COPPER Next Up to SHOCK the Market – 'Serious' Deficit as Demand Skyrockets
Summary
Copper Outlook: The guest outlines a multi-year copper bull cycle driven by long-term deficits and project lead times, emphasizing that copper equities price in forecasted, not spot, prices.
AI Data Centers: He argues AI data centers are an unstoppable, security-critical demand driver for copper, outpacing EVs and underpinning durable consumption growth.
Supply Chain Security: Nations and companies are stockpiling copper amid tariff risks and smelting dynamics, creating near-term volatility but reinforcing long-term scarcity.
M&A Consolidation: A wave of copper M&A is expected as mid-tiers move first and majors follow, chasing scarce near-surface, tier-one assets and district-scale potential.
Key Companies Mentioned: BHP (BHP), Hudbay Minerals (HBM), Fortescue Metals (FMG), and Alta Copper (ATCU) are cited as examples of capital shifts and consolidation in copper.
Colombia Opportunity: Colombia is highlighted as a promising jurisdiction with upcoming elections, pro-mining policy signals, and strategic alignment with U.S. supply-chain goals.
Macro & Risks: Copper has been resilient despite geopolitical shocks; oil price inflation could lift project costs, implying even higher incentive copper prices.
Project Timelines: Industry constraints—declining grades, aging mines, and permitting—mean new supply will take years, supporting a generational copper investment case.
Transcript
Hello everybody and welcome into commodity culture where our goal is to make you a better investor in the commodities sector. Today is March 11th, 2026. My name is Jesse Day and before we dive in, standard disclaimer. Nothing here is investment advice. Do your own due diligence. And my guest today is the CEO of Copper Giant, a company advancing highquality copper projects with a focus on the Makoa copper malebdinum deposit in southern Colombia. Coming to us from Medí, Colombia, it's Ian Harris. Great to have you back on the show. >> Exciting times and I like our old conversations are kind of coming to fruition. >> Absolutely. And and I want to kick off today's conversation with your current highle view of the copper market as we sit here today. What are the main themes and trends you're watching in copper for 2026 that you think more investors should have their eyes on? So, I'm going to start off with uh all all the viewers, right? Uh there's I see a lot of FOMO. We just came back from PDAC and people are, you know, I missed out on this and oh, what's it when copper the next one? Which by the way, I probably do think that copper is the next is looking like a a serious rotation. But rotations have a tendency to each when there's more and more liquidity. It doesn't look like it's no longer rotating. It's just growing overall as a sector. So, I'm going to divide it into commodity and equities. Um, and so, and both are similar themes, but from a commodity side, copper has always been divided between a short-term focus and a long-term focus. And so, um, but what drives equities, especially those that are used to the gold and silver space, is that copper equities are less driven. They're not are definitely influenced but less driven by the current metal price and more focused on the forecasted price, right? Because just, you know, a gold mine uh are normally designed for 10 years, a copper mine for 20 years. Look at Felo, it just came out. It's it's an 80year project. Those kind of it's a more long-term vision and play, bigger capital outlays, etc., etc. So short short-term focus is the system that's been in place that has gotten to us to where we are today, right? Um you know the paper market has been designed and speculators were designed actually to reduce price and overall and copper which has gotten to us to the day where we're looking down the down the barrel of a serious supply demand um issues in in in copper. And so they have a tendency to more focus on what is the world economy steel copper the biggest use of copper is electrification etc etc and I don't like call bulls and bears but short and long vision is what pulls price back and forth long-term it is this theme that I think most people have heard of right we've been hearing about the electrification story if it carries an electron it's it's going to be on copper on the majority of that uh on that travel we've heard of the energy transition moving away from oil and coal etc etc but we've been hearing that for a long time the real driver that I see especially long term is you see AI data centers for one reason it is not something you can slow down every time you look the numbers are going up because it's a race right uh EVs was a goal like electric vehicles is a goal. But what it was was 20 years and then then in 5 years it's still 20 years, right? Because the cost associated it's not it's like a nice thing to do but if it slows down a little bit it's it's real but it's not it's something that probably ends up slowing down than accelerating where AI and data centers are by far uh national security and they are also the future of many companies. They see it as existential for their survival into the future. And you can see the battlegrounds going on. Chachi PT and then Gemini and here comes Grock and then you have a Claude come in and everybody is racing to kind of you know you like a horse race. Um but it's also the sec national security right uh Freedelland likes to say if my drone can kill you a nancond faster I win, right? Um, and so there's a national security at a time when you have a supply demand deficit anticipated. So people like, uh-oh, China's not going to have the problem. We're going to have the problem. So people are thinking about supply chains at the same time. All of these mixes going on. So I started the conversation saying, you seen this FOMO going on, but this is something that's going to play out over a long period of time. I do not see this as going to be something that is over in a year or even two years. This is going to be playing over a decade. It's going to be playing out at least based on I'm a mining engineer seeing what are the assets that are actually out there. How long does it take to discover them? Even if you super accelerated the permitting process, it's not a uh it's not a short-term solution. It's going to be something that takes a long time to solve those issues. So while short-term and long-term can play out right over overall if a shots shorts up one it's going to have to come back to reality uh reality quickly. So it's worthwhile educating uh to understand because this is going to be a bull cycle that's going to be generational. Well, copper stocks have had a draw down since the war with Iran started, while copper itself has dipped slightly, but proven fairly resilient so far, holding it at around $5.90 as of the time of this recording. Should the conflict continue to escalate and, god forbid, drag on for months or even years, how do you anticipate it could affect the copper price, if at all? Okay, so we have to think about what drives copper price and I t started the conversation with the long long-term vision and short-term vision. So if you look on the long side, let's just say well BHP just sold a $4.3 billion silver stream at Antameina in order to be able to deploy capital towards copper. That's a long-term vision, right? That is what they're looking at long term. And if you're looking at certain different suppliers or smelters in China or whatever, it's very much they're making these plans. Nations are making these plans over a longer period of time, right? So it shouldn't, but it will. It could, right? Because short is still driven on Dr. Copper. What if the world drug goes into a recession? What's going to happen? And there's a new layer that's being added to this that I call the COVID toilet paper moment, which is you see stockpiles at record levels, right? But it's because people are worried. It's it's not a uh stockpiles are growing because there's not enough demand. It's supplies are grow or stockpiles are growing because China is don't shut down your smelter yet. Keep pumping it out. United States and others are going what happens if tariff let's start getting these and some of it's strategic right because if they're saying okay in two years you're going to have a significant supply deficit we better start building our stock piles now. Poor India right because they're talking about they want to add 1.6 six 1,600 gigawatts of new energy and they're not going to have the copper because everybody's, you know, they're going to go to the Walmart and there's not going to be anything left on the shelves. it. However, it doesn't mean that that logic is going to play out on price and it will create weight right eventually where still people are just just looking at looking at the graphs looking at the things and more of a short-term speculators could end end up pulling down the price but it's not a long-term impact right I mean it will something that will be playing out over months etc but eventually the reality is still there right that long-term countries are worried and others are worried uh eventually