Latest / Financial Survival Network / "Biggest copper opportunity I've seen in 25 years," says Coppernico Metals CEO Ivan Bebek
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: We think this next phase of drilling, based on the
- 0:02Speaker 1: knowledge of what we have and the way the targets
- 0:03Speaker 1: are shaping out and some of the trenching that we're doing,
- 0:06Speaker 1: we think it's going to really give us incredible opportunities,
- 0:09Speaker 1: not just on probability for potential discovery, but it's going
- 0:12Speaker 1: to give us scale, the scale that everybody likes with
- 0:14Speaker 1: this area. We've spoken to Samalis recently and we've shown
- 0:17Speaker 1: them these targets and we've shown what we're learning about
- 0:20Speaker 1: the project, and.
- 0:21Speaker 2: They love it.
- 0:22Speaker 1: They have not changed their appeal to it. We haven't
- 0:24Speaker 1: changed ours. Everybody on the team is very excited about it.
- 0:27Speaker 3: The Financial Survival Network now more than ever, the Financial
- 0:36Speaker 3: Survival Network.
- 0:38Speaker 2: Welcome. This is Financial Survival Network. I'm your host, Carrie Lutt.
- 0:43Speaker 2: We're sitting down with Ivan Beebeck, CEO of Copernico Metals
- 0:48Speaker 2: for a major sponsor update. I haven't great to see you.
- 0:53Speaker 1: Hey.
- 0:54Speaker 2: First, I know there's a lot going on with company.
- 0:57Speaker 2: Everyone's watching the metals price. This is gold, copper, even
- 1:02Speaker 2: silver kicking in till today thinking wow, this is the
- 1:07Speaker 2: big move. It's happening. Now. What's your take?
- 1:11Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it certainly started you know, my take is
- 1:15Speaker 1: being twenty five years in the business, going through you know,
- 1:18Speaker 1: the two thousand era with the dot com run in tech,
- 1:22Speaker 1: and then watching it transition back to mining and metals
- 1:25Speaker 1: and that run that went through twenty twelve, and then
- 1:28Speaker 1: seeing things like the eight events, and we all know
- 1:30Speaker 1: there's considerable debt and some tariffs that are affecting a
- 1:34Speaker 1: lot of things around the world. The improved metal prices
- 1:37Speaker 1: is the first major box that we should all be
- 1:39Speaker 1: excited about because that's going to start to affect from
- 1:42Speaker 1: the top down some of the largest companies. We're seeing
- 1:44Speaker 1: companies like Agnacal Ego hitting record prices at all highs.
- 1:48Speaker 1: On the gold side, we haven't seen a big move
- 1:51Speaker 1: yet in the copper companies, but the copper price has
- 1:53Speaker 1: recently come off three ninety a pound in December and
- 1:57Speaker 1: it's pushing, you know, in the futures through five dollars
- 1:59Speaker 1: a pound. You know, my view is the cycle is
- 2:03Speaker 1: turning slower than everyone is anticipating, but it's turning bigger
- 2:07Speaker 1: than we've ever seen before in terms of the bull
- 2:10Speaker 1: market that we're headed towards. In terms of equities, there's
- 2:13Speaker 1: definitely a global issue with commodities, and copper is one
- 2:17Speaker 1: of the main critical metals, not just becoming recently one
- 2:20Speaker 1: in the US, but with China and everyone else in
- 2:23Speaker 1: the electrification of the planet. My view with the economy
- 2:27Speaker 1: is there is some concerns of a recession that is
- 2:30Speaker 1: anti or counter copper. The tariffs did put a premium
- 2:33Speaker 1: on US copper versus lame copper, which is trading less
- 2:36Speaker 1: per ton than US copper. So we're just going to
- 2:39Speaker 1: get through this first wave of the new administration as
- 2:43Speaker 1: these tariffs take their place, and you know, no matter
- 2:46Speaker 1: how the rules change or what's happening, it doesn't make
- 2:48Speaker 1: it easier to find major copper supply or copper deposits.
