Chatham Rock, Wetstone sign definitive investment deal

On 7 May 2026, Chatham Rock Phosphate Ltd. entered a definitive investment agreement with Wetstone Global Inc. to fund the long‑stalled Chatham Rise offshore phosphate project. The deal converts an existing US$150,000 loan (doubled to US$300,000) into equity representing 30% of the subsidiary CRPNZ that holds the mining permit. Wetstone gains majority board control and will provide on‑going limited‑recourse development loans that could increase its ownership to 70% by first production. Chatham Rock retains only a 2% net‑smelter royalty, of which Wetstone can buy back two‑thirds within three years after commercial production. The transaction is still subject to regulatory consent from New Zealand Petroleum & Minerals.

This announcement is the culmination of a process that began with a non‑binding term sheet on 17 November 2025, when CRP disclosed that an arm’s‑length party would acquire an initial 15% (later earning up to 75%) in the Chatham Rise project special‑purpose vehicle. The market reacted to that earlier news, and trading never broke out of the CAD 0.04‑0.05 range afterward. The definitive agreement adds some new details – the immediate 30% stake, board control, the exact interest rate on the development loans (5.77% floating) and the royalty‑buyback clause – that underscore how little equity value CRP shareholders will retain. However, the core transaction is unchanged: CRP is ceding control of its flagship asset in return for a chance that a third party will finance it to production. Given that the project was otherwise unfinanced and the company had just been forced to retract its prior economic analyses, this is a survival step that the market appears to have priced in. The news is therefore a routine positive – it advances a previously outlined deal, but does not introduce unexpected new information that would materially alter the stock’s valuation.

Chatham Rock Phosphate Ltd. is a junior miner holding the Chatham Rise phosphate deposit, an offshore seabed phosphorite resource in New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone. Its original vision (2013 presentation) was to dredge 1.5 Mt of rock phosphate per year for domestic fertilizer. That project gained a mining permit but has never been financed. In parallel, the company assembled onshore assets in Australia – the Korella North phosphate mine, a nascent DCP/MCP plant in Cloncurry, and the RailPhos railway concept. The Chatham Rise project remains the flagship, but it requires substantial capital and an updated NI 43‑101 technical report (the company was forced to withdraw earlier economic studies in January 2026).