you won't have enough concentrate to keep feeding those smelters even if you're just it's just getting the last out. So uh it should be very interesting how how how everything plays out and I too have been surprised that it's been more resilient that the long story is what is more concerning than what's short-term guys are doing in in the short period of time. It has been very resilient and I think beating even some of the the the banks forecast the guys that said yeah copper should pull off in 2026 but watch out for 2020 and the but the long-term forecasts continue to go up. >> I want to talk about some of the >> I guess you know I can't help my >> I can't help myself. I'm sorry but I even was watching it on a day-to-day basis the knee-jerk reaction. It's sort of like okay the war the war is going on. This could throw us into a recession. oil is up go we could go into recupion now copper bounced before oil recovered somewhat right and it was because uh oh the majority of acid that goes to a big portion of copper production goes through those straits and if we have a problem with supply right because we're on a razor's edge anyways if we have a problem with supply because there's not enough acid to leech some of the oxide copper then uh-oh we're not going to have enough copper And so you see all these tuggings going on and that is obviously you know the what is the result volatility that I've never seen in in in my 30 years in uh the space now. Uh you know seeing a 3% day in copper would be just an outrageous day. Now we see 3% moves you know on a weekly basis. Well, I want to talk about some of the other challenges when it comes to the supply side because ore grades for copper deposits have been declining steadily over the decades. Many major copper mines are getting in the later phase of their mine life and discovery rates are also massively down. What does the industry need to do to address these issues and produce the needed copper for all of this demand that that you've been talking about >> there? I want to kind of get rid of one of the fallacies, right? that the industry doesn't care if they solve the problem, right? They care about growth and how they can make money, right? So, uh we are going to need more and you're already starting to see it. It's going to require national attention uh on nations to incentivize. see a lot of things going on just the United States strategic stockpiling trying to uh shore up using tariffs in an interest of shoring up uh supply chains trying to move fasttracking projects putting their checkbook towards projects uh etc etc to get things moving forward because they know right I mean that's what the big companies did in the beginning they say well copper price is going to go up what's the best way we can take advantage of it with the lowest risk and that is just merge right to buy production right at that does not create more production. Okay, so there's a there's a few things that have gone on in the copper space, right? First, we had uh you know, dump leeching in the 1990s, which really held down price. We had China's growth that made an explosion. Um and then, you know, companies are like, man, I hate risk. So, what we're going to try and do is the guys, you know, that guy, that CEO over there who tried the green fields project and it didn't work out very well or the other one that was supposed to be 4 billion ended up being 10 billion. Maybe we should just try to expand our brownfields projects and that's why we've seen this massive drop in uh in overall grade, right? But as a system continues to tweak to get more out of the turnip, right, eventually when that well is dry, then they go, "Uh-oh, we've just made the other problem worse, right? There are no discoveries. There hasn't been enough investment and there's not even enough projects inventory uh you know of later stage projects you could actually build that will make a difference." And so that is really the major theme uh behind the equity side uh the side of side of stuff and and and CEOs especially the bigger companies they want to minimize risk until their investors are harping what have you done for me lately? Where's your growth coming from tomorrow? Copper price is now going up. How are we leveraged? Where's our growth coming from? You know, history has a way of of playing out uh what happened in in the past. they'll end up paying, you know, at the top of the cycle. Um, and until that happens, and then you have a whole lot of new supply, but this is not something that's happening in in years. It's going to be a decade for this to all all play out. Um, and so that also means that those who we we're starting to see a little bit of NMA. We see the uh fordscq moving into uh the copper space with Alta which is another one of the very near surface deposits that exist. You saw Sonora copper coming off the table with Hud Bay. It's sort of like the the midsize guys are moving first and then the majors are going to be looking down at the table and going uh-oh there's very little left on the table. There's 10 of us and there's four of them and and that's when things really start moving. It just seems to move. They I call it a pack of dogs, which I doesn't mean to be a demeaning comment, but it means they move together, right? Uh they all move because nobody wants to assume the risk too early, right? But then there's going to be a time where if I don't do something, I'm going to be in big trouble later. Uh and that is playing out. So you see lower grades, very near surface projects. Uh look at the new FO EPA. It came out, it was an 80year project with a 15% irr. So obviously BHP thinks copper prices are going w well way higher than they are today and and the the capital deployment at that project is absolute immense. I I like listening to Frank Gustra. He always says do what uh buy what countries are buying, not what countries tell you to buy. And I would say if you're looking at the equities, especially in copper, look at what the majors are doing. Where do they see their major growth coming from? They're not doing it because they think we need to make sure the planet has enough copper. They're doing where do we think we're going to be making a lot of money in the future. >> Well, in just a moment, I want to dive into how copper giant fits into the whole picture. But first of all, I want to talk about a challenge facing the industry and and how you might plan to deal with it if it does get there. And that is, of course, the price of WTI crude. Uh you mentioned it at at the top of the show when we were discussing Iran and and how it went to triple digits. It's now in the mid80s around 87 as of the time of this recording. A lot of people believing that, you know, this war is going to go on for much longer than people think and we could potentially see WTI crude back in the triple digits again with hydrocarbons being a major input of mining operations, assuming these high prices continue or get higher. Will that be a challenge for companies like Copper Giant and others in the copper business? And if so, how would you address it? Yeah. So, we've seen this play out in the past and most notable it was in the gold space when gold went up, you know, the first time hit 1,600, then 1,800, then 2,000. Um, and we saw all of this rush to production. Now, first of all, gold responds quicker than copper does, right? But we had a kind of a super cycle in copper at the same time. So, you see a lot of building and at a it was inflationary, right? Uh and so if you look at the major drivers to capital and to opex in big big projects, it's it's labor, fuel, iron, right? Iron more on the on the capex than the the the the opex, but still is important for the the opex. And so you saw shareholders go, you grew for at any cost and you've been bad. So what does that mean? If that's going to play out again, that's a near-term memory. Everybody still has that near-term memory and it's going to happen that okay, I'm not going to do it until prices go even higher. So, it in my opinion if if oil and we do have a true influ, you know, inflation impact on the overall prices, copper is a little bit more disciplined, takes a longer time. It just means has to be more incentivized by a higher price. And if the demand isn't going away, right, if demand doesn't go, oh, copper's too high now, I'm not going to do it. I don't see that happening, right? It's just I just don't see it happening. So, it's I don't unlike gold where prices get too high and people just stop buying gold. Um because of its driving uh the world's economies as we're going towards an electrified world and because of data centers and AI, the only other solution is price goes higher, right? So, uh, I'm not overly concerned. I'm only concerned on market perception because I I remember being in in university when you had Nevada mining for the first time, one gram per ton, right? And there's still some of these old rules that people investors look at and go, man, that's really low grade. But gold prices at 5,000 and copper price is at $6, right? So, it changes the economics of project. But those old rules have a tendency to to affect