- 2:52Speaker 1: And that's there's going to always be that challenge, which
- 2:54Speaker 1: is perfect for US as looking for copper. As copper
- 2:57Speaker 1: prices are anticipated to a rise. You know what I'm
- 3:00Speaker 1: really encouraged by is each quarter of high copper prices
- 3:03Speaker 1: will really improve the bottom line on the larger companies
- 3:06Speaker 1: and the producers. You're seeing debt get cleaned up, you're
- 3:09Speaker 1: seeing share buybacks with some of them. You're seeing all
- 3:12Speaker 1: the things that are notoriously you know, consistent with the
- 3:16Speaker 1: start of previous bull market, so I think we're absolutely there.
- 3:21Speaker 1: The challenge isn't copper, it's quality copper. I think there's
- 3:23Speaker 1: plenty of low grade copper in the world, but it's
- 3:26Speaker 1: a time time crunch. How long will it take to
- 3:29Speaker 1: get the low grade copper or these you know, to
- 3:32Speaker 1: build new minds and get that copper supply to match
- 3:34Speaker 1: the demand. And that's really what's going to drive the
- 3:37Speaker 1: copper price here in the next few years to come.
- 3:39Speaker 1: As an explorer, you know, you have to be careful
- 3:42Speaker 1: here because copper exploration is very capital intensive. It requires
- 3:46Speaker 1: quite a bit more drilling the most goal discoveries to
- 3:48Speaker 1: really get that return for shareholders, and the bigger you swing,
- 3:52Speaker 1: the more expensive it is. So in the case of Copernico,
- 3:55Speaker 1: we are in a tremendous position financially, we have capital.
- 3:58Speaker 1: Into the middle of next year, we're finishing our first
- 4:01Speaker 1: twenty holes and starting to really understand the major opportunity
- 4:05Speaker 1: we signed up for, which is to go find a
- 4:07Speaker 1: tier one copper discovery, something to make a potential to
- 4:09Speaker 1: make the top ten or twenty copper minds in the world.
- 4:12Speaker 1: There was shortage is in the front of us. So
- 4:14Speaker 1: as an equity investor. I'm not worried about the share price.
- 4:17Speaker 1: I can't control that in in a soft equity market
- 4:20Speaker 1: for copper or metal stocks, but I am extremely, extremely
- 4:24Speaker 1: aggressive with strategy and building the fundamentals so that when
- 4:29Speaker 1: that market catches up and when we can reevaluate and
- 4:32Speaker 1: rerate with a better copper equity market, we have some
- 4:36Speaker 1: of the best things to drill in the world, and
- 4:37Speaker 1: that's what we're working to.
- 4:38Speaker 2: Warrants on that note, So what's happening right now? I
- 4:43Speaker 2: understand you drilled twenty holes. Yeah, we drilled twenty holes.
- 4:48Speaker 2: This was our first look.
