Description:
Ian Harris, CEO of Copper Giant, explains why his stock surged 77% and argues that soaring copper demand from AI data centers ...
Transcript:
Copper is the new oil. Um because it's the driver of the new world's economy. You're seeing technology companies now in the energy space and I think you're going to see them very quickly in the mining space. Let's say gold hits $20,000 an ounce in the next 5 years. What does that imply? Well, commodities in particular, metals are on fire. Not literally, but the prices have moved to historic highs. Gold above $4,000. Silver just under $50. the historic $50 has only happened twice in history. What happens once we breach that mark? Copper as well making a bid up about 25 27% year to date, climbing a lot in the last couple weeks. Ian Harris joins us once more. He's the uh CEO of Copper Giant and we'll be talking about what's next for Metals Investors. Everyone wants to know, Ian, welcome back by the way. We spoke a couple weeks ago in Beaver Creek. Everyone wants to know whether now is the time to take profits or this is just the beginning. I think this is the crucial question and of course people want to feel bullish but we have to be realistic. So let's give a realistic outlook. Um we by the way your stock since we spoke a few weeks ago at uh the precious metals summit has climbed. So we spoke um I want to say 13th of September. Yeah. Uh we released a video like a week and a half after that. You're anyway since the conference your stock is up 77%. Let me just start with that. what happened cuz copper is not up 77%. I think it's something we talked about first of all that when you I think I don't know if it got it was part of the video or me and you just joking around that and I said people are wondering if that this people like your jokes that's what micro that's what that's what investors like I said what are you he's talking to day traders and because I mean for people that have been around long enough to see the last bull market and how these cycles work out we're in like you we're in the first innings like this is this feels like we're in the very very beginning of it uh equities are still way undervalued. Uh where the where the gold has started where it could go. If you look at the last uh big cycles, it really is just in the beginning. It can continue to grow. I think we're just beginning to see real interest in both the equities and the commodities. And I just think we're just, you know, it's it's these markets are cyclical. And uh you know, that means something. It means every so often we we we go through these cycles. And I think the the secular uh bare and bull markets, you know, are around a 10-year period. So, we're really just in the very beginning. Very very very beginning. You know, the reaction I get, Ian, when I show people charts like this, not just your stock in particular. Um, in fact, it wasn't your stock that I showed. It was it was some other uh it was some other metals, gold and silver in particular. But if I show people a chart like this, they say they get scared. And I say, "Why shouldn't you be celebrating?" Well, no, cuz it's run up 70% in 3 weeks. that scares people. Ian, what's going on? Like why why are we seeing this rush of capital now? I I have had that conversation with somebody today because you know we've obviously especially in the silver space there's been a narrative for a very long time and now it's coming out. You could say the same in gold. You could say the same freed said you know Cam came out I've been saying it for three years it's finally happening but now that it's happening it is a little nervous and it does make you a little nervous. Um but you know we'll we'll we'll get through it. But uh others have said you know these type of markets transition wealth from one set of hands to another set of hands. So instead of being scared I think we should be proactive and and I never answer your question. Why are we up so much in a very short period of time? I think we came off of a at a pretty big bottom to to be fair. Uh but the others what we were talking about you saw all this money running into uh gold and actually the GDX at the time was up 90% I think it's over 100% now and the GDXJ also then you see this big run in silver going on and that was happening right at Beaver Creek and so you're seeing a whole lot more attention and so new money is flowing into the market. There's also some people made a lot and they're going, "Okay, what's the next thing?" And money is coming into copper and I've been saying it for a long time. We've hit so many milestones on the project that it is already we've already hit the catalyst. The only catalyst we're was waiting for is a little more momentum in market because the the the valuation is underpinned at a much higher level. So, I just think it's the attention's there. There's wind coming out and the and the good projects are are doing well. Here's the thing. Let's talk about um copper. Copper overlaid with silver. This is what I've done. Now, silver is the blue line. Copper is the bar chart. You can see a very close correlation. They kind of move in the same direction. I'm going to ask you to explain why that is, by the way. And of course, you and I