evaluations until the new reality sets in, right? So there's there's there's always a market perception versus a market reality. But these things will play out over time, right? It's going to happen. So uh I guess a more of a long focus anyways naturally as a mining engineer. And I think that investors can do the same thing. They can look these are the type of investments that you shouldn't change your decision make. As Rick Rule, don't base your long-term investments over what happened during the weekend. Yeah, well said. Now, let's pivot to how Copper Giant is a part of everything we've discussed. Last time I had you on the show was December of last year. Could you give us an overview of the company for those tuning in for the first time and fill us in on the progress you've made since our last conversation? >> So, December obviously was exciting because we had just recently put out a new resource estimate and passed a billion tons. Why is that important? Because having a you know, you've got I call it the Mr. from aggie problem, right? If you are a small project with a reasonable cap a capex, you could build it yourself, right? If you've got a really big project, then it's interesting enough that the majors are going to want it. But if you're in between, I call it squash light brave, right? Where how the heck are you going to build it a billion dollar project, right? Uh but it's not big enough that it's it's of major interest yet, right? because I don't think I don't think the world has the luxury to be overly picky of where that growth comes from eventually because there's just uh you know just not that many. today over a billion tons kind of classifies you as a tier one and there's very few like I can name five on my hand that are over a billion tons in near surface that are still not been acquired by a major and we've seen two go already right we may mentioned uh Alta and uh Sonora copper right so they're already coming off and it's leaving very few of those projects left why is near surface important because it can get into production quicker. It can actually you look at something like resolution and I think it takes if you started building it today it would still be 8 years at least before you saw copper production. So deeper projects take a long time uh to develop. So near surface are sort of what could I add to my supply somebody looking at their supply chain or their supply of projects or their interest in getting to copper right they want the projects are nearer to surface that can come in. So that was a big deal for us. So what's happened since then is obviously well I've got a near surface project. It's at 1,300 meters by the way. It's called Makulla and it's in Colombia for those new new new viewers. So we have this asset in Colombia. It's passed an important threshold but now it's it's got a very high grade core sitting near the surface. It's near surface. It's at 1,300 m. So it's not high elevation. There's 5 kilometers from power lines and roads. Nobody lives there, but we're only 10 kilometers from 50,000 people. Uh there's all these other things that don't come out just when you say we have uh you know a billion tons out of 5.1 uh% copper equivalent grade. We have 7 billion pounds of copper and a billion pounds of Molly that people just you know do a you know how much is that worth in the ground? uh when we say the really the best parts of the project are going to come out in the economics of the project uh and that doesn't come out until you get into the project development and that and that's what we wanted to be anyways we we have an experience my background previously at Miridor or Ernie Mass director his experience at Cobra Panama is taking very large projects and actually turning them into compromise um and that's going to really start coming out so we're already doing extremely well since that interview right uh we're probably up 300 400% uh as the market is waking up to the quality of the project and that where Colombia is going at in general but the really good times are coming when the quality of the project comes out in the economics. So we're moving towards pea we've just put out a uh a big drill program to be able to make sure we stay on schedule. >> Well, I didn't have this question prepared but I just want to follow up quickly on the way things are moving in Colombia because there was an election in the country recently. How does the current government change things perhaps in a positive way for the future of mining and the resource industry in the country? >> Uh I'm sorry I divide too many questions into two parts right one is a market perception and market perception is very important. So market will be watching very closely. Um and the you know market also talks about jurisdictions etc and tries to rant jurisdictions but let's look at copper. Let's look at the six big mines that were built in copper over the last 10 years. We have Peru, we have Ecuador, we have Panama and two in Africa, right? Uh one obviously the very very big one in in in Congo. That's it. Right. We need based on what we need to move forward. We need to be build forward 24 uh to be kind of getting to where the numbers say we need growth to be like in the next 10 years, right? We need to do four times more over the next 10 years. Well, there's not 24 projects to start with. So, that also plays out interestingly. But I say based on a unique experience shared with Ernie Mast is what do you actually have to do to get these things built? And I call the generation of political will which starts at being extremely strong uh locally, right? Not only is it the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do and it's not something you wait to do until you're trying to build a project. You start it from the beginning of a project and working on a national reputation, etc. So, what's important for me, uh, you know, if I'm not thinking about market is you're going to have a new president in August in Colombia, um, and that person is going to say, "Where am I sitting today? I've got inflation sitting at 14%. 50% of my exports are oil and coal, right? My coffers are dry. I need to get this economy moving. Who's got something out there that can be done during my time period as president?" So this is it's the other reason why we want to make sure we have a PA done in that period of time because that's where the window is. That's the window. Uh in in Ecuador it was two projects got built. It was Miridor and Fut Norte. Those were the two big projects and we haven't seen another one built since then because I haven't seen a viable window. One is coming up to Colombia. So elections are coming up. I don't know how it's going to play out. Some will be better for market perception or others. It's nice to see presidential candidates that have a promining in their platform which is something new. Uh Colombia has based their development plan on part of the one of the four pillars includes mining uh and copper is at the top of the list. So I think that it's something that Colombia needs but it's also an important catalyst and important in market perception that that is definitely coming up. >> Very interesting. And yes, just to be clear, the presidential elections are scheduled to be held on the 31st of May. Um, Colombia has elected Congress and has chosen presidential candidates. Uh, very interesting times for the country. So, we'll have to see how that all shakes out. Now, one very exciting piece of news so far this year for Copper Giant is your 2026 exploration plan targeting 230,000 meters of drilling, the largest drilling program in the history of the Makoa project. How is that drill program advancing? What are the plans for it? What's the endgame here? >> Let me tell you about the boring spart part first, right? It's what we need to do to ensure that we put out a PA. It's going to be focused on expanding conversion of from inferred to measured and indicated. Why? You don't need it in a PA, but because obviously we want to keep driving directly towards PFS. uh right on the back of it, we want to make sure this project is really moving forward now that we have treasury and can be able to do it. But I want to tell you about the things that I get excited about, right? Um one, we're bringing in directional drilling. What does that mean? It means despite only being 23 or not just or being the biggest program that we've ever had, what you can do is you do what's called a mother hole and then off that mother hole you can have daughter holes and off daughter holes you can have granddaughter holes. And think of it like a Christmas tree upside down. Why is that cool? Because it means we can be very efficient in our conversion, right? So we will get way more out of the meters than you would expect because we can fill in zones on the project very efficiently and it's a really neat technology uh to be able to apply that. I look forward to to using it uh and and watching it work and and that's starting now. The other thing is we're we're we're going to mobilize a third drill which will allow us to test some of the additional targets that are near. We have about eight or nine additional