Fortuna Metals Drills 50km Rutile Target Near World’s Largest Known Deposit

Kampini phase 1 drilling underway as Fortuna targets 50km of rutile-bearing strike

Fortuna Metals (ASX: FUN) has mobilised its exploration team to its Kampini Project in Malawi, commencing a phase 1 hand auger drill program targeting approximately 50km of strike of rutile-bearing lithology.

The program follows up on historical drillholes that returned consistently high titanium values, with headline results including 8m @ 1.46% TiO₂ (LFHA0071), 7m @ 2.14% TiO₂ (LFHA0079), and 8m @ 1.57% TiO₂ (LFHA0085), all from surface. A total of 66 hand auger holes are planned for the phase 1 program.

Adding to the near-term newsflow, priority aircore assays from the Mlongo, Kahuna and Agogo targets are anticipated shortly, representing an additional catalyst investors should be watching closely.

Tom Langley, CEO, Fortuna Metals

“The exploration team continue to systematically explore our Malawi projects, having only just recently completed the 7,600m aircore program, the team have mobilised to Kampini to begin the phase 1 hand auger program. The phase 1 drilling has the dual purpose to traverse the tenement from west to east over the entire ~ 50km strike of the rutile bearing lithology host to the Mkanda and Kasiya deposits and follow up on historical drillholes that returned high titanium values in shallow hand auger drilling.

With only limited historical drilling completed at Kampini, its extremely positive that all historical drillholes returned high grade titanium, with best results including 8m @ 1.46% TiO2 and 7m @ 2.14% TiO2. At Mkanda the historical drillhole MGHA0737 recorded 10m @ 1.37% TiO2 and proved a good indicator for rutile mineralisation, with results from a twin hole Fortuna completed in 2025 at the same location returning 10m @ 0.76% (MHA006).

I look forward to updating the market with a steady stream of assays of this year’s hand auger and aircore drilling, with the priority aircore assays anticipated shortly.”

Historical drilling at Kampini — what the numbers show

With only limited historical drilling completed at Kampini, the standout validation point is that every single historical drillhole returned high-grade titanium values. A 100% hit rate from a reconnaissance program, while based on a small number of holes, is a meaningful signal for investors assessing the prospectivity of the broader tenement.

The Kampini historical results (LFHA-prefix holes) from Appendix Table 1 are presented below. All intervals are from surface to end of hole (EOH).

For context, the nearby Mkanda project provides a useful comparison. Historical hole MGHA0737 recorded 10m @ 1.37% TiO₂, and when Fortuna twinned that hole in 2025, it returned 10m @ 0.76% TiO₂ (MHA006). This illustrates how historical titanium values can translate to rutile exploration targets, though with caveats.

Across the broader Mkanda tenement, subsequent drilling has returned rutile grades up to 2.32%, extending the grade profile well beyond the titanium assay values captured in historical hand auger reconnaissance.

Investors should note an important technical qualification here. As the company’s own cautionary note states, titanium assays alone should not be considered a proxy for rutile grade. Rutile is expected to be the dominant titanium species, but titanium assays on raw samples cannot determine rutile contribution, and therefore should not be interpreted as an indication of rutile grade or economic value. Detailed laboratory procedures are required to determine the actual presence and grade of rutile mineralisation.

Understanding rutile mineralisation — why Malawi’s geology matters

Rutile is a mineral form of titanium dioxide (TiO₂) and one of the primary feedstocks for titanium metal used in paint pigment, aerospace applications, and emerging battery and energy technologies. It is among the most economically significant industrial minerals currently attracting exploration capital.

The deposit model at Kampini and Mkanda is what geologists call a residual placer (or eluvial) heavy mineral deposit. In plain terms, tropical weathering over millions of years has stripped away lighter, chemically mobile minerals from the top 5–10m of the soil profile, leaving heavy minerals including rutile concentrated in place. This shallow, flat-lying geometry makes hand auger drilling an appropriate and cost-effective exploration method at this stage.

The host rock at both projects is the graphite-biotite-muscovite schist (Slli-4a), a geological formation that Fortuna’s combined Mkanda-Kampini tenements follow for 70km of strike. This is the same formation that hosts Sovereign Metals’ (ASX: SVM) Kasiya deposit, described as the largest rutile deposit in the world at 2.1 billion tonnes @ 0.96% rutile. It is important to be clear: Fortuna’s projects are not equivalent to Kasiya. The reference is purely contextual, establishing that Fortuna is exploring the same geological setting, approximately 20km south of that world-class deposit.

Fortuna’s combined Mkanda-Kampini tenements were secured as Malawi rutile projects adjacent to Kasiya, positioning the company in the same schist formation that hosts Sovereign Metals’ world-class deposit before the broader geology had been systematically drilled.

The projects also benefit from strong infrastructure availability:

• Approximately 20km from Lilongwe, the capital city of Malawi
• 25km from rail access to the Nacala rail corridor, connecting to the Nacala deep water port in Mozambique
• 15km from high-capacity power lines
• Plentiful fresh water for potential future processing options

What’s next — assay results and a building pipeline of catalysts

Fortuna’s 2026 exploration programs are running on several fronts simultaneously, with a sequence of results expected to flow through over the coming months:

1. Phase 1 Kampini hand auger — 66 holes now underway, traversing approximately 50km of strike from west to east
2. 7,618m aircore program at Mkanda — now complete, with priority assays from the Mlongo, Kahuna and Agogo targets anticipated shortly and on an ongoing basis over the next 4–6 months
3. 648-hole Mkanda hand auger infill program — complete, with assays pending
4. In-country laboratory commissioned to accelerate heavy mineral separation sample preparation and reduce assay turnaround time
5. Rare earth and graphite analysis underway in parallel as part of a multi-commodity focus

The investment case here rests on systematic exploration of a large, underexplored tenement sitting in the same geological setting as one of the world’s most significant mineral sands discoveries. Positive results from either the aircore or hand auger programs would add further definition to that picture. The near-term catalyst to watch is the priority aircore assays, which management has flagged as imminent.

Ready to Explore Fortuna Metals’ Kampini Rutile Project in More Detail?

Fortuna Metals is systematically drilling across 50km of rutile-bearing strike at Kampini, backed by a 100% hit rate from historical drillholes and high-grade titanium intercepts reaching 7m @ 2.14% TiO₂ — all from surface. With priority aircore assays from multiple targets anticipated shortly, the near-term newsflow pipeline is building rapidly.

Discover the full scope of Fortuna’s Malawi exploration strategy, including its proximity to the world’s largest rutile deposit, by exploring the Fortuna Metals (ASX: FUN) investor profile on Discovery Alert.