Ballywire Zinc-Copper Discovery: What Drilling Has Proven So Far

Hole 25-3552-51 cut 29.9 m grading 15.3% zinc plus lead (Zn+Pb), 552 g/t silver and 0.67% copper. In most districts, a hit like that would be the centrepiece of a resource estimate. At Ballywire, as of mid-October 2026, there is no resource estimate, no metallurgical testwork and no economic study, despite 86 holes reported and a mineralised strike that Group Eleven Resources says now runs to roughly 3.2 km.

That gap is where the investment case for this zinc-copper discovery currently sits.

Ballywire lies on Group Eleven’s 100%-owned PG West Project in Ireland, and four rigs are still turning. The company calls it Ireland’s most significant mineral discovery in more than a decade. That is management’s characterisation, and it is not an independent economic conclusion. Your read on the stock depends on keeping those two categories apart.

This analysis separates what drilling has proven from what remains hypothesis. It also identifies the milestones over the next 12-18 months that will decide whether the thesis holds.

What has drilling actually proven at Ballywire?

The 17 September 2026 consolidated release is the clearest place to start, because it shows high grades recurring across hole after hole.

Hole 25-3552-35 returned 18.3 m at 16.1% Zn+Pb, 233 g/t Ag and 0.42% Cu. Hole 25-3552-53 added 19.8 m at 13.7% Zn+Pb, including 4.7 m at 27.6%. Then came 25-3552-51, with a core interval that stands well above the rest.

Standout interval: hole 25-3552-51 8.4 m at 18.2% Zn+Pb, 1,776 g/t Ag and 2.21% Cu, within a broader 29.9 m intercept (company release, 17 September 2026).

The copper is the more distinctive part of the story. A 11 June 2026 release reported nine copper-silver intervals, with a peak of 23.60% Cu. Ballywire is a hybrid system: Irish-style zinc sits above a deeper copper-silver zone. The company says it is the first find of this kind in about 60 years of Irish exploration, and again that claim is the company’s own.

The repetition carries real information. High grades across many holes tell you this is not a one-hole anomaly.

Grade is still only one input, though. A resource also needs continuity and tonnage, and these figures are drilled intercepts, not true widths. Intercepts are not tonnes.

Paleozoic base metal deposits such as SEDEX and MVT systems explain why Irish-style zinc is lens-shaped and sometimes patchy, and why correctly classifying the deposit type matters for continuity assumptions in any future resource.

How far does the strike extension take the system?

The footprint has been growing quickly. Recent drilling added roughly 270 m to the high-grade zone, lengthening it about 17% from around 1,600 m to roughly 1,870 m. That is a different measure from the broader mineralised strike, which the company extended by 600 m to about 3.2 km in April 2026.

The two step-outs drilled into new ground confirmed that the system continues. The first returned about 6.5 m at 7.9% Zn+Pb and 14 g/t Ag, with copper-silver beneath. The second, roughly 420 m further on, returned about 7.4 m at 10.1% Zn+Pb and 36 g/t Ag.

That second hole was abandoned at 421 m after rods stuck in poor ground.

Other results were weaker. Hole 61 returned only minor Zn-Pb where it hit a fault. The first hole into Anomaly D was weaker than the core, and the first Anomaly A hole (26-468-25), about 2 km southwest, reported no qualifying high-grade assay. Lower grades at the edges tell you the system is growing, but how these thinner zones are treated will set the margin of error in any future resource.

Funding size also varies by source. The company release cites a programme of about 67,000 m, while the CEO interview and later independent coverage cite about 70,000 m, which looks like rounding.

What the gravity anomalies A to D represent

The trend runs about 6 km across four gravity highs. Management says it is about a quarter of the way along.

• Anomaly C: the discovery itself, and the only one systematically drilled (proven).
• Anomaly A: low-grade copper with tennantite-tetrahedrite (encouraging, unproven).
• Anomaly D: a weaker first hole that still showed prospectivity (unproven).
• Anomaly B: an older hole by a previous operator hit massive sulphide (untested by the current programme).

A gravity high shows where denser rock sits underground, which is useful for aiming drills. It does not guarantee economic mineralisation.

What do metallurgy and the resource timeline mean for the investment case?

Management sounds confident about how the rock will process, yet no testwork has been completed. Metallurgical testwork measures how much of each metal can actually be recovered into a saleable product. Recoveries for zinc, lead, silver, copper and germanium are all unknown.

