DY6 Metals carves itself a slice of Cameroon’s growing rutile pie

• DY6’s new Central rutile project shows similarities to mineral sands darlings SVM and PUA’s African projects
• The company has picked up natural rutile nuggets up to 5cm in size
• Assays from reconnaissance sampling underway

DY6 Metals (ASX:DY6) is eyeing a slice of the rare rutile pie thanks to its new project, the Central rutile project in Cameroon.

The project has in-situ mineralisation (shallow and easily mined ore) comparable to Sovereign Metals’ (ASX:SVM) Kasiya project in Malawi, home to the world’s largest rutile resource at 1.8Bt at 1% rutile.

It’s also contiguous to Peak Minerals’ (ASX:PUA) Minta project which recently reported widespread and high value mineral assemblage of up 93% heavy minerals.

That includes the dominant rutile (up to 69.8%), monazite (up to 35.6%) and zircon (up to 21.5%).

Rutile is the primary source of titanium, which is used in the aerospace, automotive, medical and industrial sectors.

A dearth of discoveries in recent years makes the company’s new project even more strategically vital in the supply chain.

Not to mention, the project sits in part of a region in Central Cameroon which is rapidly emerging as a globally significant rutile province.

DY6’s technical consultant Cliff Fitzhenry, who has extensive experience with Rio Tinto and Sovereign Metals in the rutile space says DY6 is in a unique position to leverage the project and get it into production as soon as possible.

“The type of mineralisation we are targeting at Central is residual, in situ natural rutile analogous to Sovereign Metals’ tier-1 Kasiya project in Malawi,” he said.

“Our Central rutile project is contiguous to Peak Minerals’ Minta project and we both are part of this emerging rutile province.”

Geologically speaking, Central Cameroon has a number of similarities to the Lilongwe Plain of Central Malawi where the Kasiya deposit is found. Both regions have a high metamorphic grade bedrock, which is interpreted to be the source of the rutile, and both areas have a deep in situ weathering profile.

“We are confident that our Central rutile project has all the right indications to be highly prospective for in situ residual natural rutile deposits similar to Kasiya,” Fitzhenry said.

“There are very few of these types of deposits globally, so we are in a unique position to capitalise on an emerging supply gap for natural rutile by quickly moving this project forward and unlocking full value.”

Maiden drilling later this year

This week, the company added six new licence applications which make up the Weaver project to the east of the five permits that make up the original Central rutile project, lifting its landholding from 2124km2 to 4974km2.

With the Douala Basin project included, where DY6 identified a host of heavy mineral occurrences in reconnaissance auger sampling, it boasts around 7500km2 in the exciting Cameroonian jurisdiction.

Plus, late last month the company announced that it had identified visible natural rutile, including large residual nuggets at Central, a size even the seasoned Fitzhenry said he’d never seen before.

“These nuggets were up to 5cm in size and appear to be a weathering product from late-stage pegmatites,” Fitzhenry said.

“Following successful completion of an initial reconnaissance program at the Central Project, we will now be moving the project to the next stage where we look to kick off a systematic soil sampling campaign this week.

“This will help us to quickly cover the project package area and will help us delineate higher grade zones which will be the focus of our maiden drilling campaign later this year.”

Meanwhile, DY6’s reconnaissance program at the Douala Basin HMS project has wrapped up, with results expected in the coming weeks.

“We look forward to reporting our reconnaissance sampling assay results within the September quarter and to then move the projects forward toward maiden drilling campaigns later this year,” Fitzhenry said.

By way of comparison, Sovereign is worth ~$450m and counts Rio Tinto as its largest shareholder at close to 20%. With Kasiya also regarded as one of the world’s largest natural graphite deposits, that puts it on the radar for a future takeover at a significant premium to that valuation.

Peak shares have lifted 430% in 2025 alone, taking its valuation to $134m on the back of results from Minta.

DY6 is right next door at a market cap, even after a 475% YTD gain of 475%, of just $17m. That means DY6 is highly leveraged to a discover similar in nature to next door neighbour Peak’s.

At Stockhead, we tell it like it is. While DY6 Metals is a Stockhead advertiser, it did not sponsor this article.