already talked about this big drop in the ComX. Um and copper, it's the the arbitrage price got adjusted. Um it didn't happen on the LME, but anyway, you can kind of see that they move in the same direction. Now, silver has had a huge bid. Uh, I mentioned almost $50, $49, $48 is right now what's hovering around my screen. I I wonder if this is going to lead this next move in copper. Like I said, they moved together. Silver's just run up a little bit more in the last couple weeks. Yeah. So, first of all, silver schizophrenic, right? It's a precious metal, but it's also an industrial metal. And you could argue today it's more of an industrial metal. So, I would also argue that the investment attraction to silver, believe it or not, even though it's gone from $20 to $49, right, in in a short period of time, uh, if you look back a little, I mean, but from the beginning of the year from $30 to $49, that is a huge move. Um, it it it isn't from investor sentiment yet. It's not from you haven't seen a pouring into the to the ETFs until recently. You haven't seen people buying more bars until recently. Um, and so that means it's been driven by industrial demand. Now I I think we're on a we're going through a switch. It's going to go when people are going to go, "Wait a second. It's a this is an amazing and then you'll see more people plowing into it from an investor perspective, the people that are newer to to the game." I I had a commentary this morning. It's like it's like when the Yankees finally win the World Series and uh you know it's been 20 years and that fan for 20 years is like I told you so and then all of a sudden everybody's wearing Yankee hats, right? I mean there'll be new new money coming in and from an investor perspective. So the reason it goes so far par with copper is because industrial has the biggest been the biggest drivers. You'd also argue it's been the perspective of the traders whether it's short-term or long-term. And I think you know people the writing is on the wall right? We're coming into a world where um you know it's about metals, right? It's about it's about the metals either from uh the protection from fiat currencies, overspending to it's the new copper is the new oil. Um because it's the driver of the new world's economy. Uh so it's it's a very very interesting time and I do believe Yeah. Okay. It'll be jitter. It'll be up and downs. Rick Rule talks about you can be in a 10-year bull cycle and still have 40 40% down sometimes, but overall it's, you know, these are hund there's companies out there that have hund,000% gains this year, right? There's big big gains. So, the tension is coming back into the market. I want to come back to your statement. Copper is a new oil. Let's talk about miners first. Overall, GDX, this is the gold miners index. I know it doesn't really include copper and um base metals uh specifically, but it's up as a proxy for all mining stocks. It's up uh it was up 90% when we spoke two weeks ago, three, four weeks ago. Now it's up 132% year to date. I was I I said it's probably up over 100 now, but it's 145. Look at that. It's just accelerating. What is happening with fundraising, uh capital raising and uh financing right now? We spoke um a month ago and you have mentioned that it's starting to pick up and I've talked to people like Kai Hoffman who tracks financing uh through his or index and he's been saying that well capital has been raised uh all throughout the year it's been accelerating so it's not like a new trend. I wonder if um it's coincident with this rise in other words have you seen an acceleration in financing over the last month and a half? Absolutely. And it's and it's not just an acceleration. You've seen so many deals come out that are these life financings uh that have been superersized really quick. And it's sort of like the the beggar who's been waiting for those longest time finally getting some money and then it's this reaction of hoarding a little bit maybe it seems it but you also see a big change in who can participate in those in those financings right it's uh it used to be a lot of be you know um best efforts and you know people could call up their broker and participate and those days might be over right everybody's been praying for a bull market but it also means the days of these kind of financings uh are also are also over uh where it's going to be going into stronger and stronger institutional hands that will be participating. So it's not just how much money has been raised, it's where the money is coming from has also changed dramatically. Uh in in a month and it has been in a month it's get it's getting and so that's also we get a little scared in terms of what's going on is getting overheated but you're seeing big players big institutions that are putting uh putting down money that they're seeing this as a longer term trend. Well, what do you say to people who who make the critique that not just your stock, but the entire sector, the entire resource sector, and to a certain extent, the metals themselves are currently in a bubble right now, given how fast they've moved in such a short period of time. The fundamentals of the economy haven't changed that dramatically in the last seven or eight weeks, but