Maronan Metals is up next, and Andrew Barker, the Exploration Manager, is here to tell us all about what is one of the largest and highest-grade silver resources in Australia at its namesake project right here in North in Queensland. The company is making important steps to turn this discovery into a mine. Please welcome Andrew to tell us all about it.
Thank you for being here to listen to this story and letting me talk for 15 minutes on something that I'm really passionate about, the Maronan Project in Northwest Queensland. We talk about this as being the silver development story with more, and I'll explain that during this talk. This talk should be taken in conjunction with these notices and disclaimers, which can be found on our website and on the ASX platform. Maronan has a large silver, lead, and copper gold resource.
We talk about being the silver development story with more. We have 122 million ounces of silver in our current resource. We also have 2 million tons of lead, 270,000 tons of copper, and 760,000 ounces of gold. If we were to think about this on a silver equivalent basis, it's somewhere between a 300 to 350 million ounce silver equivalent deposit. Prince Red Medal on the board is an exploration geologist with a strong connection to Northwest Queensland and has been involved in the Maronan Project since 2001. We recently appointed Matt Heine as an independent director to the company, and he brings a strong operational background, having been a mine manager for Evolution Mining at Frogsleg and a General Manager for Oceana Gold at the Waihi and Macraes operation, and has more recent investments. Million cubic meters.
If I was to fill that with rock from Maronan, I would get four to four and a half million tons of material into the MCG. Within this area that we call the starter zone, we have just over 12 million tons of material that fills the MCG three times. Within the broader project, just looking at the silver lead mineralization, you would fill the MCG nearly eight times. The mineralization has a strike of a kilometer, and it's been drilled to 1,200 meters below surface where it remains open. We are a small company. We don't have the funds to drill this out completely. We picked an area somewhat arbitrarily where we saw the best grades close to surface and call this area the starter zone.
We think that if we can get this up and proved up, we can start a mine here which will unlock the full potential of this deposit. This has been the focus of our drilling since 2022. We announced an update to the resource in June this year. The most important thing in that is that we more than doubled our indicated resource, previously 2.1 million tons, to now 5.3 million tons. The resource that we have within the starter zone for the lead silver mineralization is only one-third of the global silver lead resource. Although we can't bank on it for the whole of the deposit, it was very pleasing that we got near 100% conversion from inferred to indicated resources within the starter zone during our most recent campaign.
The copper gold system has a strike of 250 to 300 meters and is immediately adjacent to the lead silver mineralization. It too has been drilled to 1,200 meters below surface, and we have an existing EM plate that is associated with the copper mineralization that extends at least 300 meters below our deepest hole. As we've drilled deeper into the system, it seems to get wider. In some places, up to nearly 50 meters in true width, which may offer potential for bulk mining scenarios in the future. Something that I think people don't necessarily grasp is that if we build the mine for the silver lead, that will pay for all the infrastructure that needs to go in. The incremental cost of exploiting the copper gold mineralization is actually quite low. Earlier this year, we launched an application with the Queensland government for a Mineral Development Lease.
This is a stepping stone between our current exploration license and a full mining license. As part of that application, we are seeking approval to put in a box cut and an exploration decline which will allow us to get 200 meters underground to do underground infill drilling of our deposit, but also to put in some development to take bulk samples of the mineralization and see what it actually looks like. As a geologist, I think we've done a pretty good job in getting the geology right. We're dealing with drill core that's about the size of this in holes that are 50 meters apart. Getting down and opening up the ore body is a real step. It will help us to de-risk the project and make sure that we are right in terms of thinking what we think is happening.
That application is currently being assessed, and we are hopeful that we will get a Christmas present with the department telling us that that approval comes in before the end of this year. That would allow us to start... Potentially start construction of the project next year. As I mentioned, we're currently in a trading halt pending an announcement regarding the PEA. I'm a geologist. I want to get a rig spinning again at this project. There's such a big resource, such a lot of opportunity here that I just want to get going, drill more holes, convert more resource, and build up, continue building confidence in this project. We're anticipating we will receive our Mineral Development Lease approval by the end of this year, which would enable the exploration decline project to commence next year. That's probably around about an 18-month to two-year build project.
Our intention would be to run a feasibility study in parallel with that. We are probably actually quite close to being in a position to be able to submit a mining license application. There is a bit more work to do on some of the environmental parameters, but it'd be our intention to get that lodged as soon as practical. That would all lead to a decision that would all be required prior to a final investment decision. I'd like to leave you with a couple of thoughts: confidence, growth, progress, and how that converts to opportunity in Maronan Metals. We have a small but experienced team who have the skills to realize the opportunity that is Maronan. We're in a tier-one jurisdiction with a supportive government who want to get projects built. We have a large, geologically robust resource. We have some multi-metal exposure.
Silver and lead really are the key drivers of this project. We are excited that the silver price is going up. I keep telling everyone, the only thing better than being a silver developer with the current silver prices is actually selling the silver and realizing the money, the profit. We're also leveraged to the copper gold opportunity we have. Our scoping study is imminent. We've commenced a staged permitting pathway to turn this discovery into a mine. We have multiple development options, whether we build our own plant or concentrator or consider some sort of mixture of the two. Please come and see us at the booth if you'd like to find out more. Thank you and enjoy the rest of your afternoon.
Thank you very much, Andrew. Great story.
Just a quick housekeeping note, just for the benefit of those who are tuned into the live stream, just before we came back from afternoon tea, there was a power surge through the hotel and it knocked out the live stream for a few minutes.
Apologies to those who lost transmission briefly, but it is back up and running and there will be a recording of everything in those few minutes that were out.
For the benefit of those on the live stream, I'm here to introduce Aaron Revelle, who's here to tell us all about Pursuit Minerals, which is advancing its flagship Rio Grande Sur lithium project in Argentina, the famous Lithium Triangle. It's a very interesting story and it's about to get a lot more interesting, I believe. I'm very pleased to welcome Aaron to tell us all about it.
Thank you. What a soundtrack to come onto. I'm Aaron Revelle. This is Pursuit Minerals. As mentioned, we are in Argentina and really positioning ourselves as a pure play on Argentina. In a short snap about Pursuit, who are we, where are we, and what are we looking to do? Pursuit, obviously a tier-one opportunity sitting in Argentina. Argentina is rapidly emerging as one of the world's more attractive jurisdictions now in terms of mining and investment. A combined $10 billion invested by Rio Tinto and BHP there last year across copper with the Filo acquisition and Rio Tinto's acquisition of Arcadium Lithium. We've got a significant platform for growth, really underscored by our Rio Grande Sur project, which I'll talk on in a few more slides. More importantly, we're very seasoned in Argentina. I've been there since 2006, 2007.
