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The IKN Weekly
Week 798, September 1st 2024
Contents
This Week: In today’s edition, Summer’s End, Tell Denver that gold is still over U$2500/oz.
Fundamental Analysis: Minera Alamos (MAI.v) 2q24 financials: Better times ahead.
Stocks to Follow: American Eagle (AE.v): Patagonia Gold (PGDC.v): Orecap Inv (OCI.v):
Eldorado (EGO) (ELD.to): Provenance Gold (PAU.cse): Contango ORE (CTGO), Rio2 Ltd (RIO.v).
The Copper Basket: Overview, Los Andes Copper (LA.v), Arizona Sonoran (ASCU.to), Faraday
Copper (FDY.to), Element 29 (ECU.v), Camino Minerals (COR.v).
The Producer Basket: Overview, Wesdome Gold (WDOFF) (WDO.to).
The TinyCaps Basket: Overview, Awalé Resources (ARIC.v), Aston Bay Holdings (BAY.v),
South Star Battery Metals (STS.v).
Regional Politics: Argentina: Rio Negro is opening for mining, Argentina: After Filo/Josemaria
comes Taca Taca, More Argentina (and Chile): An upbeat conference, Yes indeed it’s time for
some Mexico mining politics.
Market Watching: The Arizona Sonoran (ASCU.to) Cactus Project PEA: Met matters, Red Pine
Exploration (RPX.v) delivers a resource update.
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
 Welcome to September, Labor Day and the return of serious faces doing serious deals.
This month starts with a key Jobs report this Friday, then come Beaver Creek and
Denver Gold for mining, FOMC for rate cuts and between all those we can expect plenty
of news flow from miners large and small, maybe even some M&A.
 Our main fundies section chews over the 2q24 numbers from Top Pick Minera Alamos
(MAI.v). We weren’t expecting much from this quarter production-wise and we are of
course still waiting for the permitting logjam in Mexico to free up, but we can take
some solace from a set of numbers that show the company has weathered the worst of
the wait successfully and is now ready to return to profitable operations as Santana
moves out of low gear and stacks meaningful ounces.
 As well as those two, there are plenty of other 2q24 results from TSXV listed juniors
considered in this edition. Check out the Stocks to Follow notes section, the Copper
Basket notes and Tiny Dogs notes, plenty to choose from.
 This week’s Regional Politics is Argentina, Argentina, Argentina with a side order of
Chile. And then Mexico…ugh, sorry, couldn’t avoid it.
 As for Market Watching, we run the ruler over the PEA delivered by Arizona Sonoran
and as suspected, there’s an obvious weak point in its met work. Be careful with this
stock people, it’s speculative at best and the PEA has done very little to re-rate on risk.
 There’s also thoughts on the resource update delivered last week by Watch List stock
Red Pine Exploration (RPX.v): Likeable numbers there.
1

Summer’s End
A reminder that tomorrow Monday September 2nd is Labor Day in The USA and Labour Day in
Canada, which means among things that North America’s stock markets are closed for business
until Tuesday. This long weekend also marks the traditional “back to work” moment for those
countries, with families back from their summer breaks, children back to school, rentals in The
Hamptons back to under six figures for a week and the business world getting serious about
deals and so forth. In the world of mining, that means the opening of the seasonal financing
window for juniors, developers and explorecos looking to secure funding for new mines and drill
projects, so we the peanut gallery can expect an uptick in news as from this coming Tuesday.
As for the macro data, the big one in the week ahead is the US BLS Unemployment Report for
August, set for release on Friday with current consensus at +175k NFP jobs and a headline
unemployment rate expected to stay unchanged at 4.2%. All good and fair, so if the headline
number comes in higher than that expect more talk of a 50bps rate cut at the next FOMC.
There’s still 2½ weeks to wait for that particular bunfest, but the market has already baked in
the start of base rate cuts thanks to Jay Powell’s guidance at Jackson Hole (couldn’t have been
much clearer), with current betting around 75% for 25bps, 20% for 50bps and the other 5%
for potential weirdness. However, we shouldn’t lose sight of the real crazy in store for us this
year, as believe it or not we’re just 66 days from the US election day, with 13 governorships, 34
Senate seats and all 435 House of Representative seats up for grabs. And the presidency. On
that score, while writing up this short intro on Friday evening as with my interest piqued, I once
again went over to the Polymarket page on the election (1) and took
this screenshot (right). It’s interesting that Trump is given a slight
edge in the betting markets, while all current polls put Kamala Harris
in the lead. Money talks and BS walks? Not long to find out, but
before then we can expect extra large doses of crazy. One small,
final observation on how Polymarkets has already taken a cool
U$769m in bets on this result. An impressive number, and one that
will only get bigger as the day approaches as I now suspect these (relatively) new bet-on-
anything sites are attracting hedges from medium to large-scale financial instos.
Tell Denver that gold is still over U$2500/oz
That number makes the title line of the intro section three weeks running and this chart should
underscore how familiarity breeds contempt:
Somewhere along the line during the market week I wrote this little ditty on TwitterX…
…and it resonated with a few people out there. It’s odd to look back and consider how many
times we were promised U$2,500/oz gold by the soothsayers and market gurus (I remember
Rob McEwen painting the big broad stroke future with that number as long ago as 2010) but
2

now it’s arrived, the overall market sentiment is as pessimistic as ever and the grouches of the
gold world (and there are many, with some fools even thinking I’m one of them ) really are
more concerned about tiny intraday moves and how “The Powers That Be” are manipulating the
price of gold, morning noon and night.
Absolute madness and if you’re one of the Debbie Downers out there, give yourself a good,
hard slap upside the head. Ask this desk for a single prediction on what to expect from the
upcoming conference season, with Beaver Creek the opening act for September’s main event
and the Denver Gold Show, it’d be that you’re about to hear CEO after CEO get up on stage and
tell the generalist audience that they are dollar printing presses at these gold price and the
serious money should get on before the Q3 results seasons kicks off. Enough of the pessimism,
ladies and gents, gold is flying. Bring on the upbeat speeches, bring on the fat treasury chests
and bring on the M&A deals.
Fundamental Analysis of Mining Stocks
Minera Alamos (MAI.v) 2q24 financials: Better times ahead
Getting in about two hours before the TSXV Q2 deadlines for quarter reports as at June 30th,
our Top Pick Minera Alamos (MAI.v) filed 2q24 financials and MD&A on Thursday evening, with
a useful and detailed cover NR out the next morning (2). Of course we still don’t have any news
on permits for the Santana pad extension or the permitting for the Cerro de Oro project and at
this stage, I’ll venture to say that we all know this is the major blockage to the share price and
upside of the Top Pick stock here at The IKN Weekly.
Last week’s 2q24 filing has not taken that bottleneck away and as such, today’s update is less
about Mexico and the permitting track. For what it’s worth, we’ve covered the current situation
in Mexican politics in the last two editions and despite my desire not to go there again, there’s a
third note on the subject in today’s Regional Politics section, below. What we can say here is
that the scenario as laid out for MAI.v earlier in the year, for example when considering the
1q24 numbers, is still in effect. While the expected September dead duck month in Mexico’s
parliament is set to become something quite different this year (see below), we’re now only one
month from the change at the top as AMLO hands over to Claudia Sheinbaum and at that point,
we can expect her policy book for the future of mining to take over from that of AMLO and his
de facto zero permit policy. So yes, it’s been a long and painful wait and the last couple of
months have been particularly grating (I know I’m not the only one, there are plenty of us sadly
aware of the opportunity cost of owning MAI in 2024), but there’s no backing out of a plan at
this late stage and in the same way I got pilloried about holding Rio2 (RIO.v) through its dark
days of late 2022 and 2023, I’m going to stay loyal to a good team and a good mining company
that wants to do the right things in the right way. Whether you like it or not (and you know
where the unsub button is).
Okay, that rant out of the way and we now focus on the 2q24 numbers, as well as taking the
opportunity to refine the forward guidance on Santana as that starts to move through the gears
and increase production again via its Plan B strategy. First the basics and in 2q24, MAI sipped
just 505oz gold (we’ll return to the forecast number for future quarters in a moment). We knew
it would be a low number and had penciled in 1,000 oz as a best guess, so 505oz is even lower
than that but at some point it doesn’t
MAI: Santana sales and forecast, per qtr
really matter; be it 500 or 1,000 these
are minimal amounts and as we check
through the other data in the Q2 filings,
it becomes clear MAI must have done
and sold the minimum necessary to
break even on site.
3
104 8512 9213
6324
0582 5762 1701 636 066 709 505 0001 0053
0054 0054 0054
6000
5500
5000
4500
4000
3500
3000
2500
2000 1500
1000
500
0
12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2 tse42q3 tse42q4 tse52q1 tse52q2 tse52q3
Oz Au
source: MAI data, IKN ests

For example here in inventories, we see ounces on pad have risen to 6,158 oz as at end June
and with that a rise in inventory leach pad value, but there were no “work in progress” ounces
booked to inventory.
MAI: Inventories
That’s a sign of a company not moving to process and
ship its pad ounces and indeed, on consulting with
company president Doug Ramshaw, I was told that
MAI didn’t load carbon at all in June, preferring to
leave ounces in the pregnant solution. We also see it
in operating results (right). While C$1.499m in
revenues is small stuff, it was enough to cover
operating costs and leave a small gross profit. While
the real work at Santana was about preparing and
enabling the Plan B leach pad (and as we’ll see, the
company spent cash on that, operating mining costs
were tiny and the sale of 505 oz was enough to cover things.
This was clearly a deliberate strategy in Q2 and this was confirmed in my conversation with
pres Ramshaw. In the accompanying NR, MAI gave us photo evidence of the real work it had
been doing and it centres on 1) the opening up of the Nicho Main Zone resource (until now
most production has come from the Nicho Norte area close by) and the building of the Plan B
leach pad, which they’ve managed to engineer on land that’s already fully permitted and
therefore needs no permit amendment. On asking a couple of questions on the technicalities of
the new pad, I was told that the plan was working well and going according to plan and time,
though the way they’ve fit it in means the main pad is now four lifts high, instead of the
previous two. That’s not a particular issue, but it does mea harvesting of the gold-bearing
pregnant solution will take longer than before (the liquid literally has more rock to trickly
though until it gets to the pipelines and collection pool). That’s the reason I’ve nly penciled in
1,000 oz of production in the current 3q24 period (see first chart, above), which may turn out ti
be a little conservative but that’s okay. However, once the juices start flowing production is
bound to kick higher (as at end August there are 3,400 oz gold placed on pad, with an
estimated total of 20,000 ounces expected in the next 12 months) and 4q24 and beyond should
see more meaningful gold shipments and sales. Here’s how MAI put that in its NR:
Late in Q2, the Company started to ramp up mining activities at Santana after a revision to the development
plans to utilize existing leach pad capacity while waiting on the leach pad expansion permits. The updated
plans will allow mining and stacking operations to increase significantly from 2023 levels. Approximately
20,000 ounces of gold at an average grade of 0.63 g/t and an approximate strip ratio of 1.6:1 has been
defined in the updated plan and will be mined over a 12-month period (see news release dated February
22nd, 2024). In addition, a further 4,500 ounces of gold at a higher grade of approximately 1 g/t will be mined
and initially stockpiled for future processing pending additional studies to determine an optimal approach for
crushing and processing to maximize recoveries.
As for overall financial results, even though there was a slight gross profit for pure mine ops,
total expenditures were around C$2.5m higher than revenues. That's mostly due to a rise in
exploration expenses connected to the pre-production activities for Nicho. Adfter that (and not
on this chart, there was a C$4.69m non-cash forex adjustment that made the net loss look
nasty, but it wasn’t all that.
4
694.5 337.6
780.9
96.7 320.6 647.5 495.5 782.6 78.5 295.5 331.6
C$m supplies MAI.v: Santana on-pad Au Oz inventory, per qtr
10 work in progress
leach pad ore 9
8
7
6
5
4 3
2
1
0
4q211q222q223q22 4q221q232q23 3q234q231q242q24
source: company filings
0596 9865 6445 7336 4495 3835 8516
Oz Au
8000
7000
6000
5000
4000 3000
2000
1000
0
4q22 1q23 2q23 3q23 4q23 1q24 2q24
source: company filings
MAI.v: Revs, COGS and Gross margin
80.3 744.3
763.0-
97.1
209.1
211.0-
667.1
473.3
806.1-
64.2
715.2
750.0-
994.1 33.1
961.0
C$m Revenues
5 COGS
"gross profit"
4
3
2
1
0
-1
-2
2q23 3q23 4q23 1q24 2q24
source: MAI filings, IKN ests