the price has moved exponentially higher. And so, when that happens, critics would say that's a bubble. What do you say to that? So, I would argue a it depends on your perspective of time, right? I believe that we're in a secular bull market the very beginning and that's 10 years right so we might have corrections within that bull but you could also argue that very easily miners are still extremely cheap if you look compared to historical levels or compared to uh how much gold moved and how big it high it got before the equities ever moved. So, a lot of it it might be the a correction, the opposite direction. It's a positive correction because the stocks have been so undervalued. I would argue if there's any sort of correction, it's going to be very short-term. I I you know, and and I'm I'm not a finance guy. I'm uh I'm a mining engineer, right? So, I I have a tendency to be more conservative than most, right? But we've seen it for so long. The undervaluation and and underinvestment, the lack of discoveries, the lack of new supply, the longer it takes to get everything is happening that indicates uh at the same time when you're having a breakdown of the globalization of the planet, which means uh less efficiency, meaning you need more asset. Uh so assets become a whole lot more attractive. It's all happening and it's I think it's just beginning to play out. Just the very beginning. So when you go to let's say an investor meeting and you pull up a copper chart and you show the price appreciation and the growth of copper over the last year not just the last year over the last 5 years or so investors ask you how are you as a company capitalizing on this trend and by the way you have a you have a multi-year target of $10 per pound which is double from here. We'll get to that. What what do you say to that? How do you as a company add value and beat copper in an environment that's bullish? So by by nature normal mental mente I'm now switching to Spanish sorry normally right we we the reason that people invest in these stocks is because they normally trade to a beta right now where is our specialty and I'm talking now as the CEO of copper giant I am have the pleasure to work with Ernie Mast and others who are professionals at developing project and and new uh joined us Mark Gibson who came on the back of both uh uh Ivanho Electric uh and Portab Minerals in Colombia and getting one of those projects that actually advanced. But Ernie and myself being involved in two of the six big copper mines that have been built over the last 10 years. So we look at how what is a project that is going to be built, right? So that it's not a discovery, it might be a resource expansion play, but we're looking on how to build a mine and that's where we're going to leverage well because I think market is very inefficient at actually picking the winners of who actually gets built. Uh so we are going to be able to demonstrate by breaking through and derisking a very important project that we believe will be one of the next big copper projects on the planet. And so that's how we're going to provide value because we're extremely undervalued today. which we're trading for.2 cents per pound in the ground versus that chart that says $5. So as you get towards moving towards it converting it from being underground at 0.2 and out of the ground at $5, right? That is a lot of room to be able to create significant value for shareholders and that's how we're going to do it. This is uh going back to earlier statement about copper being the new oil. Tech companies are spending $ 36 billion on average over the past four quarters. This is according to the world economic forum and uh the quarterly average for a typical S&P 500 company is only $2 billion. So they're spending on the order of almost yeah more than more than 15 times the average S&P 500 company. A lot of these are hyperscalers building data centers as you know and hyperscalers are investing in not just uh uh the software but also the physical infrastructure. nuclear power plants. Microsoft is restarting nuclear power plants. Um, off-grid power and of course all that all that infrastructure needs copper. I wonder if copper is then going to have its own narrative into the future. It's going to be decoupled from from stocks, from the macro picture, from silver, and it's just going to trade on its own dependent on this infrastructure boom. Well, the last time copper ran big time was on the infrastructure boom of China alone. Right now, now now we have an existential crisis, right? So, and I I try to explain it and it sounds like we're by our conversations are having a little bit of influence on you because you're seeing it too, right? That this isn't projected spending. This isn't like, oh, we're going to convert everything to electric vehicle, which would be extremely bullish for copper, but it's more this technology drive that's insatiable. Everybody's like, you know, Microsoft, I'm going to spend 20 billion. And then Meta goes, I'm going to spend 30. And then, you know, Alphabet comes out and go, I'm going to spend 50. Because they all realize that in order to win, they have to be ahead of the competition. So, they say it doesn't matter how much we spend, right? It's