Our local team on ground is really providing significant experience and deep operational knowledge of how to operate within the jurisdiction and effectively progress a project, which we've done with Rio Grande, having moved it significantly forward in the last two years, significantly faster than many of our peers have done similar operations. More importantly, we've got a very concise accelerated growth path and significant rerate potential by looking at other commodities within Argentina, which are starting to get into the spotlight now and with increased markets. Portfolio overview on the Rio Grande Sur project, and I'll run through this in more depth. It's a lithium brine project in the Lithium Triangle there in the north of the country. We've done quite well in terms of advancing this, having a 1.1 million ton JORC resource.
We've also managed to produce lithium carbonate of a technical grade from our lithium pilot plant, and we're currently in the final stages of completing a pre-feasibility study for the project. We've vended this project into Pursuit in 2023, and now a few short years later have really significantly progressed the opportunity. Additionally, Argentina is starting to open up as a jurisdiction with the political change, so we've been having a look around at other opportunities that are present in the country that we can enhance, expand our portfolio, and really accelerate our growth. A bit about the company, very seasoned Board of Directors, our Chairman, Tom Edie, who some of you may know from his time as CIRA, and more recently as the Chair of Southern Cross Gold, a billion-dollar gold exploration company.
Myself, who's quite tenured, having been with the company now for two years, as well as our other Non-Executive Director, Stephen Layton, who's also on the board of EQR Resources, working very well, all Melbourne-based, very tight share structure, just under 100 million shares on issue. We're trading around $0.085, I believe the close was today, $8 million market cap, progressing quite well, significantly undervalued for the projects that we do hold. Focusing on Argentina, it's a very unloved jurisdiction or has been more through the political regime over the past couple of years. However, it is home to all of the majors. Rio Tinto making a massive splash there in lithium, however, heavily investing in copper projects up in the San Juan province and really expanding out its team.
It has a lot of opportunity in gold, you know, major miners such as Barrick are there, Newmont are there with Cerro Negro. There's a lot of exploration and growth potential in multiple provinces. The same with silver. You have the producing Cerro Moro mine and the San Jose, who are established low-cost producers. For us, you know, mining's really becoming of economic importance now. It's less than 1% of GDP. Javier Milei is really looking to beef this up, as he's been doing with the oil and gas sector by opening up, introducing key things like the REGI regime, which El Pachón, a project owned by Glencore for many years now, has recently been added to over the past couple of weeks.
From that perspective, Argentina really presents an opportunity for a T1 address with significant opportunity, lots of underexplored mining potential, and then key regions such as San Juan, such as Santa Cruz, the Salta Province of which we're in, and with significant growth potential. Focusing a bit more on lithium, we are in that famed Lithium Triangle, 50% of the world's resources underpinned by Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina. Argentina is becoming the more favored jurisdiction, really, that was underscored by the Rio Tinto Arcadium Lithium project, and we're seeing the triangle becoming very attractive, also with Rio Tinto investing in Chile. However, Argentina remains ahead of the curve. One of the key points of difference for us is that we're in an area where it is literal supply and demand. There are 17 salars in Argentina, 17, no more, no less. However, the majority of these have already been consolidated.
Rio Tinto now controls both Olaroz and Hombre Muerto. You're seeing Ganfeng control multiple salars, Lithium Argentina as was with joint ventures. The opportunity for the Pursuit transaction to occur today in 2025 simply doesn't exist. We could not acquire the landholding that we hold, and consolidation is continuing in the T1 address with projects being brought online and significant investment being made. Only a couple of weeks ago, a company, Lithium South Corporation, with depressed prices received a bid of $62 million US for a project very comparable to our own. Even in a depressed climate, we're still seeing healthy M&A activity in the lithium space as people are starting to look aware of the trends, and the ability to get into Argentina is becoming rarer. For us, our strategy is quite simple. Production of lithium demand is outpacing supply.
We're seeing that, and we believe the solution for that is low-cost brine from Argentina. Argentina has always historically sat in the lithium cost in the lower part of the lithium cost curve. For us, we're really positioned to capitalize on that lithium growth. Lithium is hovering around that 1.5, 1.7 million tons of demand. You know, currently, we're seeing forecasts of 3.7 million tons in the next five years. However, lithium projects historically have taken between seven to ten years to bring online. Whilst the prices are still hovering around the $10,000 per ton area, for us, there is a clear opportunity as the price and demand profile grows.
For us, the execution to production is starting with our 250-ton plant, which has produced lithium carbonate, which we'll run through in a second, but also expanding into a larger 5,000-ton scenario and 12,500-ton scenario, which for us is a roadmap that was followed by Orocobre when they brought the Olaroz project online over a decade ago now. The Rio Grande Sur project sits within Rio Grande Sur, Rio Grande Sur, as aptly named. We have a 10,000-hectare tenement position, as you can see on the map. Importantly, a 1.1 million-ton resource, which we're able to drill out from two drill holes, which were in our main areas in the Maria Magdalena tenement that sits within the prime part of the salar and also the outside of this salar.
We do have a couple of neighbors, and we are aware that the entirety of the salar is being, the area is not owned by us or other juniors, is being auctioned by Deutsche Bank right now to bidders, which is showing significant interest in M&A in our part of the woods. With our drilling program, we were able to get some exceptional grades, and the drill holes returned up as high as 620 mg/L Li. We are in a very high-grade area. Our northern tenement is directly two kilometers from a neighboring company that drilled 950 mg/L Li. That's some of the highest grade hits within Argentina. The impurity profile has been complementary to our process, and we've been able to work through those parts as well.
With that, we've been able to formulate a significant block model, which is part of our pre-feasibility study coming out, and this block model has been very favorable in terms of showing us how we can actually move the project through to production. Having said that, we do have a campaign of eight holes, and we've drilled two of them. Resource expansion above 1 million tons remains, particularly in our northern tenement, which is mentioned if we were to drill the top hole of our northern tenement, where the plan is called Mito on the right there, a drill hole exactly two kilometers to the east, recovered values of 950 mg/L Li, which is quite high grade and very significant in terms of where lithium comes in in terms of processing.
We've seen that through our TEM surveys, and again, that's our northern tenement where that upside remains on the right, and then on the left, you can see where we've drilled existingly to get that resource. This is our lithium carbonate pilot plant. It has produced lithium carbonate from 99% to 5% technical grade. We are working on that plant continuously, and that's enabled us to enhance our feasibility study as we continue to move the project through to production with the aim of a junior producer. For us, the lithium samples return that high grade, which has really peaked off-take interest for us. The samples in themselves demonstrate we have a high purity bench scale process, sorry, lab scale process that's worked. We can work through our technical components and actually bring online production, which is the bigger part. We're not chasing DLE, we're not chasing unproven technologies.