MAI.v: financial results
5
61.5
136.3
925.1
962.7
196.4
875.2
490.9
411.7
89.1
602.0
390.5
788.4-
487.6
458.5
39.0
80.3
726.5
645.2-
97.1
96.6
9.4-
667.1
651.6
93.4-
64.2
854.5
899.2-
994.1
169.3
264.2-
Revenues C$m total exp
10 mine op inc
8
6
4
2
0
-2
-4
-6 source: company filings
1q22 2q22 3q22 4q22 1q23 2q23 3q23 4q23 1q24 2q24
Now return to the projections for the next few quarters as seen in the forecast shipment
estimates in the first chart above. With 20,000 oz to place on pad and 4,500oz of higher grade
stockpile, even before MAI finds more resource, there’s plenty of rock to run. We’ve seen
recoveries grade above the theoretical 70% but for the time being, we’ll stock to that number
so with the parameters in position, we get shipment estimates as Santana ramps up. They are:
 3q24: 1,000 oz
 4q24: 3,500 oz
 2025: An average of 4,500 oz per quarter
To date it’s been a bit of a moving target to guesstimate forward quarters of production from
Santana, what with timing of when Plan B starts showing its benefits and the difficulty of
modeling what are, essentially, small amounts of production per quarter compared to the
normal size of company we cover. But the 2q24 results literature came with plenty of clues and
the exchanges with president Ramshaw also helped, so the above numbers are a more
confident estimate than before. We assume a flat gold sales price of C$3,000/oz (to play it
safe), and the result gives a 3q24 that comes in slightly negative again and after that, Santana
starts making meaningful profits.
MAI.v: Revs, COGS and Gross margin
80.3
744.3
763.0-
97.1
209.1 211.0-
667.1
473.3
806.1-
64.2 715.2
750.0-
994.1 33.1 961.0
3
4
1-
5.01
6 5.4
5.31
5.6 7
5.31
5.6 7
5.31
5.6 7
16
14
12
10
8 6
4
2
0
-2
-4
32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2 tse42q3 tse42q4 tse52q1 tse52q2 tse52q3
C$m Revenues
COGS
"gross profit"
source: MAI filings, IKN ests
The only potential issue with our 3q24 operating loss projection is pressure on the balance
sheet, but on examination of those numbers we project MAI will not have any real issues, in
fact things are still financially comfortable.
MAI.v: Assets
60
55
50
45
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
91q4 02q1 02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2 tse42q3
$m MAI.v: Liabilities per qtr
inventories 16
fixed
other current 14
cash 12
10
8
6
4
2
0
source: company filings
91q4 02q1 02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2 tse42q3
source: company filings
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LT liabs
current liabs

The overall assets and liabilities tracking charts (above are okay to consider trends, but they
aren’t particularly enlightening on the current assets end of the business and that’s what counts
for the rest of 2024. So we’ll focus on treasury and working cap, as seen below:
MAI.v: Cash treasury per qtr
Cash projections take into account the prep work that’s left to be done on Nicho main and the
pad extension, plus the C$1m and change received from the exercise of the 7.2m options (as
announced in the Q2 literature, plus the $1m payment to secure 100% of Cerro de Oro recently
made (along with 500k shares). Assuming our 1,000 oz gold sold at C$3,000/oz, we project
cash to drop to a low of C$6.5m at some point in
Q3 (we assume Sept 30th and as from Q4, begin to
move back up. Once Santana is running at 4,500oz
quarter, MAI should be in position to put around
C$3m to bank for each period of 2025. As you can
see, all this is less of a concern with working capital
as MAI continues to run a clean balance sheet, the
only eventual liability coming when Cerro de Oro
receives its permit and the company triggers its
loan device. One final chart, as shares out have
crept up and are now at an IKN estimated 470.7m
Overall, MAI returned what we expected from the
company in Q2. Gold shipments were lower than
even our low estimate, but enough to cover on-site mining costs. Treasury depleted to around
C$8.6m as the company spent money in order to ramp up Santana and its alternative pad
project, but treasury continues to be in good shape and we see no future pressure before the
mine gets into gear and starts throwing off meaningful cash flow, as from 4q24. The serious
bottleneck continues to be the permitting track and environmental approval that’s missing from
the AMLO government, so to close I’d like to highlight the only new angle that came from the
Q2 publications. In its NR, MAI stated the following about the environ control of Cerro de Oro:
The project remains in the permitting process and the Company continues its constructive dialogue
with the federal environmental permitting agency in Mexico (SERMANAT). In addition to some
technical follow-up questions, the Company received a request to update portions of the flora and
fauna sampling program conducted in 2022 and that activity is currently being completed at the site.
I got a couple of queries inbound and made a point of asking president Ramshaw about it. In
his words, that flora/fauna work was first done in 2022 and caused no problems with Mexico’s
SEMARNAT authorities at the time, but what with the delays it’s normal that they ask for
updated information and to quote the company president, “It’s necessary on an application that
is still moving albeit delayed.” In other words, this isn’t SEMARNAT asking trick questions in
order to find an excuse to deny a permit, instead it’s the kind of question SEMARNAT would
want answered at a late stage of a delayed permitting track.
That’s all for this update on out Top Pick and while I wish I could bring you more positive and
solid news about the moving parts that really matter at this stage (permitting), we can at least
6
267.1 673.7 381.11 792.32 119.91 188.61 642.61 963.21 340.7 701.6 230.9 527.41 451.31 2.01 472.8 375.6 457.31 448.11 806.8 5.6 9 21 51
26
24
22 20
18
16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2
0
91q4 02q1 02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2 tse42q3 tse42q4 tse52q1 tse52q2
source: company filings
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MAI.v: Working Capital per qtr
42.1 865.6 449.11 653.42 255.22 186.02 887.91 496.41 24.41 654.51 805.71 562.22 482.81 198.91 816.02 866.91 869.91 942.81 184.41 21 41 71 02
26
24
22 20
18
16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2
0
91q4 02q1 02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2 tse42q3 tse42q4 tse52q1 tse52q2
source company filings
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MAI.v: Shares Out
93.673 64.704 24.014 83.634 35.934 45.144 49.144 51.644 2.644 84.844 32.944 86.754 88.164 88.164 88.164 88.164 88.264 88.264 89.264 7.074 7.074
550
500
450
400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
91q4 02q1 02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2 tse42q3 tse42q4
source: company filings
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snoillim

take solace in the way this company continues to be run and its re-worked plan of action at
Santana that will begin to show benefits this quarter, but move seriously into gear in Q4 and
then 2025. It would be quite a thing in MAI could pay for the build-out at Cerro de Oro
organically, via cash flow from its first mine.
Stocks to Follow
Our Stocks to Follow list went with the slightly negative trend of the week for mining stocks and
also ended slightly negative, with just five winners (OCI.v, CTGO, RPX.v, PGDC.v. MENE.v) from
our now overstocked 21 covered stocks. Two stocks remained unchanged (FCGV.v, MIRL.cse)
and the others were losers. We ‘re not listing them all, but will note that of the main trades only
Newcore (NCAU.v down 10.3%) was the only one to take a significant hit in percentage terms.
We’re at a full complement, with 20 open positions on our Stocks to Follow list, that’s our self-
imposed maximum. Eleven of those are in the green, one is UNCH, eight are in the red.
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$0.245 16.7% $0.75 first tgt, #1 idea
RECOMMENDED STOCKS
Rio2 Ltd. RIO.v STR BUY C$0.80 22-Apr-18 C$0.55 -31.3% Momentum now building
SilverCrest Met SILV STR BUY U$6.90 31-Mar-24 U$8.27 19.9% Quality Ag/Au, U$12.96 tgt
Eldorado Gold EGO STR BUY U$16.55 11-Aug-24 U$17.25 4.2% new trade, finally long
Amerigo Res ARG.to BUY C$1.54 28-Jul-24 C$1.64 6.5% return, (re)starter position
Marimaca Copper MARI.to STR BUY C$3.05 14-Jan-24 C$3.88 27.2% Quality Cu developer
American Eagle AE.v SPEC BUY C$0.43 21-Jul-24 C$0.435 1.2% new Cu trade, near-term flip
Newcore Gold NCAU.v BUY C$0.205 23-Oct-22 C$0.305 48.8% Cheap Au in West Africa
Bear Creek Min BCM.v SPEC BUY C$0.35 10-Jun-24 C$0.325 -7.1% Spec Ag(& Au) trade, 2 buys
Pan Global Res PGZ.v SPEC BUY C$0.19 19-Feb-24 C$0.13 -31.6% Overweight position,cheap Cu
Orecap Inv OCI.v BUY C$0.06 4-May-24 C$0.055 -8.3% Exposed to several good jrs
Contango Ore CTGO hold U$18.70 30-Jul-23 U$21.52 15.1% Production re-rate in Q3
Florida Can. Gold FCGV.v hold C$0.63 21-Jul-24 C$0.56 -11.1% under offer, will hold thru
SPECULATIVE TRADES
Aldebaran Res. ALDE.v SPEC BUY C$0.72 16-May-21 C$0.97 34.7% into FY24 news season now
IMPACT Silver IPT.v SPEC BUY C$0.30 14-Apr-24 C$0.205 -31.7% Silver spec, added IKN783
Minera IRL MIRL.cse avoid C$0.195 22-Jul-12 C$0.015 -92.3% leaving list soon (good)
A WATCHLIST OF POTENTIAL TRADES. NB: I DO NOT OWN
Red Pine Expl RPX.v WATCH C$0.08 4-May-24 C$0.115 43.8% Special situation, poss trade
Fitzroy Min FTZ.v WATCH C$0.17 4-Aug-24 C$0.16 -5.9% Rio Negro trade op, watching
Patagonia Gold PGDC.v WATCH C$0.02 4-Aug-24 C$0.025 25.0% Rio Negro trade op, watching
Provenance Gold PAU.cse WATCH C$0.085 8-Oct-23 C$0.085 0.0% Idaho gold drill play
LONG-TERM NON-MINING HOLD
Mene Inc. MENE.v adding C$0.48 6-Dec-20 C$0.125 -74.0% 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
Equinox Gold EQX May'24 U$4.42 30-May-23 U$5.57 26.0% Took sm.profit, disappointing
Adventus Mining ADZN.v May'24 C$0.305 7-Jan-24 C$0.445 45.9% bot out, nice win
SolGold SOLG.to May'24 C$0.22 19-Feb-23 C$0.165 -25.0% ran out of patience
Western Copper WRN.to July'24 C$1.57 26-Feb-24 C$1.53 -2.5% Sold on regional risk
2015 to 2023 annual closed positions in appendices below, 2009 to 2014 closed positions in editions IKN553 or earlier
7