how much we gain and getting to the finish line first, right? So, it's all about accelerating. This is only going to get faster. and any barrier in the way and some of the biggest ones you talked about energy but it's it's it's these minerals you see Donald Trump going to Australia and talking to 30 different companies to for critical minerals right you see tariffs that are to incentivize new smelting in inside of the United States it is a competition right and you see this going on it's happening right so when we look back at this and we go wow was that 60 70% 90% 145% gain at the beginning of this was that the that was that a bubble No, we're in the beginning, right? That's nothing in comparison to I think it's just the very very beginning. And you could easily say it's we're still not even close to where we should be properly valued. Uh let alone in things getting too too hot. Just on the smelting front, you mentioned to me last time that China cons uh controls 60% of global smelting. The US, India, and others want their own smelters. They're not at the same level as China. Now, the issue is we have this demand. We're going to have more demand. Not only do we not have the supply to keep up, we don't have the smelting capability in the west to keep up. So industries, if we have that choke, right, industries will have no choice but to find substitute for coppers, right? Well, sometimes for some things there just isn't a substitute. So and and and the so much of the infrastructure backbone is based upon copper based products, right? So you can't just pull one out and put something else in, right? It changes completely dimensions. Um, so I I think the other way. I think if you look even at the tariff that was remember that big drop is the COMX. It was the arbitrage price between LME and COMX when they said, "Oh, no. Well, we're not going to put a tariff yet." There's a big word in that in in in Trump's decision yet. Right. And it was basically 2 years no tariff on refined copper, which means you have 2 years to build refining capacity in our country in the United States. we're going to be building uh infrastructure here in the United States. Um and so I think there will be um the the the move to avoid substitution, right? Uh at all at all costs because it's it's very painful to substitute, but the political uh risk is is too high um to not do it domestically right now, right? And I I like using the old adage that, you know, Elon Musk one day woke up and said, "Uhoh, I need a lot of copper for my electric vehicles to make my electric motors to make my Teslas." Uh, I get all the that from China, but China's got this little company called BYD that's beating my pants right now. And one day they might not sell me copper anymore to make my stuff. And then I'm going to go, "Well, sell me some electric motors." and they're going, "I'm not going to sell you that either, but I'll sell you this nice little BYD, right?" Um, then and there that's And so then he goes, "Uh oh, I need to buy a mine." And so I'm going to need Twitter. So I bought Twitter just so I could convince everybody how important it is to buy a mine. Cuz even back then, two years ago, he would only talk about lithium. And a share price would go down. Um, and so all these concepts are all working out. People are, you know, there's a really really a race to go on about securing supply chains. You cannot make you can but you re it's it's very difficult to make a a a an efficient electric motor that doesn't catch on fire made out of aluminum right uh you know so it's very hard it's very hard uh to substitute copper yeah they have to completely change the way the design works change the voltage everything I yeah by the way I've heard that theory that Elon bought Twitter so he could promote a bunch of stuff um master I don't if it was his first reason, but I think he it was one of his reasons that he realized he needed a marketing arm. Yeah. Or convinced people to or to cancel Netflix, but that's a conversation for another time. Now, I now that the stock has run up, now that copper's on a tear, now that the entire resource sector is all the hype, give me one or two things that are keeping you up at night and how you're mitigating those risks. Well, the biggest one for me, the one thing that keeps me up is is we're still early in this and we needed to get a little bit more healthy, right? Where even the valuation of Copper Giant is way undervalued of where it should be. Uh, and where we need to be raising capital at. And so, if you look at I I'm looking very very micro here, not macro. Um, we have new we have a presidential elections coming up in May. You're going to have a new president coming in in August in in Colombia. And I want to be able to show him at least a conceptual idea of what this project could look like. And that means more drilling, more engineering, and more work uh and more capital in order to time that perfectly, right? I you know, it it's it takes a unique set of of of of things to build a copper mine, right? Um and I remembered in Ecuador, it was a window of time that got two of the biggest projects that got the two big projects in the country built, right? It was only two of them. it was fruit norte and miridor