- 4:49Speaker 1: We had a polygon that was designed back in twenty
- 4:52Speaker 1: eighteen nineteen, and these holes we had some hit great hits,
- 4:58Speaker 1: like nineteen meters of half a percent that's missing with
- 5:01Speaker 1: but we drilled a lot of i'll call it in
- 5:04Speaker 1: Layman's term, smoke, and we're seeing a lot of vectoring
- 5:07Speaker 1: that's taken us outside our polygon. There's an area on
- 5:11Speaker 1: the property called Firasso which has eight historical holes underneath
- 5:14Speaker 1: a substantial trench. They certainly confirm the third dimension and
- 5:18Speaker 1: it's a deposit expanding target. It's our best target on
- 5:20Speaker 1: the entire property. It's kind of what drove us for
- 5:24Speaker 1: the nine year way to bring this project online. We
- 5:27Speaker 1: are working and making advancements towards the permits to get
- 5:30Speaker 1: access to that area, and we would expect updates on
- 5:33Speaker 1: that sometime soon, probably in the middle of the year
- 5:35Speaker 1: here going into the summer. And a second to that,
- 5:39Speaker 1: we are also trenching and we're processing the data. Which
- 5:43Speaker 1: half of those holes are back. The rest will come
- 5:46Speaker 1: back at the end of April. And what we see
- 5:48Speaker 1: as a preliminary speculation to set the tone right is
- 5:51Speaker 1: we see a lot of vectoring to some really substantial
- 5:54Speaker 1: targets that are just outside our polygon. In addition to
- 5:57Speaker 1: areas like Firasso. If you looked at our last prest release,
- 6:00Speaker 1: we found two new areas, Antipampa and also typic Coniat
- 6:05Speaker 1: and these areas have We've been trenching on some of
- 6:08Speaker 1: these areas as well as other areas in the project,
- 6:11Speaker 1: and right now we're extremely excited with these projects coming
- 6:14Speaker 1: to light. There's some very very interesting findings that I
- 6:16Speaker 1: think will once we get results back in the next
- 6:19Speaker 1: few months here, we'll really set the tone from the
- 6:21Speaker 1: next round of drilling that we're going to do with
- 6:23Speaker 1: this project. So you know, the question that I had
- 6:26Speaker 1: and why it's been a bit quiet from us corporately
- 6:28Speaker 1: for the last few months, is you know, we wanted
- 6:31Speaker 1: to know is this system real and is it really big?
- 6:34Speaker 1: And the answer is yes, and yes, the bigger it is,
- 6:37Speaker 1: the harder it is to find sometimes. But the team
- 6:40Speaker 1: has done a remarkable job and there's some very very obvious,
- 6:43Speaker 1: substantial multikilometer drill targets that we've been vectoring towards, which
- 6:48Speaker 1: everyone will hear about on the back of the first
- 6:50Speaker 1: round of results. The areas we haven't drilled yet, like Sorry,
- 6:55Speaker 1: Firasso and Niok. These are really, really, really robust outcrop
- 7:00Speaker 1: targets with a lot of access to obvious surface minilization
- 7:03Speaker 1: and bedrock. These will be a big focal point going
- 7:06Speaker 1: forward in the next phase of drilling, and it we'll
- 7:09Speaker 1: expand into some of these other big targets that I've mentioned,
- 7:11Speaker 1: But this project has multi generational discovery potential. In the
- 7:15Speaker 1: next few months, we'll see a lot of trenches from
- 7:17Speaker 1: new areas. Some of the outcropped areas we didn't have
- 7:20Speaker 1: access to previously and now we do, and we're advancing
- 7:23Speaker 1: a substantial drill permit and increasing our polygon about four
- 7:27Speaker 1: times the size of what it was, so we can
- 7:28Speaker 1: drill all of these areas that I'm talking about and
- 7:31Speaker 1: have access to drill as many as two hundred holes
- 7:34Speaker 1: with multiple drill rigs. So we're setting ourselves up for
- 7:37Speaker 1: the next wave of drilling. We'll have a really good
- 7:39Speaker 1: summer with trench results that will lead into two other
- 7:42Speaker 1: targets that kind of compete with Firasso on appeal, and
- 7:46Speaker 1: we'll be drilling Fiaso first. We'll work through those targets
- 7:48Speaker 1: and see if we can start making these world class
- 7:50Speaker 1: discoveries we've talked about.
- 7:52Speaker 2: So everything that brought you here and that led you
- 7:56Speaker 2: through nine years of labor to get the permits and
- 7:59Speaker 2: get financing everything in place, you're still absolutely sure that
- 8:06Speaker 2: you know you're onto something here.
- 8:09Speaker 1: Oh it's you know, in terms of potential, it's gotten better.
- 8:12Speaker 1: I have a lot more conviction now than I did
- 8:15Speaker 1: before we started drilling and the first wave of drilling.
- 8:18Speaker 1: You know, we're all looking for those discovery holes. But
- 8:22Speaker 1: where are you in the system? Is the system real?
- 8:24Speaker 2: Is it there?
- 8:25Speaker 1: And it's pointing us towards you know, we're close, and
- 8:28Speaker 1: there's some very very big targets, and we still haven't
- 8:30Speaker 1: drilled the main targets that drove that exact equation of
- 8:34Speaker 1: nine years of waiting. We still haven't drilled that yet.