Now for notes on some of our covered companies:
American Eagle (AE.v): POSITION OPENED. I waited and got a very decent 43c entry
price, which wasn’t the low of the week but was fairly close, so I’m happy about getting the
first part of “buy low/ sell high” into place. Not so much feedback about this trade decision from
last week’s note, but one mail from reader R (not even the initial of the last name) did query as
to why I’m not considering a longer-term trade play on AE. It’s a fair point, so first a quick
reminder of how I plan to trade this, via the final paragraph from last weekend:
Bottom line: I am a buyer of American Eagle (AE.v) in the days ahead, preferable at a price of 45c or
lower (which by implication means I’m highly unlikely to be champing at the bit tomorrow morning at
the bell, I’ll happily wait for my price if necessary). Once long, I’ll be strict with myself and sell if the
stock returns to the 60c (or slightly above) level and take any near-term profit and if AE then
continues to soar without my money on, then so be it.
To be honest, I do think reader R has a point and I may well end up leaving money on the
table for someone else. At an approx C$50m market cap this weekend, there’s plenty of upside
potential for this company and if NAK matures into a live prospect for a real mine, seeing this
company at a C$100m market cap is easy to envisage. That implies an approximate double
from here, so why settle for a 30% flip win? Four points by way of an answer:
 I’m stupid
 If I secure my trace and sell at 60c or above, there’s always the opportunity of re-buying at
a lower or higher price.
 My own portfolio has plenty of copper exposure and while it’s more nuance and a personal
seat-of-pants feeling, at this time an “investment” in AE would tip the balance of what I
own and make it slightly too copper-heavy. Nothing I can defend with objective quants
tables, this is pure, personal smell test stuff
 I really am stupid. Seriously. Longer-term readers will know that near-term flipping is not
my strong point and even when securing a win, I have that magical knack of snatching
defeat from the jaws of victory in many ways. One of those is by selling “because” and
then watching the stock zoom even higher without me.
Bottom line: I like the set-up here, AE will run on just one decent hole and as there are at least
15 between now and January, there will be plenty to choose from. However, don’t take my way
of trading this stock as some sort of gospel, I for one am under no illusions about my mediocre
near-term market timing capabilities.
Patagonia Gold (PGDC.v): When your stock sells at two
Canadian cents, just half a cent extra makes for a 25%
gain on the week. Frankly, I would have ignored this move
and particularly the tiny 5,000 share volume (i.e. C$125
worth of action, no zeroes missing) that caused the move
and close on Friday if it weren’t for the news out of Rio
Negro on the same day. Please see Regional Politics for
that below but to cut a long-ish story short, PGDC.v had
its non-binding community social event and got approval
from the assembled audience to move its Calcatreu project
forward. While Calcatreu still needs official approval and
permits, they come from the provincial government and as
you’ll see below (or in IKN794 dated August 4th when
announcing the addition to the Watch List), the project enjoys plenty of support at the highest
regional level and is now a virtual certainty to get its permits.
As a reminder of the potential prize, here’s how we ran the quick’n’dirty economics in IKN794:
“…if allowed to go ahead Calcatreu would be an open pit operation that would run at approximately
2,500 tonnes per day, with a average head grade of 2.97 g/t gold and 65% estimated recovery. That
points to around 14,000 oz gold per quarter and while cost parameters are not available, it’s fair to
say that a relatively high grade open pit operation such as this in Argentina would be able to run at a
8

total cash cost of U$1,200/oz (and probably a lot cheaper, but let’s be conservative). If we remain
conservative on selling price and model using U$2,200/oz gold, that makes for some very easy
mathematics: U$14m in operating profits per quarter and to underscore, that’s almost certainly a
baseline with gold at U$2,400/oz and above and total costs more likely at the U$1,000/oz level. In
other words, U$20m per quarter in operating profits isn’t difficult to imagine.
That’s a lot for a company with a $45m EV.”
IKN798 back. We also know PGDC has no money and would need significant recapitalization in
order to build its mine. That shouldn’t be an issue, as local empresario Carlos Miguens is very
rich and owns 40% of shares out (with another holder owning around 20%) but there’s going
to have to be some measure of share structure re-organization before the company can build
out. The inside support of rich people with a penchant of being a gold mine owner is good, but
it does mean any retail grunts (i.e. you and me) will have to wait in the queue and allow the big
boys to cut a deal that most suits them. That’s the risk from here, but the news last week
should see PGDC rally from this tiny market cap at some point.
They won’t be easy to buy, but Friday was a big and positive
part of this jigsaw puzzle.
Orecap Inv (OCI.v): OCI spent the week bouncing between
5c and 5.5c, with the last trade favouring our small position.
Its exposure to AE (recently dumped) and ARIC (should give
us assay results next week, see TinyCaps List) are the main
potential value adders here, but let’s not forget the large
chunk of Mistango (MIS.cse) this holdco owns, as that is set to
start drilling in this quarter as well.
Eldorado Gold (EGO) (ELD.to): EGO continues to trade in lockstep with the GDXJ (and
slightly behind GDX, due to that ETF’s overweight
exposure to the continued rise in Newmont (NEM),
see Producer Basket below) and that, for me, makes
it a strong buy for those of you looking for a madcap
precious metals producer. EGO has turned itself into
a financially solid company, must be coining it in this
quarter with U$2,500/oz gold, plus has organic
upside baked in with the next mine about a year
from production and behind that, a clear pipeline of
projects on its books (no need to buy anything).
Every time I look at the numbers from EGO, I’m
impressed about its incremental, quarter-over-
quarter improvements.
Provenance Gold (PAU.cse): On June 28th PAU closed the first tranche of its C$1.2m
financing and last week it filed its quarter to June 30th, so we can see how the cash changes
the company financials in these updated charts. The standard overview charts for assets and
liabilities underscore just how small this company is, with total assets under C$4m and liabilities
as close to zero as a going concern can be in the real world. But we do see the addition to
treasury there in the right-hand column, PAU declaring C$709k as at June 30th.
PAU.cse: Assets, per qtr
5
4.5
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
9 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2
C$m fixed
other current PAU.cse: Liabilities per qtr
cash
0.55
0.5
0.45
0.4
0.35
0.3
0.25
0.2
0.15
0.1
0.05
0
source: company filings
02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2
C$m LT liab
current liab
source: company filings

It shows in working capital as well (below left) and while that’s no king’s ransom, it’s enough to
get drilling at El Dorado and these tinycappers tend to be very efficient with their money, they
have enough ammo to move the market if results are good enough. Finally, shares out are now
at 108m, that will move up a little more in the second tranche of the placement eventually
closes. At this weekend’s 8.5c share price that implies a C$9.18m market cap…this is tinycap
world indeed.
Contango ORE (CTGO): Back in IKN784 dated May 26th 2024, the main fundies note was
“Contango ORE (CTGO): Running the numbers on the cusp of production” and in that, we made
sure the effects of what we called at the time the “aggressive hedge” CTGO has on its portion
of the Manh Choh gold production was laid out and understood. For example, here’s one of the
charts we used to estimate average operating income per month (assuming, of course, a
smoothed-out production and revenues schedule):
CTGO: Model Mine Op Inc at 3 gold prices, per qtr
10
6.6 6.6 6.6
4.11 4.11 4.11
6.51 8.51 0.61 6.51 8.51 0.61 6.51 8.51 0.61 6.51 8.51 0.61 5.61 2.71 9.71 5.61 2.71 9.71 5.61 2.71 9.71 5.61 2.71 9.71 3.81
0.02
7.12
3.81
0.02
7.12
3.81
0.02
7.12
3.81
0.02
7.12
24
22
20
18
16
14
12
10 8
6
4
2
0
42.pes 42.ced 52.ram 52.nuj 52.pes 52.ced 62.ram 62.nuj 62.pes 62.ced 72.ram 72.nuj 72.pes 72.ced
PAU.cse: Shares Out
U$m
at $2,200
at $2,300
at $2,400
source: IKN calcs from CTGO data
There are differences between the model as seen and reality. For one, we modeled on the
conservative side for the first months but now know production has indeed started on time at
Manh Choh, so our “period to September” column is almost certainly light. For another Our
model ran the numbers at between U$2,200/oz and U$2,400/oz and here we are today at
U$2,500/oz or so but with that said, I’ve re-published this chart because it’s still valid despite
those changes. As you’ll probably appreciate from the columns to end 2025, the hedge on gold
means CTGO will have precious little (geddit) difference to show from any rise in the price of
gold and it’s not until the hedge comes off completely, in 2027, that the bonus gold prices make
it to operating profits at the company.
All the above is neither good nor bad, it’s part of the package CTGO used to fund its end of the
Manh Choh build and fair enough, but we can expect shade thrown on the company by late
arrivals to this story who haven’t paid attention to the financial details. That will happen when
the operational financials start flowing, as from October approx. In trading, CTGO added about
half a dollar on the week and was mostly quiet.
5.34 5.34 2.35 0.16 0.16
5.47 5.97 5.97 5.97 5.97 5.97 5.97 5.98 1.59 1.59
0.801
120
110
100
90
80
70
60
50 40
30
20
10
0
02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2
PAU.cse: Working cap C$m
1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
-0.2
-0.4
-0.6
source: company filings/IKN ests
02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2
C$m
source: company filings

Rio2 Ltd (RIO.v): On Thursday, RIO filed the last financial quarter before the company is
transformed radically by the main deal to finance Fenix and the move from exploreco to
developer building out its mine. Or at least that’s the plan, as long as its September goes well.
The main event of Q2 was the very successful equity financing, priced at 39c Canadian, that
managed to raise over 2X the original target due to demand. That money was mostly banked
and not used, what with Q2 being quiet and the current quarter, Q3 the one in which the
money will start to flow (to pay for equipment, lawyers, dealflow etc) so we’re not going to
delve into the P+L here as there isn’t much to show. Instead we tip the hat at the total cash
used in operating activities during 2q24 of U$2.385m and move straight to the balance sheet
items for the easy financial snapshot. We start with the assets and liabilities overview charts:
RIO.v:Assets, per qtr
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
Little change here, with fixed assets remaining basically as-is and current assets (see below)
reflecting the arrival of the placement cash. For liabilities, we see the increment as the metals
purchase agreement (with WPM) is accounted. Those virtual deliveries began at the start of
March and while they’re non-cash for the time being, they have to accrue on the liabilities until
such time as the deal is redefined or re-financed. That’s likely to happen as part of the major
financing package to fund construction, now that Fenix is back on track.
The current assets and treasury positions are more interesting at this stage, here are charts on
cash and working cap:
Treasury stood at U$16.1643m as at end 2q24 and on consulting with RIO.v executive chart
Alex Black, we cane expect that to be around U$14m around the time the financing package is
announced and finalized. As that’s likely to be this month of September, I’m going to assume
we’ll get an announcement and then the official closing in early October. As for Working Capital,
that tracks treasury very closely thanks to a lack of payments due, that’s estimated at U$13.8m
at the end of 3q24, we’ll then see the details of the deal RIO.v cuts to fund the Fenix build-out
but the last time we heard from the company on this, it was still on course for a reasonably
classic debt/equity raising.
11
02q1 02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2 tse42q3
U$m RIO.v: Liabilities overview
fixed 50
other current 45
cash+ST 40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
source: company filings
02q1 02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2 tse42q3
U$m
LT liab
current liab
source: company filings
RIO.v: Cash treasury, per qtr
297.41
47.9 579.9
434.3 535.3 554.1
560.32
543.12
966.33
416.31 282.5 627.4 320.4 365.7 605.5 55.4 465.2
346.61
41
40
35
30
25
20
15 10
5
0
02q1 02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2 tse42q3
U$m RIO.v: Working capital
source: company filings
69.31
92.9 19.9
64.1 60.3
80.0-
68.22
54.91
63.52
11.11
78.0 97.3 16.3
11.7
21.5 62.4 34.2
23.61 08.31
30
27.5
25
22.5 20
17.5 15
12.5
10 7.5 5 2.5
0
-2.5
02q1 02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2 tse42q3
U$m
source: company filings