The company’s reasoning is that the zinc zone holds standard sphalerite and galena, like other Irish deposits. The deeper copper zone resembles Gortdrum, a historic Irish copper-silver mine, and no oxide mineralisation has been seen.

Management view (untested) CEO Bart Jaworski’s position is that the zinc-lead-silver zone’s metallurgy is not expected to be troublesome. No testwork has yet confirmed this.

The open question sits in the copper zone. Tennantite-tetrahedrite minerals can complicate concentrate quality and recovery.

The money is in place to find out. A C$12 million financing around March 2026 funds roughly two years of drilling with four rigs. Independent coverage put cash at about C$16.2 million at 30 June 2026, with later updates indicating about C$18 million.

Management hopes to fill out the “full picture” over 12-15 months. It puts a maiden resource decision 12-18 months out, and it wants to avoid publishing an estimate that new drilling quickly makes obsolete. A maiden resource is the first formal, code-compliant estimate of tonnes and grade.

Watch for these milestones in sequence:

1. Assays from the remaining holes
2. Drilling at Anomaly B
3. First metallurgical results
4. Germanium assay reconciliation
5. The maiden resource
6. Further financing

Irish history counsels patience. Lisheen was discovered in 1990 and closed in 2015. Pallas Green carries about 45 Mt at 7.2% Zn and 1.2% Pb (Glencore, 2022) but is still not a mine. A resource and metallurgy would turn this from a geology story into an economics story, so you should read each drill release as one input to that shift, not as a valuation event on its own.

Is germanium a real upside or a headline accelerant?

Germanium is the most headline-friendly metal in the story. Germanium is a critical mineral used in semiconductors and optics, and it often occurs with zinc.

Assays peak at 94.6 g/t, with typical high-grade ranges around 20-40 g/t. The complication is method. When 220 samples from five holes were re-assayed using sodium-peroxide fusion, results averaged 68% higher than earlier lithium-borate results. A further 110 samples from 15 holes are being re-analysed. You cannot simply add the old and new datasets together; they need to be reconciled first.

Prices are just as unsettled:

Reuters reported in September 2026 that prices were roughly nine to ten times 2023 levels. China introduced export licensing in August 2023. A suspension of the US-specific ban runs through 27 November 2026 unless it is extended.

The germanium price surge since 2023 has not drawn out new supply as economics would predict, which is why export controls and processing capacity, rather than mine output, shape how much any by-product credit is worth.

Before germanium counts economically, the company needs to show:

• Deportment (which minerals host the germanium)
• Recovery rates
• Payability from smelters
• Any penalties

Germanium may add credit value. You should treat it as optionality that depends on both export-control politics and metallurgy, not as a base-case driver.

What could go wrong, and how should investors weigh it?

Each risk has its own evidence trail, but they do not all carry equal weight.

Ballywire was first announced in September 2022 and is still pre-resource and pre-metallurgy. Navan/Tara shows Irish zinc can support long-life mines; Tara resumed production in October 2024. Lisheen shows how long the path from discovery to production can run.

The risks that drive outcomes are continuity, metallurgy and financing. These three make up conversion risk: the work of turning intercepts into an economic, permitted, financed mine. That risk compounds over years, while individual drill results are noise. A workable lens is to weigh evidence strength, time to the next catalyst and the cash runway together.

Zinc stock selection depends less on the metal’s direction than on project stage, jurisdiction, costs and funding, which is why conversion risk matters more here than any single drill result.

Reading the “multiples” argument

Jaworski frames the upside as stacked multiples. He applies x4 across the gravity anomalies, a possible x3 for parallel trends, and x2 for copper beneath zinc, which he considers very likely. He has said explicitly that he is not claiming the full 24x.

This is a valuation argument, not a resource estimate. Each layer is a separate hypothesis that needs its own drilling proof.

Separating proof from promise as the next 12 months of drilling unfolds

The discovery is real and growing. The economics remain untested.

Over the coming year, the signals that matter are assays from the remaining holes, results at Anomaly B, first metallurgy, the germanium reconciliation and the maiden resource decision. Clean zinc recoveries and continuous grades at B would strengthen the thesis considerably. Poor copper recoveries from tennantite-tetrahedrite or a thin, patchy B result would weaken it.

Until those results arrive, judge each release by whether it moves the story closer to tonnes and recoveries.

This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. Investors should conduct their own research and consult with financial professionals before making investment decisions. Past performance does not guarantee future results, and forward-looking statements are speculative and subject to change based on market developments and company performance.