This is a proven chemical engineering flow sheet that's already deployed in Argentina, which also comes in handy when you're trying to look for environmental permits and things like that, where you can point to other examples. For us, we have a very clear and scalable production strategy. We're not looking to chase NPV with 40,000, 50,000-ton plants that are exceptionally intricate and with an added layer of complexity. Our stage one, 250-ton plant is set up and operational, and we're batch processing lithium brine from that, or the envisionment is to batch process brine as we need with test evaporations on ponds at site. We're currently moving to a 5,000-ton stage plant, which is stage two or stage one for the larger commercial size. We're in the process of completing that pre-feasibility study as we look to release that at the end of this quarter, early next.
It creates early-stage revenue. It's de-risked significantly with a modest CapEx bill. We're not looking for billions in CapEx, which again increases the appeal and attractiveness to our paid partners. The stage three is in this 12,500-ton expansion, which is envisioned at our northern tenement at Mito, and that follows directly the path that Olaroz took going to 7,500 tons per annum, which for us, we believe, is something that is actually going to work and will unlock long-term growth as we bring production to market. This is just an initial lithium processing circuit, so bringing the brine, putting it in our test ponds, processing it through the plant as we walk that through. Here we have an aerial shot of our evaporation ponds that are meant to be constructed at the southern tenement, so they fit within our area, a 5,000-ton plant, again bringing product to market.
As you can see, that's actually the solar on the left, which I was very fortunate to take with some drone footage, and we're quite excited to be progressing this through to feasibility study. Where's lithium going? The question on everyone's lips, which is, you know, with China now coming back, a mine that was brought offline is going to come, is it going to go up? The production looks like the, sorry, the demand side is quite significantly healthy. We're seeing demand of, you know, 3.5 to 4 million tons by 2030. China has reached 51% EV adoption. We're seeing lithium, the demand side, exceptionally strong. For us, we're seeing that China's policy shift is returning that oversupply to deficit faster than anticipated. Heavy electric trucks coming into the equation, stationary storage, as well as the supply gap.
Lithium mines are not simple to bring online, at which they are a long-term process. Having said, demand is outpacing supply over the coming years. We're really starting to see that, especially even when Chinese mines are bought off, there's an increment increase in supply. Sorry, as a smaller decrease in supply, the price ticked up, which is up about 60% over the last couple of months. With Citi's forecast, they're thinking 2026 will return from deficit to surplus. For some people, it's 2027, 2028. However, the message within the market is that the lithium market will return from deficit to surplus to deficit in the coming years. With that, we remain very optimistic that we're bringing a project online into market as the market is turning from that surplus to deficit where products are required.
Having said that, precious metals demand is going quite well, as all of you are aware. Gold's hit record prices, nearly $3,700 an ounce. Silver again above $40 US an ounce. For us, global gold mining margins are expanding, and Argentina is really poised to benefit from here. We have a lower operating cost. We don't have the wage cost of WA, Queensland, Canada. It's a lower operating environment that creates increased margins. The gold producers in Argentina, the cost of production is not rising as fast as the price. For there, it's creating significant profitability in the mines in South America. Having said that, copper, again, a strategic metal which has got significant upside, which is reinforced by BHP and Lundin's acquisition of Filo, a $4.1 billion acquisition in the San Juan province.
Argentina is really looking to grow in copper, as they've seen with their Chilean counterparts over the border. For us, as a team in Pursuit, we look at Argentina as a real opportunity here. Precious metal demand is going up, at which there are plenty of opportunities over the past five years that were not available, which are available now. We're committed to ESG and sustainability, like any good lithium company, have good stakeholder engagement and work really well with the locals within Argentina, which enhances our ability to operate in the jurisdiction. Over the coming months, what to look for, as mentioned, it's that growth pipeline which will really set us apart. We feel we are significantly undervalued in the universe. We have our, sorry, the lithium universe.
We're coming out with that 5,000-ton PFS study, which is due out, which we expect to really progress the off-take discussions that we've been having, sending those samples to potential off-take partners. Having said that, we're also looking towards the evaluation of complementary opportunities, which we've been quite vocal about in a lot of our releases now for the past six months. We're looking to action those opportunities as the markets are starting to turn quite bullish on gold, silver, and copper over the long term. For us, why invest in us? We're a pure play on Argentina, strategically located in the jurisdiction. We have a highly prospective lithium asset that's looking to bring supply into a market which is moving from surplus to deficit. We have significant growth potential with resource expansion potential, bringing on early cash flow through a considered staged operation.
More importantly, the M&A section in Argentina for lithium is alive and well, very healthy, with even companies now receiving tens of multi-million US dollar bids for assets in what is considered a depressed pricing. Most importantly, our people are highly credentialed in Argentina. We have a long history and operational expertise, which really sets us apart to move quickly, fast, and capture opportunity. Thank you.
Thanks very much, Aaron. Great presentation. Our next presenter is actually not going to present slides. He's going to come up to the stage and do a bit of a fireside chat with me. We did this a few years ago with Liontown. It's a great pleasure to have Tim Goiter back at Resources Rising Stars this year. Tim barely needs an introduction. He's a respected business leader, entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. He's been associated with some of this conference's greatest success stories. We are going to put some slides up behind us, and I'm going to attempt to sort of navigate them. Otherwise, Luke will be cross with me. More importantly, I'm going to join Tim on stage. Tim, welcome.
Thanks, Nick. It's good to be back here. Thank you to the crowd here. You've been fantastic supporters of mine and our companies, both Chalice and Liontown over the years, and we're very grateful for that.
Thanks, Tim. It's great, and we really appreciate the support that you and Linda have given to this conference over the years. Tim, I know that one of your underlying beliefs and philosophies has always been that it's all about what's in the ground. It's the quality of the asset that ultimately delivers success. Firstly, let's look at Bulla Bulling. I wanted to ask you what exactly it is, what you caught, and how did you get hold of it?
Bulla Bulling has been around for a long time. It was discovered in the 1980s by Western Mining. It went into the hands of Resolute, who mined the project up until about 2000. The UK government sold the gold, and gold collapsed below down to $350 an ounce. That operation was closed. The asset was sold to a couple of small companies, and they formed Bulla Bulling Gold. That company was taken over in 2014 by a subsidiary of Norton Gold. Zajin, the mega Chinese gold company, bought them. That's who we bought the asset off. How did we come across it? It was a competitive process. It took about six months to close the deal with our friends. It was all about the dollars. When gold is rising $20, $30 a night, it was pretty hard to nail them down.
One day we moved the price feed around a lot. We paid $72 an ounce for the resource of 2.3 million ounces, and 60% of that's indicated. Bearing in mind there's been 500,000 meters of drilling in this project. In today's dollars, it's probably $70 million anyway. We're dealing with the Chinese. I've sold things to the Chinese before, and they understand U.S. dollars. After a lot of toing and froing, I said, "Bugger, offer them $100 million U.S." We did. The following morning they came back and said, "You got the deal, but you got to add on $10 million worth of MI6 shares." After six months, we closed the deal.
