IKN #780Premium

The IKN Weekly
Week 780, April 28th 2024
Contents
This Week: In today’s edition, Major macro moves, Major mining moves.
Fundamental Analysis: Newcore Gold (NCAU.v): An impressive updated PEA, Adventus
Mining (ADZN.v): Under offer, Equinox Gold (EQX) (EQX.to) buys Orion out of Greenstone.
Stocks to Follow: Adventus Mining (ADZN.v), SilverCrest (SILV) (SIL.to), IMPACT Silver
(IPT.v), Minera Alamos (MAI.v), Western Copper & Gold (WRN.to) (WRN), Contango ORE
(CTGO), Orecap Inv Corp (OCI.v), SolGold (SOLG.to), Pan Global Copper (PGZ.v), Rio2 Ltd
(RIO.v), Marimaca Copper (MARI.to), Aldebaran (ALDE.v).
The Copper Basket: Overview, Solaris Resources (SLS.to), NGEx Resources (NGEX.to),
Element 29 (ECU.v), Kodiak (KDK.v), American Eagle (AE.v), QC Copper & Gold (QCCU.v).
The Producer Basket: Newmont (NEM), Barrick (GOLD), Agnico (AEM), Eldorado Gold (EGO).
The TinyCaps Basket: Overview, Surge Copper (SURG.v), Awalé Resources (ARIC.v).
Regional Politics: Panama votes, Ecuador: Noboa’s Phyrric victory, Guatemala: Bluestone
Resources (BSR.to) is in trouble, Chile: Boric goes full copper, Bolivia is increasingly unstable.
Market Watching: Next week again.
I remind subscribers that no part of this newsletter can be copied, reproduced or
given to any third party without the express permission of the author.
This Week
In today’s edition
 A busy week for mining stocks, with plenty of news on large and small caps alike,
means this edition has turned into a long one. We centre efforts around the main
Fundamentals section that features not one, not two but three stories directly affecting
covered stocks. All three are headliner material in its own rights, so today I’ve tried to
condense as much as possible and give the essence of each event because if not, this
edition would go way too long .
 Top billing has to go to Newcore Gold (NCAU.v), which remained fallow on our Stock to
Follow list for a long time but last week, fired back to life with an outstanding PEA
update on its Enchi property in Ghana. I was expecting improvement, but it was above
and beyond expectations and with fortunate timing into a bullish market for gold, even
after the strong market gains last week the numbers suggest NCAU can go even higher.
 Then we consider the news that Silvercorp (SVM) is buying out Adventus Mining
(ADZN.v), which is good because that’s exactly why we bought ADZN stock at the start
of this year. However, the price looks low and SVM paper isn’t the highest quality, so
there may be room for a counter-offer from a third party. We’re holding.
 The third stock featured in the main Fundies section is Equinox Gold (EQX), which
made my heart sink when it announced early week it was buying the 40% of
Greenstone it doesn’t own from its minority partner, Orion. However, the deal makes a
lot of sense and instead of throwing in the towel immediately, I’m going to hold my
shares a little longer because a rebound to the U$6 level is likely.
 Away from straight stocks, there are several stories of direct interest to the mining
world in this week’s Regional Politics, including a preview of next weekend’s Presidential
and parliamentary elections in Panama as they may affect the polemic mining sector
1

there, political announcements out of Guatemala that make for a short candidate in
Bluestone Resources (BSR.to), also more thoughts on that disappointing referendum
result for the industry from Ecuador last weekend. And other things.
 The copper sector took off last week, as higher metals prices ran straight into serious
M&A when BHP took aim at Anglo American. The bigboy deal gets a mention in today’s
intro, the ramifications for the copper sector down in The Copper Basket and the
chances of us seeing rotatation into the smaller copper names we cover closely is
rising. Candidates for that in the Copper Basket and Stocks to Follow notes sections.
 Also in today’s main intro rant, I’m glad I called Newmont (NEM) as badly as I did and
explain why. Meanwhile, more thoughts on the big cap players in Producer Basket.
 Told you it was a long edition this week. Let’s get started.
Major macro moves
A big week for macro data, with an FOMC and the US Jobs Report on deck. First up in the Fed,
with the world again expecting zero rate changes from Jay Powell and his friends, but all eyes
will be on the communiqué (Weds 2pm EST) for changes in wording, then all ears on the
presser half an hour later when Mr. Powell jawbones his preferred subtext on the back of
softball reporter questions. With inflation data last Friday (that famous CPE number showing
“stubborn” inflation in The USA), the market is now pushing baxck the start of rate cuts further
into the distance and while that’s supposed to be bearish for gold, you’ll need to tell bullion
buyers because once again gold reacted by going up, not down, on Friday. It’s a new world
order out there and not for the first time, we underscore the importance of a gold price that
isn’t zoom due to the macro backdrop but in spite of it. More bullish, impossible.
Then comes the US BLS jobs report and according to the ever-reliable Bill McBride at Calculated
Risk* (1), “The consensus is for 210,000 jobs added, and for the unemployment rate to be
unchanged at 3.8%.” The standard playbook is to look for signs the US economy is slowing,
therefore reasons the Fed might cut earlier. Then when they don’t appear we’re supposed to
watch gold go lower, but once again the world seems to have gone through the looking glass
recently and the US data has lost its grip on the gold market.
*I know it gets repeated on these pages, but Calculated Risk really is a must-read blog for US macro data. Nobody
does it better and it’s 100% independent, too.
Major mining moves
There were two big stories from the world of mining last week:
1) BHP (BHP) moving on Anglo American (AAL.l) (2) (3): Shot…
MELBOURNE/LONDON, April 25 (Reuters) - BHP Group (BHP.AX) bid $38.8 billion
for Anglo American (AAL.L) on Thursday, offering a deal to forge the world's biggest
copper miner and driving its smaller rival's shares 16% higher.
…and chaser:
LONDON, April 26 (Reuters) - Anglo American (AAL.L) rejected BHP's (BHP.AX) 31.1
billion pound ($39 billion) takeover offer on Friday, saying it significantly undervalued
the miner and its future prospects.
A little more on that below but first let’s go the big gold news from last Thursday:
2) Newmont (NEM) rallying on its earnings report, by 9.5% on the week and by 12.5% on
the day of the release (4):
April 25 (Reuters) - Newmont Corp (NEM.N) beat Wall Street estimates for first-quarter
profit on Thursday, as the world's largest gold miner benefited from robust production,
higher prices and lower operating expenses.
Shares rose 11.2% to a nine-month high of $43.07 as the company also disclosed
strong interest in its asset sale plans.
Quarterly attributable gold production rose to 1.7 million ounces from 1.3 million
ounces a year earlier.
2

To save time and a little space, here right is the ten-day price chart comparing Anglo (AAL),
Newmont (NEM) and the GDX as benchmark.
These are big miners making big moves and serious
money is getting moved around, not the type of
market cap normally covered here at The IKN
Weekly and for what it’s worth, your author stuck
with Reuters as the source for all three of those
reports, trying to stay with the same voice as the
generalist bizwire is a fair way of checking the pulse
of the non-mining specialists. They are different
stories of course, but there’s a clear connection as
the prices of metals start accelerating and the
sector gets new attention from the wider world.
And while the sums involved are multi-billion in
nature, this is also wholly positive news for juniors and speculators such as (you and) I, down
near the bottom of the food chain. More than anything, what the mining sector needs in order
for assets to realize a more reasonable value is larger money moving in a sloshing around,
that’s what the two stories above represent to us and that’s why it’s all good news.
In the case of BHP and Anglo, it’s all about copper. For sure BHP is majority owner and
operator of La Escondida in Chile, the world’s biggest copper mine as well as other copper
assets and, as pointed out the the Copper Basket section of IKN778 two weekends ago, set to
become the world’s #1 copper producer this year (over FCX and Codelco), no matter whether it
buys out Anglo or not. So certainly no slouch at copper, however the behemoth BHP doesn’t get
much of its revenues mix from copper and that makes AAL, with its large dependency on
copper and self-inflicted wound of a weak balance sheet, an attractive target. Give it a year or
two, AAL will have fixed its copper mine glitches (mainly Chile) and the cash flow will have paid
down the debt load, so with copper market prices soaring BHP sees this and now as its window
of opportunity. That’s how M&A cycles begin, ladies and gents, here at the top with big players
making predatory deals.
But back to the case of NEM and the best way of framing this is to consider my own bad take
on its Q1, by way of sacrificial offering, and see what I got wrong (Spoiler: A lot). In the run-up
to its earnings I voiced my doubts about the numbers it would post and was clearly bearish, see
last weekend’s Producer Basket for just one example. Then on the day, when the numbers
dropped I was certainly less impressed than Reuters about the rise in its quarterly attributable
gold production of around 31% (see above), as there would have been a serious problem if
NEM couldn’t rise by that much after spending the frivolity of sixteen point eight billion dollars
to buy out Newcrest in the period between 1q23 and 1q24 (did you spot the irony?). Then
when the results dropped pre-open Thursday I had sharp things to say about its costs…
NEM: AISC per qtr
…which may have dropped compared to the legally-billed 4q23 (the Newcrest fusion came with
a lot of legal beagling) but at AISC U$1,439/oz are still too high for the world’s #1. My other
main criticism came here (5) while ranting the following:
3
319 529 819 009 388 149 139 349 879 598 548 709
6101
789 649
0301 7901 0201 3401 9301 5301 0211 6501 6511 9911 1721 5121 6731 2741 6241 5841 9341
1600
1400
1200
1000
800 600
400
200
0
61q2 61q3 61q4 71q1 71q2 71q3 71q4 81q1 81q2 81q3 81q4 91q1 91q2 91q3 91q4 02q1 02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1
U$/oz
source: company filings

Re $NEM, not so difficult to engineer financial metrics but some numbers are
unmoveable:
• Production sucked
• Costs didn't drop
• Free cash flow tells you what $NEM really has to do behind the scenes
Mining world, your "industry leader" is a bloated, inefficient pig. Fin
Be clear, I stand by all those statements:
 Production may have been up compared to 1q23, but that was all the Newcrest all the
time. Compared to 4q23, the only fair yardstick at this stage after the Newcrest merger,
production was down by 66,000oz. That represents around U$138m in revenues that
should have made the top line.
 For 2024, Newmont has guided AISC at U$1,400/oz. That’s a miss.
 Free cash flow came in at negative (yes, negative) U$74m as there’s a lot of heavy lifting
going on behind the scenes chewing up capital. And while we’re at it, whisper it quietly
but NEM book value also dropped quarter-over-quarter by half a billion dollars.
However, it’s one thing to stand by opinions on mining companies backed up by solid
fundamental evidence, quite another to get the call on its stock price right. NEM opened at the
bell Thursday up 6% and did nothing but climb higher, bought all day and closing up 13% to
the merriment and celebration of the whole mining world. And quite right, too. I was wrong
about NEM and don’t mind admitting it, the reason is that I lost sight of the real audience for
this company and its quarter. NEM is no longer under scrutiny from mealy-minded, nitpicking,
overly cynical anal ysts of the mining world such as yours truly, its audience is much bigger and
wider. Last week NEM wasn’t compared to its own 1q23, neither was it sat next to sector peers.
Instead, as the only mining company representative in the S&P500, its yardstick was the broad
market and its bigtime components, with analysts who allow the quants to run the headline
numbers and chug out a buy/hold/sell response, and backers don’t care whether that 31%
production increase is dilutive or not in a market where gold is trading close to U$300/oz higher
than the NEM average received price for 1q24. In other words, NEM last week got judged next
to the world’s serious companies and, as it hadn’t dropped the ball and made any gross errors,
its fusion with Newcrest had delivered what the market wanted to see: new bottom line profits.
Nobody cared about the per-share dilution (15c/share was mediocre at best), everyone cared
that it had “beat expectations” (and again, that how analyst expectations had been beaten
down to a low by sentiment). Hence the rally last week and the potted reason as to why I
might have been right about the earnings sheet’s component parts, but I was dead wrong
about their effects.
Stupid me, but be clear that I’m happy to be wrong in this case and for one overriding reason:
THE MARKET NEEDS A STRONG SECTOR LEADER, block caps and underlined, because if
you only take one thing away from this week’s opening rant, make it that. True of any sector,
true for mining and when it comes to precious metals miners NEM, after its recent fusion, is
head and shoulders above the rest in market cap terms. The insular world of mining can pick
fault with NEM (e.g. me and yes, I again stand by my opinion of it being a “bloated, inefficient
pig”) but the outside world of business, moving far more money and influence, can and will look
upon the sector with kinder eyes if its #1 stock is making money and providing market gains for
shareholders. And yes, that definitely includes market doyen traders such as Mr Druckenmiller,
people like him do our collective cause no end of good when generalist business media can
write headlines about legends making a killing on mining stocks.
One final point about BHP and NEM before we get to the meat and potatoes of IKN780, as both
companies are also new sources of significant dealflow in the sector. In the case of NEM, not
only did it confound insular fools such as I who failed to see the forest for the trees last week
on results, it made clear that its dispersal efforts are going well and they’ve received plenty of
interest on the non-core assets they have put up for sale. That means future dealflow, future
capex injections, economic activity and a market scouring the sector, looking for share to buy
and profits to make. As for BHP, all that would also apply if it wins its prize s AAL is a sprawling
4

brute with operations in 15 countries and just its list of exploration projects would be enough to
add a page to this intro. However, it probably applies now even if AAL managed to fend off the
Australian aggressor, as one of the few defenses it has is to split up into component parts and
realize shareholder value internally.
Fundamental Analysis of Mining Stocks
Newcore Gold (NCAU.v): An impressive updated PEA
Here’s what Newcore Gold (NCAU.v) shares did last week:
Here’s why (8):
Newcore Gold Announces Positive Updated Preliminary Economic
Assessment for the Enchi Gold Project, Ghana
On Thursday morning NCAU stuck to its 2024 plans and updated the PEA for its flagship Enchi
mine in Ghana that dates back to late 2021. Then on Friday midday the team presented a
webinar to discuss the results (recording available here (8)) and it’s no coincidence that the
gains seen on Thursday and Friday morning saw further additions and the stock ended the
week at 29c, up 38% from this time last week on excellent traded volumes those last two days.
The market really liked what it saw, so did this desk and to my own surprise, this company has
beaten out both Adventus (buyout) and Equinox (big corporate move) as the top story in
today’s issue. From here we consider why but first some background, starting with the current
structure topbox:
Shares out: 172.793m
Options: 11.27m
Warrants: 16.67m
Incentive award shares: 1.371m
Fully diluted shares: 202.101m
Current share price: C$0.29
Market Cap: C$50.11m
Approx cash per S/O: 1.8c
All prices are in Canadian Dollars unless stated. Forex U$0.75=CAD$1
That share count (chart right) is up from the NCAU.v: Shares Out
approximate 120m when we first considered
NCAU as a trade idea back in IKN670 (a brief
intro) and IKN671 (a longer look), in March
2022. It was priced at 50c or so at the time
5
6.26 6.26 6.26 6.26 6.26 6.36
9.97 9.97
0.99 0.99 1.001
3.021 3.021 8.021 4.121 3.831 4.831 4.831
7.171 7.171 7.171 8.271 0.981
220
200
180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
81q4 91q1 91q2 91q3 91q4 02q1 02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 tse32q4 tse42q1 tse42q2
source: company filings
serahs
fo
snoillim