As for shares out, those stood at 318.599m as at end 3q24. There are 5.38m options about to
expire with a 55c strike price, we assume they exercised (unless the share price suddenly dives)
and that would bring us to around 324m shares
RIO.v: Shares out
out at the end of 3q24. From there, out best
guess for the financing is that RIO.v raises at
least U$30m from the equity portion and that
might get as far as U$40m, so to make the
ballpark easy at this point, I’m waving my arms
at 400m shares out at end 2024 and can adjust that once we have the exact number; it
shouldn’t be too far out.
Overall, an uneventful set of 2q24 figures and
that’s the way I like them, no surprises and a
company now girding its loins for the big acceleration in activities, as from Q4.
The Copper Basket
After thirty-five weeks of 2024, The Copper Basket shows a gain of 4.75% to level stakes:
company ticker price 1/1/24 Shares out Market Cap current pps gain/loss%
1 NGEx Minerals NGEX.to 7.16 186.824 2051.33 10.98 53.4%
2 Solaris Res SLS.to 4.13 161.833 517.87 3.20 -22.5%
3 Marimaca Cop MARI.to 3.43 93.11 361.27 3.88 13.1%
4 Los Andes LA.v 11.80 29.519 280.14 9.49 -19.6%
5 Arizona Sonoran ASCU.to 1.75 109.17 206.33 1.89 8.0%
6 Aldebaran Res. ALDE.v 0.89 169.819 164.72 0.97 9.0%
7 Hercules Metals BIG.v 1.38 231 154.77 0.67 -51.4%
8 Faraday Copper FDY.to 0.63 204.72 151.49 0.74 17.5%
9 Oroco Res OCO.v 0.375 236.911 84.10 0.355 -5.3%
10 American Eagle AE.v 0.26 116.75 50.79 0.435 67.3%
11 Element 29 Res ECU.v 0.18 119.31 34.60 0.29 61.1%
12 Kodiak Copper KDK.v 0.58 63.93 28.13 0.44 -24.1%
13 QC Copper QCCU.v 0.12 173.7 23.45 0.135 12.5%
14 C3 Metals CCCM.v 0.61 61.885 19.80 0.32 -47.5%
15 Camino Min COR.v 0.07 206.66 12.40 0.06 -14.3%
NB: All stocks in CAD$ Portfolio avg 4.75%
The Copper Basket average improved by a thin but useful 1.13% last week on the back of
seven winners (NGEX.to, SLS.to, LA.v, ASCU.to, KDK.v, QCCU.v, ECU.v) that beat out the six
losers (MARI.to, BIG.v, ALDE.v, FDY.to, OCO.v,
AE.v by the minimum on the headcount, with
two UNCH stocks (CCCM.v, COR.v) making up
the numbers. There were three big moves to the
upside from Los Andes (LA.v up 15.0%), Arizona
Sonoran (ASCU.to up 14.6%) and Element 29
(ECU.v up 9.4%), then two notable moves to
the downside from Hercules Metals (BIG.v down
10.7%) and Faraday Copper (FDY.to down
9.8%). So when the balance was struck, our
basket came out slightly on the positive side and
12
49.201 20.301 42.811 42.811 87.081 34.181 34.181 83.281 71.091 17.091 95.991 78.991 43.452 43.452 96.652 15.752 15.752 65.752 46.752 83.852 57.852 32.952 75.952
6.813
423
004
450
400
350
300
250
200
150 100
50
0
81q3 81q4 91q1 91q2 91q3 91q4 02q1 02q2 02q3 02q4 12q1 12q2 12q3 12q4 22q1 22q2 22q3 22q4 32q1 32q2 32q3 32q4 42q1 42q2 tse42q3 tse42q4
M s/o
source: company filings
The Copper Basket 2024, weekly evolution
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
-5%
-10%
ts1naJ ht7naJ ht41 ts12 ht82 ht4bef ht11 ht81 ht52 dr3raM ht01 ht71 ht42 ts13 ht7rpA ht41 ts12 ht82 ht5yam ht21 ht91 ht62 dn2nuj ht9 ht61 dr32 ht03 ht7luj ht41 ts12 ht82 ht4gua ht11 ht81 ht52 ts1pes
source: IKN calcs

that’s a fair reflection of the market last week, action was subdued as we move through the
Labor Day watershed and the world kept an eye on copper-the-metal.
On the subject of The Good
Doctor Copper, last week ended
up basically flat, with half-
hearted attempts to break the
main Comex December 2024
futures contract (HGZ24)
through U$4.25/lb to the upside
or through U$4.15/lb to the
downside, all to no avail.
Therefore a reasonably tight
trading range and the market
trying to decide which way to
jump next.
The suited and booted of the
metals commentariat once again grasped at whatever they could find to reverse-engineer a
fancy sentence or two to justify copper price action (and therefore their own salaries). To be
fair, Ole Hansen of Saxo Bank is one of the smartest metals market watchers out there and I
for one appreciate his views on a regular basis (via his Twitter account, mainly), but even he
was reduced to platitudes last week, using an anecdotal report on how China "...is considering
allowing homeowners to refinance as much as $5.4 trillion in mortgages to reduce borrowing
costs" as his reasoning for the improvement in copper last week. He said (3):
"This could help support consumer confidence, which has been on the weak side, so that
could boost consumption among households."
All very logical, i'm sure, however we're not going to enter into a debate on how a mooted plan
to boot another 10 years on mortgages in China should move spot copper spot 5c/lb during a
quiet final week of August 2024. Call me a cynic if you must, but to give Mr Hansen his due
again, this desk agrees fully with his sound bite that appears in the same note, further down
the page:
"It seems the tide has turned in the market, it has become a buy-on-dip market rather
than a sell-into-strength market, which was the sentiment that prevailed for quite a few
months."
Far less BS being peddled there, sometimes market go up simply because they’re tired of going
down, there’s no need to search for reasons from the simple world of logic and reason.
We move to copper inventories and as its’ the end of another month (my how time flies) we
first run the long-term monthly tracker charts. Somehow, I managed to miss the end-July
update on this dataset so today gets to show how stocks have continued to increase in 2024.
The aggregate chart shows that the total under roof in the three official systems is now at the
highest point since mid-2018…yes indeed, we’re above the Covid spike now and the reason is
the growing inventory held at LMNE, added to the SHFE’s stock that grew in normal style
around the Chinese New Year but in 2024, stuck around.
Key Cu inventory aggregate, 2012 to date
1000000
900000
800000
700000
600000
500000
400000
300000
200000
100000
0
13
21.naJ ram yam luj pes von 31.naJ ram yam luj pes von 41.naj ram yam luj pes von 51.naj ram yam luj pes von 61.naj ram yam luj pes von 71.naj ram yam luj pes von 81
naj
ram yam luj pes von 91
naj
ram yam luj pes von 02
naj
ram yam luj pes von 12
naj
ram yam luj pes von 22
naj
ram yam luj pes von 32naj ram yam luj pes von 32naj ram yam luj
Mt Cu
Comex
Shanghai
LME source: Cochilco

Copper inventories: percentage held per exchange
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
14
21.naJ ram yam luj pes von 31.naJ ram yam luj pes von 41.naj ram yam luj pes von 51.naj ram yam luj pes von 61.naj ram yam luj pes von 71.naj ram yam luj pes von 81
naj
ram yam luj pes von 91
naj
ram yam luj pes von 02
naj
ram yam luj pes von 12
naj
ram yam luj pes von 22
naj
ram yam luj pes von 32naj ram yam luj pes von 32naj ram yam luj
LME Shanghai Comex source: Cochilco
The tonnage totals this year may be unusually high across the board, but the standard seasonal
relationship between the two big systems remains intact. Last month saw LME re-take the Top
dog tonnage position from SHFE and that should continue into the end of the year, when SHFE
takes its turn again. The monthlies done, we now move to our regular weekly look at world
copper inventories, with data from Cochilco and Richard. Thanks, Richard:
 The second week that we see the balance of inventory action start to shift away from
Asia and toward North America, which is very interesting as far as this nerd is
concerned. Similarly to the week before last, the aggregate of the three official world
inventory systems again rose last week by 1,663 metric tonnes (mt) as for the same
general reasons. Friday’s closing total came to 598,963mt.
 Another medium-sized draw on SHFE copper inventories, the number down 9,317mt on
the week to close at 241,745mt. That’s a continuation of the recent trend, as seen in
the dedicated tracking chart, below.
 The latest in the series of additions to LME tonnages was the 5,350mt of last week,
though it was a more subdued increase compared with most of July and August and
nearly all the action in a single destination, the 5,750mt added to LME South Korea
warehouses.
 Following on from last week’s sudden acceleration of stock additions at Comex, when
5,648mt was added, this time another 5,630mt arrived in these North American
warehouses to bring its total inventory to 36,293mt. It’s still small change next to its
two bigger cousins LME and SHFE, but there’s something going on here, a change in
dynamic that indicates weaker copper consumption in North America. Worth taking into
consideration
The dedicated SHFE chart has the 2024 line creeping slowly back toward what would be a
normal stock level, but there’s still no guarantee it will get there. The house theory of end users
staying away from the market until the last minute implies that we should see the trend lower
continuing.
SHFE copper inventory levels, 2019 to 2024
400000
350000
300000
250000
200000
150000
100000
50000
0
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 some notes on a couple of our basket stocks.
Los Andes Copper (LA.v): This team must be under some pressure to say or do SOMETHING
in order to justify its existence, hence the corporate update NR we got from LA last week.

