Critical Mineral Resources: Drilling, Development and Re-Rate Potential

Critical Mineral Resources (LSE:CMRS) is looking like an increasingly interesting valuation story.

At its Agadir Melloul copper-silver project in Morocco, the company is drilling, delivering results, and working towards a clear development pathway. Yet, despite that progress, it still has a market cap of only around £7.6 million.

That feels like a disconnect worth watching.

After all, while CMR is still an early-stage company, and there is plenty left to prove, the direction of travel is clear:

• Specifically, the company has secured a mining licence and is working towards a maiden JORC resource later this year. If it can keep delivering on that timetable, then there's a decent possibility the market will start to take a closer look here.

At this valuation, it’s unlikely to take much for sentiment to shift. So, let’s look into the story here…

Flagship asset

Agadir Melloul is based in Morocco, a jurisdiction that has a long-established mining industry, improving infrastructure, proximity to European markets, and a regulatory environment generally viewed as supportive.

That matters for CMR, because the company is not just trying to make a discovery; it’s building a development platform.

Agadir Melloul is a copper-silver project with shallow, sediment-hosted mineralisation. In simple terms, the company is looking to define a deposit that can be mined relatively close to surface, rather than chasing deep, narrow veins that can be expensive and complicated to develop.

That is an important distinction.

• If the mineralisation is shallow, reasonably continuous, and wide enough, it could support a lower-cost initial mining operation. That is the model CMR is trying to prove up.

The wider setting also helps. Agadir Melloul sits in a prospective district, with management drawing comparisons to Tizert, a large, 130Mt copper deposit around 55km away.
 
That does not mean Agadir Melloul will become another Tizert, but it does give useful geological context. It shows both that this part of Morocco can host meaningful sedimentary copper systems and that they can be successfully advanced.

Proving up the potential

CMR’s job now is to demonstrate how much of that potential exists on its own ground. And last week’s drilling results offer an encouraging step in the right direction here.

The company reported a series of shallow copper intersections, including results such as 5.0m at 1.20% copper, 3.7m at 1.76% copper, and 4.0m at 1.20% copper.

The grade is useful, but the width is the key point.

• CMR had been working around an average target width of roughly 2m. So, when drilling starts returning wider zones, it becomes more interesting. Wider zones can build tonnes faster. They can also potentially make mining simpler, particularly if the material is near surface.

That was one of the points CEO Charlie Long made to us when we spoke to him following the update. You can watch the interview in full here.

He explained that CMR is not looking for a narrow, deep, vein-style deposit. The focus is on shallow, flat-lying or gently undulating mineralisation that could be more straightforward to mine.

• That’s why these widths matter. They do not prove the full scale of the project yet. But they do help build confidence that Agadir Melloul has the right ingredients.

Stacked list of catalysts

Now, CMR is drilling with a plan. The company has laid out a clear timetable for 2026, with a series of milestones expected over the coming months.

Further assays are due as drilling continues. Metallurgical work, processing studies, geotechnical work, and plant design are also expected to progress in parallel.

The big milestone is the maiden JORC resource, targeted for Q3. That could be a key moment for the market.

• Right now, investors are still being asked to value the project based on drilling results, management targets, and development ambition. A maiden resource changes that. It gives the market something more tangible to benchmark.

After that, the company is aiming to move into mine planning and further feasibility work, with the broader goal of advancing towards an initial mining operation.

Again, execution is everything—timelines can slip; results can disappoint; development work can uncover issues. But if CMR keeps hitting these milestones, it becomes harder for the market to ignore the progress being made.

Bigger picture

There’s also a bigger picture beyond the initial mine case at Agadir Melloul.

Only a small portion of the project has been drilled so far. That leaves plenty of room for the company to expand the system if further exploration supports the model.

CMR has previously discussed an exploration target of 20–25 million tonnes at 1.2% copper equivalent. It gives a sense of what management is aiming to build towards.

• The important point is that the maiden resource is unlikely to reflect the full potential of the project; it will reflect the drilling completed to that point. That means there could still be room for resource growth after the initial estimate, particularly if drilling continues to demonstrate continuity across additional zones.

The company is also looking increasingly beyond Agadir Melloul.

Management has talked about potential M&A and additional opportunities in Morocco. That should not distract from the core project, but it does show the ambition.

CMR wants to build a proper long-term business in Morocco, with Agadir Melloul as the starting point and potential future acquisitions adding depth to the portfolio.

Re-rate potential?

CMR is no longer just talking about potential.
 
It has a mining licence. It is drilling. The latest results are encouraging. A steady run of newsflow is expected. And the pathway towards a maiden resource and initial development is becoming clearer.

That is why the valuation looks interesting.

• At around £7.6 million, the market does not appear to be giving CMR much credit for what it is already delivering, let alone the wider potential at Agadir Melloul or the company’s broader Moroccan ambitions. That could change if the next few months go well.

More drilling results, progress on technical work, and a maiden resource could all help the market better understand what is being built.

For now, CMR remains a small, under-the-radar copper story. But if it keeps executing, it may not stay that way.