and that point, we just added it to our Watch List. That turned out to be the right decision, as
NCAU was in the same boat as many other explorecos and developers in mid 2022 and dropped
through the year. Then in IKN701 dated October
23rd we thought the 21c on offer was way too
16 NCAU.v: Working Capital per qtr
cheap to ignore any longer and bought some,
14
eventually buying a second slug for a cost average
12
of 20.5c. It continued dropping but we decided
10
not to fret too much, as 1) it’s not a massive long
8
position (yet) and it deserved patience in a tough
6
market. As for the cash position, in 2023 and 2024
4
to date NCAU has kept burn rate to a minimum
2
(no drilling since that January 2023 resource 0
update) but there has been some shares added in
a necessary raise for working capital. Our model
also assumes shares out move to 189m by the
end of the current quarter, 2q24, as there are
16.666m warrants at 20c that mature at the end of June. Majority owned by institutions, they
will bring cash to treasury and while NCAU isn’t swimming in cash, it won’t need to go to
market in 2024 while it remains on tickover.
That brings us to last week and the news which perked the company up no end. The new PEA
has changed the expectations of Enchi in the market’s eyes and the timing is good too, with the
move in gold that we’ve just witnessed. We’re going to try to do this as concisely as possible
(we can always do a longer look in a future issue) but unsurprisingly, plenty of cost inputs have
changed since the last time we looked in 2022. One change is something we’ve already
documented, as NCAU drilled in 2022 and improved the resource via numbers published in early
2023
These form the basis for last week’s new study. The resource comes from five main zones (with
nine open pits envisaged at this point) and gives a total of over 1.7m oz gold, with 743,500 oz
of that in indicated category and the rest inferred. Grade is reasonable for the type of open pit
operation it plans, with mineralization at or near surface in all cases and most held in either
oxide or transition material that ameable to easy mining, and low cost heap leaching.
The gold price improvement seen since then gave reason to expect Enchi would still show
robust economics when its updated PEA arrived, enough to counter the inevitable rise in capex
and costs of operation, but what NCAU delivered was a far superior economic study and to give
the outline, here’s one of the tables from its extensive NR by way of a hack:
6
91q4 02q1 02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 tse32q4 tse42q1 tse42q2
source company filings
srallod
fo
snoillim

The arrows and notes in red on the table point to a positive mix of a better quality resource, a
better concept of how to mine the deposit as stands and improved understanding of metallurgy.
As a result, NCAU has better input criteria for the economic model and while not a complete list,
here are the main changes:
 Throughput: This is the biggest and most welcome change. The previous economic study
assumed throughput of 15,000mt per day and annual production of just under 90,000oz.
This new study bumps up the run rate to 22,500mt per day, thanks to the bigger
resource available and a more efficient mine plan from the separate pits.
 Leach pad grade: This is up from our previous assumption of 0.5 g/t to 0.6g/t and while
it will fluctuate over mine life, the average is now significantly higher
 Recovery: There will be fluctuation over the years as NCAU mines, saprolite oxide, oxide,
transition and some sulphide material for the leach pads, but the life of mine average is
now a couple of points higher thanks mainly to extensive met testing, with 20 column
leach tests done to supplement the higher number of bottle roll testing already in the
books. A geologist or engineer will tell you there’s never enough met testing done but for
this stage of proceedings, NCAU has a good handle on the issue.
 Average gold production: Thanks to the combo of higher throughput, better grade and
better recoveries, Enchi is now expected to average just under 122,000 oz gold per year
of payable production (not just gold on pad), that’s a big jump from the 89k oz of the
previous 43-101 PEA. It’s the most attractive point of the new study
 Costs: The AISC is the best method in this desk’s view, as it incorporates the relatively
high sustaining costs (mostly the crusher added to the circuit in years four and five). But
even if this U$1,018/oz underestimates total costs (it’s a PEA after all), it leaves plenty of
margin at current gold prices.
 Capex: At U$106m, this is a relatively low intensity project and would be in the scope of
a small or mid-tier producer to fund organically.
Notably, NCAU uses a U$1,850/oz baseline gold price and still gets great project economics
from the model. We can use more recent numbers and get even better results, of course. By
taking the data in the NR as read, we can build an economic model, starting with production
and sales estimates. The conservative estimate of 20% for TC/RC (very conservative, as NCAU
expects to produce a doré) is used deliberately to build in plenty of room in the economic model
7

for other friction in unknown areas (this is a PEA, no way do we assume optimal criteria). NCAU
can use U$1,850/oz, we use four different gold price assumptions to get a range of results,
from a stress test U$1,800/oz to a dare-to-dream U$2,500/oz, with our target today based on
the current equivalent U$2,300/oz price:
NCAU.v: Enchi model year operating parameters (at 22,500 tpd throughput)
Price deck U$1800/oz Au U$2000oz Au U$2300k/oz Au U$2500k/oz Au
Avg grade (g/t Au) 0.60 0.60 0.60 0.60
Au prod oz (81.8% rec) 121,839 121,839 121,839 121,839
gross Au rev (U$m) 219.3 243.7 280.2 304.6
TC/RC (U$m) 43.9 48.7 56.0 60.9
Sales revenue (U$m) 175.4 194.9 224.2 243.7
That conservatively adjusted sales revenue number then goes though our new costs model,
adjusted to the new outline costs criteria as presented this week. We also assume a simple
50/50 debt/equity split for the capex raise, with an ensuing U$6m per year debt service and
total shares out that move from the current implied 189m (2q24est) to 300m:
NCAU at Enchi: Income statement model year (U$m)
at 220m S/O U$1800/oz U$2000/oz U$2300k/oz U$2500k/oz
Sales (U$m) 175.4 194.9 224.2 243.7
COGS 109.7 109.7 109.7 109.7
Depreciation 15.0 15.0 15.0 15.0
SGA+R&D 9.0 9.0 9.0 9.0
5%+2%NSR 12.3 13.6 15.7 17.1
Op income 41.8 61.3 90.5 110.0
Debt serv. 6.0 6.0 6.0 6.0
Tax 8.9 13.8 21.1 26.0
Net income 26.8 41.5 63.4 78.0
Shares out 300 300 300 300
EPS 0.09 0.14 0.21 0.26
Sust. Capex 6 6 6 6
FCF 0.16 0.21 0.28 0.33
Sources: NCAU data, IKN calcs & estimates
Then to a target price:
Sales and earnings Valuation data for NCAU.v at Enchi based on
gold (U$/oz) 1.8kAu 2.0kAu 2.3kAu 2.5kAu average annual production and U$2,300/oz gold
Sales (U$m) 175 195 224 244 12-month target $0.70 based on 2x fcf
Upside to target 143%
EPS 0.09 0.14 0.21 0.26 Mkt cap (CAD$m) $55 Enterprise value $51
FCF 0.16 0.21 0.28 0.33 P/sales (1.8k Au) 0.28 EV/sales (1.8k Au) 0.26
P/E (1.8k Au) 3.2 EV/EBITDA (1.8k Au) 0.9
P/E (2.0k Au) 2.1 EV/EBITDA (2.0k Au) 0.7
P/E (2.3k Au) 1.4 EV/EBITDA (2.3k Au) 0.5
We previously used the same low 2X free cash flow multiple to account for the unbuilt, early
stage of Enchi and while that’s probably way too low, the model spits out so much cash
compared to the current price and leverage that I prefer to keep things moderate and the
targets in the realm of reality by plugging in a low multiple and assuming time will do the rest.
Indeed, we see the same in the Net Present Value (NPV) as seen in the NR last week:
8

As Lycopodium have access to all the numbers, I’m going to assume the above is accurate
today. As for the 5% discount rate, I too have issues with that but even if we swap it out for a
more reasonable 8% discount and go with the after tax number, it’s still U$280m which
compares to the current USD adjusted market cap of U$37.6m. However and to be fair to
NCAU, if we’re going with an 8% discount rate we should also adjust to current gold prices,
which makes the NPV U$524m and the current share price just 0.072x NPV. Triple that to a
0.216X NPV ratio (i.e. the type of multiple an early stage project can justifiably claim at this
stage) and we have a forex adjusted NPV target of C$0.65….close enough to the 70c above tp
make sense.
Two lowball models, two different methods, two very similar targets that make 29c seem tiny.
Discussion and conclusion: I’m trying to condense things today, this model doesn’t go through
all the steps (and questions are welcomed) and we haven’t gone into how the nine year mine
life will almost certainly extend as the very large and prospective project is developed (we went
into that angle more in IKN671) but I hope there’s enough on show to make the basic point:
This is a darned cheap gold stock. NCAU last week delivered a superior project PEA for Enchi,
better than even this shareholder expected and with the good timing of coming to market with
gold doing what it is doing now, fully deserved the price move to 29c. However, even our very
conservatively pitched models above show there is a lot of upside left at the current gold price.
While it’s unlikely to run to 65c or 70c immediately, momentum and a good macro market could
see us into the 40c and toward 50c Canadian quickly so after sticking my finger in the air and
making a best guess, that’s where I’m now aiming.
Adventus Mining (ADZN.v): Under offer
Friday saw good news drop on our Ecuador gold-copper play (8):
VANCOUVER, BC and TORONTO, April 26, 2024 /CNW/ – Silvercorp Metals Inc.
("Silvercorp") (TSX: SVM) (NYSE American: SVM) and Adventus Mining Corporation
("Adventus") (TSXV: ADZN) (OTCQX: ADVZF) are pleased to announce that the
parties have entered into a definitive arrangement agreement (the "Arrangement
Agreement") pursuant to which Silvercorp has agreed to acquire all of the issued and
outstanding common shares of Adventus (the "Transaction") by way of a plan of
arrangement (the "Arrangement").
Along with the news, ADZN also published a new corporate presentation on the deal proposal
which is well worth your time (9) as again, we’re not going into every nook and cranny of the
structure and valuation today, instead our job is to
comment, critique and analyze from a retail
shareholder point of view. It’s always good to get
one of your positions bought out and it rarely
means you’re going to lose. In that case, after
getting in at a personal cost average of 30.5c after
a couple of purchases, if we realize the supposed
ticket price of 50c at the print it’s a pre-
commissions 63.9% win and that’s not bad in just
over one quarter’s worth of investment time.
However, we also recognize that ADZN has been
held for a long time by people in at higher prices
and they haven’t been shy about voicing their
issues with the deal as stands. What’s more, this
desk agrees (personal profit on this or not) and the deal isn’t without hair, so let’s note a few
things that we don’t like about it:
1) Silvercorp (SVM) is offering all paper at a ticket price of C$0.50 share for ADZN, the assumed
merged company comprising around 82% SVM and 18% ADZN. Their literature tells us it’s a
31% premium to market, but that’s on a 20-day median and in reality, once the 6.8% drop in
SVM on Friday is taken into account there was only enough for ADZN to move up 2c to 44c on
the day, or if you prefer 1c from this time last week. That’s thin gruel for a “premium”.
9

2) SVM isn’t exactly the best paper out there and this five year chart shows where it’s been
trading all that time. If we exclude the late 2020/early 2021 mania it’s at the top of its trading
range and the reversal on Friday brought it
back to U$3.31.
#) It’s conditional on a placement worth
C$26m or so which will give SVM around 15%
of shares out when it closes at some point in
May (with the eventual merger closure slated
for 3q24) and for some reason, SVM gets its
shares at 38c. The lion’s share of the proceeds
will go to paying down two credit facilities
ADZN has with Trafigura and Altius, in order to
clean the balance sheet before closure. That
puts a clock on any potential counterbid (and
for the record, ADZN cannot go out soliciting
any third party) and along with the somewat
limited premium of this all-share deal, we’re left with ther impression ADZN could have done a
lot better.
4) As for the rationale, we knew that in theory ADZN was short of around U$65m for the capex
bill to build El Domo/Curipamba and with the permits in place and the clock running on the
formal build decision green light ADZN had to find a way of covering that shortfall. According to
its CEO last week, the choice was a placement at around 35c or the deal with SVM that would
open its $200m of treasury cash and there weren’t any other offers on the table. With
hindsight, we cannot help but wonder whether it would have been smarter for ADZN to have
gone the equity raising route but equally, we should note that even after the merger with
Luminex the company doesn’t have the deep bench of minebuilding experience required and its
eventual likely exit was always going to be via M&A; it’s why I bought the shares I did, after all.
Bottom line: It’s good to be at the right end of an M&A deal, but this buyout of ADZN by SVM is
definitely on the lowball side and, considering the company is far more than the standalone El
Domo/Curipamba project with a capex ticket of an attainable U$300m and an 8% discounted
NPV at U$3.50/lb copper of U$259m, there’s surely room for a third party to move in and pay
SVM its $10m break fee. There are some obvious candidates too, starting with Dundee Precious
Metals (DPM.to), one of our Producer Basket components this year, as the metals mix fits and
its presence in Ecuador via the Loma Larga project means it has the necessary on-ground
experience. What’s more, the difficult Loma Larga may be unlocked and provide DPM with a
douple win if it can build and operate a modern, environmentally responsible operation at El
Domo first, therby demonstrating to Ecuado naysayers its good corporate practices. Another fit
might be Lundin Gold (LUG.to), operators of the highly successful Fruta del Norte mine in
Ecuador. Though CEO Ron Hochstein has said he’d like to expand via a second project in
another country, that may be due to a lack of opportunity inside Ecuador more than anything
else and this would provide a good fit. With cash and a great reputation in the country, LUG has
the wherewithal to build and operate this mine and then go on to develop the projects that
came in via ther Luminex merger. There are other third party possibles, but those are clear fits
and as the ticket price of this SVM offer deal isn’t too high, there’s space in which to work as
long as the concurrent placement at 38c doesn’t close beforehand.
Therefore, we see no need to act for the time being
as shareholders and will hold our ADZN shares.
The deal as tabled provides a win and a print (useful
for putting cash back in my personal treasury), but a
competing offer may come in with gold and copper
doing what they are doing, so for the moment the
job is to hold shares and watch from the bleachers as
the big money does its thing. We’ll close this
10

