Steadright Issues Options as TitanBeach Pilot Plant Work Starts

Steadright Critical Minerals Inc. (CSE: SCM) said on August 20, 2026 that Shan Tang Mining has begun preparatory infrastructure work for a pilot plant at the TitanBeach titanium project in Morocco, after NSM Capital SARL — 76.5% owned by Steadright — secured a full, non-dilutive 32% carried interest and signed a Framework of Cooperation Agreement with a Moroccan state-owned enterprise.

Steadright Critical Minerals Inc. (CSE: SCM) (OTC: SCMNF) told shareholders on August 20, 2026 that preparatory infrastructure work has begun for a pilot plant at the TitanBeach titanium project in the Kingdom of Morocco. The work is being carried out by Shan Tang Mining, a newly formed special purpose vehicle, and follows a week in which the company’s Moroccan affiliate locked in a carried interest in the project and signed a cooperation framework with a state-owned enterprise.

The release, issued from Muskoka, Ontario through TheNewswire, bundles four distinct items: the establishment of the TitanBeach mining licence, a 32% full carried interest for NSM Capital SARL, the SOE framework agreement, and an issuance of company options. Each carries different weight for shareholders, and separating them matters more than the combined headline suggests.

What a carried interest actually gives Steadright

NSM Capital SARL — the Moroccan entity in which Steadright holds a 76.5% interest — has secured what the company describes as a full 32% carried interest in TitanBeach, covering all future exploration and any potential production scenarios. A carried interest means the holder does not fund its share of spending; another party pays. Steadright states that no further financial contribution is required from NSM Capital and that the position carries no dilution risk.

That structure is genuinely valuable for a small issuer, because the usual failure mode for junior miners is not geology. It is the repeated equity raises needed to fund drilling, permitting and construction, each one issued at whatever price the market will bear. A carried position removes that treadmill for the carried party’s share of the work.

The arithmetic worth doing is the look-through. Steadright owns 76.5% of the entity that owns the 32% carry. Multiply the two and the company’s indirect economic exposure to TitanBeach is roughly 24.5% — an illustrative calculation from the two disclosed percentages, not a figure the company published. Investors reading the “32%” headline should hold that distinction in mind: the carry sits at the NSM Capital level, and Steadright is a majority, not sole, owner of that vehicle.

The state-owned enterprise angle

The Framework of Cooperation Agreement signed with a Moroccan state-owned enterprise is the item with the least defined content and potentially the most consequence. Framework agreements are, by nature, statements of intent. They set out how parties will work together; they are not construction contracts, offtake contracts or financing commitments, and the company’s announcement does not describe them as such.

What they do provide in a jurisdiction like Morocco is institutional alignment. Heavy mineral sands operations need port access, power, water, road haulage and a permitting counterparty that wants the project to proceed. An SOE partner is a route to those things. Whether it translates into capital or throughput depends on documents that have not yet been announced.

Shan Tang Mining, the SPV through which the carried interest is held, is also the entity that began the preparatory groundwork. Special purpose vehicles are standard in resource development: they ring-fence a single project’s assets and liabilities from the parents. Their use here is unremarkable, but it does mean shareholders are now looking at an ownership chain — Steadright, then NSM Capital, then Shan Tang Mining — rather than a direct holding.

Groundwork is not a pilot plant

The most concrete operational fact in the update is that preparatory infrastructure work on the pilot plant construction phase has started. That is early-stage site preparation, and the announcement does not attach a budget, a construction timetable, a commissioning date or a throughput figure to it. A pilot plant is a scaled-down processing facility used to prove that a deposit’s material can be separated and upgraded to a saleable product at predictable recoveries. It is the step that converts a resource statement into engineering data a financier can underwrite.

For a heavy mineral sands titanium project, that data is the whole argument. Beach sand deposits typically require no blasting and little hard-rock crushing, which is what makes them attractive to small developers; the difficulty is in separation, grade consistency and getting product to a buyer at a cost that survives the price cycle. Until the pilot plant runs and produces numbers, the case rests on the licence, the structure and the partner list.

Options, disclosure and what to watch

The release also confirms an issuance of company options. Options are compensation and alignment tools, and they are also potential future share issuance. In an announcement whose central selling point is that a project interest carries “no dilution risk” at the asset level, it is worth noting that dilution at the corporate level is a separate question entirely. The two are not in conflict — but they are not the same protection.

Steadright’s shares trade on the Canadian Securities Exchange under SCM and in the United States over the counter as SCMNF. The update landed on a session in which broad U.S. benchmarks were soft: the S&P 500 ETF closed at $762.60, down 0.84% on the day, the Nasdaq 100 ETF at $710.93, down 0.72%, and the Dow 30 ETF at $527.51, down 1.27%, as of the last trade at 20:00 GMT on August 20, 2026. Micro-cap resource stocks generally take their direction from project news rather than index moves, but a risk-off tape is not the easiest backdrop for a development-stage story.

Three things would move the assessment. First, the terms of the SOE framework — specifically whether it converts into a funding or offtake arrangement. Second, a costed timetable for the pilot plant, with commissioning targets. Third, clarity on who is funding the carried portion of the work, because a carry is only as good as the balance sheet standing behind it.

The full announcement, including the carried interest and framework agreement details, was distributed via INN Rare Earth.

Key facts

• Ticker: CSE: SCM / OTC: SCMNF (Steadright Critical Minerals Inc.)
• Carried interest: 32% full, non-dilutive, held by NSM Capital SARL via Shan Tang Mining
• Steadright’s stake in NSM Capital: 76.5%
• Benchmark close (as of 20 Aug 2026, 20:00 GMT): S&P 500 ETF $762.60, -0.84%

Frequently asked questions

What is a carried interest in a mining project?

A carried interest is an ownership share in a project whose holder does not have to fund its portion of exploration or development spending — another party covers it. Steadright says NSM Capital’s 32% interest in TitanBeach requires no further financial contribution and carries no dilution risk across all future exploration and potential production scenarios.

How much of TitanBeach does Steadright actually control?

Steadright holds 76.5% of NSM Capital SARL, the Moroccan entity that holds the 32% carried interest through the Shan Tang Mining SPV. Multiplying those two disclosed percentages gives an illustrative look-through exposure of roughly 24.5%, though the company itself published only the 76.5% and 32% figures separately.

What does the pilot plant work involve?

Shan Tang Mining has begun preparatory infrastructure work for the pilot plant construction phase — early site groundwork rather than the plant itself. A pilot plant is a small-scale processing facility used to prove a deposit’s material can be separated and upgraded at predictable recoveries. No budget, timetable or commissioning date was disclosed.

What is the Framework of Cooperation Agreement?

It is an agreement signed with a Moroccan state-owned enterprise setting out how the parties intend to work together on the TitanBeach project. Framework agreements are statements of intent; they are not construction contracts, offtake deals or financing commitments, and Steadright’s announcement does not describe it as any of those.

Where do Steadright’s shares trade?

Steadright Critical Minerals Inc. trades on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the symbol SCM and over the counter in the United States as SCMNF. The company is based in Muskoka, Ontario, and distributed the TitanBeach update through TheNewswire on August 20, 2026.

Does the option issuance affect shareholders?

The company confirmed an issuance of options alongside the project update. Options serve as compensation and management alignment, but they also represent potential future share issuance. That is dilution at the corporate level, which is a separate matter from the project-level carry that Steadright describes as carrying no dilution risk.

Sources

• Preparatory Infrastructure Work for Pilot Plant and Mining on the HMS TitanBeach Titanium Project in Morocco Begins. Company Options Issued — INN Rare Earth

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