing", dated 26 November 2024

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