overview with the 2024 YTD chart, the one I bought and will be paid on.
Equinox Gold (EQX) (EQX.to) buys Orion out of Greenstone
Now for the quick and dirty on the third of our three main stories this week and, on reading this
Tuesday evening (10), my heart dropped:
Equinox Gold Consolidates Ownership of the Greenstone Gold Mine,
Arranges Term Loan and Bought Deal Equity Financing
At least Equinox was kind enough to announce this deal early in the week and before the fun
with Adventus and Newcore above, as it gave time to
digest the information, crunch the numbers and observe
the market reaction. First came Wednesday when as
expected, it dropped hard (8.6% on volume of 20.5m in
its main NYSE listing), then flatline trading on Thursday
and finally, with the book and overallotment filled
quickly, the bought deal segment of the financing
closed on Friday and allowd the stock to rally into the
weekend. Thatr erased the worst of the week-over-
week drop, but it’s still a painful one and particularly
because I was close to taking profits just a few days
ago (and said as much on these pages). However and
after due consideration, I don’t think this deal is a bad
one at all for EQX and even though we’re significantly lower than this time last weekend (when
I was already kvetching), I’m going to hold a little while longer in the expectation that EQX
rallies further in the days to come. But not for very long.
Now to explain why in as few words as possible so, after more due consideration, a good hack
is to consider Orion’s sale of 40% of Greenstone from Orion’s point of view. Let us consider
what we know about Orion’s participation and dealings before last week.
Back in late 2020, Orion paid a total of U$250m to Centerra for 50% of Greenstone (at the time
called Hardrock), via payment of U$225m on close and U$25m later. It’s worth noting the deal
also includes the delivery of 33,333 oz gold to Centerra once the mine starts producing, with
11,111 once Greenstone reaches 250,000oz gold produced, another 11,111 at 500,000oz
produced and the final 11,111 at the 700,000 oz production milestone. That liability now passes
to EQX and if we assume U$2,400/oz gold, that’s a not unsubstantial U$80m to add to EQX’s
purchase price.
Then EQX took over the other 50% holder of Greenstone, Premier, and after getting together
for drinks and a chat Orion sold 10% of its holding in project to EQX in early 2021. The price
was for U$51m cash, plus U$5m contingent payment that’s also been paid, plus another gold
delivery deal with 2,200oz gold once Greenstone reaches 250,000oz gold produced, another
2,200 at 500,000oz produced and the final 2,200 at the 700,000 oz production milestone.
Though lower numbers, it’s a similar deal to the one Orion had with Centerra but it’s still 6,600
oz gold that EQX will eventually owe to Orion and again, if we assume U$2,400/oz gold, it
means Orion gets almost U$16m back in bullion once the mine starts operating (and that’s
soon). That brings Orion’s net outlay to an estimated U$183m.
If we then assume very little was spent in early and mid 2021 and cut to the green light on the
build in late 2021, we then have the cost of the construction period. In that Orion paid its pro
rata 40% of the development and construction of the project, budgeted at U$1.225Bn and
according to the JV as at end 2023 it arrived on-budget. That’s U$490m and brings Orion to an
outlay subtotal of U$673m however, as noted in IKN771 dated February 25th when we went
over the EQX 2023 year-end results and 2024 outlook, Greenstone is quietly over-budget by
something between U$120m and U$150m, depending on how you cut the cake. So if we use
the median U$135m, Orion’s 40% pro-rata of that comes to U$54 and that’s our fair guess on
what Greenstone will cost Orion this year.
11

Therefore our best estimate: Orion is into Greenstone for 183 + 490 + 54 = U$727m.
It just sold its participation for a ticket price of U$995m and notably, U$745m of that in cold,
hard cash (very similar to its outlay). Not a bad deal and a 36.9% gross return for three and a
half years of incremental investment, but according to all sources Orion was looking for more.
Two weeks ago, Australian gold miner Gold Road (GOR.ax, 50% owners of the Gruyere mine)
reported to the Australian market authorities it was in talks with Orion to buy its 40% pof
Greenstone. Then just one day before the EQX/Orion deal was announced last week, GOR said
(11) it had walked away from the potential deal. According to the jungledrums, Orion wanted
more than a Billion and as that’s basically the entire current market cap of GOR.ax, it was
probably too much to handle for the ambitious and young Australian company.
The final potential piece in this puzzle is the changes in Canadian capital gains rules, as
announced by the Trudeau government recently. As from end June this will make transactions
such as this more painful and as such, Orion was probably under its own time pressure to get a
deal done.
Bottom line so far is that we know Orion does this type of deal, it sponsors medium to big
builds with a clear eye on its profit and exit strategy. As such, last week’s news wasn’t a shock
and reminds this desk most closely of how Victoria Gold Eagle was financed. However, we also
know that its only other suitor for the 40% didn’t want to pay its price and that thanks to
Trudeau, the clock was now ticking all while there was an obvious and willing buyer in EQX. So
Orion got most of its price but not all of it and EQX now gets to run with 100% of its jewel in
the crown asset, not just 60%.
So that’s Orion, but what’s in this for Equinox? For a start, we need to consider what this will
cost and whether the deal makes sense financially and, as it happens, I think it does. First we
consider the basic terms of the deal, as laid out in last week’s NR:
Under the terms of the SPA, Equinox Gold will pay $995 million to acquire Orion’s 40%
interest in Greenstone, payable as follows:
 42.0 million common shares of Equinox Gold valued at $250 million;
 $705 million in cash payable on closing; and
 $40 million in cash payable by December 31, 2024.
Equinox Gold will fund the cash consideration with net proceeds from both a new $500
million three-year term loan and a bought deal equity financing of common shares of
Equinox Gold for approximately $260 million.
The debt component of the deal comes from a consortium of banks and when added to the
current pile, looks like this:
EQX: loans and borrowings (incl estimates to 2q24)
1700
1600
1500
1400
1300
1200
1100
1000
900
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
12
81q4 91q1 91q2 91q3 91q4 02q1 02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 tse42q1 tse42q2 tse42q3 tse42q4
U$m
new debt
other
2023 convert
2020 convert (Mubadala)
2019 convert (Mubadala)
revolver
source: company filings
EQX has plenty on its liabilities art the moment and another U$500m means the total pile
should peak at a little under U$1.6Bn at the end of Q3, but then we assume 1) the Greenstone
ops start to pay down liabilities on the revolving loan and 2) the 2019 Mubadala convertible

loan, recently booted forward three quarters, will get paid down. Then as 2024 becomes 2025
and operations at Greenstone hit full speed, the cash flow of 400,000 oz per annum at a post-
royalty operating margin of up to U$1,500/oz at today’s gold prices. You probably don’t need a
pocket calculator for that one, U$600m in operating profit per year, but even if it doesn’t reach
U$1,500/oz we know the margin will be North of U$1,200/oz and that’s still the type of number
that makes quick inroads into such a debt pile.
As for the recently closed bought deal segment of the purchase financing, good for U$299m,
that does this to the shares out total:
EQX: Shares Out
13
34.011 95.011 90.311 4.311 54.311
2.612 87.932 78.142 53.242 48.242
54.003 36.003 33.103 22.303 98.303 60.503 73.703
23.213
49.213 89.213 10.813 6.323
20.224 20.224
500
450
400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
81q4 91q1 91q2 91q3 91q4 02q1 02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 tse42q1 tse42q2 tse42q3
source: company filings
serahs
fo
snoillim
We expect EQX to come out the back of this at just over 422m shares out, giving it an implied
market cap this weekend of U$2.33Bn. That’s a big step up from the pre-Covid years, but when
we consider what we can now expect from production once the 160,000 oz of gold per year
that was going to Orion and are now owned by EQX does to its production forecasts…
EQX: Annual gold production and forecasts
710102
681774 011206 913235 854,465
000507
000089 0000001
Oz Au
1100000
1000000
900000
800000
700000
600000
500000
400000
300000
200000
100000
0
2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024e 2025e 2026e
source: company filings, IKN ests
…we’re now at a company that’s expected to break into the 1m+ oz top tier of producers by the
end of 2025. That’s the same size as B2Gold at the moment, a U$3.4Bn company with high
political risk due to its exposure to some of West Africa’s more unstable countries.
As for the balance sheet, as we now have a hard value of U$995m for 40% of Greenstone. Up
to now EQX has carried its 60% at U$746m, That’s now worth U$1.492Bn and adds U$746.5m
to its 60% on the assets ledger, even before we add . Subtract the $500m in new debt and spit
in the air, that’s U$250m added to the balance sheet and on a per share basis, the implied
(ceteris paribus) new asset value of U$3,687Bn / 422m shares gives a BV/share of U$8.74.
That makes this weekend’s U$5.53 a bargain. Not a raging bargain perhaps, but there is room
for upside as long as Greenstone commissions correctly and gets off the ground. Clearly, the
execution risk ball is now firmly in a court of EQX and any problems will see the company in
serious financial trouble (for your model, consider what Magino has done for Argonaut Gold’s
share price in the last couple of years) but then again, for EQX it’s virtually the same level of
existential risk as just a week ago when it only had 60% of the project; if Greenstone fails so
does EQX, 100% or 60% ownership.
Discussion and conclusion: This deal makes sense for Orion, as it gets its payout via cash
that covers all its outlay, then it gets to ride the EQX equity and cash out at its leisure,

presumably at higher prices as the new 100% owner of Greenstone does its thing and adds
value. The deal also makes sense for EQX, as it’s the direct route to one of its principle aims,
that of becoming a 1m oz senior producer and enjoying the re-rates that come from that level.
Again, on a like-for-like level its market cap today would easily surpass that of B2Gold.
However, EQX is clearly doing this with its eyes on the medium-term rather than expecting
immediate gains. As such I’m going to be a seller of this stock soon, but not immediately
because we’re likely to get more of the same rebound we saw on Friday when the boiught deal
placement closed. My window for the sale is around the U$6 price point, the same as the
minimum I’d looked for the last few weeks, but this time that $6 is a hard target and I may
even accept lower if the rebound runs out of steam EQX took its time to offer me a trading
profit and even before last week, I was underwhelmed with the lack of leverage it offered as
gold climbed above and beyond the $2,000/oz, then the U$2,200/oz line. A profit is a profit and
it’s not ot be sniffed at, but there’s now a clear limit to my trade. Selling soon.
Stocks to Follow
Of the 18 companies currently in the Stocks to Follow list, nine were winners on the week
(MAI.v, SILV, MARI.to, WRN.to, IPT.v, ADZN.v, CTGO, NCAU.v, ERO.to), three were unchanged
(RIO.v, MIRL.cse, OCI.v) and six were losers (EQX, SOLG.to, PGZ.v, ALDE.v, PAU.cse, MENE.v)
but even that headcount underestimates the good week it was for the portfolio. The only real
pain came from Pan Global (PGZ.v down 11.6%) and Equinox (EQX down 7.8%), while the plus
column offered plenty of moves that made a meaningful difference to the portfolio, including
the big upmoves in Newcore Gold (NCAU.v up 38.1%), SilverCrest (SILV up 10.8%), Western
Copper & Gold (WRN.to up 10.8%) and Marimaca Copper (MARI.to up 9.2%). I’d even throw in
the 8.2% added by Top Pick Minera Alamos (MAI.v).
With IMPACT Silver (IPT.v) now part of the mix we now have 18 Stocks to Follow, two under
our self-imposed maximum. Eleven of those are in the green, one is unchanged and six are in
the red but at this stage, only SolGold is a cause for true underwater pain in 2024. Overall, the
portfolio has responded well to the metals rally, which is what it was supposed to do. Good.
company Ticker this week Avg Price Reco date Current PPS Gain/Loss% Notes
TOP PICKS
Minera Alamos MAI.v STR BUY C$0.21 13-Oct-19 C$0.33 57.1% $0.75 first tgt, #1 idea
RECOMMENDED STOCKS
Equinox Gold EQX Hold U$4.42 30-May-23 U$5.53 25.1% will take profits soon(ish)
Rio2 Ltd. RIO.v BUY C$0.80 22-Apr-18 C$0.465 -41.9% Momentum now building
SilverCrest Met SILV STR BUY U$6.90 31-Mar-24 U$8.53 23.6% Quality silver/gold producer
SolGold SOLG.to hold C$0.22 19-Feb-23 C$0.175 -20.5% Running out of patience
Pan Global Res PGZ.v STR BUY C$0.19 19-Feb-24 C$0.19 0.0% Still looks tremendous value
Marimaca Copper MARI.to BUY C$3.05 14-Jan-24 C$4.03 32.1% Quality Cu developer
Western Copper WRN.to BUY C$1.57 26-Feb-24 C$2.15 36.9% M&A trade,placement annoying
IMPACT Silver IPT.v SPEC BUY C$0.315 14-Apr-24 C$0.32 1.6% Silver spec trade, risk/reward
Adventus Mining ADZN.v HOLD C$0.305 7-Jan-24 C$0.44 44.3% buyout win
Contango Ore CTGO STR BUY U$18.70 30-Jul-23 U$21.35 14.2% Production re-rate in Q3
Newcore Gold NCAU.v SPEC BUY C$0.205 23-Oct-22 C$0.29 41.5% Cheap Au in West Africa
SPECULATIVE TRADES
Aldebaran Res. ALDE.v SPEC BUY C$0.72 16-May-21 C$0.94 43.1% Patience still required
Minera IRL MIRL.cse avoid C$0.195 22-Jul-12 C$0.02 -89.7% leaving list soon (good)
A WATCHLIST OF POTENTIAL TRADES. NB: I DO NOT OWN
14

Ero Copper ERO.to WATCH C$18.94 22-Oct-23 C$28.18 48.8% Hi-quality but no longer cheap
Orecap Inv OCI.v WATCH C$0.065 31-Mar-24 C$0.06 -7.7% Arb on OreGroup hotpots
Provenance Gold PAU.cse WATCH C$0.085 8-Oct-23 C$0.08 -5.9% Idaho gold drill play
LONG-TERM NON-MINING HOLD
Mene Inc. MENE.v adding C$0.63 6-Dec-20 C$0.205 -65.9% LT bet, adding slowly
CLOSED TRADES IN 2024 date closed close price
Amerigo Res ARG.to Jan'24 C$1.36 12-Dec-21 C$1.34 -1.5% reduced Cu exposure
Fortuna Silver FSM Jan'24 U$2.92 13-Aug-23 U$3.09 3.4% Time ran out on NT trade
Argonaut Gold AR.to Jan'24 C$0.42 17-Dec-23 C$0.395 -6.0% NT specflip closed on poor Q4
2015 to 2023 annual closed positions in appendices below, 2009 to 2014 closed positions in editions IKN553 or earlier
Now for notes on some of our covered companies:
Adventus Mining (ADZN.v): UNDER OFFER, HOLDING. Just to be clear, a note to state
that our plan is to hold and get as much value from the SVM buyout move as possible, be that
an optimal scenario of a counteroffer or merely waiting until the print (or just before). ADZN
only rose a penny on the week despite this buyout news, which is its own verdict on the lowball
nature of this offer. However and despite my moaning, I cannot personally complain about a
win of this nature after holding for a relatively brief period. In at the right price makes all the
difference.
SilverCrest (SILV) (SIL.to): A very good week for our preferred silver play, its 10.8% added
out-performing even the headline gains made by NEM last week (see above in today’s Intro and
below in Producer Basket), all on no news. This warms the cockles of this fundyguy’s heart, so
here’s a reminder of last week’s numbercrunch on the stock viaq the sensitivities chart we ran
near the end:
SILV tgt sensitivities on EPS & Metals Decks (in USD)
Price Deck 12x EPS 14x EPS 16X EPS
1 (1.9k Au, 22/oz Ag) $7.12 $8.31 $9.50
2 (2.0k Au, 23/oz Ag) $7.73 $9.02 $10.31
3 (2.2k Au, 25/oz Ag) $8.94 $10.43 $11.92
4 (2.3k Au, 28/oz Ag) $10.14 $11.83 $13.52
source: IKN calcs & ests
I cannot think of a single reason why SILV cannot attain that primaery U$10.14 target under
today’s market conditions, unless it throws a spanner in the works with some unexpected bad
news when reporting its quarter on May 14th. The market sees the obvious value in this stock
and its out-performance last week is indicative of a company floating back to a more reasonable
valuation compared to its asset base. More, please.
15