Let's bring up this photo, Tim. This is you signing the deal there with Luke. I have to say you and Luke look pretty relaxed on the right there. The guys on the left look a bit nervous, actually. Sorry. Tell us about that transaction. You raised $220 million. You basically turned what was effectively a $30 million journey into what is now nearly a $400 million company. What was that experience like? It was a record, really, for an ASX company, wasn't it?
I thought it was a record, but it didn't really bother me because we knew the asset. We could stand in front of the likes of BlackRock, Franklin, Templeton, and tell them the truth, what this asset was, right? I put $15 million into the placement. I look upon this deal, I look upon every mining deal as a businessman, as a commercial operator. I was really confident we could raise the money, and we did. With the help of Argonaut and then Bill Potter, we didn't have too many knockbacks. The money came in, and it shows you what you can do with the right project. It really is all about the project. I think we had demonstrated a good track record at Liontown of actually doing what we said. We turned a little company like Scapit—I think the first one we came here was about $10 million.
We had to take over a bit, but it hit $6.6 billion. We knew what we could do.
Yeah, I think Grady's got a few questions on that for you with the panel session. Let's have a quick look at that slide. That's a bit of a history of the project. More importantly, look at that gold price chart. That's just incredible.
Yeah, it's phenomenal, isn't it?
Since you've finalized the deal, it's put on, you know, roughly $1,000 an ounce.
I think it's about $1,350.
Yeah, it's right in. What's your view on, you know, you went back to gold, really back to your roots in many ways. What's your view of what the outlook is for gold?
I'm not a forecaster. I think, you know, you look at the bullish bracket banks, and they're all now talking $4,500 U.S. for gold. Fundamentally, there's real, real demand there. There's demand from the, you know, the likes of China, the Middle East. The sovereign wealth funds are buying gold. The man in the street are buying the gold. Seeing is believing. I don't, I'm not a predictor, but I just think deposits like we've bought, there's few, there's not many of them around. There's, and yeah, there's other folk who can forecast, but none of them are very good, I don't think. Even the weather ones aren't.
Tim, you got straight into it. You got drilling immediately in April to settle. I've got some nice photos here of drill rigs in action on site. How's that program been going? I suppose more importantly, what's it been telling you about the asset that you've bought?
Yeah, so look, you know, we hit the ground running. I think from settlement of paying the $165 million cash, we're drilling within seven days. We had four rigs there. We've now got seven rigs. We've done 80,000 meters. We've told the market we'll drill 80,000 meters. We've done 80,000. We've now told the market we're going to drill another 30,000 meters. Look, we're getting after it. It's told us what we've bought, basically. The telling number is going to be when we have a new resource number in December. We, you know, we're confident that we'll more than achieve the 2.3 million ounces we bought as a resource. Okay. Of course, we've got to go through the studies and turn it into a reserve. Our aspirational target here is to have a 15-year mine life producing between 130,000 and 150,000 ounces a year.
That's fantastic. I was going to ask if, you know, what a project like this could potentially look like in production. Are there any peer companies that, you know?
There’s peer app. Yeah, look, there’s been some very successful companies, and you’ve got to hand it to them. They’ve done a fabulous job. Mark Clark and his team at Capricorn, you know, that’s turned Carla Winder into, which turned into a company, Capricorn. Now nearly a $5 billion company, and, you know, their initial productions have been about 100,000 ounces a year. It’s moving up to 150, and they also acquired Mount Gibson, which is similar. Both deposits are very similar to Bulla Bulling.
I think Luke's making a cross-section in there, but we might skip over that. There's another sort of 3D view of the deposit. What's incredible about this deposit is just the scale of it, isn't it? It's absolutely massive, over eight kilometers long.
Yeah, look, considering there's been $0.5 million meters and really there's 300,000 meters of arsenic diamond in the ore body, there's still gaps there. We've got to really build up a very good solid block model. One thing we've learned at Liontown, get all your technical work spot on, then you can take production risks and know what you've got. That's what the plan is, and that's what we're doing.
Tim, I know you're big on people, finding the right people, putting them in the right spots. You've been very good at it over the years. Talk us through the team. I know you said the Liontown team, yeah, there's a few common people there. Talk us about the team that you're putting together at Mineral 260 at the moment.
Yeah, look, we've got a tight board. You know, Dave Richards was the MD of Liontown, and he joined the board of Mineral 260 when we floated it. Then Luke replaced Dave a couple of years ago. Luke's an economist, but he's spent all his career in mining, and his last position was Head of Strategy at Oz Minerals. I've got to take my hat off. Luke's done a great job, and his expertise has been in DD. I keep telling him, I want some real miners here. We've just started to do that. We just put Russell Brooks on, a young bloke around here. When you're 70 years old, you want a few young people around you. Russell's just joined us, educated at Colorado School of Mines. He's done the hard yards at Oz Minerals. He was second in command of the West Musgrave build.
We bring in another mate. We're sort of getting the gain from Oz Minerals, right? We've got the COO joining us in about three weeks' time. It's important to get the right team. It's important to have people who've got a pulse. Anyway, get out of bed in the morning and work. I've learned, when you're getting older, you want someone else to do the work, right? I think you all agree with that. We're building a team. That's what we did in Liontown. We'll continue to do it in all our companies. It's getting the right people, building up that relationship internally, and of course, with our shareholders.
Speaking of shareholders, you've got some good ones. There's some pictures from the investor site back in May, I think it was. I was lucky enough to be part of that, one of the first trips up there. How's the deal, you know, from your perspective? How's the deal gone down? It was a little bit of a slow start, but it's really starting to pick up some momentum now, isn't it?
It took a while in Liontown and Chalice to get things going. You know, there's probably about 10 years between drinks. We don't have to rush this story. We'll do our work. We'll do our work properly. The market will look after itself, right? We know what we've got. We know the valuation will come in. Quite honestly, we've got BlackRock across the table. We've got Franklin Templeton. We've got REST. We've got Samuel Terry and a lot of private individuals who aren't a substantial shareholder, but who've supported me previously. We've got a good band of shareholders. Like any company, we've got to do it properly. You know, that's number one.
Absolutely. Wise words. We've got a photo here of the last mine that you, the Liontown Catalina Valley opening, I think on the left there.
Yeah.
Obviously, when we last spoke on this stage, I think you were in the final stages of construction. What were some of the lessons that you took away from that process? Tim, that was a big project. I think you got a lot of kudos in the market for delivering that project the way you did.
I think the last time I was here, we've come a long way. It was a roller coaster the last couple of years, both in construction and development of the mine. We've spent $1 billion there. One of the best gets I got was getting Tony Ottaviano. Tony's built up a fabulous team there. That's what I've learned. Number one, you've got to put the money in the ground. That's what we did there. When a commodity drops 90% in 12 months, and you're spending $1 billion there, and you've got banks getting jittery, we performed. We had a very good, agile board and a very good management team. Despite everyone saying you can't mine underground, you're going to run out of water, every obstacle in the world, we've sailed through and dealt with the situations, right? On top of that, we had corporate activity.
