CuFe spots high-grade historical bismuth at Orlando project

• CUF reports historical intercepts of bismuth of up to 3.85%
• Bismuth critical mineral for USA, EU, UK, India, South Korea and Japan
• Company plans to now update the project resource to include bismuth

Special Report: CuFe says a technical review has highlighted high-grade historical intercepts of bismuth at its Orlando deposit in the Northern Territory.

The critical element is one of a limited number of minerals included on the critical mineral lists of the US, EU, UK, India, South Korea and Japan.

Current global production is dominated by China, which produces over 80% of global supply.

The Defence Logistics Agency of the United States (DLA) issued a tender in August 2025 to purchase Bismuth metal to stockpile as part of a strategic minerals reserve – which bodes well for CuFe (ASX:CUF).

Having already reported previously overlooked bismuth resources in an update of its Gecko deposit, a review highlighted several significant bismuth intercepts at Orlando from 2022 drilling by CuFe including 10m at 1.52% bismuth from 100m in 220RC10.

That included higher grade zones of 2m at 3.85% from 102m and 5m at 2.4% bismuth from 102m.

And there’s continuity. Hole 220RC10 is immediately adjacent to historic holes that contain intercepts of 8m at 3.78% bismuth from 87m (ORL98), including 4m at 5.5% bismuth from 89m and 8.8m at 2.45% bismuth from 85.4m (D58), including 4.9m at 4.42% bismuth from 88.1m.

The company says the fact that historical mined grades from Tennant Creek, Australia’s largest historic producing region of the rare commodity, averaged 0.3% illustrates the high-grade nature of these intercepts.

Orlando update to include bismuth

It comes not long after an update of the Gecko resource to 18.4Mt at 2.01% copper and 0.25g/t gold at a 1% CuEq cutoff, with 17.7Mt inferred and 693,000t indicated.

That included bismuth as an accessory mineral at an average grade of 0.08% for 13,803 tonnes of contained metal.

Previous drilling didn’t consider the critical metal a key focus, and was largely focused on copper and gold, but bismuth market dynamics have dramatically shifted due to Chinese export restrictions earlier in 2025.

CuFe is now on the lookout for areas with higher bismuth grades.

The company has commissioned an update by MEC Mining Consultants of the Orlando resource to include Bismuth, with the work expected to be completed within the next 30 days.

“We have a fairly unique project in that bismuth is a co-product of mining and producing the copper and gold ores, is of a high grade and has a well demonstrated and successful history of production,” executive director Mark Hancock said.

“The Tennant Creek Mineral Field could well be one of the few significant bismuth resource provinces outside of China which represents an exciting opportunity for CuFe given growth in demand and pricing for the metal this year.

“Currently we have one of Australia’s largest reported bismuth resources with over 13kt of contained metal within the Gecko resource.

“Fortunately, the bismuth occurs mostly within the copper and gold mineralisation so any additional revenue stream should come with minimal additional operational cost and only minor capital cost to the plant flowsheet to recover a bismuth rich concentrate in a very similar way to what was done at Warrego with the Orlando and Gecko ores in the late 1990s.”

This article was developed in collaboration with CuFe, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This article does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.