The Verified Drop weekly

If nothing met our sourcing standard this week, we say so. A missed week stated honestly beats a weak claim shipped on schedule.

A cross-feed consistency audit of our own deployed data found same-asset capital-cost figures diverging between feeds — and the divergences ran in both directions, which is the finding worth publishing.

Kasiya (Malawi). One feed carried US$665m — the superseded January-2025 Optimised PFS figure. The settling document is the Sovereign Metals DFS of 16 April 2026: US$727m. The newer feed was right.

Etango (Namibia). The bankability feed carried US$374m. The settling document is Bannerman's ASX release of 11 June 2024 (FEED / Control Budget Estimate): US$353.5m. Here the older-looking feed value was the wrong one.

Corrected 31 August 2026, re-applied 3 September 2026. This drop originally described the US$374m as the US$353.5m plus a ~US$21m discretionary tranche. That explanation was wrong. The 11 June 2024 release builds the US$353.5m from a December-2022 DFS base of US$317.5m, plus scope changes of US$21.6m, plus inflation of US$35.1m, less FX impacts of US$20.6m, with contingency unchanged at US$27.3m. The US$21.6m sits inside the total, not on top of it, and the release describes no discretionary tranche. The original wording followed a secondary summary of the announcement rather than the announcement itself. The composition of the US$374m is recorded as Absent — we do not know how that value was assembled and will not infer it; 353.5 + 21.6 = 375.1, so the arithmetic does not close on the alternative reading either. The settling figure is unaffected and has been re-verified against the full release. This correction shipped in v2.137.89 and did not survive the build that followed it — see the v2.137.106 audit-log entry.

No "newest feed wins" heuristic would have produced the right answer on both. Each row was settled against its primary document, per asset, and three Derived figures that contradicted a Sourced capex were withdrawn to Absent with a basis note rather than reconciled by inference. Full detail, including the two defects the fix itself introduced and how they were caught, is on the audit log (entry v2.137.43) — the corrections and the corrections-to-the-corrections, all on the record.

Every figure above: Sourced, with the settling document named. This drop asserts no new data; it publishes the audit already on the log.

Between Drop 001 (11 July) and Drop 002 (18 August) we published no weekly drop for five weeks. The verified work continued and is on the audit log — it simply was not shipped here on cadence. The honest-miss rule exists for weeks when nothing meets the sourcing standard; it does not cover weeks when the material existed and we did not publish. That is a miss of a different kind and it is recorded as one. Drops 002–004 below discharge the backlog from work already logged. They carry one date because they were published in one sitting, not one a week — three items shipped together is a catch-up, not a cadence, and calling it anything else would repeat the original fault in a different form. Weekly publication resumes from 18 August, and the next missed week will be stated here in the week it happens rather than five weeks later.

The register carried Allied Gold / Zijin Gold from 29 May 2026: Zijin to complete a 100% acquisition of Allied Gold by the 29 July outside date, with ICA, ECOWAS and COMESA clearances already obtained. We pre-announced that we would score it on the date, either way.

Outcome: NOT MET. The merger agreement was terminated on 29 July 2026 and replaced by a Zijin strategic investment of roughly US$295m. That transaction then closed: 12,800,000 shares at C$32.55, gross C$416,640,000, taking Zijin to about 9.2% — confirmed on or around 10 August 2026. A second row, opened at the same time, scored MET.

Two things are worth separating. The acquisition claim failed; the follow-on investment claim held. A register that only recorded the failure would be as misleading as one that only recorded the success, which is why both sit on the record with their own dates and sources. A third row — the subscription-share hold period ending 11 December 2026 — remains open and will be scored then.

Sourced: Allied Gold Corp releases of 29 July and 10 August 2026, and the Q2 2026 results of 5 August 2026. Logged at v2.137.49. No relationship of any kind exists between Afrimintel and any party named here; both are public-record operators.

On 7 August our published cadence required us to re-verify the Kamoa-Kakula intelligence-grade record line by line against Ivanhoe's primary disclosures current at that date. The audit was completed and published on 16 August — nine days late, and we say so.

Finding: the record holds. Re-verified against Ivanhoe's Q2 2026 results of 29 July 2026 — FY2026 guidance of 290,000–310,000 t, Q2 output of 64,328 t, Project 95 complete. No correction was required.

The guidance figure is itself the story. Ivanhoe has now moved this number three times, and all three are on our register with their dates: 380,000–420,000 t (Dec 2025) → 290,000–330,000 t (Mar 2026) → 290,000–310,000 t (Jul 2026). Between the December and July figures the guidance range itself has moved by up to 130,000 t of copper (420,000 t at the top of the December range against 290,000 t at the bottom of the July range). That is a movement between two guidance vintages, not an error measured against actuals — the outcome on this row remains Absent and is scoreable only at 2026 year-end. Which is precisely why the walk-down is kept visible rather than overwritten: a model still carrying the December range is carrying a figure its own issuer has twice replaced.