- 8:36Speaker 1: And we'll get to drill that later this year is
- 8:38Speaker 1: our goal. Hopefully by the end of summer, going into
- 8:41Speaker 1: the fourth quarter. That's our time frame right now. That's
- 8:43Speaker 1: subject to change. It could be better, it could be
- 8:45Speaker 1: a little bit later. That's just how pro works on
- 8:47Speaker 1: the permitting side. But nothing has changed from the scope
- 8:50Speaker 1: of it. On the negative side, it is just we
- 8:53Speaker 1: see it there. We're finding new things. The new things
- 8:55Speaker 1: we're finding are substantial. We got to work on more areas.
- 8:59Speaker 1: We're also trying to work on a new area called
- 9:01Speaker 1: Machuma Chai. There's a program going there. It's one of
- 9:04Speaker 1: our best footprints that we've identified in one hundred thousand hectares.
- 9:08Speaker 1: It's got the strongest copper and gold draining off that area.
- 9:12Speaker 1: This is a very under explored area as well, so
- 9:14Speaker 1: you will see a series of substantial targets come. You
- 9:17Speaker 1: will see it improved polygone so we have access to
- 9:20Speaker 1: drill where that all of the drilling we've done is
- 9:23Speaker 1: vectoring this and you'll see this get access to some
- 9:25Speaker 1: of the more obvious minializations such as set Piasso. But
- 9:28Speaker 1: this is just the beginning. And if you know scar
- 9:30Speaker 1: and discoveries, I know a few of them. One was
- 9:33Speaker 1: lost Filos in Mexico. It was whole seventy two before
- 9:36Speaker 1: they really hit it and knew they were on to
- 9:38Speaker 1: a twelve million ounced gold scarn. In some other ones
- 9:41Speaker 1: it's a whole one hundred and three. In the case here,
- 9:44Speaker 1: we have those holes already in an area that we
- 9:46Speaker 1: should be able to drill later this year and expand significantly.
- 9:50Speaker 1: Where we've tested and where we've drilled, it's given us
- 9:53Speaker 1: incredibly valuable information and we've shortened down that timeframe where
- 9:57Speaker 1: we don't think it's going to take seventy or one
- 9:59Speaker 1: hundred holes. We think this next phase of drilling, based
- 10:02Speaker 1: on the knowledge of what we have and the way
- 10:03Speaker 1: the targets are shaping out and some of the trenching
- 10:06Speaker 1: that we're doing, we think it's going to really give
- 10:08Speaker 1: us incredible opportunities, not just some probability for potential discovery,
- 10:12Speaker 1: but it's going to give us scale, the scale that
- 10:14Speaker 1: everybody likes with this area. We've spoken to s Alice
- 10:18Speaker 1: recently and we've shown them these targets and we've shown
- 10:21Speaker 1: what we're learning about the project and they love it.
- 10:24Speaker 1: They have not changed their appeal to it. We haven't
- 10:26Speaker 1: changed ours. Everybody on the team is very excited about it.
- 10:30Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, that's that's what we want to hear. And
- 10:33Speaker 2: the window, the window is narrowing and the opportunity is there.
- 10:39Speaker 2: I'm holding shares, been holding them for years myself, and
- 10:43Speaker 2: nothing has changed my mind. So as far as the
- 10:48Speaker 2: next pro drill program goes, what can what can we
- 10:52Speaker 2: look forward to there?
- 10:54Speaker 1: Yeah, So, first we'll get the results out of everything
- 10:57Speaker 1: we drilled, will make a clear presentation to the market
- 11:00Speaker 1: about exactly where it's vectoring us and exactly those next steps.