I've learned a lot of lessons, but in this game, you never stop learning.
Absolutely. Tim, just, I guess, sort of looking ahead, you've outlined that philosophy that you're going to do it right. It's going to take as long as it'll take to get it right, but there's a clear roadmap, isn't there?
Yeah, absolutely.
For the benefit of people sitting here today, looking at Maronan Metals as an investment opportunity, what does the journey broadly look like for people who come on board now?
I think you've got to look at the overall high level, you know, the resource. We're going to move that into reserve. Our objective is to have a mine for 10 to 15 years producing 130,000 to 150,000 ounces. There's not too many other deposits around which aren't being developed as like Bulla Bulling. Personally, I want to take this to a $1 billion, $2 billion company. I can't see why we can't.
Fantastic. That's what everyone wants to hear. Your track record speaks for itself. Tim, we might just sort of wrap up with a few final thoughts on Maronan Metals because we're doing a Maronan Metals presentation. I know that Grady wants to get the panel up here shortly. For the benefit of those perhaps hearing the story for the first time today, Maronan Metals is a very different company to what it was previously when Dave came and presented. It was a junior explorer. It's now a serious company, and it's scaling up very quickly, isn't it?
Absolutely. It just shows you what you can do. I think all the investors here are looking for investors like MI6. There have been some great presentations today. That is what you can achieve in the mining business. I think we're going to have a period of strong growth in, of course, we've got it in gold, but other commodities. I think it's the place to be. MI6 should be on your portfolio. The way I see it, it's on mine.
Absolutely. Look, that's great, Tim. Thanks very much. I just thought I'd better check that I'd asked all the questions Luke wanted me to ask.
All right. All of them.
Tim, it's been greatly appreciated. We love having you at Resources Trailing Stars. You've been a great contributor to Maronan Metals over a long period of time.
Nick, Sharon, and Paul, I thank you very much. I think, you know, I used to go to a lot of conferences. I go to BMO and this one because what I love about this conference is we're actually talking to human beings who've actually wrote the check out. Thank you again. Thank you.
Thanks very much. Thank you, Tim. Put your hands together, please, for Tim Goiter. We're just going to take a short break while we reset the stage for the panel. Please don't go away because the drinks are coming into the room as we speak. In fact, I can see them out the back there, and it's definitely beer o'clock.
Yeah.
That tray is going to come right down the front here first. Don't go anywhere. Just give us a couple of minutes, and we'll be back with you shortly.
Can I ask you, please, all get a drink and take a seat so we can get the show on the road? That'd be terrific. In that order, a drink and then a seat.
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Okay, folks, let's get on with the show. Would you like to take a seat, please? Gentlemen in the corridor, that'd be fantastic if we could get on with it. Terrific. I'd like to introduce you to the panel we're going to have this afternoon. The panel, this is a rapid-fire panel. It's going to be short, sharp questions bounced around. At the end of that, anyone who'd like to have a chat with members of the panel, I'm sure they're more than happy to do so over a drink. Introducing the panel to you. Back to the stage, please. Tim Goiter. From Bell Financial Group, Senior Resources Analyst, Xu Hao and David Coates. The man behind the Spartan runaway success, Simon Lawson. The bloke who set us alive this morning, Bill Beament. Finally, Grady Wolf and Passenger. I'll hand over to Grady now.
Grady's going to take charge of the show. As I said, this is about bouncing along quickly. We're going to cover a lot of ground here. We're going to be free for a drink. Thanks very much, Grady.
Thanks everyone for joining us. This is always my favorite part of the day, grilling the CEOs and our analysts about how they reach their decisions on valuations, what the outlook is, and help us all navigate and find those hidden gems in the investment opportunities out there right now. Thanks for joining us for the panel. It's always a great end to the first day. Tim, I will start with you. I know you've been in the hot seat today, but we'll keep it going. You've made a number of successful early bets on different companies, so Develop Global, Liontown, Chalice. What makes a good asset and a good foundation for a company that attracts you onto it?
You need a few people with drive. They were always hard to get. It took me many years to have success in Chalice and Liontown, and I put it down a lot to persistence.
Yeah, absolutely. Now, Stu, for strategic and battery metals, lithium, rare earths, how do you see demand transitioning? What's your outlook for those key commodities in the current environment in the market? What's the outlook for different companies that you cover?
Sure. Very strong. I think when you look at the energy transition, it's really three pieces. It's the shift to renewable generation, it's energy storage, and it's the electrification of things. The electrification of things is all around EVs. I think that's a good bellwether for that part of the sector. If you look at the metals and commodities, rare earths that are inputs to those end users, they're all fairly, they're all non-existent or not as existent in traditional incumbent energy systems. We're seeing huge demand growth. The likes of lithium was once used just in things like lubricants. Now the market's much, much larger. Demand growth's really strong. I think the challenges are that supply is really not going to be there to meet that huge demand growth. If not supply, the downstream processing is also where the bottleneck's going to be.
Absolutely. Now, Dave, gold, to bread and butter, what's your outlook over the next 12 months?
In short, really positive. I think we're probably in one of the most constructive gold markets we've seen for quite some time. Whether it's declining rates, weaker dollar, tail risks on inflation, central bank buying, all these factors are kind of coming together at the moment. One of the things that I think is underpinning that, though, is just confidence in key global currencies, and particularly the U.S. dollar, debt levels around that, debt service, the kind of erosion of purchasing power of the U.S. dollar, and the role that gold plays as really the only sort of currency with no counterparty risk. I think that's one of the real underlying kind of themes of all of those factors at the moment. It's kind of hard to sort of, you know, when you can't see it going down, that's when it usually starts going down.
There's a lot of positive factors in the gold market at the moment, and a very constructive outlook, I think. We've seen forecasts raised. I think there's a lot more of that to come. I think that's one of the opportunities in the mining equities at the moment is that there's upgrades coming through as people like us raise our target prices, but also just with the sheer amount of cash that's being generated by gold producers.
Now, quickly on that one, do you think some investors obviously think they've missed the boat on AI, gold? Have they missed the boat, or is there still some undervaluation out there?
The short answer to that, I think, is no. We're still seeing, when I look at, and where I've particularly seen opportunity in the Aussie equities at the moment, they're continuing to generate a lot of cash and more cash in the rough tally that we keep. In the first quarter of this year, the March quarter, we reckon Aussie producers added about $1.2 billion net cash to the balance sheet. We reckon the number was $1.8 billion.
Oh, wow.
In the June quarter, the share price is still kind of tracking along the same, you know, and we've seen the North American indices outperform. I think there still is an opportunity there for sure.
Yeah, Simon, Spartan has been acquired by Armelius in a $2.4 billion deal, and the merger is complete. How is the strategy being integrated into practice, in your opinion?