targets around the project. Makoa formed over 10 million years. The only districts in the world that we know over 10 million years that I know of, there's probably others, but is Rio Blanco's uh area and those brones. And you have the Chuki Kamada cluster which is three different mines today. Right? These are big districts. They formed over 10 million years. So we think Makoa is just the tail of a of an elephant. Uh and so we want to test some additional targets with that third drill that are near to the project. You hit that because companies want a we've checked a massive box. You passed a billion tons and we think we can continue to grow to add additional billions at that even at the Makoa deposit. But you hit another pfery center and now you're talking what the majors really want. They want a great project. Look at look at Felo. It's 80year plan. They want to see generational type production. But if you can get a district, it's even better, right? something that ends up converting into a district where it becomes not one project that's extremely long but could add additional projects uh on top of it that could really make a dent in what the N the the world and you could argue United States and others uh need. So I'll throw in there the United States is a major non-NATO ally of the United States. It's the same level as Australia or Japan for example. It's the the most historically the strongest ally of the United States and where things are going on the planet. Um that means that Makoa could play an important important very important role in reestablishing of of of those production chains that it's lost. >> Well, you've also recently announced that you've initiated the next phase of metallurgical testing at Makoa as part of an integrated strategy for your 2026 pea advancement. Walk us through those details. provide us a timeline on when the pea could be ready to go and also you mentioned you want to do a pfs kind of right away on the back of that. So maybe walk us through what that timeline looks like as well. Okay, so we mentioned a couple things that the the drill program is focused on getting exactly what we want to do for by the PA which would mean another updated resource to show where the growth could come you know continue to grow the size of the project and uh also we want we already kicked it off the next round of metallurgical test work which will finalize um the flowheet for the project in a pea now we've already done the first round and things are already looking good So we're just adding adding another level to the metallurgical uh which we're excited about uh about seeing or some additional you get the recoveries you get concentrate grades you can prove it's got non delletterious elements no high arsenic all these other things that will be I think look shine nicely on the project and at the same time we're going to be doing geotechnical work hydro geological work a ton of other work that really isn't necessary for a PA. So, I've told the group we want to do a PA that's as close as possible to a PFS as possible. A, it's not a marking document. It's our guide that's going to take us towards how we could end up developing this as a project. Um, and to keep us on the timelines and we're looking at I would say guidance would be the last quarter of the year this year, right? We're gonna have a new president in August and I if I get called into that office I don't want to be armwaving. I want to be able to point to something to say this is the con conceptual design of Makoa. This is the potential impact that it could have in terms of jobs and creation of percentage points of GDP. Um and I want to be able to have something that that you know you can point to not just say you know being overly promotional. Uh and so that is how that all works in together. You closed a private placement in January for$ 12 million. Is that Canadian or US dollars? Just to be clear, >> Canadian. Canadian. >> Canadian. So, how is your cash position looking right now? How do you plan to put that cash to work? And how much runway do you have before you need to look at raising more capital? >> Obviously, we've gone through some hard times, so we can't I don't want to like ignore that, right? 2022 and three and four and then finally restarting this project in I guess it was November of 20 end of 2024 but really working all of 2025 if it wasn't for the sponsorship and the backing and the belief and and and a more long-term vision of Frank Jester we wouldn't even be here but obviously we went through financings that were difficult financings in a market that was difficult so the last financing I said we got to we have a chance here right we did it non unbrokered. It's got a hold period. Only has a half warrant instead of a full warrant. We're breaking all these things because we want to be able to we're in a momentum market and we have to make moment momentum. I think we were trading at around 80 million market cap at the time. I said we've got to break through 100 million to make it a more of an institutional story. So, it was way more than just getting uh the money that would finance us through these next major catalysts. Today we're sitting on $23 million in the bank which gets our budget is about $18 million for the year. So it gets us through all those major catalysts and maintains us instead of a panhandling I guess isn't would be a terrible way of saying it but in a stronger position that allows us to create and continue to maintain the momentum. So I'm obviously super happy because in the past it was we want to do this and by the way we got to raise the money to do it. Now it's we've got the money to do what we say we're going to do and allows us to be a lot more intelligent on how we continue to main momentum in in the share price uh while we hit you know in worst case we're going to hit massive important catalysts the PA adds one one additional aspect as a resource you're kind of like yeah give you a dollars per and actually in cents cents per pound in the ground more or less but when you hit a PA you're going going to have an NPV, you're going to have other financial metrics that allow you to say what is really underpinning your valuation and uh lots of those many things I mentioned that make Makoa special really start to shine and can continue to create significant value a significant amount of value compared to the spend that we have to make to get there. So, I'm excited, very excited on the pathway that we have sitting in front of us for this project. Well, I'll end as always by opening the floor to you. Is there anything we haven't yet covered or anything you anything you think it's important to emphasize the potential shareholders of copper giant should be focused on? >> Well, I just think in general, right, um the the market has overall been very short-term focused. That is starting to change. We've seen a rotation. The comeback of the commodities. Uh the importance of copper not not not not adjusting for it earlier is only going to make the problem worse. Uh I think we have an absolutely amazing asset. There's so few of them. I mean that is I mean we got to build 24 projects over the next 10 years and there's not 24 good projects out there. Um, so but also this is something that's going to be I guess I'm repeating, but this is something that's going to play out over a long period of time. You're going to see a lot of value creation. Uh, there's going to be great opportunities for those that are getting into it. I think that we've got an amazing team, amazing asset. We've already got the sponsorship and timing is finally working out. I call those those are the four major things that you want to look for uh in a in a in a project. Uh, for those that go, "Oh, wow. I already missed out." No way. This is just the beginning of everything. Oh yes, we're up 400 400%, but that's just the beginning. I remember my days at Coriente. One year we went up 3,500% in a single year. These are the type of things going to happen. And I think this time it's only been twerked harder because because of uh social media, the access to information, it allows people to be steering the ship at a much tighter base, not not basing decisions on three months, basing decisions on a week kind of kind of concept. So, which has only made the problem worse. Um, so I I really look forward to I've started my career in mining. Well, I graduated in '97, but paid for it working in underground coal mines. Went through 2012 until today, uh, and very much look forward to where we're going as an industry, uh, over the next decade. >> Great. Well, I'm going to put links in the description below to the Copper Giant website as well as social media for people who want to dive deeper into the company. Ian, as always, fantastic conversation. It's been a blast. >> Thank you so much. is always always enjoyable to to share it and actually say we're doing what we've been talking about in the past conversations. Commodity Culture is a series on commodities and natural resources. If you would like to see more, be sure to subscribe and hit the bell notification so you're always up todate with the latest episodes.