IMPACT Silver (IPT.v): Due to a brainfart my new position didn’t make it to the Stocks to
Follow list last weekend, that’s fixed now. Meanwhile in market trading, this is what leveraged
trades on silver are supposed to do:
Silver dropped on Monday (we know that) and
stayed in a tight trading range all week, but IPT did
what it’s supposed to do with the metal now
consolidating at a higher price and rallied from the
initial sell-off to finish up on the week and put my
(slightly expensive) purchase into the green. The
main hill to climb for IPT shares is that warrant
overhang at 35c, for that we need fundies news
from either a move in the price of silver or a good
1q24 earnings report and outlook when the
company reports. Or both, of course.
Minera Alamos (MAI.v): We got real news last week from our Top Pick (12): as MAI is
dusting off its “Minera Copper” plans and doing something with the small but interesting copper
project located next to Santana. The addition of Suaqui Verde (Green Heart Of Dragon Fruit, as
cool a translated place name as you can get) to the West of Santana/Los Verdes and still firmly
in the mining district of Sonoro State adds scale to the plans and while the long NR goes into
plenty of detail, what we need to know comes in the first couple of paragraphs; the nascent
entity will be 50% owned by MAI.v and the plan is to spin it out. This is good, it’s not a market-
buster but it shows cleaer intent to realize value from its assets and by purchasing the adjoining
ground, we’re being pointed toward the strategy sketched out last year of spinning this out into
a newco and getting “free shares” (as they say) for one and all. Also on a conceptual level, the
fact MAI is happy about investing in what is in effect “Another Heap Leach Project In Mexico” is
a signal that the company believes the permitting woes suffered under the AMLO government
are about to come to an end. For more on that,
please see IKN779 last weekend and “Mexico:
Claudia Sheinbaum talks mining”, as well as IKN777
three weeks ago and the note “Parsing Sheinbaum
on mining”.
As for trading, all it took was a bit of substantive
news at the right time for MAI to find bidders and
move up, though we should stress that 33c is not a
breakout number and, while frustrating, it wouldn’t
be a shock to see it revist the 30c line next week. It
would hardly be the first time. So paint me as
pessimist until further notice, but until MAI wears a
4-handle I cannot see anything to get excited about and for that, we’re likely going to need real
news on permits from either Santana’s heap leach pads or Cerro de Oro’s process.
Western Copper & Gold (WRN.to) (WRN): Friday
trading told me that our interpretation of the reasons
behind the financing round announced the week
before last were spot on. Sandeep’s friends are firmly
on board, the copper price is germane to upside, WRN
is obviously in-play and the comments out of NEM last
week helped people focus on the opportunity that
Coffee-Plus-Casino would offer a developer. After the
roadbump of the week before last, it’s good to see the
$2+ levels return and we’re still aiming for C$3.00 on
the buyout news. Mr. Singh, make it rain.
16

Contango ORE (CTGO): Decent buying, volumes still okay-not-great but we’re on the right
side of this trade now and as I’ve got used to the choppy piece action, it’s an easy hold on gold
now. We’re closing in on first production at Manh Choh
and that should get a re-rate, then let’s see what the
company can do with its newly filled treasury position
via the drillbit at Lucky Shot. In a webinar the other
day, CEO Rick van Alphabet talked about a potential
scenario where the high grade Lucky Shot ore gets
shipped to Kinross’s Fort Knox for processing, which
makes sense considering the now-established working
relationship, plus the high-grades that give the
economic margin for longer transport routes. I like the
idea, again low front-end capital and fast cash flow
returns.
Orecap Inv Corp (OCI.v): With the print in Adventus, I have another reason to seriously
consider starting an active position in Orecap (OCI.v) again.
OCI.v: Marketable Secs, Investments in Assocs, Cash
value
ticker shares owned(m) PPS C$m Cents/share
AE.v 11.68 0.63 7.36 3.0
AE.v warrant 0.10 0.33 0.03 0.0
ARIC.v 8.33 0.61 5.08 2.1
ARIC.v warrant 4.17 0.01 0.04 0.0
QCCU.v 5.06 0.125 0.63 0.3
MIS.cse 24.71 0.04 0.99 0.4
subtotal 14.14 5.7c
Cuprum 1.475 0.6
subtotal 15.61 6.3c
Est.cash 1.50 0.6
Total 17.11 6.9c
At 247.714 S/O
We’re also at a low ebb for its two star holdings, as
American Eagle (AE.v see Copper Basket below)
dropped last week on news of a financing before
the drills start turning at NAK, while Awalé (ARIC.v,
see TinyCaps basket) is still under a cloud from trhe
contentious moves made by its C-suite a couple of
weeks ago. That’s dragged the liquid asset portfolio
per share at OCI down to 5.7c and total asset value
to 6.9c, so it it starts trading regularly at 5.5c, it
would be a great price to buy some. We saw spots
of 5.5c last week including one block seller, but
most trades went through at 6c.
SolGold (SOLG.to): MAY LOOK FOR AN EXIT. After due consideration of last week’s
referendum result news out of Ecuador (more below in today’s Regional Politics), it may be time
to throw in the towel on this losing trade (though for the record, I’m glad I added some at the
recrnt lows and made the loss somewhat more bearable). The four things that are stopping me
from selling this week:
 Copper prices and market momentum: Not only is copper at U$4.50/lb, but the sector is
finally getting insto interest and the decision by BHP to go for AAL (see intro today) will
17

only boost the positive sentiment. Desks will be searching for “undervalued, advanced
stage copper projects” and Cascabel is bound to come up on plenty of new radars.
 The Adventus deal: A move into Ecuador by outside capitals is good news for mining in
the country, no matter that ADZN’s situation is very different from that of SOLG.
However, Cascabel/Alpala certainly has a better CSR outlook than that of Warintza and
that stock ran hard late last week.
 We may see a delayed reaction tomorrow. SOLG trades in Canada (my shares bought
there) but its driver is the main London AIM ticker and that had closed for business
before the real fun started Friday afternoon Americas, so let’s see if SOLG reacts well
when London opens for business tomorrow.
 My own tendency to procrastinate. That’s my problem.
It’s probably a little small-minded of myself to want a small run in SOLG this coming week to
help a decsision, guilty of that as well. Please note that if I sell my SOLG it won’t be cash left on
the sidelines, it’s important to stay long copper at this juncture and I’d find another home for
the cash quickly. In fact, one likely alternative for at least some of the proceeds would be…
Pan Global Copper (PGZ.v): Out of fashion and
without a near-term driver to get the market intested,
PGZ traded badly last week and it only took a few
sellers fed up with the inertia for it to drop back under
the 20c line again. So this real bargain got even
cheaper and I’m seriously considering an addition, but
as noted previously my coffers are all-but dry and I’d
need to sell something in order to buy shares here (or
anywhere else, e.g. OCI).
Rio2 Ltd (RIO.v): The RIO2 team was spotted
marketing in Toronto last week, with both executive
Chair Alex Black and CEO Andrew Cox doing the legwork. I’m going to catch up with chair Black
by the miracle of 21st century communications this coming week to get more, but in a quick
conversation before he got on his return flight learned that the reception was positive and they
are getting plenty of feedback from potential sources of finance for Fenix. Which is good, that’s
why they went on the trip.
Marimaca Copper (MARI.to): After last weekend’s
quiet moan, MARI finally pout a move in and closed
the week above C$4.00, a handle that it fully
deserves. We also had a video to watch as MARI CEO
Hayden Locke showed up at Crux Investor to
promote the story (13) proceeded to rattle the same
laundry list of points this publication has been
making about MARI recently. Worth a watch if you’re
long or thinking about it.
Aldebaran (ALDE.v): The news last week is
potentially positive, as ALDE is conducting a site visit
to Altar this coming week for anal ysts and associated hangers-on. That’s good, as the world
needs to get a handle on the scale of this project in order to see its selling point (and of course,
how darned cheap the stock is at these levels). Hopefully the visit goes well, but it’s worth
pointing out the San Juan Andean foothills got a burst of late season cold and snowy weather
last week that trapped one exploreco team (16 people working for an Aussie junior). Looking
for clear skies.
18

The Copper Basket
After seventeen weeks of 2024, The Copper Basket shows a gain of 13.43% to level stakes:
company ticker price 1/1/24 Shares out Market Cap current pps gain/loss%
1 NGEx Minerals NGEX.to 7.16 186.824 1864.50 9.98 39.4%
2 Solaris Res SLS.to 4.13 179.221 996.47 5.56 34.6%
3 Marimaca Cop MARI.to 3.43 93.11 375.23 4.03 17.5%
4 Los Andes LA.v 11.80 29.53 321.88 10.90 -7.6%
5 Hercules Silver BIG.v 1.38 231 191.73 0.83 -39.9%
6 Aldebaran Res. ALDE.v 0.89 169.819 159.63 0.94 5.6%
7 Arizona Sonoran ASCU.to 1.75 109.17 158.30 1.45 -17.1%
8 Faraday Copper FDY.to 0.63 175.97 140.78 0.80 27.0%
9 Oroco Res OCO.v 0.375 222.86 135.94 0.61 62.7%
10 American Eagle AE.v 0.26 108.87 68.59 0.63 142.3%
11 Kodiak Copper KDK.v 0.58 63.93 31.33 0.49 -15.5%
12 C3 Metals CCCM.v 0.61 61.885 23.52 0.38 -37.7%
13 QC Copper QCCU.v 0.12 173.7 21.71 0.125 4.2%
14 Element 29 Res ECU.v 0.18 106.25 16.47 0.155 -13.9%
15 Camino Min COR.v 0.07 206.66 13.43 0.065 -7.1%
NB: All stocks in CAD$ Portfolio avg 13.43%
The Copper Basket 2024, weekly evolution
The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. First 20%
18%
the headcount for the week, with seven of our 16%
15 stocks returning week-over-week wins 14%
12%
(NGEX.to, SLS.to, LA.v, MARI.to, BIG.v, ASCU.to, 10%
8%
FDY.to) and the other eight losses (ALDE.v, 6%
4%
OCO.v, CCCM.v, KDK.v, AE.v, QCCU.v, ECU.v,
2%
COR.v). There were two double figure 0%
-2%
percentage wins among those, namely Solaris -4%
-6%
(SLS.to up 23.6%) and NGEx Resources
(NGEX.to up 10.9%), while the debit column was
headed by the significant losses in Kodiak (KDK.v
down 18.3%), QC Copper (QCCU.v down 10.7%) and American Eagle (AE.v down 10.0%).
However, the most interesting trend of the week is how all the wins were concentrated in the
top half of our market cap league table, while all the losses were at the bottom. The only
exceptions were ALDE.v and FDY.to (and then not by much) and while there are reasons for
some of the moves (e.g. KDK and AE both dropped due to newsflow), the trend indicates that
money is moving in for copper exploreco companies that run decent market cap and traded
volumes, while the tinycappers and thinly traded get ignored (or sold). That’s a positive signal if
you ask me (and even if you don’t I’m going to tell you), because it’s the type of sector rotation
you’d want from a sector attracting outside money for the first time in a long time.
 First they come for the big producers
 Then they come for the smaller producers
 Then for the larger and/or advanced development plays
 Then the big explorecos
 And then…
And then the little guys at the bottom of the stack see money move into their sub-sector, so if
copper continues to move strongly and the way it’s done for the past few weeks (and by by I’d
also say that flattening out and staying above U$4.50/lb would be enough at this stage), the
smallfry will get their day in the sun. Therefore, we suggest that you are suitably positioned in
the decent small cap explorecos before everyone else is, they tend to run fast when liquidity
finally arrives.
19
ts1naJ ht7naJ ht41 ts12 ht82 ht4bef ht11 ht81 ht52 dr3raM ht01 ht71 ht42 ts13 ht7rpA ht41 ts12 ht82
source: IKN calcs

Trading in copper futures is now rolling over from the May contract to July, so we’re doing the
same and as from this weekend our baseline chart is the July contract, HGK24. Here we see
that trading was indeed up, but the the week started negatively and overall we got a lot of
noise on copper compared to the modest (though welcome) +1.5% move it made.
Something about signals and noise, they tell me. However, the modest price move didn’t stop
the headline writers (14):
“Copper breaks above $10,000 for the first time in two years”
That was Reuters taking advantage of the nice round number copper hit when it went through
U$4.53 plus one sixth of a cent per pound during the week, however and to its credit that note
came with the same type of quiet warning voiced by this desk in IKN779 last weekend:
“Speculation over supply shortfalls in copper are pushing prices to new highs. At the
same time, investors are turning optimistic about demand from the green energy
sector. BHP’s bid for Anglo American highlights the looming supply squeeze,” said ING
commodities analyst Ewa Manthey.
In the short-term, however, there are still concerns about demand from top consumer
China.
“Premiums for imported cargoes are at record lows, inventories are high and the
expected pick-up in demand has not materialised yet,” Manthey added.
Agreed. We’ll make the same point as last week again, that of a lack of fundamental indicators
or end-user demand to support big increases in copper prices. The move we’ve seen is market-
based, fueled by trade speculators who are looking further out the curve to the point when
demand is expected to beta out supply. That’s later this year on most projections and that’s
enough to see the market move as a barometer and assume future prices. I remain slightly
leery, though you’ll also note how I remain very long copper via juniors and that’s not about to
change.
The other main macro story last week also added fuel to the speculative fire and for largely the
same reason, the overtures made by BHP toward Anglo American (see today’s intro for more).
Let’s go with Reuters again, the wire service of the week (I think that’s five links now) (15):
Copper climbs on fund buying after BHP swoops for Anglo
Copper prices extended gains on Thursday as funds chased the market higher after a
takeover bid by BHP for Anglo American, which analysts said was focused on copper.
Three-month copper CMCU3 on the London Metal Exchange (LME) gained 1.5% to
$9,916 a metric ton in official open-outcry trading, moving closer to the $9,988 two-
year peak touched on Monday.
BHP Group BHP.AX bid $38.8 billion for Anglo American AAL.L on Thursday, seeking
to forge the world’s biggest copper miner.
“The BHP news is most certainly giving some additional attention to copper. If BHP
wants copper, then I’m sure traders and investors want it as well,” said Ole Hansen,
head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank in Copenhagen.
20