Absolutely nothing said about the ongoing halt on drilling, or the law suits filed by the local
community of Putaendo, still dead set against its valley being dug up and turned into an open
pit copper mine. We did, however, get this (4) two days after LA filed its 2q24 financials under
the prosaic title “Los Andes Copper Announces Corporate Update, in which it had two
developments (of sorts)
 The desal water company with which it signed a LOI has signed a strategic alliance
with a civil works company, which brings the desal company closer to building its
plant and supply infrastructure to serve industry in the location.
 LA and Franco-Nevada, the holder of a 2% NSR on the Vizcachitas project, have
“streamlined the royalty” (though details are lacking in the NR). As part of the
revised deal, LA got a cheque for a little over $1m from FNV (the refrain about free
lunches comes to mind)
As corporate updates go that’s as thin a NR as they come, especially from a company that’s had
basically nothing to say for itself all year. The fact that it coincided with the filing of its 2q24
financials should not go
Los Andes Copper (LA.v): Drilling expenses, per qtr
unnoticed, I’d suppose that LA
has started to come under
pressure from backers for its
inertia and lack of newsflow. With
C$28.67m as at end June 2024
and a burn rate of less than C$1m
per month this financial year (it
runs to September 30th), LA
doesn’t need the $1m just
received from FNV. To underscore
the lack of progress, we’ve run
this chart before and here’s the
update and if there’s zero dollars and zero cents going into the ground, you know the rest of
the project is stuck fast.
Arizona Sonoran (ASCU.to): ASCU filed its PEA last week and we go over its contents and
add thoughts in ‘Market Watching’, below. Here we note the price action of the stock and last
week saw a continuation of the rally that’s been in gear since the announcement of the updated
PEA four weeks ago. The run on Monday coincided with the rally in copper-the-metal that day,
but the run on Thursday and Friday came with copper (and COPX) flat those days and in the
last two days’ worth of trading last week, ASCU beat the benchmarks by around 3%. That’s a
good reception for the PEA filing, even though volume dropped as the week wound down.
Plenty more on ASCU and its met weak point below.
Faraday Copper (FDY.to): As a guy named John once said, he must increase but I must
decrease. Its near neighbour ASCU went up 14.6% in the same week that FDY dropped 9.8%
but even so, I’ll still take this company over its rival. The ten-day chart (below left, with spot
15
0
360.0 937.1
889.3
582.0 633.0 284.0 171.0 880.0 41.0 390.0 210.0
0
5
4.5
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5 1
0.5
0
12enuj 12pes 12ced 22hcram 22enuj 22pes 22ced 32hcram 32enuj 32pes 32ced 42hcram 42enuj
C$m
source: company filings

copper as benchmark) shows FDY is a wash over the last two weeks while ASCU has done well.
Meanwhile, the YTD comparative (below right) shows Faraday is still well ahead of ASCU,
despite that recent rally and that’s why I’ll pick this one over that one.
Element 29 (ECU.v): On Thursday evening, ECU announced the closure of its placement,
selling 13.059m units (unit = share + full warrant priced at 50c) and raising gross proceeds of
C$3.265m, so lets call it C$3m to bank and as the company treasury was running on fumes,
that’s what we now assume its treasury position to be. Used prudently, that amount should get
ECU well into 2025.
Camino Minerals (COR.v): The minnow of our 2024 list announced this on Friday (5):
Vancouver, August 30, 2024 – Camino Minerals Corporation (TSXV: COR) (OTC: CAMZF) (WKN: A116E1)
(“Camino” or the “Company”) and Nittetsu Mining Co., Ltd. (“Nittetsu“) announce a one-week extension to
their exclusive rights to finalize negotiations and documentation for the acquisition of the Puquios Project (the
“Proposed Acquisition”), a construction-ready copper mine located in Chile (see news release dated June 27,
2024). The exclusivity period has been extended to September 7, 2024.
The one week extension on negotiations for the project in the Coquimbo region were previously
limited to August 31st . As CIOR paid the sum of $100k for the right to exclusivity,, this small
addition is probably in good faith from both sides and probably means the deal will close, but
there’s some extra legal beagling to do. We’ll see how this washes out in the week ahead.
The Producer Basket
After 35 weeks of 2024, the Producer Basket shows a gain of 35.43% to level stakes:
company ticker price 1/1/24 Shares out MktCap(U$Bn) current pps gain/loss%
1 Newmont NEM 41.39 1152.6 61.54 53.39 29.0%
2 Agnico Eagle AEM 54.85 497.971 40.57 81.47 48.5%
3 Barrick GOLD 18.09 1756 35.45 20.19 11.6%
4 Franco-Nevada FNV 110.81 192.119 23.47 122.15 10.2%
5 Pan American PAAS 16.33 364.439 7.37 20.21 23.8%
6 Lundin Gold LUGDF 12.64 238.883 4.79 20.07 58.8%
7 Hecla Mining HL 4.81 617.768 3.66 5.93 23.3%
8 Eldorado Gold EGO 12.97 202.472 3.49 17.25 33.0%
9 Dundee PM DPMLF 6.43 180.051 1.76 9.76 51.8%
10 Wesdome Gold WDOFF 5.83 148.95 1.43 9.58 64.3%
All prices and stock quotes in U$ Port. avg 35.43%
We reached the end of the recent mini-run in PM stocks last week, with gold, via our GLD proxy
tracker, showing a week-over-week drop of 0.31% and the action in GDX (down 1.8%) versus
GDXJ (down 3.7%) typical of the moments when profit takers move in, sell more of the more
volatile stocks and allow the bigger companies to consolidate.
16

As for our list of ten, the weighting it has toward the lower end of the Tier 1/ Tier 2 market cap
scale, plus its modest exposure to silver this year, combined and saw us lose about half a point
to the GDX benchmark. Just one stock returned a week-over-week win and that’s the one we
ate a plate of crow over last weekend, so well done market #1 Newmont (NEM), up a solid
2.6% on the week and doing what sector leaders should do. All others in our basket were losers
on the week and in general, the bigger caps lost under 2% while the Tier 2s dropped 3% or
more. The biggest hits were taken by the silvery ones, i.e. Pan American (PAAS down 5.3%)
and Hecla (HL down 4.2%). Another week in the books, Labor Day is upon us, time for the
“serious business” quarter and the moment for big money to step into a sector that’s now
printing cash at U$2.5K/oz gold.
Final thought: One look at the 2024 weekly performance chart of our basket vs GDX is enough
to allay fears of a retrace; any sector is allowed to ebb and flow in a rising channel and that’s
one darned bullish looking graphic.
The 2024 Producer Basket: Weekly performance and
40% comparative to GDX control
30%
20%
10%
0%
-10%
-20%
Wesdome Gold (WDOFF) (WDO.to): Look, this may just be me going too harsh on one of
the undoubted star turns of 2024 in the PM space, but…
…that’s a 10% gap between WDO and the GDX benchmark since Wesdome filed its 2q24
financials. The file is easy to spot, because the opening trades came with a fat finger buyer who
quickly disappeared but since then, WDO hasn’t sparkled. If I were a big holder of WDO this
wouldn’t be a major worry, however it would have me scratching my chin and wondering
whether the buy rumour/sell news truism is in operation regarding Kiena.
The TinyCaps List
After 35 weeks of 2024, the TinyCaps show a gain of 53.82% to level stakes:
17
ts1naJ ht7naJ ht41 ts12 ht82 ht4bef ht11 ht81 ht52 dr3raM ht01 ht71 ht42 ts13 ht7rpA ht41 ts12 ht82 ht5yam ht21 ht91 ht62 dn2nuj ht9 ht61 dr32 ht03 ht7luj ht41 ts12 ht82 ht4gua ht11 ht81 ht52 ts1pes
The 2024 Producer Basket: Percentage diff. between
GDX benchmark & basket (negative= IKN ahead)
2.0%
ikn 0.0%
gdx control -2.0%
-4.0%
-6.0%
-8.0%
-10.0%
-12.0%
source: IKN calcs -14.0%
ts1naJ ht7naJ ht41 ts12 ht82 ht4bef ht11 ht81 ht52 dr3raM ht01 ht71 ht42 ts13 ht7rpA ht41 ts12 ht82 ht5yam ht21 ht91 ht62 dn2nuj ht9 ht61 dr32 ht03 ht7luj ht41 ts12 ht82 ht4gua ht11 ht81 ht52 ts1pes
source: IKN calcs, NYSE data

company ticker price 1/1/24 Shares out Mkt Cap current pps gain/loss%
Aston Bay BAY.v 0.065 252.95 35.41 0.14 115.4%
Awalé Res ARIC.v 0.135 86.798 45.13 0.52 285.2%
District Metals DMX.v 0.170 106.98 32.09 0.30 76.5%
Endurance Gold EDG.v 0.18 150.136 25.15 0.1675 -6.9%
Kirkland LDC KLDC.v 0.100 88.625 5.32 0.06 -40.0%
Latin Metals LMS.v 0.075 71.476 5.72 0.08 6.7%
Palamina Corp PA.v 0.130 71.285 12.83 0.18 38.5%
South Star STS.v 0.750 52.64 34.74 0.66 -12.0%
Surge Copper SURG.v 0.090 284.79 38.45 0.135 50.0%
Viva Gold VAU.v 0.120 118.384 17.76 0.15 25.0%
Prices in CAD$, data from TSXV basket avg 53.82%
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. TinyCaps, 2024 weekly tracker
100%
This end of the market had a quiet week, that was 90%
80%
reflected in our basket that moved down everso- 70%
everso slightly, the five winners (BAY.v, EDG.v, 60%
50%
LMS.v, PA.v, STS.v) were all small moves and there 40%
was enough in the four losers (ARIC.v, DMX.v, 30%
20%
SURG.v, VAU.v) to tip the balance, with just one
10%
unchanged stock on the week (KLDC.v). 0%
Awalé Resources (ARIC.v): Along with many
other TSXV entities, ARIC filed its 2q24 financials last
week and as at June 30th, reported a strong cash position of C$9m minus loose change, and
around C$8.3m in working cap. That’ll do nicely as it enters what we expect to be a busy phase
for on-site work and news flow. We also note a slight
increase in shares out since the last filing, the updated
86.798m as per the table above, and the confirmed
percentage holding of Newmont at 11.8% of shares out.
Looking forward a little, reliable word is that we get the
next batch of drill assay results in the week to come and
the management team has been out there, talking up how
Odienné keeps giving more and more in the run-up to
these official numbers. We have a close eye on this
company in the days ahead.
Aston Bay Holdings (BAY.v): Another to file its quarter last week was BAY.v and to focus on
the baseline stat that all exploreco owners should worry about, cash was C$3.14m and working
cap just over C$2m. That’s not much, but as they are being carried by AW1 on the main new
generation projects (Storm etc) it should be enough, no reason for BAY to raise further in 2024.
18
ts1naJ ht7naJ ht41 ts12 ht82 ht4bef ht11 ht81 ht52 dr3raM ht01 ht71 ht42 ts13 ht7rpA ht41 ts12 ht82 ht5yam ht21 ht91 ht62 dn2nuj ht9 ht61 dr32 ht03 ht7luj ht41 ts12 ht82 ht4gua ht11 ht81 ht52 ts1pes
source: IKN calcs, TSX data

