Switch Metals launches alluvium exploration programme at Issia
By Josh White
Date: Monday 20 Oct 2025
(Sharecast News) - Switch Metals said on Monday that it has started an alluvium exploration programme at its Issia Project in Côte d'Ivoire, targeting additional tantalum-rich coltan deposits within drainage basins on the Badinikro licence.
The AIM-traded critical metals company said the new phase followed the successful completion of its pitting programme for a maiden mineral resource estimate, which remained on track for completion in early 2026.
It said the work would focus on sampling alluvial basins where heavy minerals such as tantalum and niobium were likely to have accumulated through natural erosion and sedimentation processes.
A pilot wash plant was being assembled to process and assay samples for tantalum and associated heavy minerals.
The firm said the exploration team planned to collect 491 samples across 2,763 hectares - equivalent to roughly one sample per five hectares - which would then be panned for heavy mineral concentrates and analysed in the laboratory.
Results would be used to rank the basins by their mineral prospectivity and determine follow-up resource targeting.
Chief executive Karl Akueson said the programme would expand the project's scale beyond the initial resource zones.
"The first MRE work which focuses exclusively on the priority MRE 1 and MRE 2 target zones is well underway at Issia with the arrival and the ongoing installation of the pilot wash plant," he said.
"Whilst our priority remains the delivery of the first MRE at Issia in early 2026, we continue to explore on the Badinikro licence to delineate new resource targets and thereby demonstrate the district-scale potential of this unique project."
Akueson added that the combination of shallow eluvium, colluvium and alluvium targets in the near term, followed by hard rock exploration in later phases, would progressively define the full extent of the Issia Project.
At 1122 BST, Switch Metals shares were down 7.5% at 9.25p.
Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.
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