It's commonly referred to as the Spartan effect. That's probably just a very short way of saying that we're taking our aggressive style of drilling, one that I learned under the gentleman to my right here during the days at Northern Star, which is to take what you have in front of you and actually really get after it, get drill rigs in there because it's the only way to grow these things. For a gold producer like Armelius, which has obviously shown it's amazing at keeping costs down and producing high margin cash flows, if we can combine that with literally that aggressive Spartan style of drilling, the sky's the limit.
Bill, Woodlawn, doing pretty well. Talk to us. A lot of investors were really hanging on today to get a seat in your chat this morning. What's the outlook?
Change the end of phonetic. It's amazing. Commodities are up at the moment. It feels like risk is on. Simon, thank you very much. I watched Simon present here three years ago. Three years ago, $0.12, and I bought some shares. Thank you very much. Life-changing.
Nice. Great job, Simon.
Thank you, Simon.
Tim, back to you. Now, you've been bullish on lithium and battery metals for quite some time. A recent shift into your outlook, and you've moved kind of into gold. What's your outlook for commodity cycles, and where are we in the cycle, in your opinion, for battery metals and gold right now over the next five years?
I'm really bullish on battery metals. I think, you know, the product is very good. It's dominated by China, of course, and they're penetrating the world's markets. They're going to have, of course, resistance in the U.S. Strong, strong demand ultimately in EVs, but it's going to be even stronger in battery storage and also heavy, you know, trucks and buses. That's really going to gobble up a lot of, a lot of lithium. I'm very bullish on that. Of course, with that is the copper. You know, it's getting harder and harder to find deposits and also to actually get them through the approval process and then build them. At some point, you know, I believe that, you know, the commodities other than gold, you know, gold is fantastic. That's set. You know, copper and, you know, will rise substantially.
Absolutely. Now, Stu, what's your outlook on each of the battery metals and the commodities that you cover in your scope? What stocks are really exciting you heading into the new financial year, FY2026?
Sure. In lithium, I think those that have the incumbent producers now are really set to benefit from supply shortages over the medium term. I take Liontown as a key example there. They've spent the money. They're in production. If you look at the sorts of incentive prices that are required to bring on the idled capacity that's out there, it's probably 40% or 50% higher than where the price is now. Of course, to develop new projects, you need a price much higher than that again. I'm actually quite positive on lithium. Liontown's
the best beneficiary of that. The other sectors that I cover, I cover a stock called Alpha HPA, which produces, has a technology to process, basically manufacture high purity aluminum compounds, which are used in semiconductor space, used in lithium-ion batteries, and used in LED lighting. I think that's really exciting. One that you mentioned this morning, Hyperion X, recycling titanium, that's another key pick of mine.
Absolutely. Now, Dave, what areas of the resources space most excite you over the next 12 months? Obviously, gold's in your forecast.
Yeah, you know, gold, like I was sort of saying before, I think that ship is yet to sail. I think I'll jump in with Tim here as well and back copper. Obviously, the exposure to renewables, I mean, the other ones in my sort of coverage is nickel, but the supply side there is pretty well done. That's not to say there aren't opportunities there, but I think copper structurally is sort of facing a real supply shortage. I think it's going to be really hard for the industry to address. Those, along with some of the gold names that I cover, are probably the key names that I'd sort of pick out. Both Eris and ARC Mines, I think, are small, kind of underappreciated copper producers.
Eris has been slightly more appreciated in the last week or two, but they've got a new discovery there, another mine life, and I think the market's just sort of starting to cotton onto that one. In the gold space, the producers, there's still plenty of upside there for me. Redis, not everyone's cup of tea, but I think the leverage there, and in a rising gold price environment, it's probably the most leverage of the gold price of the large scale producer. It's got a strong balance sheet, so it's low risk. For kind of cash back to shareholders and capital management, Evolution is really set a strong example there. They've increased their dividends substantially. They're past their CapEx peak, but the producers, I think, have still got a way to go. The local explorers and developers are kind of even another couple of peaks below that.
Mineral 260 is a classic example of that. I mean, making great progress, obviously, but in terms of valuation, I think it's got a long way to go. We're heading into a market where the money and investors are going to be starting to look past the producers and to the development companies. I think they're very much yet to have their run. Mineral 260 is certainly another highlight, and probably Santana is probably the other one I'd put out.
Now, Stu and Dave, I know for a lot of investors out there, valuations are really hard to come by and really hard to understand. How do you find a company and go, yep, you know what, that's looking really undervalued? It looks like a really high quality asset. What are the key metrics for both of you? I'll start with you, Stu.
I was hoping I'd start with you.
I'll start with Dave. That's all right. We'll start with Dave. I know it's a hard question, but what's the process and what metrics do you look for to say, yep, look, this could be something great?
I mean, you know, I take a very sort of, you know, I'm a mining engineer by background, so I take a very much sort of a bottom-up kind of approach on looking at starting out, you know, modeling production and tons and grade and costs and all that kind of stuff. Obviously, when you value the cash flows that come out of that and arrive at a share price based on the structure of the company, that kind of thing, you want that to be, for something that's attractive, you want that valuation to be above where the current share price is, but that's not always the case.
You might find a company with great management, great assets, but the market valuation has kind of already gone past, and it might be a really good one to keep an eye on, but it's obviously not one to buy at the moment. The other thing when you do pick out those sort of strong value opportunities, it's the asset, it's the management. When you do that kind of modeling technical work, you want your valuation to be comfortable well above where the market's seeing and try and work out maybe what you're missing as well. Quality management, quality assets, are certainly, when the modeling stacks up, that's definitely two things you want to be looking at.
What about you, Stu?
It's good because I take a top-down approach.
Oh, I love it. How good is that?
Obviously, in commodity land, you need to have your head around the commodity and where you think that's going.
Yeah.
It's hard to see a stock move up when the underlying commodity is moving down. Also, some macro themes more recently, and again, something you spoke about this morning was the increase in defense spending. That is a huge macro theme that's running across a lot of the minerals processing technology companies at the moment. They're sort of, I guess, the top-down things, but really, we're in a privileged position where we get to meet management and the operators of these assets. That is fantastic because it really is the people, as Tim Goiter mentioned, that run these companies, and you've got to make sure you're comfortable with them. Yeah, slightly different answer to Dave.
If you are interested in receiving Dave and Stu's research, they produce some of the most fantastic research. They make it really understandable. I'm not just saying that because I'm part of the Bell Financial Group family. They do actually do a fantastic job. Please let us know if you'd like some of their research there. Simon, for investors who are looking to get into gold, have they missed the boat? What is the upside, downside risk, and how would you address, from an investment point of view, getting into gold right now? Sorry, I'm throwing some pretty hard questions at you.