Analysts say the deal is about copper and analysts are absolutely right. That move was enough
to turbocharge the copper sector and have instos running around looking for other places to
park their cash and one of those places may be AAL, as the potential of the classic sequence in
big cap M&A…
 Sweetener
 AAL looking for white knight
 Further speculation
 Secret talks in smoke-filled rooms
 Original aggressor winning its prize
…is a fairly high likelihood. But it’s also enough to see moves into the next level of copper
stocks and we saw two of those move in our copper basket last week.
Enough jabbering, it’s time for our regular copper inventory data segment, data from Chilean
copper beancounters Cochilco.
 The aggregate of the three official inventory systems total 429,498 metric tonnes (mt)
this weekend, down a significant 17,264mt from this time last weekend with all three of
the official systems seeing net outflows.
 The main news comes from the Shanghai SHFE, as the drop of 12,547mt to finish the
week at 287,498mt almost certainly means the top is finally in.
 The LME lost a net of 3,575mt from its warehouses, with the 4,300mt out of New
Orleans again the driver. There was also 1,900mt drawn down from its Europe
warehouses, those two partially countered by 2,300mt entering its Asia warehouses,
but overall those are minor numbers. Friday’s close came at 118,550mt.
 The Comex total dropped by 1,142mt, finishing at 22,179mt. No biggie.
The dedicated SHFE chart shows the squiggly line for 2024 finally rolling over, perhaps its
closest pattern is now the way in which 2019 panned out (though from lower levels). If so, the
next two months or so should see SHFE stocks drawn down by around 100,000mt and idf so,
you’d do well to ignore the reactionary squeals on social media. Ion the other hand, if it drops
rapidly by 200kmt or more I’ll be one of the squealers.
SHFE copper inventory levels, 2019 to 2024
400000
350000
300000
250000
200000
150000
100000
50000
0
21
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 01 11 21 31 41 51 61 71 81 91 02 12 22 32 42 52 62 72 82 92 03 13 23 33 43 53 63 73 83 93 04 14 24 34 44 54 64 74 84 94 05 15 25
MT Cu 2024
2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
source: Cochilco data
Now for notes on some of our basket stocks:
Solaris Resources (SLS.to): Exactly why SLS put in the massive move that it did on Friday is
unknown to this desk, but I’m going to take a best guess via a list of bullet points:
 It certainly wasn’t due to the drill result out on Tuesday 23rd (16) it’s “…150m of 0.67%
CuEq within 384m of 0.51% CuEq and 284m of 0.53% CuEq from Near Surface…” as
even though that would be very bullish from a British Columbia project it’s rather
lackluster compared to previous results from Warintza.

 It’s a safe bet to say it’s connected to the way copper is moving higher. No rocket
scientists required for that input.
 It’s also likely to be connected to the announcement out of Adventus (ADZN.v), as “quasi
Chinese money” Silvercorp (SVM) is buying out that gold-copper developer in Ecuador
and giving some sort of green light to deals in the country.
 I astrongly suspect a connection with Solaris’s new full NYSE ticker, SLSR began its life
just two weeks ago and Friday’s 100k volume was the first day it had broached 100k
since its open (right). While still behind the main TSX ticker in volume, it’s testament to a
new market for copper traders and facilitates new trades from new money trying to find
an edge (that may have fallen for a slick presentation or two).
 Finally, we know this company is part of the Richard Warke empire, with its well-oiled
marketing machine and Warke’s deep Rolodex of contacts. This factor goes hand in glove
with the previous point about the new NYSE ticker.
Put those factors together and SLS (or perhaps better said SLSR) did what it did. There’s a new
audience looking for large sized copper projects and stocks, SLS fits the bill for New York instos
that don’t know much about the serious CSR issues faced by this company in Ecuador and
cannot see the difference between a permitted ADZN at El Domo/Curipamba getting bought out
and a near-unpermittable Warintza positioning itself via marketing pitches as the next in line.
So yes, SLS will be a short candidate at some point, but neither should we discount the
irrational nature of this market and I for one wouldn’t be surprised if it rides an artificially
created wave a while longer. But whatever happens I’m not going near this trade with a barge
pole, Warintza is an accident waiting to happen.
NGEx Resources (NGEX.to): More evidence of my SLS theory comes from this stock comes
from NGEX, which also moved up hard and particulary when compared to smaller market cap
peers (we run The Copper Basket as a representative list, after all. In a market where instos
and trading desks suddenly decide they want into copper and start stock filtering, the magic
combo is something like…
 Copper (duh)
 Advanced (e.g. with 43-101)
 Good address (e.g. Chile)
 Good management (e.g. Lundin group)
 Scale (multi-billion pound copper deposits, please)
 Trade bandwidth (they need to make meaningfully sized purchases)
The same way that SLS fits the bill, so does NGEX and we note the strong Friday enjoyed by
NGEx sister company Filo (up 5.1% on good volume) and while we’re here, to a lesser extent
let’s include personal holding Marimaca Copper (MARI.to up 9.2% on the week) in the group,
though that has lower volume and is under the radar of most big instos searching for copper
plays.
Element 29 (ECU.v): ECU filed its annuals on Friday evening (along with a whole bunch of
other Venture stocks) and the standout data point is its cash position, C$1.228m. As ECU
burned around C$4.2m in 2023, even if the company delays the start of drilling until after
community meetings and gaining a prior consultancy green light, they will need to raise capital.
Kodiak Copper (KDK.v): Trading in the “ginger haired cousin of Discovery Group” was
alreadty weak on very low volume early week, but as this chart pitting KDK against spot copper
(HG00) things got worse on the last two days of the week. That’s due to this NR (17) out
Thursday pre-open, entitled “Kodiak Reports New Copper Porphyry Discovery at 1516 Zone and
Final 2023 Drill Results”, a title that was far more upbeat than its contents. The “final drill
results” from other zones were meh, while the 1516 discovery was this hole:
 Drill hole AXE-23-018 at the 1516 Zone intersected 0.12% CuEq* over 258 metres,
within a broader zone of 0.09% CuEq* over 525 metres
22

It’s one thing to find the big porphyry, another to find one
with economic grades of metal. Nobody has ever doubted the
size of KDK’s MPD in BC Ca (lots of letters there), but the
company CEO Tornquist does herself and the company no
favours by claiming 2023 as a “resounding success” when all
evidence says otherwise and they get excited by 0.09% and
0.12% CuEq. So the stock price dumped as seen above and
we’re back to where it was for most of Q1, when copper
prices were 20% lower than they are today. Easy to avoid
this for the time being, media friendly andwinning company
chair or not.
American Eagle (AE.v): There was an air of inevitability about a round of financing at AE, it
finally arrived late last week (18):
Toronto, Ontario – April 26, 2024 – American Eagle Gold Corp. (AE: TSXV) ("American
Eagle" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it intends to complete a non-
brokered private placement of up to 4,807,692 charity flow-through common shares
(“Charity FT Shares”) at C$1.04 per Charity FT Share, for aggregate gross proceeds to
the Company of up to C$5,000,000 (the “Offering”).
The terms are reasonable (if you’re Canadian), there’s no warrant and to their credit, company
insiders were quick to jump on my observation (19) on how Charity Flow Through offerings
tend to see stock blown out once it goes free trading by
telling me the takers are mostly tight-handed insto
sponsors of AE who won’t play the same games. Fair
enough I suppose, but I’ll remain skeptical if you don’t
mind. Equally, AE at NAK has the type of potential at the
project that makes tight-handed holders of anyone and if
they start hitting the same lengths and grades they
found at the back end of the 2023 program they won’t
need to worry about excess sellers.
So, a $5m placement to fill coffers before the drills start
turning. Makes sense. What also makes sense is that the
stock dropped 10% on the week, the net reversal once
the financing news was known, C$1.04 CFT price or not.
QC Copper & Gold (QCCU.v): And on the subject of “…are suitably positioned in the decent
small cap explorecos before everyone else is…” as mentioned in the overview above, this:
At some point, this price chart has to break higher with copper doing what it’s doing. QCCU is a
stock to test the patience of a saint and the 14c of last weekend is back to the 12.5c of this, its
hard and narrow trading range still undefeated. Timing the upmove to perfection is almost
impossible, a year and a half of these numbers makes it more lottery than science but the
lingering negatives about a township that might not want to move some of its buildings isn’t
23

enough to deter speculation on a well defined 43-101 compliant copper deposit with strong
outline economics forever, surely? It has more than enough treasury cash to get on and do its
thing this year as well, it’s not as if the market is trying to second-guess another equity raise.
Be clear that I have owned before (as long-term readers will know) and I do not own at the
moment, but QCCU might end up making me look stupid for not picking some up at these levels
with copper now at U$4.50/lb and suddenly the new darling of fund managers.
The Producer Basket
After 17 weeks of 2024, the Producer Basket shows a gain of 13.91% to level stakes:
company ticker price 1/1/24 Shares out MktCap(U$Bn) current pps gain/loss%
1 Newmont NEM 41.39 1152.6 49.25 42.73 3.2%
2 Agnico Eagle AEM 54.85 497.971 32.63 65.52 19.5%
3 Barrick GOLD 18.09 1756 30.01 17.09 -5.5%
4 Franco-Nevada FNV 110.81 192.119 23.62 122.93 10.9%
5 Pan American PAAS 16.33 364.439 6.93 19.02 16.5%
6 Lundin Gold LUGDF 12.64 237.68 3.38 14.20 12.3%
7 Hecla Mining HL 4.81 617.768 3.16 5.11 6.2%
8 Eldorado Gold EGO 12.97 202.472 3.08 15.20 17.2%
9 Dundee PM DPMLF 6.43 183.278 1.44 7.86 22.2%
10 Wesdome Gold WDOFF 5.83 148.95 1.19 7.96 36.5%
All prices and stock quotes in U$ Port. avg 13.91%
A mixed week for The Producer Basket, the headcount split down the middle with five winners
(NEM, AEM, FNV, EGO, DPMLF) and five losers GOLD, PAAS, LUGDF, HL, WDOFF) on the week
but the basket average improved, thanks minaly to the big winner on the week. That was
Newmont (NEM up 9.5%) on the back of its 1q24 earnings report that was well-received on
Thursday. However, our basket gave back a chunk of its advantage over the GDX because of
the superior weighting the sector benchmark gives to the world’s biggest public PM company.
The 2024 Producer Basket: Weekly performance and
16% comparative to GDX control
12%
8%
4%
0%
-4%
-8%
-12%
-16%
Newmont (NEM) and Barrick (GOLD): We covered a lot of the NEM story in today’s intro,
here we do a comparative chart and focus more on the
future than the past. This ten-day chart running NEM vs
GOLD vs GDX shows the moment when Barrick hit its
pothole on the back of disappointing preliminary
production and sales NR, also the rocket move in NEM on
last week’s earnings report that “beat the street” (i.e.
didn’t drop the ball on what was an easy beat).
Attention now turns to this coming Wednesday May 1st,
as it’s not just an FOMC announcement day. Barric2k will
report its quarter before the bell and then give its
presentation 11am ET on the webinar at the other end of
24
ts1naJ ht7naJ ht41 ts12 ht82 ht4bef ht11 ht81 ht52 dr3raM ht01 ht71 ht42 ts13 ht7rpA ht41 ts12 ht82
The 2024 Producer Basket: Percentage diff. between
GDX benchmark & basket (negative= IKN ahead)
1.0%
ikn 0.5%
gdx control 0.0%
-0.5%
-1.0%
-1.5%
-2.0%
-2.5%
-3.0%
-3.5%
source: IKN calcs -4.0%
ts1naJ ht7naJ ht41 ts12 ht82 ht4bef ht11 ht81 ht52 dr3raM ht01 ht71 ht42 ts13 ht7rpA ht41 ts12 ht82
source: IKN calcs, NYSE data

this link (20). Thanks to the NEM quarter we already know that AISC number from the shared
production at Nevada Gold Mines is U$1,574/oz and as NGM represents around 16% of total
attributable production for NEM but around 46% for GOLD, that will weigh on the Barrick
results this week.
Agnico Eagle (AEM): Meanwhile, AEM stretched its market cap lead over the erstwhile world
#2 goldie Barrick* on the back of its own positive earnings report. The beauty of the bigcap
miners is that you don’t have to take my word for anything and they get a lot of institutional
coverage, in this case AEM has 16 analysts covering the stock that gave a median 1q24 EPD
estimate of 59c. So when the company announced EPS of 76c for the quarter on Thursday (21)
the news went down well. It’s at these times that I sigh ands1 wish I had1 more time to
dedicate to this type of large cap, multi-mine operation (not least because it’s profitable and
well-run, unlike the standard junior that crosses my path), but to give a rough idea of the way
in which AEM has progressed since the Covid crisis, here are three overview charts on its main
P+L metrics. The revenues vs COGS chart (below left) doesn’t have numbers, but the margins
chart (below right) is the direct subtraction of one from the other and shows the incremental
gains clearly.
AEM: Revenues from mining operations vs
production costs, per qtr
2000
1800
1600
1400
1200
1000 800
600
400
200
0
But for a clearer view of the progress, the
percentage margin to revenues shows the
consistent nature of its profits. Even as it
incorporated Detour and Kirkland, that margin
hasn’t fluctuated and arguably, the most recent
quarters have sen it improve. In our world of
inflationary inputs and rising costs, that’s a
commendable result.
This quarter’s 57.2%, on the back of
U$1,829.823m in revenues and U$783.585m in
production costs for a margin of U$1,046.24m,
has improved thanks to the rise in gold prices but it also shows AEM has kept a lid on real costs
of mining (no need to resort to an AISC massage here).
*In fact, go back to just after the moment it absorbed Randgold and Barrick was #1, my how times change.
Eldorado Gold (EGO): Another to report its Q1 on Thursday, though this time post-close,
EGO had already flagged its quiet quarter for 2024
and came in more or less as expected by the
market, with gold production ounces totalling
117,111 oz (ex-credit metals from Olympias) and a
breakdown between its four operating assets as follows:
 Kisladag: 37,523 oz Au
 Lamaque: 42,299 oz Au
25
02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1
U$m AEM: Operating margin, per qtr
Revs
COGS
source: company filings
87.672
18.765 06.355 52.235 06.155 91.825 64.484 59.366 24.329 26.297 48.717 25.658 49.479 00.388 91.979
42.6401
U$m
1200
1000
800
600 400
200
0
20 20 20 21 21 21 21 22 22 22 22 23 23 23 23 24
2q 3q 4q 1q 2q 3q 4q 1q 2q 3q 4q 1q 2q 3q 4q 1q
source: company filings
AEM: operating margin as percentage
of gross revenues, per qtr
%7.94 %9.75 %6.95 %0.65 %0.65 %7.35 %9.05 %1.05 %4.85 %7.45 %8.15 %7.65 %7.65 %8.35 %7.55 %2.75
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1
source: company filings, IKN calcs
EGO: gold production breakdown, per qtr
160000
140000
17882
120000 15435 100000 15779 16123 21362 17561 13866 18848 22374 18788 80000 2 8 1 9 0 9 5 6 7 22793 22473 19928 22644 21142 56619 18501
51349 60000 33377 46917 42454 37884 38745 42821 42299
40000
20000 29779 27973 37741 40307 37160 34180 37219 46291 37523
0
22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1
Oz Au
Kisladag Lamaque
Efemcukuru Olympias
source: company filings