- 11:05Speaker 1: This should really come out in the next thirty to
- 11:07Speaker 1: ninety days. That the results within thirty days, and then
- 11:11Speaker 1: the next steps will be quite formal because we're waiting
- 11:14Speaker 1: for other data from trenching some of these new areas
- 11:16Speaker 1: that we're going to want to be able to drill
- 11:18Speaker 1: as well, and so that will be the first few
- 11:20Speaker 1: months in front of us right now. And then secondly
- 11:23Speaker 1: would be advancing permits, which they could come relatively quickly,
- 11:28Speaker 1: but it is Peru and things tend to take time
- 11:30Speaker 1: on the from the side, things tend to take time
- 11:33Speaker 1: on the permitting side, And what I would expect on
- 11:35Speaker 1: the proving side would be to get to a point
- 11:38Speaker 1: where we could have a drill turning sometime in the
- 11:40Speaker 1: fourth quarter. That is a bit of a time for
- 11:43Speaker 1: cherylders to wait to turn the drill, but it looks
- 11:45Speaker 1: like we're going to have some really good catalysts from
- 11:47Speaker 1: some of these new targets that are quite robust. In
- 11:50Speaker 1: the meantime, we've also spoken openly and considered getting a
- 11:54Speaker 1: copper project in the US, and we've all seen a
- 11:57Speaker 1: big shift in the US towards the copper market itself
- 12:01Speaker 1: and mining in general, with the you know, favorable support
- 12:04Speaker 1: to advance and fast tracks a lot of good projects.
- 12:07Speaker 1: We'd love to have a US Brouvian portfolio so we
- 12:12Speaker 1: could and something we could drill in the near term,
- 12:14Speaker 1: and we've identified some substantial projects that we're in the
- 12:18Speaker 1: midst of completing due diligence. But we're really trying to
- 12:20Speaker 1: position the company so that it has at least two sombarros,
- 12:24Speaker 1: you know, in its portfolio. One of the US went
- 12:26Speaker 1: to Peru prior to we before we see this big
- 12:29Speaker 1: copper turn in copper prices and the copper equities, and
- 12:33Speaker 1: to quantify the copper price, we all just saw the
- 12:36Speaker 1: running copper that I think was primarily driven off tariffs.
- 12:39Speaker 2: You know.
- 12:40Speaker 1: I think if you look back to last May, when
- 12:42Speaker 1: copper was five dollars a pound on spot, that was
- 12:45Speaker 1: a much different copper equity market than there is today.
- 12:47Speaker 1: There was no tariffs involved at that time, and the
- 12:51Speaker 1: appeal to own and invest, and we did a large
- 12:53Speaker 1: financing in that environment was dramatically different. I think that
- 12:57Speaker 1: market's coming, but I don't think it's coming till the
- 12:59Speaker 1: second half of the year. So if you're a copper
- 13:01Speaker 1: investor and you want to be part of a major,
- 13:03Speaker 1: major opportunity where you could have multiple major discoveries, we
- 13:07Speaker 1: fit that profile. We're trailing at a deep discount to
- 13:10Speaker 1: what we think is the speculative value of what we're
- 13:12Speaker 1: seeing and what we have as an opportunity, and we're
- 13:15Speaker 1: not worried about that. We're more interested in about when
- 13:18Speaker 1: we turn the drills, when we get to that point
- 13:20Speaker 1: of really driving the catalyst and the company what does
- 13:23Speaker 1: that copper environment look like. Is it on track to
- 13:26Speaker 1: perform perfectly in line with our strategy and so far
- 13:29Speaker 1: I think it is. And as far as a US
- 13:31Speaker 1: copper asset, if we can add a substantial one into
- 13:33Speaker 1: the portfolio, this would give us the chance to de
- 13:36Speaker 1: risk any permitting delays or risks down in Peru and
- 13:39Speaker 1: give us something very local in the US and a
- 13:42Speaker 1: country that's really making advancements towards mining and making it
- 13:45Speaker 1: more favorable. So I think we could achieve a very
- 13:48Speaker 1: good premium out of a US copper success story that
- 13:50Speaker 1: we could add to Saber.