Look, that's just a broad question. Right. There's a lot of opportunities out there. I just think if you've got a strong team that has done it before, I mean, that's a pretty obvious kind of statement, but track record is a big deal. Good at identifying good geology and then good at raising the money to employ to put pressure on that good geology is something that I literally base my entire strategy around now. To have those people and to have that access to capital and obviously have that geology, that's to me critical. I think the underlying, undervalued opportunities are the ones that aren't obvious. They're the ones that are sitting in geology that make sense. I will point out that a lot of nickel ground is actually really, really high potential for gold as well.
It's a world-known association and that there's a lot of bigger companies that are sitting on nickel ground or ground that's known for nickel that has a lot of opportunity to the upside for gold exploration. That's one area that I'm personally looking at.
At the moment. Yeah. Bill, what about you? The fundamentals, as we said, are there for copper to keep running. How does that play into your strategy moving forward? You said you're quite forward-looking with Develop Global and moving forward. How does that play into your outlook and how do the commodity cycles really play into the strategic positioning of what you're doing in operations?
Sorry to throw a spanner on. Can I answer the question you asked him?
Absolutely. Go for it.
I'll ask if I can answer his question as well.
Yeah, you can tell me how you value a company.
I love Simon's response, but I'll go another step. Right now, there's no gold CEO in this room of size because Denver Gold Forum's on, the main conference of the year as a gold CEO. Sorry, read corporate timing, not that good. You haven't got the Romulus, the Northern Stars, the Genesis of the world, and all that here. Ex-CEOs. If you want an investment thesis, just have a look at the market caps of these big, they're big ASX. I saw someone telling the Romulus went in the ASX 100. Amazing story. Great, and thanks to Simon and his team for getting there. These guys are spewing out cash. As an ex-MD running a gold company, they can't help themselves. History repeats itself in this industry. It doesn't matter what commodity you're in. History repeats itself.
We just get a little bit older, and as you get older, you understand that and you reflect. I gave a little bit of that in my talk today. If I'm running a gold company right now and I'm making the margins that the guys here on the left of me said we're making, not quite that good, but you want to spend it. They can't help themselves. They don't give it back to shareholders. They will grow production. How do you grow production? We can only do it with the drill bits for so quick. You've got to buy it. Get your protractors out, get your maps of Western Australia out, draw a circumference around every processing plant of these mid-cap miners, 50, 100, 150, 200 kilometers. Don't forget, like gold's $175 a gram. It's $0.15 a TKM at the moment.
It costs you 0.2 of a gram to cut something in 150, 200 kilometers. It's nothing. Nothing. Draw a radius around all these mills and have a look at what companies have got projects in there, and they're all going to get mopped up.
There's Simon Lawson's strategy going out.
Absolutely going to get mopped up. He knows it.
I agree with Bill. Honestly, everyone of, let's say, an undervalued junior status at the moment that has got high potential growth happening is going to get caned. It's going to get, it's going to go.
M&A.
They can't help themselves. They've got to buy it. They do. The junior exploration developers are so cheap. Don't get me wrong, put my investor hat on. I invested in all those things a year ago, well before the market, and I've done very well in the last 12 months. Yeah, it's great. They're still cheap in the eyes of the mid-cap space. Maybe not you guys, because you think you missed out on a 100% return in the last 12 months. Understand it's really hard to find this stuff. It's really hard to find it. For them, when they're trading at X multiple, to buy it is so cheap. Every shareholder in the institutional land will clap and reward them for it. It's going to happen, and it's going to happen real quick.
Yeah. Yeah. Look, I know I'll jump to the last question that I chucked on Grady's list there. I just went to be with Craig, which to me, the level of interest in gold exposure and the frantic behavior of the funds and instos at that exploration-focused level, it was impressive. The fear of missing out is real. If you're looking at gold stocks, understand these people that are deploying billions are looking at gold stocks everywhere as well.
Absolutely. Tim, what keeps you motivated now? I know after years of different companies, different commodities, what drives you in the morning and keeps you hungry to keep coming back for more?
My wife.
Yes.
That's a very safe answer.
That's a very good answer. She's a queen.
I think all of us sitting up here like doing what we do. It's really interesting. It's interesting to look at what you, you know, reviewing projects or drilling them, exploring them, you know, it's part of my social life, of course, as well. You live and breathe it, and it really comes naturally.
Yeah. Now, Stu, how do macroeconomics play into your valuation and outlook? If your company's doing well now, do you kind of assess, stop it there, assess the macro outlook, and go, this could change pretty quickly?
There are the obvious macro things like currency, which is translation into dollars. There's the inflation, et cetera. I think the big macro shifts that we're seeing at the moment, and I touched on this earlier, are the increase in defense spending that's happening globally. The U.S. is now at a cyclical low in defense spending as a % of GDP. When these things grow, they're 10-year cycles. We're just beginning that 10-year cycle in the U.S. We've seen something similar in Europe with their increase in defense spending as a % of GDP. You're also seeing the likes of the U.S. Department of Defense doing deals with MP Materials. Government's actually getting involved in companies and, I guess closer to home, the National Reconstruction Fund getting involved in Liontown. That has the effect of lowering the cost of capital.
These companies' valuations, when you look at them, some people think they look stretched, but when you take into account the tailwinds they have from that lower cost of capital, there's actually a huge benefit to that. These are some of the, I think, more important macro things to look at at the moment.
Now, Dave, what new technologies or processes are you looking at to kind of both cost cut, but also looking at the environmental impact and how that can play out throughout the market right now?
Yeah, look, it's probably not something I guess I'm looking at directly myself, but certainly what I'm observing in the market amongst companies that we cover. A couple of key things are emerging, or objectives, I guess, are emerging and decarbonization is obviously one of them. Fortescue's kind of been fighting the fight as best as it can there. One of the opportunities they're pursuing now, and this is probably one of the biggest swing factors for the whole industry, is the successful development of battery electric haul trucks. It's obviously one of our biggest diesel consumers and all that kind of thing. There are some serious engineering challenges scaling those up, but it certainly presents as one of the biggest opportunities. There is a mine that's running a fleet of battery electric haul trucks successfully, but they're smaller scale. That's a challenge.
Other things I've seen starting to emerge, I mean, again, I'll plug a company I spoke to this morning, Sky Metals, but this is ore sorting technology, something we've seen emerging, tried at varying degrees of success, but it's certainly finding its place in the mining game. The reduction in material that is treated through successful ore sorting, and look, it's not for every deposit, but we are seeing it find its place. We're talking about costs, CapEx at processing plant, water requirements, that kind of thing, that presents as an opportunity. I think it might not necessarily be a step change kind of thing. Obviously AI is emerging. One of the things I've noticed watching the industry over the last decade or so is the impact or the data processing power has had on the day-to-day operations of mine sites.