South Star Battery Metals (STS.v): The reason STS made the TinyCaps Basket in 2023 and
2024 was to keep tabs on its move from developer to producer and see if it could keep to
schedule, deliver the production re-rate and do all those nice things at its Santa Cruz graphits
mine in Brazil. Back at the start the plan was to get first production from the facility in late 2023
and be commercial in early 2024 but as things have turned out...
…they now lump “commissioning and commercial production” into one time period starting
September, according to last week’s Q2 filings. If we assume the process begins mid-
September and then do the time additions as laid
out by STS, we’re looking at commercial production
in the first weeks of 2025.
So, roughly one year late and even then, we
strongly advise watchers of this stock not to hold
their collective breath as the track record suggests
we may end up waiting even longer. However
there is good news, as STS still has plenty of cash
to see it through this commissioning and ramp-up.
The balance sheet (right) shows liquidity and over
C$6m in cash as at end June 30th,
the issues sit on the liabilities side of the ledger
with a stream to pay down, that alone demands a
smooth ramping period and as such, it would be
zero surprise to see STS go back to market and
raise “one more time” before the operating profits
start flowing. It’s been a good discipline to watch
this company, we’ll likely roll this one over into the
2025 TinyCaps basket even though its market cap
is now outside our normal limits.
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
Argentina: Rio Negro is opening for mining
We know about San Juan, we know about Salta Santa Cruz etc, but after following the progress
of the mining debate “other places in Argentina”, Rio Negro is one of the provinces we’ve
recently focused on as a likely place to see improved community and public acceptance for
mining activity. Indeed, we recently added two tinycap exploreco names to our Watch List,
Fitzroy Minerals (FTZ.v) and Patagonia Gold (PGDC.v) precisely because of our belief Rio Negro
under Governor Alberto Weretilneck is about to open up for mining business. For details, see
IKN794 dated August 4th and the main fundies note Argentina mining: Time to look beyond
San Juan”, then IKN795 the week after and the Regional Politics note “Argentina: More on Rio
Negro and RIGI”.
We’ve also proposed Patagonia Gold (PGDC.v) and its Calcatreu gold project as the likely test
case and the place that might break the logjam, as it was set to have its key community
19

meeting on August 30th in Jacobacci, the closest town to the project. That duly happened on
Friday and here’s a translation of the start of this report (6) on the event:
With a discourse of development and employment generation, the public audience of
the Calcatreu Project approved by majority the project plan and the Government of Rio
Negro now has the final decision to advance the open-pit mining project to production of
gold and silver in the South Region (of Rio Negro).
The meeting lasted 11 hours, was subject to tight security and most attendees were in favour
of the project. Anti-mining groups decided not to attend, their argument being “we won’t give
credence to a non-binding result”. Indeed the community meeting and its decision is non-
binding, but it gives a clear indication of local preferences and the antis stayed away (in fact
they held their own, smaller meeting in Jacobacci on the same day (7)) because they know
they’re outnumbered. As for the Rio Negro government’s position, here’s a report (8) on
Governor Weretilneck’s reaction to the meeting. He wasn’t present, but did apparently follow
proceedings on live stream:
“I’d like to congratulate the town of Ingeniero Jacobacci and the entire South Region for
their brave decision to say YES to the Calcatreu mining project. This decision marks an
important moment for the region and opens the doors to new opportunities of growth
and development.”
So there will be backlash from anti-mining groups and as we witnessed in neighbouring Chubut
a couple of years ago, they won’t be afraid of hitting the streets and making noise in protest
marches, etc. However and as noted in IKN796, Governor Alberto Weretilneck has been pro-
mining for years (publications I’ve checked as far back as 2011) and has been champing at the
bit for this type of opportunity to move mining forward in Rio Negro. The advent of Milei and
the RIGI regime has made the difference.
Argentina: After Filo/Josemaria comes Taca Taca
The RIGI FDI initiative has already scored an important win in the mining sector, thanks to
BHP’s decisión to commit along with (the obvious) strategic partner and develop the Lundin’s
Josemaria and Filo mines, located in the denominated Vicuña district of high San Juan. For
what it’s worth, we hear that the good ol’ Canadian exploreco industry has been doing its
classic nearology trick on this location and coming to a promo pump house near you soon will
be a new crop of “We’re Vicuña Too!” explorecos, but that’s for another day and discussion.
Here we consider more concrete and wholly positive developments as, according to the
provincial government of Salta, the next big mine news is likely to come from First Quantum
(FM.to) and its long-held Taca Taca copper project in its region. Salta government officials met
with the Taca Taca executive team last week (9) and after the meet-up, announced that FM
was on the brink of investing U$3.5Bn into the project and bring it into production, was looking
to greenlight Taca Taca and bring the construction process in 2025 and was currently looking
for a JV partner, possibly a minority carry to leave FM as operator, to help with funding.
Ultimately, Taca Taca may find itself in a bit of a race with the Glencore Pachón copper project,
located in the hot fashion province of San Juan, as its another open secret that GLEN is looking
to find its own partner to JV or even take over the project and bring it to production and that
Chile’s Antofagasta (ANTO.L) has been in extensive talks as the most likely candidate. This
doesn’t take away from the news out of Salta last week, instead it shows that the Milei
government’s FDI incentive program seems to have finally unlocked the magic door to large-
scale copper mining in Argentina.
More Argentina (and Chile): An upbeat conference
The place was the Argentina Embassay in Santiago de Chile and the event the “7th
Chilean/Argentina Mining Encounter” (VII Encuentro Minero Chileno-argentino) and as the title
suggests, this has become one of the regular meetings for the diaries of mining glitterati from
those countries. However and according to all reports (e.g. here (10)) the atmosphere at this
year’s event was far more upbeat and optimistic. That’s all to do with 1) the changes happening
in the Argentina of Javier Milei and 2) Chilean miners’ desire to get in on the act.
20

Speeches from people like Charles Kimber, president of the Chile/Argentina Chamber of
Commerce who said (translated), “We are faced with a unique opportunity to work together
between our two countries, its public and private sect0ors, to develop sustainable mining with
great benefits to the challenges that humanity faces.” Translation: There are mega millions to
make in Argentina copper and lithium so let’s get moving.
Also present was Argentina’s Secretary (Minister) of Mining, Luis Lucero, who told the
assembled great and good that (translated), “I promise the total collaboration of my
government so that the Andes Cordillera becomes a uniting factor between Chilenas and
Argentines”, as well as talking up why those grand visions are on offer, i.e. the RIGI FDI
mechanism.
Yes indeed it’s time for some Mexico mining politics
We shall not cease from exploration.
And the end of all our exploring.
Will be to arrive where we started.
And know the place for the first time.
Little Gidding, T.S. Eliot, 1943
After thrashing the subject hard in IKN796 and IKN797, last week’s closing bullet points
included the comment “Enough Mexico politics for a while” as two weeks of long essays on the
background and state of play in Mexico as AMLO hands over to Claudia Sheinbaum, particularly
as it pertains to mining and the thorny issue of open-pit mining in the country, was more than
enough coverage. Right?
Haha, stupid me.
As noted on several occasions already, this subject is a serious rabbit hole and there’s literally
no end to the issues, side-issues and what-have-you we could write about when it comes to the
combo of outgoing President AMLO, incoming President Sheinbaum, Morena, the Congress and
the lower/upper houses, the Morena party, the “Plan C” law bills AMLO has brought to change
the Constitution. However, we need to cover a couple of angles on the political backdrop, firstly
to cover reader feedback but also because of developments in Mexico in the last few days.
First the pure politics stuff and last week, Mexico’s INE electoral body made its final ruling of
make-up of the two legislative houses, the lower house of deputies and a the upper house
Senate. The AMLO/Sheinbuam/Morena coalition does indeed have its “supermajority” in the
lower house, but the INE ruled that the alliance would have 83 seats of the Senate, falling three
short of the “supermajority” level. However, just a day later two members of the upcoming
Senate announced they were changing alliances and would become part of the Morena bloc,
thereby leaving it just one seat short of the “supermajority”. As odd as this might sound to
other countries (how often do GOP Senators suddenly decide to announce they are now DEM?),
while unusual in Mexico it’s not a rare thing and part of the political fabric there (as stated, how
deep down the rabbit hole do you want to go?). With the Senate convening today Sunday 1st
September for the first time, commentators also note that it’s possible to see at least one more
defection to Morena and if so, the bloc will get its “supermajority” of 2/3rd of votes and be able
to change the Constitution without the help of opposition seats. Now, that sounds like bad news
for a mining industry that fears the new Congress will go full AMLO militant and vote to ban all
open pit mining in the country and if another seat defects (or if Congress holds a vote and just
one opposition senator is not present to vote against it, or simply decides to abstain on an
issue) it does indeed remove the natural block of the Senate’s theoretical vote count in any
situation and allows Morena to do what it wants. However, we need to underscore the second
and more powerful point we made about the way the Mexico Senate operates in IKN796, two
weekends ago. Here’s a reminder:
“…when the country is adapting its Constitution things get serious and Senators must consider the
well being of their States as much as the Federal country. It’s difficult to imagine (to say the least)
the representatives from Sonora, Zacatecas or San Luis de Potosí voting in favour of a ban on any
type of mining activity. For example, Sonora derives between 18% and 20% of its State GDP from
mining and Zacatecas around 28%. All that is a long-winded way of saying that no matter how
militant the lower house wants to be (or eventually is), any radical constitutional reform on this
21

subject will either be blocked outright by the Senate or modified if sent unaltered to the floor by the
lower house.”
Please check IKN796 for the full note, but that’s the essence and that’s not going to change.
What’s now clear is that the first month of Congress, beginning today, is set to be very different
from the normal session when governments change hands. Normally in Mexico, once every six
years the first month is the biggest lame duck session possible, with nothing done until the
change of President one month later but this time, AMLO in public declarations the Morena
party in general have promised a rousing finale to his six years in office, with his “Plan C”
Constitutional reforms on the table and likely to be pushed through by a militant parliament, all
with the tacit approval of President-Elect Sheinbaum (who appeared with AMLO on stage at an
inaugural ceremony yesterday (11), both singing from the same song sheet). Again, that may
make the reader feel nervous about the near future for open-pit mining in Mexico but be clear,
AMLO’s “Plan C” is a lot more (and I mean a LOT more) than just the open-pit mining question,
it’s 20 bills to change the Constitution and only one part of one of those is the mining issue.
That’s enough of the Mexican straight-shot pure political rabbit hole, in order to broach the
second point I’m going to lean on a translation of this report (12) out on Friday, entitled
“Banning Open-Pit Mining Would Destroy Thousands Of Jobs” to underscore how the mining
industry is aware of the bills going through Parliament this month. Public statements such as
these are only a small part of the overall lobbying effort:
The banning of open-pit mining in Mexico, as per the government proposal to be debated in
Congress, would end more than 400,000 direct jobs and more than 2.5 million indirect jobs,
warned the new President of the Association of Mexican Mining Engineers, Metallurgists and
Geologists (Asociación de Ingenieros de Minas, Metalurgistas y Geólogos de México)
(AIMMGM), Rubén del Pozo.
On Thursday at the inauguration of the 8th Durango Mining Congress, 2024, Del Pozo said that
such a loss of employment would “irredeemably affect the economies of mining communities”
where in many cases, mining is the only source of employment. He said “the proposed initiative
to prohibit open-pit mining would be a serious mistake, with enormous impact on production,
employment and the development of the mining and metals industry” and would also put all
mining activity in great risk, according to a AIMMGM press release.
The president of the Durango branch of AIMMGM, José Jorge Villaseñor, said during the same
event that just in his State of Durango there are ten open-pit mining projects at risk that could
cause the loss of at least 5,000 job if this measure is approved. He said, “For us, as engineers,
the threat of job losses concerns us because the first people to be affected if this initiative is
approved will be us, the workers.”
The note continues, but the point should be made by now and please note that my little list of
Zacatecas, Sonora and San Luis de Potosí in IKN796 didn’t include Durango or plenty of other
states and zones in which mining is a significant source of employment and GDP. The senators
from these places will know this, but for a different angle and how mineworkers view the Ivory
Tower that is the country’s Congress, here are the words of Carlos Pavón Campos, General
Secretary of the miners’ and metalworkers’ union, FRENTE:
“Deputies don’t see the effects they have on the population. They caused an ecological disaster with the Tren
Maya (rail Project), but open-pit mines have many years of operations with high levels of safety and care for
the environment, therefore this (law Project) is just another capricious act.”
Interviewed by the El Sol de Zacatecas (newspaper), Carlos Pavón Campos highlighted that his organization
is totally against this reform because “it would take the jobs from many people. Maybe because the members
of parliament aren’t used to working, they think everyone lives off thin air.
Market Watching
The Arizona Sonoran (ASCU.to) Cactus Project PEA: Met matters
On the evening of August 26th Arizona Sonoran (ASCU.to) filed the 43-101 compliant PEA
report on its Cactus Mine project in Pinal County, Arizona USA and announced the filing the
next morning (13). We knew the PEA was coming because the company told us as much in its
22

