Gold news

 [Music] I'm Charlotte McLoud with investing news.com and here today with me are Roba kin chairman and chief owner of McAn Mining and Michael meing vice president and general manager of M and copper thank you so much for joining me today great to have you both here good to be on Charlotte thank you it's a pleasure CH really good to have both of you back and as usual I think we have a lot to go over where I want to begin as we often do is with a look at what's going on from a macro standpoint and Rob I

thought we would start with you and look at what's going on with the gold price so we've had gold maintaining over 2000 for quite some time now and from what I've been hearing it looks like 2024 will be a positive year for the metal so I wanted to start with that and and get your thoughts on what its main drivers may be in the year ahe the biggest driver in the gold market for the last two years has been the concern of central banks holding fi currency and so they're a number of them

particularly in the brick group of companies are um trading their dollars and buying gold as a basis for their reserves um last year was not quite as large as 22 but quite strong and this year seems to be uh starting off on the right foot so that's central banks providing an underpinning to the market and then you look at the goals and just our gold in general and say inflation hasn't gone away um there's been massive government spending and it's debasing currencies and I think there's although it's small there's a

growing sense in the market that maybe one has to protect their savings uh by buying gold so I think it's going higher do do you have any specific price outlook for 2024 or or is higher the direction that you're looking at I'd say higher I mean I have a $5,000 number that's been around for a while hasn't materialized but the Gold's moving in the right direction and I think the fundamentals for buying gold are remain very strong and persistent okay so let's let's take a

look at another Topic in the gold space that I've been hearing a lot about and that's the disconnect that people are seeing between the gold price which as you mentioned is is strong and looking like it's going to continue go higher and the gold stocks which are not doing as well as some people might hope that they would do so I wanted to ask if you've if you've seen circumstances like this before and when you think they might see the end to that disconnect and see those gold stocks hopefully catch up

I have seen it before maybe not as uh pronounced but at the bottom of 2000 the summer of 2015 Gold stocks were very weak um we saw it again uh there have been a couple occasions before that to me this is a time to be buying particularly in the junior space um there's some good drill results coming out and the values are just dragging along the floor it seems like everybody's forgotten that Junior stocks can have really big runs and we're in a cyclical business um it's not not all

straight line up so um now for me I I find this time to be buying and I have been buying Juniors and adding to positions and companies um but it just need to bear in mind it's sick of and when it wants to run there are some very attractive gains to be made and the stocks are cheap right now well I think it's reassuring I'm sure it will be reassuring for people to hear that you've been buying at these times and know it can be hard for for people to bite the bullet and do that but yeah I think that's something we'll

continue to watch I want to move over to Michael now and get his macro take on what's going on in Argentina so mum coppers project Los aulus is in Argent Tina and the company recently elected a new president who seems pretty intent on making things easier for the mining industry I'd like to get your take on what you've seen already and any future changes that may be developing first of all I think it's important to to highlight that our project is located in the PO mining province of San in Charlotte um that

province has seen significant mining projects since 2005 of similar size of that what we want to build and the province has been named consistently as the most attractive in Latin America higher than chilo by the fra Institute and we look forward to the the mind that aims to have a life of somewhere between 27 32 years and can run well over 40 years thinking that we only run through about 40% of our resource base uh in the PA that we published in June so we will have a project that runs over several

Administrations having said that I think talking about M's ideas um there are lots that have the potential to transform the country economically towards the better this idea stand for deregulation and less and less bureaucracy the decree issued in December last year has seen some headwind in the Justice but it's important improvements are still active the Omnibus law however um that would have seen um the uh investment regime aimed for attractive significant Capital into Argentina has seen some setbacks and was um sent back

from the lower house into the commission so what we can expect from mle is that um there will be now um a lot of analyzes going on in his team um trying to get the most important ideas through that will help him transform the economy of Argentina I think it's um it's good to have a president that has ideas of Regulation and and less bureaucracy but we also need to think that Argentina in the last election has seen presidential candidates that all saw mining as an important pillar for future economic

growth and development in Argentina so the scenario is is is moving into the right direction Argentina I would say okay I think it's really good to get a perspective from somebody who's on the ground there and seeing what's going on right away so over to Rob I want to also ask ask your thoughts on the regime change in Argentina anything you would share there I really like what he's proposing just reduce the regulations get the economy moving attract pooring Capital by taking out the delays that are uh