COPPER Next Up to SHOCK the Market – 'Serious' Deficit as Demand Skyrockets
Summary
Transcript
Hello everybody and welcome into commodity culture where our goal is to make you a better investor in the commodities sector. Today is March 11th, 2026. My name is Jesse Day and before we dive in, standard disclaimer. Nothing here is investment advice. Do your own due diligence. And my guest today is the CEO of Copper Giant, a company advancing highquality copper projects with a focus on the Makoa copper malebdinum deposit in southern Colombia. Coming to us from Medí, Colombia, it's Ian Harris. Great to have you back on the show. >> Exciting times and I like our old conversations are kind of coming to fruition. >> Absolutely. And and I want to kick off today's conversation with your current highle view of the copper market as we sit here today. What are the main themes and trends you're watching in copper for 2026 that you think more investors should have their eyes on? So, I'm going to start off with uh all all the viewers, right? Uh there's I see a lot of FOMO. We just came back from PDAC and people are, you know, I missed out on this and oh, what's it when copper the next one? Which by the way, I probably do think that copper is the next is looking like a a serious rotation. But rotations have a tendency to each when there's more and more liquidity. It doesn't look like it's no longer rotating. It's just growing overall as a sector. So, I'm going to divide it into commodity and equities. Um, and so, and both are similar themes, but from a commodity side, copper has always been divided between a short-term focus and a long-term focus. And so, um, but what drives equities, especially those that are used to the gold and silver space, is that copper equities are less driven. They're not are definitely influenced but less driven by the current metal price and more focused on the forecasted price, right? Because just, you know, a gold mine uh are normally designed for 10 years, a copper mine for 20 years. Look at Felo, it just came out. It's it's an 80year project. Those kind of it's a more long-term vision and play, bigger capital outlays, etc., etc. So short short-term focus is the system that's been in place that has gotten to us to where we are today, right? Um you know the paper market has been designed and speculators were designed actually to reduce price and overall and copper which has gotten to us to the day where we're looking down the down the barrel of a serious supply demand um issues in in in copper. And so they have a tendency to more focus on what is the world economy steel copper the biggest use of copper is electrification etc etc and I don't like call bulls and bears but short and long vision is what pulls price back and forth long-term it is this theme that I think most people have heard of right we've been hearing about the electrification story if it carries an electron it's it's going to be on copper on the majority of that uh on that travel we've heard of the energy transition moving away from oil and coal etc etc but we've been hearing that for a long time the real driver that I see especially long term is you see AI data centers for one reason it is not something you can slow down every time you look the numbers are going up because it's a race right uh EVs was a goal like electric vehicles is a goal. But what it was was 20 years and then then in 5 years it's still 20 years, right? Because the cost associated it's not it's like a nice thing to do but if it slows down a little bit it's it's real but it's not it's something that probably ends up slowing down than accelerating where AI and data centers are by far uh national security and they are also the future of many companies. They see it as existential for their survival into the future. And you can see the battlegrounds going on. Chachi PT and then Gemini and here comes Grock and then you have a Claude come in and everybody is racing to kind of you know you like a horse race. Um but it's also the sec national security right uh Freedelland likes to say if my drone can kill you a nancond faster I win, right? Um, and so there's a national security at a time when you have a supply demand deficit anticipated. So people like, uh-oh, China's not going to have the problem. We're going to have the problem. So people are thinking about supply chains at the same time. All of these mixes going on. So I started the conversation saying, you seen this FOMO going on, but this is something that's going to play out over a long period of time. I do not see this as going to be something that is over in a year or even two years. This is going to be playing over a decade. It's going to be playing out at least based on I'm a mining engineer seeing what are the assets that are actually out there. How long does it take to discover them? Even if you super accelerated the permitting process, it's not a uh it's not a short-term solution. It's going to be something that takes a long time to solve those issues. So while short-term and long-term can play out right over overall if a shots shorts up one it's going to have to come back to reality uh reality quickly. So it's worthwhile educating uh to understand because this is going to be a bull cycle that's going to be generational. Well, copper stocks have had a draw down since the war with Iran started, while copper itself has dipped slightly, but proven fairly resilient so far, holding it at around $5.90 as of the time of this recording. Should the conflict continue to escalate and, god forbid, drag on for months or even years, how do you anticipate it could affect the copper price, if at all? Okay, so we have to think about what drives copper price and I t started the conversation with the long long-term vision and short-term vision. So if you look on the long side, let's just say well BHP just sold a $4.3 billion silver stream at Antameina in order to be able to deploy capital towards copper. That's a long-term vision, right? That is what they're looking at long term. And if you're looking at certain different suppliers or smelters in China or whatever, it's very much they're making these plans. Nations are making these plans over a longer period of time, right? So it shouldn't, but it will. It could, right? Because short is still driven on Dr. Copper. What if the world drug goes into a recession? What's going to happen? And there's a new layer that's being added to this that I call the COVID toilet paper moment, which is you see stockpiles at record levels, right? But it's because people are worried. It's it's not a uh stockpiles are growing because there's not enough demand. It's supplies are grow or stockpiles are growing because China is don't shut down your smelter yet. Keep pumping it out. United States and others are going what happens if tariff let's start getting these and some of it's strategic right because if they're saying okay in two years you're going to have a significant supply deficit we better start building our stock piles now. Poor India right because they're talking about they want to add 1.6 six 1,600 gigawatts of new energy and they're not going to have the copper because everybody's, you know, they're going to go to the Walmart and there's not going to be anything left on the shelves. it. However, it doesn't mean that that logic is going to play out on price and it will create weight right eventually where still people are just just looking at looking at the graphs looking at the things and more of a short-term speculators could end end up pulling down the price but it's not a long-term impact right I mean it will something that will be playing out over months etc but eventually the reality is still there right that long-term countries are worried and others are worried uh eventually you won't have enough concentrate to keep feeding those smelters even if you're just it's just getting the last out. So uh it should be very interesting how how how everything plays out and I too have been surprised that it's been more resilient that the long story is what is more concerning than what's short-term guys are doing in in the short period of time. It has been very resilient and I think beating even some of the the the banks forecast the guys that said yeah copper should pull off in 2026 but watch out for 2020 and the but the long-term forecasts continue to go up. >> I want to talk about some of the >> I guess you know I can't help my >> I can't help myself. I'm sorry but I even was watching it on a day-to-day basis the knee-jerk reaction. It's sort of like okay the war the war is going on. This could throw us into a recession. oil is up go we could go into recupion now copper bounced before oil recovered somewhat right and it was because uh oh the majority of acid that goes to a big portion of copper