PEA announcement NR dated August 7th (14) and at that time, in IKN795 dated August 11th
2024, I said that I’d hold fire on a firm opinion until the PEA was available.
In IKN795 we alluded to the doubts regarding the Cactus/Parks/Salyer metallurgy that have
been doing the rounds, at least on the jungledrums, for the last couple of years and how the
single, brief paragraph on met offered in the August 7th NR was…”…nowhere near enough, not
for a project that has had this cloud hanging over it for two years. I hope we get enough details
in the full document to make a more informed decision.” Therefore, it won’t come as a surprise
to learn that the PEA met section was my first port of call and on reading the contents, it
became clear that the lack of information in the NR was mirrored by the lack of information
gleaned to date by ASCU about the most important parts of its mineral deposit. That’s the
TL:DR, here comes the explanation.
It probably goes without saying, but to appreciate fully the issue you too will need to download
and digest the Cactus Project 43-101 document. What follows is a summary and an opinion or
two with details left in my own notes documents, so if you feel like coming back at me later and
telling me I’m being over-critical on this-or-that point or feel free, but I will at least state for the
record that I’ve spent my time inside the
Cactus PDF this week and have tried hard
to avoid cherrypicking or ignoring
evidence. With that said and in order to
get a handle on the issue, we first take in
the table offered by ASCU on page 274 of
its PEA (right)
This shows the source of mineral
tonnages in the new mine plan and as you
can probably make out, the Parks/Salyer
deposit at Cactus is now slated to provide
the vast majority of the resource to be
processed in the first years of the mine.
Indeed, the first seven years (-1 plus the first six years of actual production) are almost
exclusively from Parks/Salyer. It’s important to note that this mine plan is very different from
the PFS published by ASCU in March, as back then the was to run stockpile mineral during the
first five years of production and as a result, aside from the ramp year 1 have production
revolving around the 50m lbs/year level and more uniform revenue for the first six or seven
years, before bumping up the throughput rate in Year 8 and beyond to increase production and
therefore revenue.
In this new plan, production of the oxide/enriched mineral stays at a steady 24mmt per year all
the way through and is eventually complemented by adding 7.3mmt per year from the
hypogene (which goes up to 24mmt in year 24 and beyond as the resource depletes). In other
words, the new plan only processes stockpile in Year 1 and then relies on a steady state
24mmt/year of the main oxide resource, mostly from Parks/Salyer with just three years of
meaningful addition in those first years from the Cactus pit. That’s very different from the
previous plan.
Next we consider the projected grades to be mined by ASCU at Cactus Project (which is now
mostly Parks/Salyer pit, but name changes are name changes) and for that, the table on page
273 offers the information. Here’s a chart derived from that:
ASCU: Cactus project estimated mined copper
% Cu
1.1 grades, per production year
1 Residual Cu
0.9 CU-CN %
0.8 CU-AS %
0.7
0.6
For our 0.5 purposes,
0.4
we’re focused on
0.3
the 0.2
0.1
23 0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
source: ASCU 43-101 year

Oxide/Enriched resource feed that’s exclusive to year 15 and is then complemented by the start
of hypogene mineralization to the feed as from year 15 of the project. The hypogene won’t
decide whether this project gets off the ground, in fact we’re going to see how just two years, 5
and 6, are critical and will probably decide whether Cactus works as a mine or not. In the chart
above, the three types of copper mineralization total up the expected mined grade for each
year, with “CU-AS” being the copper soluble in acid, “CU-CN” the copper soluble in cyanide
solution (likely NACn, but there’s all that Rio Tinto Nuton thing in the background somewhere)
and then the “residual Cu” which notes the copper ASCU doesn’t expect to recover. As for
recoveries, the PEA estimates CU-AS average recovery
at 93.1% for oxides, 91.2% for enriched. Then the
ASCU: Cactus project estimated mined copper
CU.CN recoveries are slated at 84.5% for both grades, per production year
mineralization types. This gives an estimated blended
soluble copper recovery of 86%, of 73% for total
copper recoveries (including the residual Cu).
Bottom line to the above: Those columns show average copper totals (this chart right does the adding
up) and ASCU expects to get 73% recoveries from
those totals. Clearly, there’s a lot rising on those two
years of high grade copper mineralization, years 5 and
6, so to get a better handle on that we now move to
economic analysis section of the PEA, page 347 onward. For our purposes, we pick the chart on
page 350 as a good illustration:
The first things that stick out (quite literally) are the spikes in net revenues expected in
production years five and six, then one in year nine and then, from year 12 onward things get
stronger on average. However, I’d like you to consider the more important message sent by the
“Cash Flow After Taxes” line, as it shows how much this project depends on what happens in
years five and six. Unsurprisingly, the three construction years (-3 to -1) see cash flow drop
toward the half billion dollar line and then starts to recover as the mine comes online, but it’s
not until Year 5 that cash flow goes positive. It then drops back in years 7 and 8 before going
on to start emulating the revenues projections (based on the reasonable base case of U$3.90/lb
copper, for the record) in the forward years.
The inference is clear enough, ASCU at Cactus is relying heavily on Year 5 and Year 6 of
production in order to make capital payback, generate positive cash flow and provide the
investment capital required to pay the high sustaining capital costs expected by this project
over the years. That was information already offered up by ASCU in its August 7th NR and as a
reminder, here’s the table from the executive summary of last week’s PEA:
24
32.0 92.0 82.0 23.0
59.0 48.0
13.0 13.0 76.0 43.0 14.0
00.1 38.0
35.0 93.0 66.0
18.0 78.0
66.0 64.0
Cu %
1.1
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4 0.3 0.2
0.1
0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1011121314151617181920
source: ASCU 43-101 PEA year

Initial capex with contingency is just under U$668m, but along life of mine we need to add
nearly double that from sustaining capex with most of that from mine and processing plant
expansions. To Sum up so far, we have:
 A new and significantly re-worked mine project that has turned its back on the March
2024 PFS plan.
 A mine that leans heavily on the Parks/Salyer resource
 A plan for the Parks/Salyer feed that relies on ASCU accessing and processing two years
of high grading material in years 5 and 6.
 An economic study that needs the high grade mineralization to work in order to pay off
capital costs and provide free cash flow for the heavy sustaining capital bills in the mine’s
future.
The problem with metallurgy: And with that, we finally reach the main issue I have with the
ASCU 43-101 PEA as reported and published last week. In IKN795 I mentioned that the
information on met in the NR was wholly inadequate and as things turned out, that week saw
the ASCU IR desk contact me on the subject. Here’s how I reported that exchange in IKN796,
dated August 11th:
FWIW I had an interesting back and forth e-mail conversation with ASCU IR last week. It was
good of that desk to push back on my criticisms of the ASCU PEA NR of the week before last and
particularly about its metallurgy testing (or lack of) to date, though the mail exchange ended
when I said that IR should feel free to forward my observations to the geologists and
metallurgists hired by the company. They need to hear about the shortcomings, be they merely
perceived or real.
To remind readers, my issue with met at ASCU and Cactus is twofold. First, they haven’t done
much testing considering the project is already at PFS stage (now “revised PEA” with a new PFS
to come) and secondly, I’ve heard from several sources that the deposit has its issues. Hence
the source of my concern in IKN794 and the thing that interested me about the exchange with
ASCU IR that week. Indeed, the IR desk’s last mail in the string began with these words: “"I
don’t necessarily agree that after 45 columns and 4 years of testing we have a lack of relevant
met work." Therefore, when the PEA dropped last week, the first section I opened was indeed
the met and lo and behold, we learned that of those 45 column tests, 25 were in stockpile
material (that’s now only for Year One of production) and of the rest, only 6 have been in
Parks/Salyer mineralization! That’s what I call a lack of relevant test work, as seen above Parks
Salyer is the backbone of the entire project, it’s critical for the early years of production and
payback and what’s more, the details of the payback plan lean heavily on a high grade zone
that’s almost certainly at depth and ASCU needs to mine for six years before gaining access to
it. If there have only been six column leach tests on the entire Parks/Salyer target, how many
have been run on that deep, high-grade zone? I’d bet money on “zero”, though drill core has
likely been used to run some limited bottle roll tests. However, you don’t need to take my word
or opinion for it, here’s what the 43-101 compilers have to say about the met at Parks/Salyer:
Only a small amount of metallurgical testing has been completed for the Parks/Salyer
deposit. The work completed represents only a minimal metallurgical understanding of
this deposit and additional confirmatory work is required to better understand the
25

deposit variability. This work should include testing of material from areas with variable
lithology and mineralogy known to exist. The main area of interest is a higher covellite
content portion of the deposit. Covellite mineralization is leachable using the current
methods, however kinetics are expected to be slower, and this impact will need to be
confirmed. Column tests to compare the extraction of covellite to chalcocite are in
progress at McClelland and Base Met laboratories.
For what it’s worth, the “covellite” reference concerns that zone of high grading sulphide
mineralization, due to be processed in those key years 5 and 6.
Bottom line: ASCU has moved up sharply on the back of last week’s PEA, this ten-day chart
showing the run as the company’s marketing efforts get into gear. As ASCU also enjoys plenty
of high traffic newsletter and social media/influencer support, it wouldn’t be any surprise to see
and hear the hype grow as we enter September and the conference season including Beaver
Creek and Denver. However, nobody should place any confidence that Cactus turn into a viable
mine proposition on the back of this PEA and as far as I’m concerned, its publication is more
about generating marketing hype than anything else. When the entire economic analysis and
potential to raise capital rests squarely on a small zone with very little metallurgical work done
on it, it makes a project speculative at best. The message is that the key zone in the key
deposit at Cactus, one that relies on mineralization that typically shows different and slower
kinetics than “normal” copper sulphide mineralization (covellite is on the rare end of the scale)
That’s the takeawat from this PEA; ASCU last week did not add much in the way of project
security to Cactus via this update. The company has responded to what it’s learned about the
project zone and its target zones by re-working the economic study and offering a new mine
plan. That’s fair enough, but the lack of met work means ASCU is now even more speculative
than it was before, rather than in any measure re-rated. According to the 43-101 compiler
recommendations, the PFS in 2025 should address the lack of met testing and we should
indeed expect ASCU to work on that from now until then. Therefore, if you’re looking for a
place to bet on a true re-rate of ASCU at Cactus, 2025 and the PFS is the place to be, as it’s
also the document that would highlight any serious or fatal flaws from its current outline plan
that lacks data to be considered a true investment. I’ve watched ASCU all through 2023 and
2024, haven’t regretted that decision a single day and even though we may see a momentum
run on the stock as it gets talked up by people on its promotional payroll and bought by people
who will never open this PEA, I’m going to stay firmly on the sidelines and watching this stock
at least until the PFS shows next year.
Red Pine Exploration (RPX.v) delivers a resource update
On our Watch List because of the potential this company and its newly assembled team has of
turning the foot-dragging Wawa project into something Alamos Gold (AGI) will eventually buy,
we had a big moment for Red Pine Exploration (RPX.v) last week when it announced (15)
Wednesday the updated resource for its Wawa Gold Project, located just outside the
eponymous town, Ontario, Canada. Here’s the central NR item (and ConfCall same morning):
With total all-categories gold of 1.685m, the resource ounce is up by over a million ounces since
the last 43-101 resource estimates, that date back to the late 2018/mid-2019 period. Those
counts were long out of date and we were expecting a significant bump in contained ounces,
but the number delivered by new CEO Michael Michaud pleased the market and we saw this
reaction (chart right). Not too difficult to pick out Wednesday morning on that chart but as
reported last week, there was already some movement in the stock in the days leading up to
26