inherent in the system right now um I was down in Argentina recently with Mike and uh some of our other Senior Management and I wanted to walk off the plane with a chainsaw and solidarity with Malay just say let's get going cut up that bureaucracy let's move because Argentina I think is a very interesting model for what could happen in Canada uh Argentina was one of the wealthiest countries in the world back at beginning of the 1900s blessed with all sorts of Natural Resources very similar to Canada but it

introduced a populist government and they kept electing them their currency depreciated savings were destroyed foreign investment disappeared and you go we're on the same route in Canada right now that I fear but in Argentina I delighted With mala's Victory and want to support him as much as possible okay so good news for Argentina Maybe a little bit alarming for us up here in Canada to hear that and so back over to Michael I know for Los ofus you're looking to raise about100 million

to move forward at the project so curious to hear about what the money will be used for and also where you're looking to get it from so in our last fining around with stantis and Le Leos new October last year we raised about 130 million out of which 120 were dispersed in pesos the funds are used to advance our technical knowledge to feasibility level of accuracy we have one of the biggest proper resources in the world according to mining intelligence both the eighth largest worldwide and we need to

increase geological certainty from indicated and in thir to measure indicate for the feasibility study and we have as I said before this significant resource that we need to convert we also execute additional mological Geotech and iological and Hy geological drilling to get feasibility only we have drill RS at side and turning and have already drilled about 36,000 met this season to compare uh last season um till May was about n 39,000 meters so we are doing a lot more work this year and that requires

resources our Target was to drill 45,000 M and we're close and have lots of season left to continue drilling we are currently constructing a pioneering camp and aim for additional engineering work beyond what is required for the feasibility in the second half of this year all to fast uh Fast Track L solid our aim is to present the feasibility by q1 2025 that's where we are going to use the funds for okay and sorry is there anything more you can say about how you'll be raising the funds and and how how you'll

go about getting such a large amount of money yeah yeah I mean uh obviously we're having conversations with our existing strategy I mean rottino is the second largest Mar company in the world um and um Stant is the fourth biggest car manufacturer in the world but there are others that have voiced interest in uh getting into uh Los Asus to um supporting Theon copper and those conversations are advancing so um I think that most likely we we look for private financing uh going forward and um maybe Rock can later talk a little

bit about that as well so um at the moment existing and potential new partners that have an interest in our um what we call Future green copper M okay so kind of leveraging those existing Partnerships and I will put it back over to Rob I know we talked in the past q and C we potentially doing an IPO so wanted to check in on that I'm sure people are interested to have an update thank you charlon we did think we were going to do an IPO in the first half of last year um but we chose not to when there was private money that was

put forward um we fin it three times now on M and copper the first at $10 a share the next at $19 a share and uh most recently in October at $26 a share and we've been able to increase the implied value of that asset from 240 million to just over $800 million uh each time we've looked at doing an IPO there's been private money put in front that is a lot less expensive than doing an IPO and currently uh the market for let's call it uh mining stories is not strong and so if we can if there are other people

out there with larger pockets and they want to put money into this large asset on a private basis um we're quite inclined to do that and wait until the market improves for copper stories um but and as Mike said we've been able to raise um just shy of $400 million um in this period of a little over 18 months so um it's we're we do plan to do an IPO but um a lot of the money that's been available has been uh welcomed at this point right I think when you put it that way certainly it makes sense the way

that you're doing it and so I know from our previous conversations you have a bullish long-term outlook on copper I wanted to talk a little bit about the shortterm as well um and your thoughts there we had at the end of last year the Koba incident Supply coming offline there and I think that put into people's minds the precariousness of Supply but it does still seem like in terms of copper it is it is a story that people are looking at in the longer term so yeah your thoughts on copper in 2024 I

guess sort of like gold my thoughts on gold went it down higher uh we're seeing in projections of increasing demand whether for Ev or renewable Technologies or just the growth of cities around the world uh so there's projections that suggest there's it's demand is going to be greater than Supply and as you pointed out the Panamanian situation is unfortunate but it underlies the geopolitical risks that exists in places um at this point we don't think that governments are prepared to take away