 Efemcukuru: 18,501 oz Au
 Olympias: 18,788 oz Au
Arguably a slight beat as Olympias, but there's nothign there to shake the market in either
direction. Meanwhile, EGO reported correct progress at its Skouries development project with
commisisoning mid-2025, as per the recently revised schedule.
As for revenues and other P+L items, sales totaled ust under U$258m, not quite the blowout
quarter we saw in Q4 but still its second highest total.
EGO: Earnings overview
26
76.491
64.41-
54.312 24.23 7.712
86.3
71.642 40.02 53.922 63.23 68.922 70.93 62.542 68.24
40.403
17.56 79.752 01.06
350
300
250
200
150 100
50
0
-50
22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1
U$m revenues
gross margin
mine op earnings
op. earnings
source: company filings
That was good for operating earnings of U$60.096m, or 29c/share. With gold prices up over
U$200/oz on average since 1q24, EFGO should be able to return excellent numbers in the
current quarter and at present, a operating earnings per share of above 45c is feasible, an 8X
multiple to the current share price. Not expensive, considering the organic pipeline in place.
EGO: Liabilities breakdown, per qtr
1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
As for balance sheet items, liabilities (above left) are
up as it draws down debt capital for the build and
cash at U$514.75m dropped by just over U$25m.
But neither of those are cause for alarm, it has
construction bills to pay at Skouries and those
cheques come out at their own pace. Assets are in
good shape (above right), EGO still has a ton of
liquidity and as the working cap chart shows, its
balance sheet remains strong. Not bad for an intense
build-out period.
The 1q24 numbers coincided with the good feeling
left over from the NEM results and reaction (see
above) and while it’s best to ignore that (fat
fingered?) spike to nearly U$16 at the open on
Friday, trading was upbeat in the stock and the
U$15.20 close a good result, all things considered.
However, according to our metrics EGO still has
room for equity upside, with price/book still firmly
under the 1.0X line at 0.87X this weekend. I see no
22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1
U$m EGO: Assets breakdown, per qtr
5500
current liab LT debt Other LT liab 5000
4500
4000
3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
source: company filings
22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1
U$m
other fixed
property/plant/equip
other current
inventory
cash&eq
source: company filings
EGO: Price/Book ratio 2021 to date
1.0
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0.0
02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 WON
EGO: Working cap, per qtr
source: NYSE, EGO data, IKN calcs
43.394 90.064 91.114 25.124 51.514
10.495 78.736 91.656 93.946
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1
U$m
source: company filings/IKN ests

reason why this company, with profitable operations and strong development pipeline in
Skouries and beyond, should trade at sub-1X levels with gold doing what it’s doing. Neither
should it stop at the 1 line, but just that target implies a 15% upside from this weekend and my
kind of target for the next couple of quarters. There’s still a lot to like at EGO and it remains my
preferred play among the Tier 1 and Tier 2 goldies.
The TinyCaps List
After 17 weeks of 2024, the TinyCaps show a gain of 61.31% to level stakes:
company ticker price 1/1/24 Shares out Mkt Cap current pps gain/loss%
Aston Bay BAY.v 0.065 221.5 25.47 0.115 76.9%
Awalé Res ARIC.v 0.135 67.27 41.03 0.61 351.9%
District Metals DMX.v 0.170 106.98 41.72 0.39 120.6%
Endurance Gold EDG.v 0.18 150.136 22.52 0.15 -16.7%
Kirkland LDC KLDC.v 0.100 88.625 8.86 0.10 0.0%
Latin Metals LMS.v 0.075 71.476 7.86 0.11 46.7%
Palamina Corp PA.v 0.130 71.285 8.91 0.125 -3.8%
South Star STS.v 0.750 48.8 28.30 0.58 -22.7%
Surge Copper SURG.v 0.090 219.21 30.69 0.14 55.6%
Viva Gold VAU.v 0.120 118.384 13.61 0.115 -4.2%
Prices in CAD$, data from TSXV basket avg 61.31%
This section attempts to track the tinycap mining sub-sector of the market, our ten companies
chosen under the following criteria to put together a list representing the state of play in the
sub-sector of tinycap exploration company stocks. At least, that’s the plan.
 Market capitalization of under $20m (though this year I’m making one clear exception and one rule
stretcher). They have to be tiny. In two cases I’ve stretched the window a little and allowed sub-U$20m
market capper in that are just over the C$20m level, but the spirit is unaltered.
 A “non broken” stock price and project story. There are literally hundreds of tinycap juniors of the right
size, our task is to trawl through the TSXV and find companies that are small but with life in them. The vast
majority of tinycap stocks are broken stories, either traded to death on the exchange or with projects that are
a bust or with entrenched management more interested in their monthly paycheck than anything else.
 Likelihood of meaningful newsflow in 2024. This connects to the company’s “unbroken” status, as we
want news and potential catalysts from companies with projects that can work.
 Decent management if possible. When you are down among the little guys it doesn’t pay to be too
choosy, but still I preferred companies that have teams or people with good peer reputations.
For the second week in a row the TinyCaps basket
TinyCaps, 2024 weekly tracker
corrects lower, with the five losers (BAY.v, ARIC.v, 100%
90%
EDG.v, KLDC.v, VAU.v) too much for the four winners 80%
(DMX.v, LMS.v, STS.v, SURG.v) to overcome, with 70%
60%
one stock remaining unchanged (PA.v). The biggest
50%
gainer was Surge Copper (SURG.v up 21.7%), the 40%
30%
biggest drop from Viva Gold (VAU.v down 17.9%).
20%
27 10%
0%
ts1naJ ht7naJ ht41 ts12 ht82 ht4bef ht11 ht81 ht52 dr3raM ht01 ht71 ht42 ts13 ht7rpA ht41 ts12 ht82
source: IKN calcs, TSX data

Not so much in TinyCap stock notes here today, the week’s action was more in the big cap
miners and newsflow in covered stocks such as NCAU, EQX and ADZN. But a couple of lines on
a couple of basket components is due, so..
Surge Copper (SURG.v): A nice move on This may
have picked up some reflected glory from the
Adventus (ADZN.v) buyout news, what with
President/CEO of Adventus Mining, Christian Kargl-
Simard, being Chair of this company. While 451k
shares traded on Thursday and 316k shares traded on
Friday isn’t a massive amount of money in real dollar
terms, it makes for a liquid market and a few more
days like that makes SURG a tradeable copper
minnow.
Awalé Resources (ARIC.v): You can almost hear the
interest and momentum deflating away from this
stock, like air from a punctured tire. A
friend/subscriber who posts on the CEOca bullboard
told me the ARIC dedicated board has gone from
paxcked to sparse in the space of two weeks and after
a quick look myself*, it sure seems that way. An
object lesson in the way a small and promising
exploreco needs to keep its core shareholders happy,
particularly in the formative stages of its story.
*I try hard to avoid such places
NB: Please be clear that The Tiny Dogs is NOT a list of recommended tinycap stocks. It is a list of companies with
market caps of under $20m offering a reasonable representation of the wider tinycaps market. It’s possible in the future
I may buy shares in one or several of these stocks, at the moment both my opinion and wallet are strictly neutral.
Regional politics
Panama votes
Next Sunday May 5th sees Panama vote for its new President, as well all other democratrically
elected government offocials at the national and regional level. That’s around three million
people electing 885 people for jobs for the next five years, including 701 municipal heads (less
of an issue) and the 71 members of its national parliament (Asamblea Nacional de Panamá),
which is more important for our cause on the outside looking in and thinking about mining.
Also, before we get to our focus we need to point out a key factor in Panamanian democracy;
its elections have no second round run-offs. That means a politico can win their election with a
low total vote count and indeed, it would be no surprise to see the next President elected with
less than 30% of the popular vote.
So to mining and the elephant in the room is First Quantum (FM.to) and the drama around
Cobre Panamá, the massive mine closed down late last year and now kept on Care &
Mainenance (as well as being blockaded by locals who have continued their protest against the
mine). As regards mining, this report from Reuters dated April 18th (22) covers the main points
and is worth a read, though the title line “Panama election unlikely to shift outlook for First
Quantum’s copper mine” gives a clear idea of the contents. Here are a couple of extracts:
Eight candidates are set to appear on the May 5 ballot, with polls showing a tight race. Among the
five frontrunners, three have vowed to continue with the plans to close the Cobre Panama mine,
one has pledged a referendum on the matter and another has not formally indicated his intentions.
28

And…
Reuters spoke to leaders from five different protesters’ groups. Three groups, including the
country’s main workers’ union SUNTRACS, said there was no scenario under which they would let
authorities seal a new partnership with First Quantum.
“People already showed on the streets they don’t want metal mining,” Saul Mendez, head of
SUNTRACS, said.
Two groups said they would support a referendum on the matter, and predicted the result would be
against mining. A survey published by local newspaper La Prensa in February showed 90% of
Panamanians oppose mining.
All five groups expressed their distrust towards candidates, even the ones who have outright
opposed mining, saying that politicians do not tend to fulfill their promises.
“If the incoming president opens that mine without authorization from the whole country, of course
we’re going back to the streets and to the sea,” Sabino Ayarza, a representative of the fishing flotilla
that halted First Quantum’s operations by blocking its main port, told Reuters.
“And we’re going with other thoughts. We are no longer going passively as before, but aggressively
to close that.”
Reuters also spoke to six legal experts in Panama who said that while local laws could technically
allow First Quantum’s prospects to change in a matter of months, a referendum or another type of
consultation to ensure public support would be the only way to achieve that politically.
That’s part of the mess, but it’s far from an issue for just the incoming Head of State as it
should be remembered that the First Quantum’s issues in 2023 arose from opposition in
Panama’s parliament, rather than the executive, so the make-up and political leanings of the 71
seat assembly will be equally as important. Aside from Cobre Panamá, the wider industry is also
helsd in disdain and Panama’s moratorium on mining development is still in place. That
moratorium may turn into an outright ban during the next parliament, matching the current
situation in other Central American states such as Costa Rica or El Salvador (though the latter is
widely tipped to reverse its stance during Bukele’s current term). But back to Panama and
what’s clear from all polls and statements is that mining is an obvious net negative among
voters and when 90% of people say they are against the industry with an election in the very
near future, realpolitik states that anyone after one of those plum elected jobs isn’t about to
voice their undying support for mining.
We see this among the Presidential frontrunners, first and foremost the current poll leader, Jose
Raul Mulino. He is now the preferred candidate of the right wing and took over the candidacy of
the Realizando Metas (Achieving Goals) party when former President Ricardo Martinelli (the
archetype corrupt LatAm President) was barred from running. Mulino is the likely (not certain)
winner next Sunday and has made his affinity to the polemic ex-President Martinelli a central
theme in his campaign, up to and including his slogan “Mulino is Ma|rtinelli, Martinelli is Mulino”
but as a matter of fact, there is still doubt that he’ll be allowed on the ballot as there are legal
challnges to his candidacy. As righty as they come, Mulino is the candidate cited by Reuters in
the above report as “another has not formally indicated his intentions” on mining as even he,
the clearest proponent of mining you could ever want, isn’t stupid enough to state to his
country his pro-mining/pro-capitalism position out loud.
Summing up, we’re only going to have an idea of the future for Cobre Panamá and the wider
mining industry after the dust settles on the election. We need to know the political leanings of
the new President and the overall stance of the new 71 seat parliament. However, we can
sketch out a likely future, which goes something along these bullet point lines:
 A new right wing (Mulino) or centre right (perhaps ex-Prez Martín Torrijos, also running)
President assumes office.
 The new assembly, formed by officials who got elected by saying they are anti-mining/anti-
Cobre Panamá, affirms its current position.
 Nothing much happens for a while.
 Then at some point, the new President opens the debate on a) what to do with the
120,000mt or so of copper concentrate still stored on site at Cobre Panama. A resolution to
allow its export would open the port to shipments (quite literally) and weaken the port
blockade.
29

 Then the President opens the debate on the ICSID/CIADI tribunal and points out to Panama
that it’s in danger of losing the legal battle. That would mean a massive payout to FM, so
instead of letting that happen, the country would be wise to negotiate with the company.
 If the political atmosphere allows, some sort of deal is then reached.
Don’t take any of that as gospel though, we’re sketching out a potential ballpark scenario that
has a multitude of possible varions. Nothing too far oiut in the future either, as our sketch
would move into pure conjecture and it’s not worth trying to posit too many longer-term
guesses (let’s say a year or two from now), but perhaps in a best-case for FM.to some deal to
re-start happens and limited production is agreed but to get that far, plenty of frayed tempers
will need to be calmed and there will always be strong opposition from the environmental
groups that who their case last year, anything aside from total closure is unacceptable in their
eyes.
The bottom line: If Mulino is allowed to run and win, the market will likely take that as a
positive signal for the future of mining in Panama, but nobody should hold their breath. We’re
not getting a near-term resolution of any great standing on mining in Panama at the moment,
the best the industry can hope for is a gradual turning of political positions driven by a slow
return of overall public opinion to the way things were before. Interestingly, the way things
were under Ricardo Martinelli, in the time he stuffed his personal bank balances while the
country’s President. Fin.
Ecuador: Noboa’s Phyrric victory
The dust has settled on last week’s eleven question “Popular Consultancy” in Ecuador, i.e. the
referendum called by President Daniel Noboa and we can draw a reasonable, real-world
conclusion or two. First up, though consisting of 11 questions in effect there were just three
issues on the table last weekend. Nine of the eleven questions were closely related to the
questions of crime and security, with a focus on combating the rise in narco-gangs and related
violence. So if we consider the results in this light, we see Noboa only got support for one of
the three subjects. He got broad support for his security initiatives (he’s enjoyed his extended
honeymoon period due to his “hard line against against crime” image), but Ecuador rejected his
move to relax laws on employment (effectively trying to open the country to zero hour
contracts, improving the playing field for employers and taking away established rights for
workers. More importantly for us on the outside, the country’s rejection of a return to the
auspeices of international tribunals is bad news for prospective FDI coming into the country and
is a clear negative for high capex projects, such as SolGold at Cascabel.
For sure Noboa was quick to claim victory for his referendum, what with nine of the 11
questions going his way, but Ecuador as a nation demonstrated it wasn’t about to give him
carte blanche and tick all the YES boxes without a level of discernment. There’s also the distinct
feeling Noboa would have done a lot better if he hadn’t antagonized the two opposition groups
now railing against him:
 Until two weeks ago he had less active pushback from opponents, but he got the Correa
loyalists campaigning against him due to the way he violated the diplomatic rules and
grabbed Jorge Glas out of the Mexican Embassy (23).
 Until a month ago, the indigenous grouping CONAIE were not vociferously against Noboa
but the way in which he tried to foirce through the public consultancy process at the La
Plata mine project (Aitco Mining) got their hackles up and caused anti-mine/anti
neoliberal protests in provinces around the country, as well as getting CONAIE head
Leonidas Iza active against Noboa’s government.
These two components probably tipped the balance against those two key questions in the
referendum, indeed Correa has said he supports Noboa’s policies to stanmp out narco gang
activity but oppose all other policies. As for CONAIE, early last week Leonidas Iza was claiming
a resounding victory against Noboa, here’s a translation from this (24):
“For the organization led by Leonidas Iza, the government “tried to take advantage of
the backdrop of the rise in crime to camouflage its intentions and try to get those (two)
30