- 13:52Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And I think everyone in the sector looked
- 13:57Speaker 2: at the President's moves to speed up permitting in the
- 14:01Speaker 2: US and drilling and actual building of a mine that's
- 14:07Speaker 2: probably going to spread around the world. It seems to
- 14:10Speaker 2: me that's an exorable trend. It's been waiting to happen
- 14:13Speaker 2: because the electrification sounds great, but where's the copper coming from.
- 14:18Speaker 2: I think there's a wake up call across the planet
- 14:22Speaker 2: that without minds, you don't get the copper, and without
- 14:25Speaker 2: the copper, all your dreams, whether they're realistic or not,
- 14:31Speaker 2: are completely unachievable.
- 14:33Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, the electrification pathway is real and it's not
- 14:37Speaker 1: going to slow down. It's going to continue on. And
- 14:40Speaker 1: if you look at the reality and some of the
- 14:41Speaker 1: reports of how much copper is going to be needed
- 14:44Speaker 1: over what period of time and how much copper is left,
- 14:47Speaker 1: like some of the largest minds in the world are
- 14:49Speaker 1: halfway mined. And not only is that an issue for
- 14:51Speaker 1: a supply, but it's the depth of how deep they're
- 14:53Speaker 1: going to have to go to get the copper out,
- 14:55Speaker 1: And so the copper price has to perform from a
- 14:58Speaker 1: supply demand issue. In terms of the quality minds, if
- 15:01Speaker 1: you can find something like we're looking for as scarn,
- 15:04Speaker 1: scarns in a notoriously higher grade generally than most other
- 15:07Speaker 1: copper deposits, they're tricky, they take a bit longer to find,
- 15:10Speaker 1: but if you get them right, that's where you can
- 15:12Speaker 1: make a substantial value creation for shareholders and share price
- 15:17Speaker 1: and value of the opportunity. But in that case, I
- 15:20Speaker 1: see a challenge in the copper supply issues for quality copper.
- 15:24Speaker 1: I see that the timeline to bring these things online
- 15:26Speaker 1: is heavily impeded by a current ESG initiatives, various governments
- 15:31Speaker 1: and the US is certainly going to change that tone
- 15:33Speaker 1: within the US because they recognize that copper is key,
- 15:36Speaker 1: as they've identified it as a critical metal to the US.
- 15:39Speaker 1: And I think, as you said, you know, we've seen
- 15:41Speaker 1: a lot of impact on political geopolitics in other countries
- 15:45Speaker 1: when the US has either gone left or right with
- 15:48Speaker 1: its politics, and right now it's going in the right
- 15:51Speaker 1: direction for the next four years, and that gives us
- 15:53Speaker 1: perfect timing to see how much much much improved metals
- 15:57Speaker 1: and mining market that we think is just starting, albeit slow,
- 16:01Speaker 1: but it's on the verge I think of really breaking out.
- 16:04Speaker 2: It really has to in order to in order to
- 16:08Speaker 2: get the metal that's necessary, the profit is going to
- 16:11Speaker 2: have to be there because the risk. We know the
- 16:13Speaker 2: risk isn't going down, so if the price doesn't go
- 16:17Speaker 2: up to compensate for the risk, it's not going to
- 16:20Speaker 2: be there. So it absolutely has to. I think this
- 16:23Speaker 2: just the beginning. It appears to be tariff driven, but
- 16:27Speaker 2: it could be much deeper than that, and that's what
- 16:30Speaker 2: we're going to find out later on in the year.
- 16:33Speaker 2: I don't appreciate you coming on as always again. Go
- 16:37Speaker 2: to Copernico Metals dot com sign up for notifications these
- 16:43Speaker 2: ticker symbols in the US CPPMF. In Canada COPR IVAN,
- 16:52Speaker 2: Happy drilling and we'll talk to you soon.
- 16:55Speaker 1: Thank you so much. I'm looking forward to a great
- 16:57Speaker 1: second half of this year with permits underway, a lot
- 17:00Speaker 1: of results that come both from drilling and trenching, and
- 17:02Speaker 1: a very exciting second half of the year. Thank you
- 17:05Speaker 1: so much.
- 17:05Speaker 3: Carrie, the Financial Survival Network