development stories because all the capital hasn't been spent uh with something's in production then they start looking at taxes and other reasons why they might look at it um I think Argentina and the country's a little slow to wake up they know they have mineral wealth they just have to attract Capital to develop it and they they're on the right track right now trying to Foster an environment that is conducive to foreign investment so I think uh prices has been we saw it go up to just shy of $5 a few

years back it's uh 373 today um I think the demand equation is strong and we're seeing certain production falling away so I I'm quite comfortable we we did our preliminary economic assessment at 375 so it's at about at the money and that was a robust project and should It Go Beyond $ five and it's um extremely robust so we're optimistic and if I may add Charlotte um I just have been in Germany um together with um four Governors from Argentina um the mining provinces plus the Secretary of

Mines of the Nations the kand of a mining Minister and we met with um with German industry um Representatives as well as German politicians and what was interesting to see is that um in Europe in Germany um now the people are waking up to the fact that if you want to have certain kinds of raw material supply guaranteed for the future maybe it's now the time to act yeah it's now the time to invest and not to um to uh only depend on the on the spot markets um or the Futures that um that were available

that may not be available in the future anymore yeah there may be an a real shortage of of raw materials and and one if you want to get what we call Green copper or copper with a very low environmental footprint you need to act now otherwise it's gone it's really interesting thanks for jumping in because it's it's definitely interesting to hear that maybe that urgency is finally finally coming I'm going to go back over to Rob just for a quick discussion of what's going on with

mchan mining I know we've been focusing on the Q and copper and there's a lot of excitement there but we did get the preview of the Q and mining's results for 2023 I believe production came in within guidance so I wanted to check in with you on how 2023 planned out for the company and I know maybe you can't share too much about 2024 yet but any any thoughts you can give well 2023 made me smile because For the first time in several years our precious metal uh mines delivered within the range of guidance

that we gave uh and so that that made me smile uh they've stabilized they've increased production significantly um both box and gold bar mines came in inside production San Jose which we don't operate but as a joint venture we have with h Shield mining came in slightly below guidance but but overall what we guided for the year we are within the range uh next year will be a little we have development going on we're going to be driving a ramp at our Fox complex down on the stock property

um there's exploration at Mexico and construction of a new production facility there and at goldar it's uh we'll be expanding the pad leech pad again again uh so there might be a slight drop in production from this year's from 23 uh costs have been coming down so generally we're looking at that and then looking at projects that might complement our operations as I said earlier on this is a time to be looking for growth opportunities the industry I believe has to consolidate in order to

attract institutional money um and we have to be thinking about how do we Uber mining because there's a lot of investors who are not investing in mining and one has to look at it and say well why aren't they what can be done to attract the the and I think it's all about speeding up the process all the way along the line from the drilling to the modeling to putting it into production to getting a profit um and and that's critical and pushing our governments to say hey if mining is

so important metals are going to be important in the future like critical minerals in Canada why aren't you marketing the mining industry and saying look this is a necessary industry um and you're not going to get it if you don't have start changing the perception in the mining space uh you know the general popul ation of mining it's a responsible industry and the government has to promote it certainly that would be great to see I think the perceptions from the general public are are very outdated still and

just to follow up on on one point there would you would you be looking at acquisition opportunities for muu and Mining in this environment absolutely okay good to know all right I will put it back to my and just ask before we wrap up are there any final thoughts you would share with the audience either on what's going on in coer or CH and copper coming up I think that what Rob already mentioned I mean there's um a very interesting demand scenario coming up for copper and I think that Los is the

right project at the right time with lots of additional Blue Sky whether it's Newton endos technology um for leaching or additional exploration I mean we haven't found the the limits of the a but and it's already the eth largest worldwide so I think it's a great project for those who are interested um I invite them to have a look at it very good and and Rob any final thoughts from you before we wrap up today the uh mining sector has been ignored um it's often been said that contrarian investors make money in the

market Now's the Time To Be A contrarian five what's ignored all right I think those are great words to end on so thank you both for coming on today to talk about what's going on with the companies and the markets always really good to hear from both of you thank you Charlotte Excellency thank you Charlotte of course then once again I'm Charlotte McLoud with investing news.com and this is R C and M com betting thank you for watching if you like this video make sure you subscribe

to our Channel we'd also love to hear your thoughts so leave us a comment below we'll see you next time [Music] time