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 [Music] welcome to CEO insights I'm Marilyn dezman with investing news.com I'm speaking with Steve Robertson president of prismo medals hi Steve good morning morning um so let's talk about copper um all indications are saying that copper uh prices copper will uh continue to um uh increase in demand and the prices have been strong um due to the green energy transition so how do you see this trend evolving in the next uh near term over the next uh five years and what role does prismo medals uh have in this Dynamic well I

really think that this is uh the Tipping Point for a new time um you know the experts people that know a lot more about this than me have been predicting 2025 for a long time to be a transition to where we've really got a supply crunch there's just not going to be enough copper around and so that's going to put a lot of Demand on copper exploration and copper production uh we were seeing all sorts of signs for that um you know the um tcc's with the smelters right now are negative we

haven't seen that in a long time so the smelters are actually paying companies to deliver concentrate to them instead of charging them and that just means it's a pretty clear indicator that there's a shortage of concentrate around you think well maybe there there's a um you know too much smelter Capac Cy we're just going to end up with a glut of copper but you see the inventories and the lme getting wiped out and it's it's really all signs are indicating that there's going to be a big Supply

shortage and that's good for the price of copper yeah yeah and um you know in recent news president Trump has launched a review of whether to impose a tariff on copper you have copper projects in the US what are your thoughts on um you know how potential copper tariffs would affect uh the mining and exploration sector yeah I think first of all there's going to be some short short-term effects of that and the short-term effects really are we're seeing it now the differential between comex and lme

pricing normally they work pretty much in lock step with one another uh the Arbitrage is not that great between the two exchanges but right now we're seeing huge differences and that's because of the speculation on comx that's related to the Tariff talk but I think the more important thing is going to be a longer term effect and that's this is a clear signal from the current Administration that they're going to support domes copper production that you know they're going to be removing Road Blocks

unnecessary roadblocks toward development the the last Administration that came in the first thing that they did was rip up the paperwork that was going to be necessary for a big mine to move ahead that's near our project in Arizona it's it would produce 25% of the domestic copper Supply when in production and they they ripped up the paperwork for it the current Administration is giving all indications that they're going to do everything to facilitate that moving forward and so that that's really the the positive

long-term indicator I think that's really going to have a big impact on our industry M and with I guess with the Tariff conversation this you know this is not just exclusive to Copper there's also you know tariffs on steel aluminum and counter tariffs right with other countries what impact would it have on your operations in the US and how is your company preparing for these impending um tariffs and counter tariffs yeah well from an industry perspective um you know inflation is very real in

operations and you know the people used to talk about $3 copper being sort of the Tipping Point of where a lot of Mines would either be profitable or not profitable the new $3 is $450 you know because the nitrogen costs more all the explosives the fuel pric is up and so on and so forth labor is way up and so you're getting uh a lot of inflationary pressure on the operations but in terms of uh you know our operations we're an exploration company and I think that uh you know the the effects for us will not

be as negative so maybe this is a a good time to talk about uh some of your your projects uh could you maybe go through the the projects and uh what the progress have been in those uh yeah we've got two projects one of them is down in Mexico it's a silver project and it's done in the Bonanza grade bako District pun you know it depends on where you're at how it's pronounced but uh um we really do have a bonanza grade ve on our property um we're completely surrounded by another company called

visist Silver who's had a great deal of success and um we've got a strong relationship with them we actually have a technical committee where their technical people sit with our technical people to uh talk about how to to move the exploration forward in the area and so it's a really uh productive environment um right now though that project is taking a backseat to uh Arizona copper and that's the hot breter project hot bretch is of the most exciting exploration plays that I've

seen in in my entire career it's really a project that's just begging to be drilled I'd mentioned earlier resolution uh copper which is a huge deposit one of the greatest exploration discoveries in the history of our business and we're only 40 kilm away from that project and we think we have a lookalike geologic environment but a much shallower one and so we're very excited to uh get out there and drill that property this year so that's going to be this year's main focus will be getting the funding in

place to go and go ahead and do the drilling down there so going back to that like so with the current uh Administration you know said you said um they're trying to boost domestic production of copper of copper you know it among many other minerals do you anticipate or are you already seeing maybe it's too early you know like policy changes or anything to that that sort of talks to you know the improvements that you're to make it easier I guess for for expiration companies in terms of fiting and

everything and then and and stuff like that um that's being done in terms of Pol like policy changes to boost domestic yeah I have I mean we've seen the clear indicators that there's going to be a lot of uh when the president gets up and says drill baby drill that's a pretty clear indicator that things are going to get better but we haven't actually seen the uh policies uh fall into place yet but I you know given how quickly things happen with the current Administration I wouldn't expect it'll

take too long for things to start to change and uh I think the mood has already changed you know sentiment has has really changed people understand that this is a time for resource development and and a time for productivity and and uh you know I think it's going to be a very exciting four years coming up right so are there any upcoming catalysts that investors should watch out for drilling at hot at hot breta drill baby drill yes our our drilling is uh going to be a very exciting one I think we're going to have

a lot of eyes on us you know every major copper producer in North America is in Arizona they're they're all um you know our neighbors there and I think we're going to have a lot of people watching our progress at hotr right well we'll leave it at that thanks Steve for joining me today all right thank you thanks and thanks everyone for watching join us again next time for another edition of coo insights [Music]