production goes through those straits and if we have a problem with supply right because we're on a razor's edge anyways if we have a problem with supply because there's not enough acid to leech some of the oxide copper then uh-oh we're not going to have enough copper And so you see all these tuggings going on and that is obviously you know the what is the result volatility that I've never seen in in in my 30 years in uh the space now. Uh you know seeing a 3% day in copper would be just an outrageous day. Now we see 3% moves you know on a weekly basis. Well, I want to talk about some of the other challenges when it comes to the supply side because ore grades for copper deposits have been declining steadily over the decades. Many major copper mines are getting in the later phase of their mine life and discovery rates are also massively down. What does the industry need to do to address these issues and produce the needed copper for all of this demand that that you've been talking about >> there? I want to kind of get rid of one of the fallacies, right? that the industry doesn't care if they solve the problem, right? They care about growth and how they can make money, right? So, uh we are going to need more and you're already starting to see it. It's going to require national attention uh on nations to incentivize. see a lot of things going on just the United States strategic stockpiling trying to uh shore up using tariffs in an interest of shoring up uh supply chains trying to move fasttracking projects putting their checkbook towards projects uh etc etc to get things moving forward because they know right I mean that's what the big companies did in the beginning they say well copper price is going to go up what's the best way we can take advantage of it with the lowest risk and that is just merge right to buy production right at that does not create more production. Okay, so there's a there's a few things that have gone on in the copper space, right? First, we had uh you know, dump leeching in the 1990s, which really held down price. We had China's growth that made an explosion. Um and then, you know, companies are like, man, I hate risk. So, what we're going to try and do is the guys, you know, that guy, that CEO over there who tried the green fields project and it didn't work out very well or the other one that was supposed to be 4 billion ended up being 10 billion. Maybe we should just try to expand our brownfields projects and that's why we've seen this massive drop in uh in overall grade, right? But as a system continues to tweak to get more out of the turnip, right, eventually when that well is dry, then they go, "Uh-oh, we've just made the other problem worse, right? There are no discoveries. There hasn't been enough investment and there's not even enough projects inventory uh you know of later stage projects you could actually build that will make a difference." And so that is really the major theme uh behind the equity side uh the side of side of stuff and and and CEOs especially the bigger companies they want to minimize risk until their investors are harping what have you done for me lately? Where's your growth coming from tomorrow? Copper price is now going up. How are we leveraged? Where's our growth coming from? You know, history has a way of of playing out uh what happened in in the past. they'll end up paying, you know, at the top of the cycle. Um, and until that happens, and then you have a whole lot of new supply, but this is not something that's happening in in years. It's going to be a decade for this to all all play out. Um, and so that also means that those who we we're starting to see a little bit of NMA. We see the uh fordscq moving into uh the copper space with Alta which is another one of the very near surface deposits that exist. You saw Sonora copper coming off the table with Hud Bay. It's sort of like the the midsize guys are moving first and then the majors are going to be looking down at the table and going uh-oh there's very little left on the table. There's 10 of us and there's four of them and and that's when things really start moving. It just seems to move. They I call it a pack of dogs, which I doesn't mean to be a demeaning comment, but it means they move together, right? Uh they all move because nobody wants to assume the risk too early, right? But then there's going to be a time where if I don't do something, I'm going to be in big trouble later. Uh and that is playing out. So you see lower grades, very near surface projects. Uh look at the new FO EPA. It came out, it was an 80year project with a 15% irr. So obviously BHP thinks copper prices are going w well way higher than they are today and and the the capital deployment at that project is absolute immense. I I like listening to Frank Gustra. He always says do what uh buy what countries are buying, not what countries tell you to buy. And I would say if you're looking at the equities, especially in copper, look at what the majors are doing. Where do they see their major growth coming from? They're not doing it because they think we need to make sure the planet has enough copper. They're doing where do we think we're going to be making a lot of money in the future. >> Well, in just a moment, I want to dive into how copper giant fits into the whole picture. But first of all, I want to talk about a challenge facing the industry and and how you might plan to deal with it if it does get there. And that is, of course, the price of WTI crude. Uh you mentioned it at at the top of the show when we were discussing Iran and and how it went to triple digits. It's now in the mid80s around 87 as of the time of this recording. A lot of people believing that, you know, this war is going to go on for much longer than people think and we could potentially see WTI crude back in the triple digits again with hydrocarbons being a major input of mining operations, assuming these high prices continue or get higher. Will that be a challenge for companies like Copper Giant and others in the copper business? And if so, how would you address it? Yeah. So, we've seen this play out in the past and most notable it was in the gold space when gold went up, you know, the first time hit 1,600, then 1,800, then 2,000. Um, and we saw all of this rush to production. Now, first of all, gold responds quicker than copper does, right? But we had a kind of a super cycle in copper at the same time. So, you see a lot of building and at a it was inflationary, right? Uh and so if you look at the major drivers to capital and to opex in big big projects, it's it's labor, fuel, iron, right? Iron more on the on the capex than the the the the opex, but still is important for the the opex. And so you saw shareholders go, you grew for at any cost and you've been bad. So what does that mean? If that's going to play out again, that's a near-term memory. Everybody still has that near-term memory and it's going to happen that okay, I'm not going to do it until prices go even higher. So, it in my opinion if if oil and we do have a true influ, you know, inflation impact on the overall prices, copper is a little bit more disciplined, takes a longer time. It just means has to be more incentivized by a higher price. And if the demand isn't going away, right, if demand doesn't go, oh, copper's too high now, I'm not going to do it. I don't see that happening, right? It's just I just don't see it happening. So, it's I don't unlike gold where prices get too high and people just stop buying gold. Um because of its driving uh the world's economies as we're going towards an electrified world and because of data centers and AI, the only other solution is price goes higher, right? So, uh, I'm not overly concerned. I'm only concerned on market perception because I I remember being in in university when you had Nevada mining for the first time, one gram per ton, right? And there's still some of these old rules that people investors look at and go, man, that's really low grade. But gold prices at 5,000 and copper price is at $6, right? So, it changes the economics of project. But those old rules have a tendency to to affect evaluations until the new reality sets in, right? So there's there's there's always a market perception versus a market reality. But these things will play out over time, right? It's going to happen. So uh I guess a more of a long focus anyways naturally as a mining engineer. And I think that investors can do the same thing. They can look these are the type of investments that you shouldn't change your decision make. As Rick Rule, don't base your long-term investments over what happened during the weekend. Yeah, well said. Now, let's pivot to how Copper Giant is a part of everything we've discussed. Last time I had you on the show was December of last year. Could you give us an