Lodestar Minerals

History and corporate structure

Lodestar was established in 2007 and has spent most of its life as a Western Australian explorer, building up ground at Ned’s Creek and in the Earaheedy Basin. Its founding director, David McArthur, served on the board from 2007 until he retired in mid-2026.

Over the past two years, the company has broadened its focus well beyond WA. It moved into Chile in early 2025, issuing 25 million shares to Aeramentum Resources under an option agreement for the Darwin copper project, and completed its first Chilean drilling program in April 2025. Lodestar later withdrew from the Darwin project and added the Three Saints and Los Loros projects in Chile. It completed the acquisition of Virgin Mountain in January 2026 and signed an option agreement over the Pacífico copper project in Chile’s Atacama region in August 2026.

Leadership has also changed. Ed Turner stepped down as CEO in May 2025, and Coraline Blaud, then head of exploration, joined the board as a director the same month. She was named CEO in March 2026. The company is based in Fremantle, Western Australia, and also holds 27.5 million performance rights in ORE Resources (ASX:OR3).

Commodities

Gold is Lodestar’s nearest-term opportunity, through the Ned’s Creek resource. In Chile, the company is exploring for copper in porphyry and iron oxide copper-gold (IOCG) systems, where molybdenum and gold often occur alongside copper. At Virgin Mountain, the target is heavy rare earth elements such as dysprosium and terbium, which are used in the permanent magnets found in electric vehicles and wind turbines.

Chile and the US

Chile is home to three of Lodestar’s projects. At the Three Saints IOCG project, the first two drill holes confirmed copper-gold mineralisation, and the company is reprocessing geophysical data to target more favourable host rocks. Los Loros is a copper-molybdenum-gold porphyry where geophysical surveys have identified five new targets, although drilling has been delayed by flood damage to access roads.

The newest addition is Pacífico, which covers 22km² and a 6km porphyry corridor about 42km from the Relincho copper deposit. The area was previously drilled by First Quantum Minerals (TSX:FM) and Hudbay Minerals (TSX:HBM), but the centre of the corridor has never been tested. Under the option, Lodestar can acquire the project through staged annual payments and a final payment of US$3 million ($4.2 million) in year five, with maiden drilling planned for the June quarter of 2027.

In Mohave County, Arizona, US, Virgin Mountain covers about 3km of a mineralised shear zone across 33 mining claims. Rock-chip sampling has returned up to 14.68% total rare earth oxides (TREO), with a high proportion of heavy rare earths. The project is about two hours by road from the Mountain Pass rare earths facility in California, operated by MP Materials (NYSE:MP).

Leadership

Coraline Blaud is CEO and executive director. A geologist, she led the company’s exploration in Chile, Western Australia, and Arizona before taking the top job in March 2026. Ross Taylor has been on the board since June 2014 and serves as non-executive chairman, having stepped into an executive role for a period after Turner’s departure in 2025. Jillian Terry joined the board as a non-executive director in June 2026. Exploration managers based in Chile, the US, and WA support the team.

Financial snapshot

Lodestar is an exploration company with no production or operating revenue. It had $3.54 million in cash at 30 June 2026, after raising about $4.7 million through a placement led by Oakley Capital Partners, including a director contribution that required shareholder approval. The company reported a net loss of $3.18 million for the 2025 financial year. In late July 2026, the share price was around $0.01, giving a market capitalisation of roughly $14 million.

Micro-cap explorers such as Lodestar carry a high level of risk. Exploration results may not lead to an economic mine, the company relies on raising new capital to fund its programs, and share prices can move sharply on small volumes. This is general information, not financial advice. Readers should consider their own circumstances or seek independent advice before making any investment decision.

Safety, sustainability, and governance

Working across three countries brings a mix of permitting and community obligations, from the Western Australian mining lease process at Ned’s Creek to drill permitting on its mining claims at Virgin Mountain and access agreements in Chile. As a small company, Lodestar runs with a lean board of three directors and relies on specialist consultants, including rare earths experts, for technical work. Its October 2026 resource was reported alongside an exploration target, and the company has stated that exploration targets are conceptual and should not be treated as resources.

Lodestar Minerals news and analysis on Mining.com.au

Mining.com.au follows Lodestar’s drilling results, resource updates, acquisitions, and share price moves, including video interviews with Blaud. The articles tagged to this page update as new stories are published, giving investors and industry readers one place to follow the company’s progress across Western Australia, Chile, and the US.