TCRs,
Thursday March 14 2024 -- Molybdenum tag
(Stuhini Exploration STU) below.
Trading Notes below -- just updated.*
CHINA copper smelters cannot find enough concentrate and are projecting production cuts.
This is yet another driver for the global growth metal.
The planned cuts are boosting copper futures to $4.05 A POUND, best price for the global growth metal since June 2022.
Copper concentrate — the raw mix smelters get from mines — is dwindling worldwide — see news report please.
Western Copper & Gold‘s Paul West-Sells understates just now, “Big copper breakthrough.WRN shares are responding nicely.” Nicely = a 12% daily gain for the Yukon copper-gold developer with Rio Tinto and Mitsubishi ties. (I believe potential suitors are gathering WRN shares in the wake of the company’s self-described ‘re-risking’ of its long-maturing project and a fresh CEO. We’ll see. I own a small number of WRN shares.
The one-month copper rebound (from $3.70 a pound one month ago) comes after two years of vacillating hemming and hawing: perceived China strong/China weak; perceived battery and EV sales strong/weak. Perceived global copper output strong … or weak.
1-month copper futures chart
Now, copper explorer-developers with offtake pacts from nations, or with investments from car and other industrial manufacturers (McEwen Copper‘s Los Azules in Argentina for one), are notching some of the strongest equity gains this week (and last week).
The Calandra Report takeaway: please don’t chase low-priced copper specs until you determine how the shares behaved in the (rare) copper rallies we’ve had the past 5 years. I believe byproducts molybdenum and zinc will gain lustre with investors, thanks to the copper price gains. Again, we’ll see.
Zinc, moly and non-ferrous metals — aluminum, nickel, tin among them; and EV metals such as cobalt, trade on the London Metals Exchange.
I am looking at shares of Stuhini Exploration STU, a moly camp owner I ran into three years ago in far northern British Columbia. This is a $9 million market worth and thinly traded. I do not own STU at present but will be making a $1,200 USD purchase after this report is filed with TCRs.
Stuhini’s David O’Brien to me just now:
Freeport McMoran FCX, when asked for an explanation for last year’s Mo brief burst higher, commented – “it’s a tight market.”
One of the biggest increases in Mo demand this past year came from the military sector: hardened steel, tanks, guns all have high Mo content.
David is a British Columbia venture capitalist, fly fisherman and Michael & Young Fly Shop owner (Vancouver) and 7-year CEO and founder of Stuhini. Each spring-summer, the STU exploration team combs its properties, most of them within a short chopper or seaplane hop from splendid Atlin, known as the Swiss Alps of Canada.
Ruby Creek is the focus. The project holds 432.9 million pounds MEASURED & INDICATED and 43.6 pounds INFERRED moly.
“We have $1.4 mil in hard dollars. Our annual G&A is below $500,000, and that includes $100,000 for marketing and $120,000 for our VP-Exploration,” he says. Boilerplate here please.
I have it on good understanding that David knows where the fish fire up in B.C., and especially in the far northern part of the province (where the Canagold CCM CRCUF flagship gold project also is — near the town of Atlin.)
David is an active investor: open market and high-risk equity placements, some debt instruments. As stated, I intend to purchase STU shares as soon as today-Thursday. Last time moly showed moxie, STU shares, as we say, performed. Stock chart here please.
Outpacers for The Calandra Report:
— McEwen Mining MUX as it prepares to launch its McEwen Copper (Argentina, Nevada) as a pub-co;
–– Ivanhoe Electric IE — explorer-developer in Arizona, KSA Saudi Arabia; Utah; Montana (I own it);
— Ivanhoe Mines IVN IVPAF — at an all-time high and our largest resources holding, and our longest held one. The richest copper mined anywhere I believe, Ivanhoe’s DRC Congo concentrates are worthy of auction-frenzy prices. [Of interest is an expected rollout soon of Ivanhoe’s secondary Congo property after its Kamoa-Kakula/Western Foreland extreme-grade copper, the rehabilitated Kipushi Mine — billed as containing the world’s highest-grade zinc. (I have seen the DRC properties and the imminent platinum-etc mine at South Africa’s Platreef.)
Note: as reported, I sold 1,000 IVPAF shares
last week -- approx. 82,000 shares held; If (when?)
IVPAF rises another dollar to approx. $11.70 USD,
I will take another 2,000 shares off the table. -- Thom Calandra
— Ero Copper ERO — Brazil miner with net income;
— First Quantum Minerals FM FQLVF — albeit from an El Cobre, Panama, depressed share price;
— Southern Copper SCCO — Peru longtime copper, zinc, moly miner with ties to Grupo México, whose GMBXF shares are gaining 8% right now.
— Western Copper & Gold WRN — Yukon developer, and please see previous The Calandra Report tags; we own a small stake. WRN shares have descended for years through mid-February 2024 and since have risen 50%. Slow decline and rapid rebound. Yet the stock is still a far sight from a $2 USD mark in April 2022.
The only copper-laden company in our The Calandra Report and owned here for a decade but not moving markedly is EMX Royalty EMX. The Colorado EMX receives royalties from net smelter returns at Zijin Mining’s Timok Project with the Cukaru Peki deposit in Serbia.
Trading Notes
I bought more Xtra-Gold Resources XTG XTGRF, as noted last week; I added as well to our China-transacting Osino Mining OSI OSIIF.
I have been reducing our long-held, money losing stake in AZIMUT EXPLORATION AZM AZMTF, as reported; I intend to sell 7 % or so of our DHT Maritime Holdings DHT — a superstar of a gainer these past 30 or so months — as soon as today.
I restarted a small stake in PLATINUM GROUP METALS PLG PTM and one in AZTEC MINERALS AZT AZZTF.
I am considering a purchase of Baselode Energy FIND; and xCite Energy XCI — both uranium-cos.
Ping me please if you need the XCI deck. I do not own the shares. I do not get paid by the company, its reps or by anyone — except by subscribers.
Just back from Arizona. (Arizona Sonoran shares ASCU ASCUF rising 8% this week; its Cactus Mine project near Casa Grande is close to Ivanhoe Electric‘s Santa Cruz copper development.)
— Thom Calandra
Thom Calandra is a writer and an investor. Research and material are meant as editorial opinion. He is not a professional investment adviser. Please do not consider his reporting as a recommendation to buy or sell securities.