overview of the company for those tuning in for the first time and fill us in on the progress you've made since our last conversation? >> So, December obviously was exciting because we had just recently put out a new resource estimate and passed a billion tons. Why is that important? Because having a you know, you've got I call it the Mr. from aggie problem, right? If you are a small project with a reasonable cap a capex, you could build it yourself, right? If you've got a really big project, then it's interesting enough that the majors are going to want it. But if you're in between, I call it squash light brave, right? Where how the heck are you going to build it a billion dollar project, right? Uh but it's not big enough that it's it's of major interest yet, right? because I don't think I don't think the world has the luxury to be overly picky of where that growth comes from eventually because there's just uh you know just not that many. today over a billion tons kind of classifies you as a tier one and there's very few like I can name five on my hand that are over a billion tons in near surface that are still not been acquired by a major and we've seen two go already right we may mentioned uh Alta and uh Sonora copper right so they're already coming off and it's leaving very few of those projects left why is near surface important because it can get into production quicker. It can actually you look at something like resolution and I think it takes if you started building it today it would still be 8 years at least before you saw copper production. So deeper projects take a long time uh to develop. So near surface are sort of what could I add to my supply somebody looking at their supply chain or their supply of projects or their interest in getting to copper right they want the projects are nearer to surface that can come in. So that was a big deal for us. So what's happened since then is obviously well I've got a near surface project. It's at 1,300 meters by the way. It's called Makulla and it's in Colombia for those new new new viewers. So we have this asset in Colombia. It's passed an important threshold but now it's it's got a very high grade core sitting near the surface. It's near surface. It's at 1,300 m. So it's not high elevation. There's 5 kilometers from power lines and roads. Nobody lives there, but we're only 10 kilometers from 50,000 people. Uh there's all these other things that don't come out just when you say we have uh you know a billion tons out of 5.1 uh% copper equivalent grade. We have 7 billion pounds of copper and a billion pounds of Molly that people just you know do a you know how much is that worth in the ground? uh when we say the really the best parts of the project are going to come out in the economics of the project uh and that doesn't come out until you get into the project development and that and that's what we wanted to be anyways we we have an experience my background previously at Miridor or Ernie Mass director his experience at Cobra Panama is taking very large projects and actually turning them into compromise um and that's going to really start coming out so we're already doing extremely well since that interview right uh we're probably up 300 400% uh as the market is waking up to the quality of the project and that where Colombia is going at in general but the really good times are coming when the quality of the project comes out in the economics. So we're moving towards pea we've just put out a uh a big drill program to be able to make sure we stay on schedule. >> Well, I didn't have this question prepared but I just want to follow up quickly on the way things are moving in Colombia because there was an election in the country recently. How does the current government change things perhaps in a positive way for the future of mining and the resource industry in the country? >> Uh I'm sorry I divide too many questions into two parts right one is a market perception and market perception is very important. So market will be watching very closely. Um and the you know market also talks about jurisdictions etc and tries to rant jurisdictions but let's look at copper. Let's look at the six big mines that were built in copper over the last 10 years. We have Peru, we have Ecuador, we have Panama and two in Africa, right? Uh one obviously the very very big one in in in Congo. That's it. Right. We need based on what we need to move forward. We need to be build forward 24 uh to be kind of getting to where the numbers say we need growth to be like in the next 10 years, right? We need to do four times more over the next 10 years. Well, there's not 24 projects to start with. So, that also plays out interestingly. But I say based on a unique experience shared with Ernie Mast is what do you actually have to do to get these things built? And I call the generation of political will which starts at being extremely strong uh locally, right? Not only is it the right thing to do, it is the smart thing to do and it's not something you wait to do until you're trying to build a project. You start it from the beginning of a project and working on a national reputation, etc. So, what's important for me, uh, you know, if I'm not thinking about market is you're going to have a new president in August in Colombia, um, and that person is going to say, "Where am I sitting today? I've got inflation sitting at 14%. 50% of my exports are oil and coal, right? My coffers are dry. I need to get this economy moving. Who's got something out there that can be done during my time period as president?" So this is it's the other reason why we want to make sure we have a PA done in that period of time because that's where the window is. That's the window. Uh in in Ecuador it was two projects got built. It was Miridor and Fut Norte. Those were the two big projects and we haven't seen another one built since then because I haven't seen a viable window. One is coming up to Colombia. So elections are coming up. I don't know how it's going to play out. Some will be better for market perception or others. It's nice to see presidential candidates that have a promining in their platform which is something new. Uh Colombia has based their development plan on part of the one of the four pillars includes mining uh and copper is at the top of the list. So I think that it's something that Colombia needs but it's also an important catalyst and important in market perception that that is definitely coming up. >> Very interesting. And yes, just to be clear, the presidential elections are scheduled to be held on the 31st of May. Um, Colombia has elected Congress and has chosen presidential candidates. Uh, very interesting times for the country. So, we'll have to see how that all shakes out. Now, one very exciting piece of news so far this year for Copper Giant is your 2026 exploration plan targeting 230,000 meters of drilling, the largest drilling program in the history of the Makoa project. How is that drill program advancing? What are the plans for it? What's the endgame here? >> Let me tell you about the boring spart part first, right? It's what we need to do to ensure that we put out a PA. It's going to be focused on expanding conversion of from inferred to measured and indicated. Why? You don't need it in a PA, but because obviously we want to keep driving directly towards PFS. uh right on the back of it, we want to make sure this project is really moving forward now that we have treasury and can be able to do it. But I want to tell you about the things that I get excited about, right? Um one, we're bringing in directional drilling. What does that mean? It means despite only being 23 or not just or being the biggest program that we've ever had, what you can do is you do what's called a mother hole and then off that mother hole you can have daughter holes and off daughter holes you can have granddaughter holes. And think of it like a Christmas tree upside down. Why is that cool? Because it means we can be very efficient in our conversion, right? So we will get way more out of the meters than you would expect because we can fill in zones on the project very efficiently and it's a really neat technology uh to be able to apply that. I look forward to to using it uh and and watching it work and and that's starting now. The other thing is we're we're we're going to mobilize a third drill which will allow us to test some of the additional targets that are near. We have about eight or nine additional targets around the project. Makoa formed over 10 million years. The only districts in the world that we know over 10 million years that I know of, there's probably others, but is Rio Blanco's uh area and those brones. And you have the Chuki Kamada cluster which is three different mines today. Right? These are big districts. They formed over 10 