TCRs, Copper gains this week boosted prices of EV/precious metals platinum (a favored investment here) and palladium. Not so for 'industrial metals,' among them molybdenum, zinc, aluminum, depressed nickel, cobalt. OBSCURE COPPER EXPLORERS: below please. -- Thom Calandra
McEwen Mining | Osino Resources | Ivanhoe Mining | Contango Ore | BeMetals
TCRs, our March copper price recovery, a long time coming, will lead to a manufacturers’ rush for the finished cathode product.
Copper (Cu) on the import-export-sensitive Shanghai Metals Market is said to be at record high prices. See charts please here.
Rapid takeaway: a looming raw material shortage — specifically the copper concentrates harvested from mined ore — will prompt needy buyers (car and battery builders, construction companies, electrical component makers, defense companies) to purchase at spot prices. — Thom Calandra
That rush-to-buy dynamic resembles uranium-wanting nuclear power plants and other circumvented buyers of the nuclear fuel. Lack of easily purchased uranium caught buyers off-guard this year and last, thus doubling the spot uranium price.
At the Shanghai Futures Exchange, prices for the ductile element are rising rapidly, leading some to say there might be a commodities trading-house inventory misstep or another Sumitomo-scale copper scandal, to emerge — inside China or in India, maybe western Europe’s Commodity Hub in Switzerland.
Investors, traders and companies also examine exchange inventories to see if smelters, those in China, India, Arizona, Nevada, Canada, elsewhere, are truly reducing their processing of ore into cathode material because of raw material shortages.
[One-week Shanghai SMM copper contracts per metric ton: approx. $7,300 at last look. Please also note this week’s greater trading volumes at the CME mercantile exchange in Chicago.]
Still, and at the same time, in China a real estate bust is slowing or halting construction projects that use copper.
Copper 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 in large quantities, Ivanhoe’s DRC Congo concentrates are worthy of auction-frenzy prices at some point. Smelter fees for the China-partnered company are probably declining, likely boosting profit margins on concentrate sales.
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.)
Excerpt from a hedge fund’s report to its partners:
“We have mildly trimmed our xxx-share Ivanhoe Mines as once again it has grown to over 15% of the fund. IVPAF continues to generate large amounts of free cash flow and is successfully building out its copper, zinc, nickel and platinum-group assets in Africa.”
Note: as reported, I sold 1,000 Ivanhoe Mines IVPAF shares
last week -- approx. 81,000 shares held; and as stated earlier,
were IVPAF to rise to approx. $11.70 to $12 USD,
I would take another 1,000 to 2,000 shares off the table.
See below please.* -- 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 with an obscure stock and a legitimate copper-gold project (called Casino). 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 respectable market value and a $2 USD mark that occurred 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 copper-gold deposit in Serbia.
Obscure tag: BeMetals BMET, perhaps the smallest copper company by market-value traded in North America. Two projects: Japan and Zambia.
I just spent time, albeit brief, with CEO John Wilton and executive Derek Iwanaka at Toronto’s PDAC mining show.
“It has been tough but this current ongoing drill program could potentially confirm we have a discovery on our hands. Normally we’d wait for the rainy season to end but as of two weeks ago, we just started drilling again to follow up on the one hole we put out in January.” Derek Iwanaka
John Wilton notes, “Hopefully this phase will prove we don’t just have a one-hit wonder. Those results should be out in May.” The January hit at BeMetals’ Pangeni Copper Project intersected 18.10 meters of 0.70% copper in the Zambian Copperbelt. I do not own the stock, whose market value is $14 million CAD. Cu in May?
Gold CEO’s Case For Low Risk
Jochen Staiger, a videographer and a long-standing WEST VAULT MINING WVM shareholder, finally met the Nevada deposit holder’s CEO, Sandy McVey.
I brought them together at Toronto’s PDAC two weeks ago, being a long-standing shareholder, as in still standing at a WVMDF WVM profit. Sandy makes the case in the 10-minute video that West Vault and its Hasbrouck deposit in central Nevada rate low on the risk scale.
“I wanted to make a point that investing in WVM is a low-risk option on gold. WVM will get re-rated when the gold market takes off again. And as we wait for that to happen, our share price holds up very well, which is not the case for many junior gold miners.”
Sandy, a personal friend, notes that Hasbrouck Project’s specs detail “exactly what we have: a permitted, ready-to-build, profitable, de-risked project.”
I have other friends, and some The Calandra Report subscribers, who say they do not see the point investing in a miner that is sitting on $4 million of cash and its gold resource, waiting for a buyer or builder.
I cannot respond as well as Sandy does in the video here. For me, WVM is ballast, or balance, in a speculative collection of small to mid-sized explorers, developers and producers. Video here please.
Trading Notes *
I bought Stuhini Exploration STU, the B.C. molybdenum explorer.
Osino Mining Resources
I have been adding, as reported, shares of China-transacted Osino Mining Resources OSI OSIIF. OSI agreed to a China miner’s all-cash offer for the Namibia gold developer.
The transaction with Yintai looks to close by June or July. OSI shares are trading at a discount.
“We met all the important regulators all the way up to the Prime Minister and the feedback and reception for Yintai is very positive, which will stand us in good stead to get the transaction approved around mid-year and then capture the full transaction price of $1.90 CAD/share,” CEO Heye Daun says.
Please ping me for other specific updates.
— Thom Calandra
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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.