the announcement and the stock has quickly added 43.8% to its start price on our Watch List.
The resource is distinct from the previous 43-101 count for several reasons, first and foremost
because RPX is now aiming to offer the market an open-pit mine alongside an underground
operation. The open-pit is centred on the most understood zone of the Wawa concession,
Jubilee, location of old UG workings. From there RPX now assumes a concurrent underground
operation chasing higher grade from Jubilee and into the Minto shear zone, located close by
and on strike to Jubilee.
Another big change is the grade assumptions of this new resource, which drop substantially
across the board. That's to be expected of the new open pit plan, as previously the idea was to
go 100% UG at Jubilee and mine rock at 5.31 g/t average for the indicated category. That's
now down to a 1.72 g/t Au average for the open pit resource and makes a lot of sense, as RPX
can capture more of the lower grading vein/shear halo economically than a UG operation can.
However, there's also a drop in average grade for the new UG resource, with the previous
Indicated averages of 5.31 g/t for Jubilee and 7.50 g/t Au for Minto down to a blended total of
4.99 g/t for the blended resource. This is a function of several factors:
 More information: Falsified assay results aside*, we have plenty more drill results and
geological work done on Wawa and particularly the Jubilee/Minto target zone in the last
five years, including fresh core as well as re-logging of historic core that has given more
insight to what’s down there.
 A higher gold price: The new gold price of U$1,950/oz (technically speaking CAD$2,632/oz)
is perhaps a little high for a base case, perhaps not. Acceptable and obviously higher than
in 2018 or 2019, which allows more rock at a lower grade to move from waste to ore.
 Open pit and UG combo access: Theoretically at least, the digging of an UG pit allows
cheaper and more efficient access to the higher grade UG shears, that again allowing more
resource to be captured in the economic column.
 Therefore seeing the resource move up significantly while grade drops is more than
reasonable, even in these higher input cost times. On that subject, the cost parameters
used by RPX in its resource study also look reasonable and with nearby mines in operation,
particularly the Wesdome Eagle UG mine with the Mishi open pit on site where CEO
Michaud worked until very recently, they have good
benchmarks.
Overall a good resource update from RPX and it
wasn’t a surprise to see the market react positively,
what with gold trading over U$2,500/oz these days.
That makes my personal prediction of a company that
would revisit 6c or 7c due to the need for financing
look a bit stupid, but it’s hardly the first time for that
feeling at this desk. However, RPX didn’t keep running
last week and stalled at an early Thursday price of 13c
before settling back to close the week at 11.5c, which
is a long distance from the typical 18c and 20c prices
printed before the Yarie assay tampering scandal hit.
That’s because of this:
11 RPX.v: Working Capital per qtr
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
-1
27 81yluJ 81.tcO 91.naJ 91.rpA 91yluJ 91.tcO 02.naJ 02.rpA 02yluJ 02.tcO 12.naJ 12.rpA 12.yluJ 12.tcO 22.naJ 22.rpA 22yluJ 22.tcO 32.naJ 32.rpA 32.yluJ 32.tcO 42.naJ 42.rpA tse42yluJ se42.tcO
source company filings
srallod
fo
snoillim
12 RPX.v: Cash treasury per qtr
11
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
81yluJ 81.tcO 91.naJ 91.rpA 91yluJ 91.tcO 02.naJ 02.rpA 02yluJ 02.tcO 12.naJ 12.rpA 12.yluJ 12.tcO 22.naJ 22.rpA 22yluJ 22.tcO 32.naJ 32.rpA 32.yluJ 32.tcO 42.naJ 42.rpA tse42yluJ se42.tcO
source: company filings
srallod
fo
snoillim

As at the last reporting date, April 30th 2024, RPX had just over C$3.5m in cash and due to an
increase in trade payables, working cap had dropped to just over C$2m. We await the July’24
financials but they’re bound to show a
company getting close to running on fumes RPX: Quarterly expenses
6
and there’s no doubt that RPX needs to go
5.5
to market soon to raise capital. And that 5
4.5
nice Mr. Market knows that, hence 11.5c 4
this weekend and not 13c or 15c. 3.5
3
2.5
Quarterly expenses (right) were higher in 2
1.5
the quarter to April as well (all those legal 1
things and the change in C-suite, etc) and 0.5
0
as those changes rolled though to July, as
well as the expense of commissioning the
recent 43-101 update report, we should
expect similar from the next quarter. As for
how much RPX will raise, I’m still guesstimating
around C$5m to C$6m and a share count that
moves up to around 230m S/O but be clear, that’s
just my ballpark guess and something to be
corrected by facts.
Bottom line: If I were smarter, I would have
bought RPX shares outright at 8c instead of
putting the stock on the Watch List and benefited
from its 43% rise since the start of our coverage,
instead of merely witnessing it. But hey, I’m
stupid, what can I tell you that you didn’t already
know? However, the plan has always been one
that includes a healthy dose of risk management and that’s all about waiting on the sidelines,
seeing how the inevitable financing affects the stock price and then making a more informed
decision. New CEO Michaud has done well to put together a solid and materially improved
resource update and conceptually at least, it has shades of the Wesdome Eagle complex in that
a mine at Wawa could begin by leaning heavily on the open pit (a la Mishi), start mining
underground and once there, drill and discover the resource riches Wawa might have to
offer…that’s how Eagle has progressed and delivered over the years, after all.
We therefore await the upcoming placement, its terms and conditions (and whether RPX
attracts any interesting strategic players). A that point, I’ll be ready to either take rPX off the
Watch List or buy some and add it to the main list.
*But before signing off, there’s a final point to make, with the asterisk (left) referring to the
passing reference above, regarding the dirty tricks played by ex-CEO Quentin Yarie and his
assay altering habit that was discovered at the start of this year (and made the stock tank). We
need to take that into consideration and while insto holders of the stock that bought in on
Yarie’s results haven’t made a public fuss, it’s only fair to suppose that they’ve have some “full
and frank conversations” with new CEO Michaud and his team. We also know RPX has run its
full audit of previous results under new CEO Michaud, weeded out the dubious results and now
backs its new resource estimate under its own bona fides, not those of the Yarie years. That’s
fair enough and while we salute the efforts made, there’s obvious a shadow still cast over RPX
due to the scandal and we know that simply by looking at the share price; it hasn’t recovered to
the pre-scandal price. We on the outside have a simple choice, to avoid or take CEO Michaud at
his word and while I fully understand those who prefer to stay away from a sullied story, I for
one am comfortable about the data integrity at “New RPX” these days.
28
22.naJ 22.rpA 22yluJ 22.tcO 32.naJ 32.rpA 32.yluJ 32.tcO 42.naJ 42.rpA
$m
Drilling Other Expl Expend
G&A Payroll/Prof fees
Share Comp
source: company filings
New RPX.v: Shares Out
250
225
200
175
150
125
100
75
50
25
0
81yluJ 81.tcO 91.naJ 91.rpA 91yluJ 91.tcO 02.naJ 02.rpA 02yluJ 02.tcO 12.naJ 12.rpA 12.yluJ 12.tcO 22.naJ 22.rpA 22yluJ 22.tcO 32.naJ 32.rpA 32.yluJ 32.tcO 42.naJ 42.rpA tse42yluJ se42.tcO
source: company filings
serahs
fo
snoillim

Conclusion
IKN797 is done, we end with just a couple of bullet points:
 We covered plenty of bases in this edition, but if there’s one repeated message to
remember it’s the one about me being stupid. Seriously. Amazes me that more people
don’t realize.
 The Mexico political hoo-hah rumbled on last week and with AMLO looking to
weaponize his last month of office, we’re likely to hear more scary stories from the
country in the next few weeks. I’d rather cover mining companies than that quagmire,
but needs must so I’ll be watching closely and will report on events.
 We’re now in the serious business month for Rio2 (RIO.v), first event should be the
obtaining of the all-but automatic construction permit. After that, news on how they
plan to raise the capital for the build. Both those are re-rate catalysts.
 The good news keeps rolling in from Argentina and the series on Rio Negro looks as
though it may be getting somewhere. But whatever you might think about Mexico
today, do yourself the favour of avoiding exposure to Colombia.
 For what it’s worth, a couple of features got cut from this week’s edition, so expect the
copper juniors coverage next weekend as well as a look at the Bear Creek Mining Q2
financials (which need more than a couple of paragraphs). Nothing bad though, if there
were you would have heard about it today.
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://polymarket.com/markets/politics
(2) https://mineraalamos.com/news/2024/operations-update-and-q2-financials/
(3) https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/copper-claws-higher-on-china-hopes-set-for-monthly-gain/
(4) https://losandescopper.com/news/2024/los-andes-copper-announces-corporate-update/
(5) https://caminocorp.com/news/camino-and-nittetsu-extend-by-one-week-exclusive-rights-to-negotiate-copper-mine-
acquisition-in-chile/
(6) https://www.rionegro.com.ar/politica/calcatreu-cosecho-respaldo-popular-para-explotar-oro-en-rio-negro-pocas-
voces-disidentes-3769141/
(7) https://www.bariloche2000.com/noticias/leer/calcatreu-opositores-intimaron-a-las-mineras-a-no-avanzar-y-
cuestionaron-la-audiencia-publica/155418
(8) https://www.rionegro.com.ar/politica/jacobacci-recibe-la-audiencia-publica-por-calcatreu-con-fuerte-custodia-y-
protestas-3766805/
(9) https://dfsud.com/america/canadiense-first-quantum-invertira-us-3-500-millones-en-mina-de-cobre
(10) https://www.tiempodesanjuan.com/mineria/desde-adentro-la-cumbre-popes-mineros-chile-que-sirve-catapultar-el-
cobre-san-juan-n383060
(11) https://www.elsoldezacatecas.com.mx/finanzas/en-zacatecas-rechazan-prohibicion-de-la-mineria-a-cielo-abierto-
12419768.html
(12) https://www.bnamericas.com/es/noticias/prohibicion-de-mineria-a-cielo-abierto-en-mexico-destruiria-miles-de-
empleos
29

(13) https://arizonasonoran.com/news-releases/arizona-sonoran-standalone-pea-for-cactus-open-pit-project-reports-
post-tax-npv8-of-us-2.03-billion-c-2.77-billion-and-irr-of/
(14) https://arizonasonoran.com/news-releases/arizona-sonoran-cactus-project-standalone-pea-technical-report-
reporting-post-tax-npv8-of-us-2.03-billion-and-irr-of-24-is-now/
(15) https://redpineexp.com/red-pine-announces-significantly-increased-mineral-resource-for-the-wawa-gold-project/
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
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
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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
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
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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
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
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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.
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