A clean audit is a dated statement, not a warranty: it says the record held against those documents on that date. Logged in audit-log v2.137.53.

In December 2025 Lifezone Metals targeted a Final Investment Decision on Kabanga for mid-2026, with financial close of the funding package. Mid-2026 passed without one.

Outcome: NOT MET — and scored on the claimant's own words, not on the calendar. Lifezone's H1 2026 interim results, filed on Form 6-K on 29 July 2026, state the company now expects FID in Q1 2027, following slower-than-anticipated negotiations to amend the Framework Agreement with Tanzania, with knock-on effects on pre-FID activities and execution schedules.

The distinction matters more than the score: we do not mark a forward claim missed merely because a window passes in silence. A target date elapsing is not an outcome; a claimant statement is. The restated Q1 2027 target has been opened as a new row in its own right, dated to that filing, and will be scored when it resolves.

Sourced: Lifezone Metals H1 2026 Interim Financial Results, Form 6-K, 29 July 2026 (SEC EDGAR; NYSE: LZM). Afrimintel has no relationship with Lifezone Metals; it is a public-record operator.

No drop shipped in the week of 24 August or the week of 31 August 2026, and neither miss was stated in the week it happened. Drop 001 promised that the next missed week would be recorded here at the time; that promise held for zero weeks. Both misses are recorded now, on 7 September, which is late. The verified work of those weeks is on the audit log (builds v2.137.72 to v2.137.121); it was not shipped here on cadence.

Ghana's Minerals and Mining (Royalties) Regulations, 2025 — L.I. 2517, made 18 December 2025, gazetted 19 December 2025, in force 10 March 2026 — set a sliding-scale royalty on lithium (spodumene). The gazetted Schedule reads: 5% up to US$1,500/t; 7% above US$1,500 to US$2,500; 10% above US$2,500 to US$3,000; 12% above US$3,000.

Atlantic Lithium's RNS of 20 March 2026, announcing parliamentary ratification of the Ewoyaa mining lease, prints the schedule as 5% up to US$1,500; 7% between US$1,500 and US$2,300; 10% between US$2,300 and US$3,200; 12% above US$3,200 — and attributes that table to the same Legislative Instrument, which the RNS states had become legally binding on expiry of the 21-sitting-day review period. Trade coverage over the following days (20–24 March) carried the RNS figures.

Where the two tables differ. All four rates agree, and so does the first breakpoint (US$1,500). The second and third do not: US$2,500 in the gazette against US$2,300 in the RNS; US$3,000 against US$3,200. The tables therefore give different rates in two price bands only, and the difference runs in opposite directions: between US$2,300 and US$2,500 the gazette gives 7% and the RNS 10%; between US$3,000 and US$3,200 the gazette gives 12% and the RNS 10%. At every other spodumene price, including at exactly US$3,000, both give the same rate. Corrected 7 September 2026: this paragraph was published with the upper band inverted (gazette 10%, RNS 12%) and with the floor and ceiling described as agreeing without naming the first breakpoint. The gazetted Schedule gives 12% above US$3,000; the RNS table gives 10% up to US$3,200. Neither document's figures changed; our description of them did. Ewoyaa is pre-production; no royalty has been payable under either table.

What is not determined here. Which figures govern Ewoyaa. The RNS describes the ratified lease as aligning the project's royalty to current legislated rates; whether the lease text itself carries US$2,300 and US$3,200 is not known to us — the ratified lease is not among the documents we read, and we did not search for it. No corrigendum to L.I. 2517 was located in the documents searched. This drop states what two documents say and where they part; it does not say which is correct, and it characterises no party's conduct. Atlantic Lithium, as a party named, carries the standing right of reply.

What to do with it. If a model carries US$2,300 and US$3,200 as Ghana's legislated lithium royalty breakpoints, the gazetted Schedule is the document to check them against. If it carries them as Ewoyaa's lease terms, that is a different claim, and the lease is the document to ask for.

Sourced: L.I. 2517, Minerals and Mining (Royalties) Regulations, 2025, Schedule (regulation 2), Ghana Publishing Company, gazette notification 19 December 2025; Atlantic Lithium Limited RNS "Parliamentary Ratification of Ewoyaa Mining Lease", 20 March 2026 (AIM: ALL / ASX: A11 / GSE: ALLGH). Documents searched for a reconciliation: those two, and the trade coverage of 20–24 March 2026. Afrimintel has no relationship with Atlantic Lithium or with the Government of Ghana; both are public-record parties.

Notification. Atlantic Lithium's investor-relations mailbox was notified of this drop on 7 September 2026 under the right-of-reply procedure (case-by-case, reply-based, no follow-up). Any reply will be published here in the claimant's words. No reply as at publication of this line.

Each week's drop by email — the item, its source, its state. Sourced, dated, no spam.