but you look at cobr panama was the same thing there was a window of time that there was the political will there was the capital was there everything came together so it's all about getting that timing right that I most spend most of my time thinking about and my biggest hurdle right now is key continue to get that valuation up where it should be um those are the big things that keep me up at night the other is uh you know what what is what should I be investing in in uh in metals or or shotguns uh and farmland if gold hits $20,000 an ounce, you know, but that's uh that's a different story. Hypothetically, I'm not saying it well, but let's say gold hits $20,000 an ounce in the next 5 years. What does that imply? Well, if it's gold, and remember I'm a I'm a copper guy, right? So, uh but I'll give my two cents. If it hits that, it means that that people have lost faith in fiat currencies. I mean, it's it's it's basically what it means. uh or you know uh this planet is very good at creating real bubbles and it could just be a bubble because it's going up and everything else is going down. But there's something another other thing if you have gold at a record high and and we're talking big numbers, right? So gold uh but so is the NASDAQ is up, you know, uh you know, so are US markets are at an all-time high, right? And at the same time, Bitcoin is at an all-time high. So, where is all this money coming from? What is all the money that's being injected into the system? Um, right? Because you got to say follow the money. Uh, so everything can't be all high at the same time unless you're creating new money. Um, but you could argue that a lot of people have been sitting on the sideline and sitting on cash, especially postcoid. I mean, you can just look at uh Warren Buffett to say who's been accumulating cash. Um people have been afraid and now they're going now I'm afraid of the US dollar and I'm afraid to keep my money in the US dollar. I could argue you could argue that Bitcoin and perhaps even the US markets. It's the last little end of the party uh that people are participating in. But the bigger move is from cash into gold because it hasn't been from stocks into gold. Hasn't been from Bitcoin into gold. So it has to been from cash into gold. And so that means uh that that people are losing face in in fiat currencies and you know what's going on in the debt in the United States. And actually if you measure the S&P 500 relative to gold on a gold adjusted basis is actually down year to date. Uh so if you measure when you've had a pair of 50 plus% in one year and you know look at over a longer period of time it would be more interesting because you could argue gold's just catching up, right? It's it's had a you know well you okay so you you mentioned that you would not be you would like to raise money at a higher valuation than even what carpet China is trading at now what kind of a deal structure would you accept from aa if you were to raise money for that project now if you had to do it now would you would you accept a royalty streaming would you accept offtake or strategic equity or or something else um what is a appropriate cost of capital for you yeah I think it's inappropriate that project time frame to be looking at anything like royalties or streaming, right? Um now a strategic partner because of offtake and and by the way it's one of the world's largest Molly projects uh and it looks after our new metallurgical test work about 30% of the value of Makoa now is moving towards Molly because Molly prices has appreciated way faster than copper uh and our recoveries have gotten way way better in updated test work. Um, so that's an interesting uh play because that's a strategic metal and a strategic partner. In that perspective, I think ideally what we're looking for is the right partners and fortunately to get the right institutions, you need to have at least 100 thou hund00 million market cap normally to get their attention. Uh, I think we're extremely undervalued and should already be there, right? But we need the market to get there. So, it's really get getting the right partners, long-term partners, strong partners, uh, into the project. The next stage is kind of my biggest goals. getting those strong hands they can see the potential here uh and understand you know if you're looking for the criteria of what would look like of the next big copper project they could build you know it's checking all the all the boxes so if I were an investor in your company something I'd ask is look you have a $10 copper price projection which we can walk through again that's your timeline that you that's your target uh you given us a timeline the interview that we did at Beaver Creek about a month ago what needs to happen for copper giant to be ready to produce by the time copper gets to $10 an hour because I'd like to see you generate that that beefy cash flow once we get double the price of copper. Right. So what what's your timeline there? I think the right question is of course I need to get into a projection that makes it a important acquisition right make it something that adds creative value to a major player right we're not building a project uh we're looking at building a project that becomes