Back in the early 1970s, two exploration companies found copper and zinc in the soil along 2.4 kilometres of hills three hours west of Sydney.
They packed up in 1974 without drilling a hole as the copper price fell about 40% in the world recession.
Today Exultant Mining (ASX: 10X) said its crew went back over the same hills with a handheld analyser and was still picking up copper and zinc at both ends when the survey finished.
The crew also found a new patch of lead at the northern end, reading close to double the best 1970s number.
10X is the smallest company in our portfolio, valued at under $5 million at 13c with about $3 million of it in cash, and its copper targets sit in a tier-one mining jurisdiction.
The company calls the ground Watsons, and it sits inside Black Hammer, 10X’s 390 square kilometre copper-gold project in the same belt of old volcanic country as Newmont’s Cadia mine.
Cadia sits near Orange and is one of the biggest gold-copper mines in the world, with around 50 million ounces of gold and 9.5 million tonnes of copper.
A Quick Catch-Up on 10X
10X listed in December 2025 and we bought in a couple of months later after sitting down with executive chairman Brett Grosvenor and the team.
They had ground full of old high-grade hits nobody had tested with modern gear, and a plan to do the cheap fieldwork before paying for a rig.
10X listed expecting Black Hammer to be its key asset, and Brett admits the team got a little distracted by early results at Peak View, its other NSW project near Cooma.
The maiden drill program there in August hit silver, zinc and lead at modest grades at the Balerion prospect, and the crew then moved north to Black Hammer.
Take out the $3 million of cash and you’re paying about $2 million for 390 square kilometres of copper-gold ground, which looks cheap to us.
“Everybody’s fighting for equity and capital right now. Thankfully we don’t need it,” Brett told us.
There are 37 million shares on issue, and Brett told us the top 20 holders have gone from owning 40% of the company to 48% since the float.
It’s a sign of confidence in management and the assets in our opinion.
We think a good drill result at Black Hammer could move 10X a long way.
Boa Resources (ASX: BOA) drilled 22 metres at 3.05% copper in WA a fortnight ago and went from $30.5 million to $50.9 million in a week. A copper hit at 10X would land on a company a sixth of Boa’s size before the hit, with about an eighth of the shares.
What 10X Found at Watsons
Exploration manager Seb Hind and his crew pushed a handheld XRF gun into the soil at 190 points and took copper, lead and zinc readings on the spot.
The video below has Seb on the ground at Watsons, where the copper and zinc run for 2.4 kilometres through the hills behind him.
The 1970s crews took their samples along lines up to 488 metres apart, so there were big gaps nobody had tested. 10X went back with a much tighter grid of 50 by 100 metres to see whether the old numbers were real.
The copper and zinc turned up in the same places the old reports had them, along the same 2.4 kilometre strip. The readings were still high at both ends where the grid stopped.
Copper peaked at 330 parts per million and zinc at 529. For copper it works out to about a third of a kilo in every tonne of soil.
Soil numbers always look small next to drill results because the soil only carries a trace of whatever metal sits in the rock underneath. Geologists judge a soil reading by how far it stands above the ordinary dirt around it.
The typical reading at Watsons was 44 parts per million copper, so the best one ran at more than seven times normal. We rate it a solid result for a soil survey.
The strongest readings sit over volcanic rock cut by the same quartz veins where the 1970s geologists found copper minerals.
10X also found lead at the northern end in a patch about 100 metres wide and 300 metres long.
Copper and zinc ran high in this patch, so 10X has a sharper spot to aim at.
“When we redeployed the team from Balerion, we flagged Watsons as the immediate opportunity at Black Hammer, and this survey shows why.”
- Executive Chairman Brett Grosvenor
It’s early days and drilling is the only way to find out what sits below, but we like what 10X is finding at surface.
A drill program can eat a large slice of the cash at a company this size, so 10X is spending wisely on fieldwork before putting holes into the ground.
What Comes Next for 10X
10X plans to extend the grid north-east and south once it signs access agreements with more landholders, and it’s looking at lab analysis on the best spots.
It’s also weighing up ground magnetic and IP surveys. IP runs an electrical current through the ground and maps where the charge holds, which is how geologists find the sulphide minerals carrying copper, zinc and lead.
If the geophysics picks up sulphides under the best soil readings, 10X has its first drill target at Watsons.
Copper traded near US$6.70 a pound on Monday, about 2% under September’s record and up about 30% in a year.
Copper stockpiles are already low, and 709 workers at Antofagasta’s Centinela mine in Chile walked off the job last week. Their unions say production there could halve in November.
Glencore starts trading on the ASX this week at a value of about US$88 billion, and it plans to almost double its copper production to 1.6 million tonnes a year by 2035. A miner its size only spends the money when it’s sure of buyers.
We’re copper bulls, and we like owning a $5 million explorer on the hunt in the same belt as Cadia.
Our Take on 10X
It’s rare to find an explorer this small with money in the bank and a register this tight.
In 10 months on the ASX the team has drilled its first six holes at Balerion and gone straight on to Watsons, and the chairman bought 500,000 shares on market along the way.
From here 10X will widen the soil grid and look at geophysics to pick its first drill target at Watsons. Black Hammer has two more undrilled targets behind it.
The last crews to find metal at Watsons packed up as copper fell 40%.
10X is on the same hills with copper near a record and $3 million in the bank, and we like its chances of being the first to put a drill hole into them.
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