million years. So we think Makoa is just the tail of a of an elephant. Uh and so we want to test some additional targets with that third drill that are near to the project. You hit that because companies want a we've checked a massive box. You passed a billion tons and we think we can continue to grow to add additional billions at that even at the Makoa deposit. But you hit another pfery center and now you're talking what the majors really want. They want a great project. Look at look at Felo. It's 80year plan. They want to see generational type production. But if you can get a district, it's even better, right? something that ends up converting into a district where it becomes not one project that's extremely long but could add additional projects uh on top of it that could really make a dent in what the N the the world and you could argue United States and others uh need. So I'll throw in there the United States is a major non-NATO ally of the United States. It's the same level as Australia or Japan for example. It's the the most historically the strongest ally of the United States and where things are going on the planet. Um that means that Makoa could play an important important very important role in reestablishing of of of those production chains that it's lost. >> Well, you've also recently announced that you've initiated the next phase of metallurgical testing at Makoa as part of an integrated strategy for your 2026 pea advancement. Walk us through those details. provide us a timeline on when the pea could be ready to go and also you mentioned you want to do a pfs kind of right away on the back of that. So maybe walk us through what that timeline looks like as well. Okay, so we mentioned a couple things that the the drill program is focused on getting exactly what we want to do for by the PA which would mean another updated resource to show where the growth could come you know continue to grow the size of the project and uh also we want we already kicked it off the next round of metallurgical test work which will finalize um the flowheet for the project in a pea now we've already done the first round and things are already looking good So we're just adding adding another level to the metallurgical uh which we're excited about uh about seeing or some additional you get the recoveries you get concentrate grades you can prove it's got non delletterious elements no high arsenic all these other things that will be I think look shine nicely on the project and at the same time we're going to be doing geotechnical work hydro geological work a ton of other work that really isn't necessary for a PA. So, I've told the group we want to do a PA that's as close as possible to a PFS as possible. A, it's not a marking document. It's our guide that's going to take us towards how we could end up developing this as a project. Um, and to keep us on the timelines and we're looking at I would say guidance would be the last quarter of the year this year, right? We're gonna have a new president in August and I if I get called into that office I don't want to be armwaving. I want to be able to point to something to say this is the con conceptual design of Makoa. This is the potential impact that it could have in terms of jobs and creation of percentage points of GDP. Um and I want to be able to have something that that you know you can point to not just say you know being overly promotional. Uh and so that is how that all works in together. You closed a private placement in January for$ 12 million. Is that Canadian or US dollars? Just to be clear, >> Canadian. Canadian. >> Canadian. So, how is your cash position looking right now? How do you plan to put that cash to work? And how much runway do you have before you need to look at raising more capital? >> Obviously, we've gone through some hard times, so we can't I don't want to like ignore that, right? 2022 and three and four and then finally restarting this project in I guess it was November of 20 end of 2024 but really working all of 2025 if it wasn't for the sponsorship and the backing and the belief and and and a more long-term vision of Frank Jester we wouldn't even be here but obviously we went through financings that were difficult financings in a market that was difficult so the last financing I said we got to we have a chance here right we did it non unbrokered. It's got a hold period. Only has a half warrant instead of a full warrant. We're breaking all these things because we want to be able to we're in a momentum market and we have to make moment momentum. I think we were trading at around 80 million market cap at the time. I said we've got to break through 100 million to make it a more of an institutional story. So, it was way more than just getting uh the money that would finance us through these next major catalysts. Today we're sitting on $23 million in the bank which gets our budget is about $18 million for the year. So it gets us through all those major catalysts and maintains us instead of a panhandling I guess isn't would be a terrible way of saying it but in a stronger position that allows us to create and continue to maintain the momentum. So I'm obviously super happy because in the past it was we want to do this and by the way we got to raise the money to do it. Now it's we've got the money to do what we say we're going to do and allows us to be a lot more intelligent on how we continue to main momentum in in the share price uh while we hit you know in worst case we're going to hit massive important catalysts the PA adds one one additional aspect as a resource you're kind of like yeah give you a dollars per and actually in cents cents per pound in the ground more or less but when you hit a PA you're going going to have an NPV, you're going to have other financial metrics that allow you to say what is really underpinning your valuation and uh lots of those many things I mentioned that make Makoa special really start to shine and can continue to create significant value a significant amount of value compared to the spend that we have to make to get there. So, I'm excited, very excited on the pathway that we have sitting in front of us for this project. Well, I'll end as always by opening the floor to you. Is there anything we haven't yet covered or anything you anything you think it's important to emphasize the potential shareholders of copper giant should be focused on? >> Well, I just think in general, right, um the the market has overall been very short-term focused. That is starting to change. We've seen a rotation. The comeback of the commodities. Uh the importance of copper not not not not adjusting for it earlier is only going to make the problem worse. Uh I think we have an absolutely amazing asset. There's so few of them. I mean that is I mean we got to build 24 projects over the next 10 years and there's not 24 good projects out there. Um, so but also this is something that's going to be I guess I'm repeating, but this is something that's going to play out over a long period of time. You're going to see a lot of value creation. Uh, there's going to be great opportunities for those that are getting into it. I think that we've got an amazing team, amazing asset. We've already got the sponsorship and timing is finally working out. I call those those are the four major things that you want to look for uh in a in a in a project. Uh, for those that go, "Oh, wow. I already missed out." No way. This is just the beginning of everything. Oh yes, we're up 400 400%, but that's just the beginning. I remember my days at Coriente. One year we went up 3,500% in a single year. These are the type of things going to happen. And I think this time it's only been twerked harder because because of uh social media, the access to information, it allows people to be steering the ship at a much tighter base, not not basing decisions on three months, basing decisions on a week kind of kind of concept. So, which has only made the problem worse. Um, so I I really look forward to I've started my career in mining. Well, I graduated in '97, but paid for it working in underground coal mines. Went through 2012 until today, uh, and very much look forward to where we're going as an industry, uh, over the next decade. >> Great. Well, I'm going to put links in the description below to the Copper Giant website as well as social media for people who want to dive deeper into the company. Ian, as always, fantastic conversation. It's been a blast. >> Thank you so much. is always always enjoyable to to share it and actually say we're doing what we've been talking about in the past conversations. Commodity Culture is a series on commodities and natural resources. If you would like to see more, be sure to subscribe and hit the bell notification so you're always up todate with the latest episodes.