the interest of institutionals because you get in in copper you get into a problem where if it's 100 million 200 million you can build it yourself right but there's very few that's a really small copper project be a significant you're talking uh multiple billion dollar type uh capex which which means you can only do that with a partner and getting caught in between is not a really good space to be. So big is about making sure that it's an attractive project for a major. And so I would make an argument such as resolution going ahead in the United States is great news perhaps. It's still not there but it's almost there. But if it started constructing today, it'd be 7 years before even produced. So you need a project that's near infrastructure, near surface, etc. Which is what Makoa is. So it it adds a creative value quickly to a major. So the idea is sell it when it's $10. That's the that's the ideal situation, right? Um, but my driver is more keep it on a pathway towards construction. Uh, and more right now my biggest uh north of my compass is the upcoming elections because you're I believe you're going to have a president come in. How can I stimulate the economy? How can I bring investment into my country? Uh, how can I create jobs? Etc., etc. And I want to have this is a this is a a country building style project that can move the entire needle of the GDP by itself. Um you know a couple percentage points because obviously uh Colombia is a robust uh economy in South America. But that's that's my biggest driver and I think that it it is a it will align also uh with the overall supply demand gap. I talk about this. I think market gets it wrong a lot of times on what projects get built and I had that explanation if you look over the last 10 years Panama Miridor a couple in Africa and two in Peru and if you look at it and before Freedelland was there nobody was thinking that those projects could be built right and when Cobra Panama came out everyone was like there's no way Inmmet can build that there it's not going to happen way too big too low grade middle of the jungle Miridor are you kidding me Ecuador in the middle of the Amazon jungle forget it, right? Even less bomb bus in Peru, people were like, there's no way, you know, and a lot of guys walked and it ended up being MMG and um and the Chinese end up really putting that project into production, right? It's market gets it wrong, right? Um and uh so I I think that you have to have the perspective of what it takes and normally what it takes is right um making sure you can drive the political will which is then based on having amazingly strong relationships on the ground right that's why we're so proud of the news that just came out about our ability to create that relationships those relationships early in our in our project. Uh and then the next is infrastructure right if you're close to you either need gigantic scale where it doesn't matter how much infrastructure you have to put into place or you need to have amazing infrastructure in place and then the other one is how close to surface is it right does it take t take seven years to develop a project in billions of dollars that's pretty high risk but if you can get something into production and get it to produce copper in a shorter period of time that helps deisk it so infrastructure and that's another one of the key advantages of Makoa and I would add it's a major non now a NATO ally of the United States which is just like Australia that the president just went to go visit right so that's an also a huge advantage United States is building smelting capacity not necessarily mining capacity I think that they would ex like it to be both but the biggest one is they want smelting they want to have that refined copper capacity to drive production chains and so that's what makes Makoa such an amazing candidate uh by the way speaking of uh Freeland um Robert Freeland mining mogul He he told the press uh a couple years ago, I told you so. Is what he said. Well, what he said recently is I told you so. Well, that Yeah. Well, sure. I I wasn't quoting that, but that would make sense that he would say that because he has correctly called this trend. He said in the past produce, he said that humanity must mine more copper in the next 20 years than we have in human history. In the last 10,000 years, basically was the exact quote I heard on on another channel to meet surging global demand. Other researchers have come up with similar numbers. Um researchers found between 2018 to 2050 the world will need to mine 115% more copper than has been mined in all human history. Well, it's one thing to make that projection but it's one thing to actually make that happen. So if if if let's say investors or not just investors but the governments or industry who need you know the Elon Musk of the world who need your copper were to come to you and say hey Ian we need this copper like now not in 15 years when we have maybe a maybe a mine like what what needs to happen to expedite this process. You know it's funny David the first thing you just mentioned is what can happen. And it's like, "Sorry guys, you're too late. You figure this out too late. Game over." Right? But because it's existential, they'll find a