We used to run out and pick up some bloke out, well, me running around the pit, picking up individual survey spots, trying to work out where the ore went. These days you've got drones that can fly over and do real-time sort of LiDAR survey, where pretty much every stone's gone and that can go straight to the digger operator, which goes to truck. That kind of thing, which just evolves, is a massive tool, a massively powerful tool for the industry. It might just be something you don't even really have to sort of take for granted and incrementally adds value to the industry. Drones would be perhaps a classic example. It started out as perhaps a little bit of a gimmick, but now they're an indispensable, hugely valuable tool. It's got all sorts of applications in underground and open pit mining. There's a whole range of stuff.
Now, on AI, Bill, I do want to say, do you have opportunities to implement AI through the processes of Develop Global or is that increasingly becoming part of your strategy now?
Look, you can't ignore AI. It's pretty interesting and only hit 50 last year, late last year, but probably adopting it a little bit quicker than others. I don't know, when you start talking AI and mining and all this other fancy shit and doing X, Y, Z, it means you haven't got a plan A and you're going for plan B. That means that something's wrong with your operation. If you need to have any of that fancy stuff, that means you don't have a great ore body. I come back to geology. Geology wins every day of the week. If the geology's there and your geologists have got it right and the metal's in the ground, it's the other stuff. It's just minerals plus mass equals margin. That was our model. Minerals plus mass equals margin.
All our stuff's nice and that's the cream on the top of the cake. If you're cooking the sponge, that's the cream on the top. If you don't get the geology right, now AI has got a really interesting part in geology. I think that's going to add the part on really.
Talk to me about that.
That's IP. I'm not going to give that away.
I want to know that. You got to go for development.
You have amazing geologists like the guy on my left here. Yeah, AI is, I think, pretty exciting if you can get that with the key geologists, give them the tools. I think that's where we're going to find some really cool stuff. We said this for years, that there's an ore body in everyone's database. Yeah, everyone's database. AI helps you get there quicker.
Okay. Well.
Yeah, I'd agree with that. That's another conversation I had at Beaver Creek. There are some technologies coming out in the exploration space that are literally quantum leaps in the speed of identifying targets, identifying good geology, taking historic data, and looking at various layers all at once and processing all that data at the same time to arrive at an outcome in seconds rather than months or sometimes years.
It's amazing what it can do. That's for sure.
I agree. Sorry, to expand on that, the data center explosion that's happening in the United States, I noticed that there's a lot more fear around the security of energy and the cost of energy. I think that's going to come down here as well and put pressure on operations, on the cost of living. Availability of electricity and energy sources is going to become a huge thing. It's really affecting the Central Americas at the moment.
Yeah.
In North America.
The amount of water and energy that Google requires per day just to run their AI is simply astronomical.
There seems to be a real shift towards putting in, let's say, high capacity, high base load electricity versus some nice to have things.
Yeah.
Let's leave that there.
Now, do we have anyone in the crowd that has any questions? Any pressing questions? No? I can keep going forward. Oh yeah? Yeah. Uranium, that's always one to bring up. Stu's out in your wheelhouse.
Oh, no, you can go too.
Oh yeah.
I'm a little bit of an expert.
Come on, Simon.
I'm Chairman of a uranium explorer group.
There we go.
I've got a good bit of two bumps worth in. Look, I'm bored, of course, on uranium. It's coming, it's coming down under. You know, we talk about gold exploration has been hard to find. Uranium deposits are hard to find. There's been very little activity on exploration of uranium for 45, 50 years. You see in Canada, companies like NextGen that have found fantastic uranium deposits under deep cover. I'm giving myself a plug here, but Devex, we're looking for another Jabaluka. That's quarantined by the Australian government, taken off, the people of Australia have left $30 billion of U.S. value in the ground. If they just keep their mitts out of the uranium business, there's a lot of money to be made. Watch this space.
Absolutely. Anyone else have any questions? Yeah. Glenn, how are you going? Yeah. How much is China influencing everything? Who wants to take that?
I'll answer the copper part of that, but someone else can go.
Dave, you can take the gold.
Oh, look, in terms of gold, China's central bank buying has been, I guess, sort of one of the factors leading the way over the last couple of years, helping the gold price up. They've been followed by a bunch of other central banks, but that's been probably one of the key influences, I think, on the gold price the last couple of years. We've got other factors starting to take over now or add to that, which is why we've got a very constructive looking market. Yeah, I mean, China's influence across the whole range of thematics is obviously big. The world's biggest population and been growing substantially and all that sort of stuff. In the mining game, you can't ignore China because, especially, gold's a currency, but influence there. Anything that has a supply-demand balance, you can't ignore China.
Can I answer?
Yeah, answer the copper part.
Obviously, China controls 95% of rare earths, 90% of lithiums, that group, Tim.
Yeah.
They've got the downstream, so you can't compete with that. Anyone that's got north of probably 60% or 70% of the global supply is something that's going to kill you. Hence, you're saying the games, you know, lithium should be way more higher than what it is. Unfortunately, when someone's got 90% market share, you're like Coles or you're like Bunnings or Woolies or whatever, and you're getting an ACCC, but you don't have that in China. It's really fascinating to understand the dynamics of that downstreaming, and I'm playing in that now. Tim's a veteran of that. What I love about copper, and this is where you can't stuff with it, if you look at the copper, is China's doing 50% of the refined market in copper and the rest of the world's doing 50%. The growth demand in the future is equal.
The rest of the world's 50%, China's 50% growth. They can't stuff with the commodity price. They're only 50% of the market share, and the future growth, they're 50%. Whereas they can play games in rare earths and lithium every day of the week. The copper, they can't. It's a bit like BHP and Rio and Vale and Fortescue and Gina, stuffed them up on iron ore because they had so big a market share of the raw inputs. Copper's the same. That's a huge fan of why I'm copper because China cannot manipulate it.
Yeah.
I won't incriminate anyone in this room, but I had a really interesting dinner earlier this year with a certain global CEO that's not there anymore. I asked him why he got into a certain commodity and he said, "I got into this route, this commodity because China cannot manipulate the downstream." Wow. It was quite interesting. I won't name the person, but very, very large company.
Can I just add to that, Grady?
Go ahead.
To support Bill on copper, China's actually been buying a lot of copper scrap from Europe recently. I think that's a really interesting move on their behalf. They're shoring up their own supplies. If you look back 10 to 15 years, what happened in the steel industry and in the coal miners and the iron ore miners, there was a huge reform that went through to basically get rid of sources of supply and sources of steel production, which were basically antiquated at very high cost. It was a rationalization of their industry in that time. Following 2015, we saw a run in commodity prices for iron ore and across the coals as well. I think something similar is happening now in lithium and in battery minerals. They do have an eye to productivity. They don't want inefficient supply.
They will use policy, be it safety, be it environmental or whatever lever they can pull to rationalize that side of the industry. I think we'll see that play through with battery metals as well.
Absolutely. I think we'll wrap it there. Please join me in thanking our panel: Tim, Simon, Dave, and of course, Bill. Thank you for joining us this afternoon.
Of course, to Grady too.
My plus one.
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