questions through.” CONAIE stated that those (two) questions come from “direct
orders from the powerful economic groups and the IMF.”
Noboa is guilty of overreaching here, with an extra dose of political naivete in stirring up his
natural political opponents at the wrong time. The result is an Ecuador less attractive for FDI
that might have been and another good reason to take a step back from sponsoring a high
capex project.
Guatemala: Bluestone Resources (BSR.to) is in trouble
On January 9th this year, just days before the end of the last government and the start of the
Bernardo Arevalo presidency (January 15th), the outgoing government approved the new
Environmental permit for the highly controversial Bluestone Resources (BSR.to) Cerro Blanco
project in Guatemala. Just after the investiture, BSR announced the EIA approval in this NR
(25):
VANCOUVER, BC, Jan. 18, 2024 /CNW/ - Bluestone Resources Inc. (TSXV: BSR) (OTCQB:
BBSRF) ("Bluestone" or the "Company") is pleased to announce Guatemala's Ministry of
Environment and Natural Resources ("MARN") approved the environmental permit amendment
for the Cerro Blanco gold project ("Cerro Blanco" or the "Project") to change the mining method
from the existing permitted underground development to surface mining development.
The news did this to the stock price…
…but your author smelled fish, smelled a rat, smelled all sort of bad odours in fact (26).
“Could this possibly be shadier? One week before anti-corruption Pres Arévalo started
(and he faced fierce pushback, establishment tried to block his win) Bluestone's highly
controversial EIA amendment is approved by the outgoing admin. Stinks to high
heaven.”
Sure enough, we found out last week the extent of the irregularities that went on when BSR
was awarded its permit. An investigation by the new Environment minister called “Red Alert” on
Guatemala’s environment agency (MARN), as seen in this report dated April 24th (27). Here’s a
translation (and as usual by your author’s hand, other people can use Google Translate if they
like):
The Minister of the Environment, Patricia Orantes, was present in Congress this Wednesday, April
24, and spoke of the need for the Mining Law to be reformed. Orantes was asked about the Cerro
Blanco EIA licence for open pit exploitation, awarded on January 9th. “That is a red alert,” she said,
explaining that it was awarded given five days before the end of the previous administation, not
leaving time for anyone to file objections. "On January 14th (the start of the new administration) we
could no longer do anything legally, but after an internal audit we have found that the entire process
award to authorize that permit on on January 9th had enormous and shaeful anomalies, including
forged signatures and seals," she explained, adding that some files from the case have gone
missing. Due to this, complaints have been filed with the Interior Ministry and a investigation has
been started in cooperation with the government Comptroller General of Accounts ombudsman, to
complete a full audit and form an official opinion. "I assume that we are going to have to cancel that
license again," said the head of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (MARN).
31

The inquiry will now move into a criminal investigation, the main targets being government
officials that are suspected of receiving bribes in return for the bogus EIA approval. Meanwhile,
Bluestone’s EIA amendment permit is almost certain to be annulled and the company invited to
re-submit its application. From there and to avoid internaitonla tribunal proceedings, expect the
Arevalo government to put the application into deep freeze and not come to a decision for
years, though at some point this highly controversial project is going to be red lighted.
Bottom line: Looking for a junior short candidate? Look no further than Jack Lundin’s old gig.
Chile: Boric goes full copper
Remember the antipathy toward mining when the new left wing Gabriel Boric presidency began
in early 2022? Remember the raft of barriers put up against the industry, including those permit
denials for whatever environmental reason they could find such as dust at Los Bronces or those
infamous chinchillas at Fenix? Well folks, it’s now 2024 and anti-mining positions are out of
fashion in Chile, as seen by President Boric’s new drive to promote mining in the country,
spearheaded by the revitalization of Codelco and the new plan to raise copper production in the
country across State run and private sectors by one million tonnes per year by the time he
leaves office in 2026. That plan was rolled out
about a week ago (28) and was the central Chile: Copper production per year, 1990 to 2024(e)
point of a speech he made on Friday (29) at
the big ICARE business event, attended by
Chile’s main Chambers of Commerce (CCS and
CNC) and mining (SONAMI). In his keynote
speech, he told the assembly that Chile
“…must take advantage of the copper
supercycle” and move Chile’s copper
production up from around 5m metric tonnes
to 6m metric tonnes per year. At the dsame
event, Chile’s beancounter bureau Cochilco
forecast copper production would improve by
around 5% this year, compared with 2023. If
we apply that blanket-style to the numbers, that puts Chile on 5.381mmt for this year, with just
under 4mmt from the private sector and a little under 1.4mmt from Codelco. In particular, the
Codelco number has a long way to go to get back to the annual numbers of five or ten years
ago, as seen on this chart (right).
Bolivia is increasingly unstable
We’ve run a couple of heads-up posts on Bolivia recently, first “Bolivia: Evo is back” in IKN769
dated February 11th, 2024 and then “More on Bolivia in IKN771 dated Feb 25th. Since then the
bad blood in the MAS party has got worse, with Evo Morales calling on current Presiden Luis
Arce to run a primary election to decide who goes forward and become its candidate next year,
then last week the government aiming at the old Morales government by arresting ministers
involved with the long-delayed lithium mine project on the Uyuni flats (the biggest single
lithiooum resource in the world), accusing them of malpractice and corruption, with one of the
Mining Ministers in the Evo era arrested and thrown into a common cell while a member of his
team committed suicide before being arrested, leaving a “I’m innocent and this is a witch hunt”
public letter for all to read.
We’re going to keep tabs on developments there for the next couple of weeks, as in May there’s
a key date at which President Arce will be forced to make a decision whether either to deal with
Evo and his faction, or to declare outright war. At this stage, the latter looks most likely but for
the time being, we reiterate our “avoid like a dose of syphillus” recommendation on the country
and will update when there’s more substantive data.
32
3.451,4
226,1
3.980,4
276,1
4.040,4
237,1
1.548,3
807,1
6.967,3
437,1
1.451,4
876,1
2.991,4
885,1
1.511,4
816,1
5.500,4
816,1
8.488,3
644,1
0083
523,1
0.099,3
193,1
7,000
6,000
5,000
4,000
3,000
2,000
1,000
0
3102 4102 5102 6102 7102 8102 9102 0202 1202 2202 3202 tse4202
MMT Cu
Total Non-Codelco
Total Codelco
source: Cochilco

Market Watching
Next week again
Call me lazy
Conclusion
IKN780 is done, we end with bullet points:
 Really like the Newcore (NCAU.v) news and give a positive gold price, it should float
higher.
 Happy with the ADZN news on a personal level, but the accepted SVM offer is low end
and the paper isn’t top class, so we may see a better bid.
 Equinox (EQX) is building a big precious metals miner, but I’m going to stick to my little
guys after this. Time to find a spot to sell.
 This edition has already gone on too long and it’s 1am. Goodnight.
I thank you in advance for any feedback. Our Top Pick stock is Minera Alamos (MAI.v). Flash
updates will be sent if required by events.
I wish you good trading fortune, ladies and gentlemen.
Best wishes, Mark
Footnotes, appendices, references, disclaimer
(1) https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2024/04/schedule-for-week-of-april-28-2024.html
(2) https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/bhp-considering-potential-buyout-offer-anglo-american-bloomberg-reports-
2024-04-24/
(3) https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/bhp-shares-fall-36-after-making-39-bln-bid-rival-anglo-american-
2024-04-26/
(4) https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/newmont-beats-quarterly-profit-estimates-2024-04-25/
(5) https://twitter.com/Mark_IKN/status/1783475293648204125
(6) https://newcoregold.com/news/newcore-gold-announces-positive-updated-2024-preliminary-economic-assessment-
for-the-enchi-gold-project-ghana/
(7) https://events.6ix.com/preview/updated-pea-highlights-robust-economics-at-the-enchi-gold-project
(8) https://adventusmining.com/silvercorp-to-acquire-adventus-creating-a-geographically-diversified-mining-company-
by-adding-the-advanced-el-domo-project/
(9) https://wp-adventusmining-2024.s3.ca-central-1.amazonaws.com/media/2024/04/26052252/Project-Advantage-
Investor-Presentation-vF.pdf
(10) https://www.equinoxgold.com/news/equinox-gold-consolidates-ownership-of-the-greenstone-gold-mine-arranges-
term-loan-and-bought-deal-equity-financing/
(11) https://www.australianmining.com.au/gold-road-exits-greenstone-talks/
(12) https://mineraalamos.com/news/2024/mineras-copper-subsidiary-acquires-suaqui-verde-copper-project-in-sonora-
mexico/
(13) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyjdXhsc008
33

(14) https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/copper-breaks-above-10000-for-the-first-time-in-two-years/
(15) https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/copper-climbs-on-fund-buying-after-bhp-swoops-for-anglo/
(16) https://www.solarisresources.com/news/press-releases/solaris-reports-first-drilling-results-from-2024-program-and-
exploration-update-including--150m-of-067-cueq-within-384m-of-051-cueq-and-284m-of-053-cueq-from-near-surface-
(17) https://kodiakcoppercorp.com/kodiak-reports-new-copper-porphyry-discovery-at-1516-zone-and-final-2023-drill-
results/
(18) https://americaneaglegold.ca/news/american-eagle-announces-private-placement-for-up-to-5.0-million/
(19) https://twitter.com/Mark_IKN/status/1783844540798882250
(20) https://event.choruscall.com/mediaframe/webcast.html?webcastid=qXadjFGp
(21) https://www.agnicoeagle.com/English/investor-relations/news-and-events/news-releases/news-release-
details/2024/AGNICO-EAGLE-REPORTS-FIRST-QUARTER-2024-RESULTS---STRONG-QUARTERLY-GOLD-
PRODUCTION-AND-COST-PERFORMANCE-DRIVE-RECORD-QUARTERLY-FREE-CASH-FLOW-2023-
SUSTAINABILITY-REPORT-RELEASED/default.aspx
(22) https://www.mining.com/web/panama-election-unlikely-to-shift-outlook-for-first-quantums-copper-mine/
(23) https://www.jornada.com.mx/2024/04/22/mundo/021n1mun
(24) https://www.expreso.ec/actualidad/conaie-fut-ven-derrota-gobierno-resultado-dos-preguntas-197751.html
(25) https://www.juniorminingnetwork.com/junior-miner-news/press-releases/1305-tsx-venture/bsr/154496-bluestone-
announces-approval-of-environmental-permit-amendment-for-cerro-blanco-project.html
(26) https://twitter.com/Mark_IKN/status/1747947559941709849
(27) https://lahora.gt/nacionales/hloarca/2024/04/24/ministra-patricia-orantes-senala-anomalias-en-licencia-minera-de-
cerro-blanco/
(28) https://mineriaenlinea.com/2024/04/produccion-de-cobre-en-chile-boric-aumentara-1-millon-de-toneladas-para-
2026
(29) https://www.milenio.com/videos/internacional/gabriel-boric-asegura-impulsara-produccion-cobre-chile
Stocks To Follow Closed Positions 2023
CLOSED TRADES IN 2023 date closed close price
Altiplano Metals APN.v jan'23 C$0.31 17-Set-21 C$0.17 -45.2% delayed and will dilute soon
Western Copper WRN.to mar'23 C$2.02 13-Nov-22 C$2.32 14.9% sold on reduced M&A prob.
Chesapeake Gold CKG.v may'23 C$3.07 20-Feb-22 C$1.75 -43.0% Closing on legal action news
Amerigo Res ARG.to may'23 C$1.36 12-Dic-21 C$1.48 8.8% sold 20% to raise cash
Amerigo Res ARG.to oct'23 C$1.36 12-Dic-21 C$1.21 -11.0% sold 10% raise to cash
QC Copper&Gold QCCU.v oct'23 C$0.265 25-Abr-21 C$0.12 -54.7% sold raise to cash
Faraday Copper FDY.to oct'23 C$0.79 26-Mar-23 C$0.68 -11.4% sold raise to cash
AbraSilver Res. ABRA.v oct'23 C$0.36 4-Dic-22 C$0.28 -22.2% sold raise to cash
Orecap inv OCI.v oct'23 C$0.04 20-Nov-22 C$0.03 -25.0% sold raise to cash
Western Explor. WEX.v nov'23 C$1.87 9-Abr-23 C$0.60 -67.9% poor trade, cutting loss
Stocks To Follow Closed Positions 2022
Closed in 2022 date closed close price
Great Bear Res GBR.v Jan'22 C$15.83 26-Aug-20 C$28.58 80.5% Bought out by Kinross, print
Copper Mountain CMMC.to Jan'22 C$3.40 18-Jun-21 C$3.78 15.9% Sold 1/2 position in rebalance
Copper Mountain CMMC.to Feb'22 C$3.40 18-Jun-21 C$3.70 8.8% Sold rest on FY22 guidance
Trilogy Metals TMQ Mar'22 U$1.84 15-Sep-19 U$1.04 -41.3% killed by US permit reversal
McEwen Mining MUX Apr'22 U$0.89 2-Jan-22 U$0.82 -7.9% No 2022 turnaround, cut loss
Abrasilver Res. ABRA.v May'22 C$0.42 24-Apr-22 C$0.33 -21.4% sold to reduce Ag exposure
Strategic Metals SMD.v May'22 C$0.42 31-Jan-21 C$0.30 -28.6% trade flatlined 1.5 years
34

Discovery Silver DSV.v Jun'22 C$1.77 24-Oct-21 C$1.39 -21.5% Cutting Ag exp.& raising cash
Element 29 ECU.v Jul'22 C$0.58 6-Mar-22 C$0.30 -48.3% sold to cut Cu exposure
Superior Gold SGI.v Oct'22 C$0.95 3-Apr-22 C$0.24 -74.7% Q3 prod fail was last straw
Goldshore Res GSHR.v Nov'22 C$0.18 23-Oct-22 C$0.34 88.9% Quick profit taken
Palamina Corp PA.v Dec'22 C$0.295 21-Nov-21 C$0.08 -72.9% Clear-out of underperformer
Pure Gold PGM.h Dec'22 C$0.14 26-Sep-22 C$0.015 -89.3% tiny trade on vh risk, went Ch11
Stocks To Follow Closed Positions 2021
Closed in 2021 closed close price
Fiore Gold F.v jan'21 C$0.98 21-May-20 C$1.17 19.4% closed as part of rebalance
Norsemont Min NOM.cse feb'21 C$1.55 6-Set-20 C$0.70 -54.8% Cut loser to reduce Au exp.
Element 29 Res ECU.v feb'21 C$0.49 7-Feb-21 C$0.54 10.2% Cut Peru exposure
Kuya Silver KUYA.cse feb'21 C$1.66 8-Nov-20 C$2.51 51.2% Cut Peru exposure
Pucara Gold TORO.v apr'21 C$0.65 4-Oct-20 C$0.26 -60.0% Cut loser, Peru risk call
Copper Mountain CMMC.to apr'21 C$1.40 22-Nov-20 C$4.18 198.6% tgt hit, profit taken
New Gold NGD may'21 U$0.76 9-Feb-20 U$2.14 181.6% Sold to buy AGC, nice win
Orezone Gold ORE.v jun'21 C$0.79 21-Jun-20 C$1.61 103.8% sold on pop, leaky boat
Wolfden Res. WLF.v sep'21 C$0.30 11-Apr-21 C$0.19 -36.7% Failed spec trade, cut loss
Cartier Res ECR.v sep'21 C$0.32 21-Mar-21 C$0.235 -26.6% Failed spec trade, cut loss
Amarillo Gold AGC.v sep'21 C$0.31 30-May-21 C$0.30 -3.2% Capex story changed: Out
Excelsior Mining MIN.to oct'21 C$0.93 10-Mar-19 C$0.53 -43.0% May return in 2022
Royal Road Min. RYR.v nov'21 C$0.155 17-Mar-19 C$0.275 77.4% Closed on Nica pol risk
Aurelius Min. AUL.v dec'21 C$0.75 28-Jun-20 0.24 -68.0% cut end 2021, failed trade
Argonaut Gold AR.to dec'21 C$2.95 25-Jun-21 C$2.15 -27.1% cut on capex blowout
Stocks To Follow Closed Positions 2020
Closed in 2020 closed close price
TMAC Resources TMR.to Jan'20 C$3.41 20-Dec-19 C$3.61 5.9% TLS flip play, sold new year
Regulus Res REG.v Jan'20 C$1.10 20-Dec-19 C$1.30 18.2% TLS flip play, profit taken
Bonterra Res BTR.v Jan'20 C$1.90 9-Dec-19 C$1.66 -12.6% TLS flip play, loss taken
McEwen Mining MUX Jan'20 U$1.12 2-Dec-19 U$1.18 5.4% TLS flip play, profit taken
Core Gold CGLD.v Jan'20 C$0.255 7-Apr-19 C$0.305 19.6% arb trade, profit taken
HudBay Min HBM Jan'20 U$3.56 9-Dec-19 U$3.36 -5.6% TLS flip play, loss taken
Midas Gold MAX.to Feb'20 C$0.71 5-Jan-20 C$0.57 -19.7% sm & silly trade
Warrior Gold WAR.v Feb'20 C$0.08 3-Aug-18 C$0.05 -31.3% clean out non-perf sm stocks
Contact Gold C.v Feb'20 C$0.40 19-Aug-18 C$0.18 -55.0% clean out non-perf sm stocks
Sandstorm Gold SAND Feb'20 U$3.73 17-Apr-16 U$7.21 93.3% Sold during port rebalance
NexGen Energy NXE Feb'20 U$1.20 2-Dec-19 U$1.06 -11.7% TLS flip play, loss taken
MAG Silver MAG Apr'20 U$8.95 1-Mar-20 U$10.07 12.5% Sold to cut silver exposure
Alexco Res AXU Apr'20 U$1.69 7-Sep-17 U$1.69 0.0% sold to close Ag exp. in FY20
Bonterra Res BTR.v Jun'20 C$1.62 2-Feb-20 C$1.10 -32.1% under-performer cash moved
Regulus Res REG.v Jun'20 C$0.64 6-Apr-15 C$0.79 23.4% moved $ TMQ/MIN & Au stocks
Great Panther GPR.to Aug'20 C$0.60 21-Jun-20 C$1.10 83.3% Profit taken, good trade
Jaguar Mining JAG.v Aug'20 C$0.42 21-Jun-20 C$0.65 54.8% Profit taken, good trade
Sandstorm Gold SAND Aug'20 U$7.76 10-May-20 U$9.37 20.7% Profit taken, good trade
Integra Resources ITR.v Aug'20 C$2.23 13-Aug-18 C$5.40 142.2% Profit taken, good trade
Wesdome Gold WDO.to Aug'20 C$2.37 14-Oct-17 C$14.82 525.3% last 1/2 of big win closed
INV Metals INV.to Sep'20 C$0.40 17-May-20 C$0.45 12.5% Cut all Ecuador exposure
Cartier Resources ECR.v Nov'20 C$0.155 3-Aug-18 C$0.25 67.7% Exact close price TBA
Tinka Res TK.v Dec'20 C$0.195 19-Apr-16 C$0.195 0.0% Closed on a round trip fail
2015 to 2019 annual closed positions in appendices below, 2009 to 2014 closed positions in editions IKN553 or earlier
35

Stocks To Follow Closed Positions 2019
Closed in 2019 closed close price
Atico Mining ATY.v jan'19 C$0.55 24-Jul-16 C$0.32 41.8% patience ran out, made room
Candente Copper DNT.to jan'19 C$0.075 3-Aug-18 C$0.05 -33.3% tiny trade, made room for new
B2Gold BTO.to feb'19 C$2.11 12-Sep-14 C$4.05 91.9% Took 1/2 profits, reduce size
Western Copper WRN.to mar'19 C$0.80 20-Jan-19 C$0.81 1.3% Spec trade that didn't work
B2Gold BTO.to mar'19 C$2.11 12-Sep-14 C$4.15 96.7% Took rest of profit.
GT Gold GTT.v mar'19 C$1.17 10-Oct-18 C$0.90 -23.1% Took loss. Story changed
NovaGold NG apr'19 U$3.84 13-Jan-19 U$4.15 -8.1% Short that didn't work, sm loss
Zinc One Z.v jun'19 C$0.47 14-Sep-17 C$0.025 -94.7% clearing out dead trade
Amarillo Gold AGC.v jun'19 C$0.24 22-Aug-18 C$0.20 -16.7% clearing out dead trade
New Gold NGD aug'19 U$1.44 31-Jul-19 U$1.23 14.6% ST short win thru Q2 earnings
IMPACT Silver IPT.v aug'19 C$0.39 21-Jul-19 C$0.46 18.0% took a quick profit
Fiore Gold F.v aug'19 C$0.34 26-May-19 C$0.56 64.7% Took profit, 2q19 avg
Chakana Copper PERU.v oct'19 C$0.84 22-Mar-18 C$0.16 -81.0% Exploreco trade fail. Want space
Wesdome Gold WDO.to oct'19 C$2.37 14-Oct-17 C$7.57 219.4% Sold half, profit taking
Superior Gold SGI.v oct'19 C$1.46 8-Apr-18 C$0.47 -67.8% Failed sm spec on Au. Moved on
Amerigo Res ARG.to nov'19 C$0.91 23-Sep-18 C$0.50 -45.1% worst trade of year, hefty loss
Guyana Goldfields GUY.to dec'19 C$0.94 14-Apr-19 C$0.56 -40.4% taking the loss, financials weak
Tethyan Res TETH.v dec'19 C$0.30 8-Sep-19 C$0.16 -46.7% tiny trade, word of probs in co
Stocks To Follow Closed Positions 2018
Closed in 2018 closed close price
Amarillo Gold AGC.v jan'18 C$0.38 24-Mar-17 C$0.31 -18.4% Cut away losing trade
Riverside Res RRI.v jan'18 C$0.39 27-Jun-16 C$0.31 -20.5% Cut away losing trade
Eros Res ERC.v jan'18 C$0.175 1-Mar-17 C$0.16 -8.6% CEO sudden exit, not good
Excellon Res EXN.to jan'18 C$1.54 9-Oct-16 C$1.66 7.8% 4q17 poor, one too many bad qtrs
Wesdome Gold WDO.to jan'18 C$1.68 15-Dec-17 C$2.06 22.6% Near-term trade block, took profit
Sabina G&S SBB.to apr'18 C$2.06 17-Dec-17 C$1.77 -14.1% Near-term trade, bad timing, small
B2Gold BTO.to May'18 C$2.11 12-Sep-14 C$3.67 73.9% sold 25% to reduce exposure
Lara Expl. LRA.v May'18 C$0.65 11-Feb-18 C$0.58 -13.8% Spec on Brazil didn't work
Solitario XPL June'18 U$0.72 19-Mar-17 U$0.41 -43.1% Failed trade, may return in 4q18
SolGold plc SOLG.to July'18 C$0.475 19-Nov-17 C$0.415 -12.6% cut, trade didn't perform
Pan American PAAS July'18 U$17.90 1-Jun-18 U$16.30 8.9% modest win on short position
NGEx Res NGQ.to Sep'18 C$1.01 22-Oct-17 C$1.00 -1.0% Closed to reduce Argentina exp
Sandstorm Gold SAND Oct'18 U$3.73 17-Apr-16 U$4.13 10.7% partial sale to raise cash for GTT
Aldebaran Res ALDE.v Nov'18 n/a n/a n/a n/a liquidate spin out of REG
Stocks To Follow Closed Positions 2017
Closed in 2017 closed close price
Continental Gold CNL.to Jan'17 C$2.68 22-May-16 C$4.17 55.6% trade closed, profit taken
Focus Ventures FCV.v Jan'17 C$0.23 1-Jul-12 C$0.05 -78.3% Give up, a disaster trade
Wesdome Gold WDO.to Feb'17 C$1.72 28-Aug-16 C$3.00 74.4% Target hit, sold, good trade
Belo Sun BSX.to Mar'17 C$0.90 30-Jan-17 C$0.90 0.0% failed near-term flip trade
Lara Expl. LRA.v Mar'17 C$1.15 8-Apr-12 C$1.05 -8.7% cut to make room for new trade
Rye Patch Gold RPM.v Apr'17 C$0.31 2-Sep-16 C$0.32 3.2% cut for doubts & new stock
Cordoba Min. CDB.v Jun'17 C$0.75 15-Sep-16 C$0.63 -16.0% closed
Constantine Metal CEM.v Aug'17 C$0.135 9-Apr-17 C$0.28 107.4% spec trade closed, good win
Red Eagle Min. R.to Sep'17 C$0.67 13-Dec-16 C$0.27 -59.7% IKN's biggest failure in years
Starcore Intl SAM.to Sep'17 C$0.61 10-Jan-15 C$0.31 -49.2% Patience ran out
B2Gold BTO.to Dec'17 C$2.11 12-Sep-14 C$3.39 60.7% sold small portion for liquidity
36

Stocks To Follow Closed Positions 2016
Closed in 2016 closed close price
Phoscan Chem FOS.to jan16 C$0.28 29-mar-15 C$0.265 -5.4% Buyout trade, bot but poor deal
True Gold TGM.v jan16 C$0.18 23-aug-15 C$0.25 38.9% okay trade, sold on pol risk
McEwen Mining MUX jan16 U$1.09 25-jan-15 U$1.20 10.1% sold due to lack of value
Lake Shore Gold LSG.to feb-16 C$1.10 07-apr-15 C$1.69 53.6% bot out, sold early in process
Atacama Pacific ATM.v feb-16 C$0.19 26-apr-15 C$0.40 110.5% sold for a double on big pop
New Gold NGD feb-16 U$2.06 24-jan-16 U$2.96 43.7% closed good near-term trade
Sandspring Res SSP.v mar-16 C$0.195 18-oct-15 C$0.32 64.1% Hit tgt, took profit
Teranga Gold TGZ.to mar-16 C$0.54 15-feb-15 C$0.60 11.1% disappointing trade
B2Gold BTG mar-16 U$0.85 13-jan-16 U$1.30 52.9% Separate trade on B2, hit tgt
Dalradian Res DNA.to mar-16 C$0.67 27-oct-13 C$1.00 49.3% Hit target, sold, good win
HudBay Min. HBM may-16 U$4.10 03-apr-16 U$4.36 -6.3% Short trade, poor timing
Nevada Sunrise NEV.v may-16 C$0.185 28-feb-16 C$0.23 24.3% V. small, no big deal either way
Richmont RIC jun-16 U$7.60 01-may-16 U$9.30 22.4% near-term trade, profit taken
INV Metals INV.to jul-16 C$0.25 03-apr-16 C$0.95 280.0% Trade closed on time
HudBay Min. HBM aug16 U$4.98 09-jun-16 U$4.80 3.6% short trade covered, no big deal
Miranda Gold MAD.v oct-16 C$0.125 03-jul-16 C$0.10 -20.0% tiny spec trade, didn't work
Avino G & S ASM nov-16 U$2.00 21-oct-16 U$1.40 -30.0% Abandon trade on bad bot deal
Stocks To Follow Closed Positions 2015
Closed in 2015 closed close price
Argonaut Gold AR.to jan'15 C$1.47 14-dec-14 C$2.53 72.1% Big gain small time, profit taken
Amerigo Res ARG.to jan'15 C$0.405 20-jul-14 C$0.285 -29.6% Given up on weak Cu prices
Reservoir Min. RMC.v jan'15 C$6.05 18-jun-14 C$4.12 -31.9% sold on Cu downturn
Coro Mining COP.to jan'15 C$0.075 26-jan-14 C$0.035 -53.3% sm, sold on Cu downturn
Fortuna Silver FSM mar'15 U$4.12 10-nov-14 U$3.75 9.0% Short used as hedge
GoldQuest Min. GQC.v mar'15 C$0.26 27-oct-13 C$0.085 -67.3% given up ghost
Rio Alto Mining RIO.to apr'15 C$2.30 07-apr-11 C$3.57 55.2% Top pick, bot out, big win
Timmins Gold TGD jun'15 U$0.60 19-apr-15 U$0.62 3.3% near-term trade, out of time
First Majestic AG jul'15 U$10.51 10-aug-14 U$4.55 56.7% horrible failed trade
NovaCopper NCQ.to jul'15 C$1.05 09-apr-14 C$0.50 -52.4% no more Cu exposure, sm sell
McEwen Mining MUX aug'15 U$0.695 21-jul-15 U$0.92 32.4% Closed nearterm flip for win
Midas Gold MAX.to sep'15 C$0.39 21-sep-15 C$0.35 -10.3% Sm. trade idea that didn't work
New Gold NGD oct'15 U$2.18 23-aug-15 U$3.05 39.9% trade closed, profit taken
Legend Gold LGN.v nov'15 C$0.085 01-mar-15 C$0.035 -58.8% tiny "land grab" idea, failed
Timmins Gold TGD nov'15 U$0.245 20-sep-15 U$0.15 -38.8% small near-term loser
Please note that due to space considerations closed positions 2009 to 2014 are now
available on request, or were published in any edition to IKN553 (end 2019).
Important Disclosure
The information and opinions contained within this report reflect the personal views of the author and therefore all
material within should not be construed as accurate or reliable or be utilized as advice for investment or business
purposes. Independent due diligence and discussions with ones own investment and business advisor is strongly
recommended. Accordingly, nothing in this report should be construed as offering a guarantee of the accuracy or
completeness of the information contained herein, as an offer or solicitation with respect to the purchase or sale of any
security or as an endorsement of any product or service. All opinions and estimates included in this report are subject to
change without notice. It is prohibited to copy or redistribute this report to any type of third party without the express
permission of the author.
37