way. Right? And and and you know, in the triangle of what is it? Uh uh uh quality uh speed and I forget what the last one is, but anyways, money can make things go a lot faster, right? Um but I think uh that is the biggest one. It needs to be incentivized. the commodity price and capital is the number one thing that it's going to take to to to speed things up. And I've been saying it for a while, maybe a little bit too early, that the future is based on offtake with uh you know, you have an vertical integration of businesses. Uh which you haven't seen since the you know, the the the the first production lines of the Model T, right? where you had rubber plantations and iron mines to build a factory of uh cars, right? We've del global we've globalized those production chains and now we're seeing a deglobalization. So, it makes sense. You're seeing um you're seeing technology companies now in the energy space and I think you're going to see them very quickly uh in the mining space. So, your stock surged again 70% in a couple of weeks. What happened in the last couple weeks? Did you have a new drilling result? Do you have any news to share with us? I think the big one is obviously there's now the spotlight has moved now to copper that the the whole space is getting a whole lot more attention and then people see the narrative for copper. I think a lot of people but not enough people now people are buy and can see that narrative. Uh but we've also put out like a trifecta of great news. uh we put out amazingly improved metallurgical results which especially for metal for for malibdinum point2 and increased value for every ton you take out of the ground right um you know if you've already got to mind it out and you get more value out of it that incredible recoveries we saw in Molly was a is a big uh is a big win uh for the project we put out great drill drill results demonstrating a third high-grade zone within the project highra is important because that helps pay the bills in the beginning of a project helps make a more economic project in a startup. Uh so hitting a third zone is big. And then the big news that we have come to uh we finished our first consulta finished the previous consultation process with Kandagwa uh which is the the the first nation closest to the project and establish that partnership from the beginning and people that really understand it understand that this is a this is a group that has autonomy um and their ability to say this is this is now our project. Um and so that that helps uh protect the project uh from the very beginning and creates that relationship of co-development together. So it's it's a big d-risk for people that really know how what it takes to build these minds done at the exploration phase which is which is the first time ever in the history of Colombia. And I'd even add um one of my directors who previously worked in Colombia goes I can't believe how fast this happened. like it I mean it took about 12 months but for Colombia that's extremely fast. Uh it's also the first one that the government knew of where the company represented the company uh and the first nation represented the first nation. So there wasn't in between. So we created that relationship from the very beginning uh face toface one-on-one. Uh so it's uh it's been I think that we've had to move now we really have an excuse to even make a bigger move based on this news. So, what's the next major milestone that we should watch for? In other words, let's say an investor were to say to you, great, we're in a bull rally. Uh, you've made your thesis clear. What needs to happen for you as a CEO to not only add your hold of value, but ensure that your company continues to add leverage to the copper price on its way to $10 an ounce. So, David, I would argue first we're already in that catalyst. We have already done the catalyst. We're now finally getting paid for those catalysts, getting this project restarted, putting out some of the best drill holes on the planet, showing we can develop um that social license that's required, develop a reputation in country, which is another thing that we're doing and demonstrating we're the highest ranked little exploration company compared to the big boys in in in in Colombia ranked by government officials. We're doing all the right things that order that take to build a project. And now we're we're we're way undervalued at a 0.1.2 two cents per pound in the ground where the next guys that that that got their project at a higher valuation in a different market um when there was a little bit of wind are trading for 1 2 3 cents per pound in the ground. So there's always already an argument. So the my question is what does it do to continue to go up that uh valuation chain and for me it's the next big stage is putting up a a new resource estimate an updated resource estimate showing that this thing is growing not a little bit but in big steps uh and then being pushing towards its preliminary economic assessment to show its economic and get it on that timeline that you say I want to make sure that this thing could be producing copper when it even when it really makes a big difference And so it's seeing that pathway where our valuation is today. What is our V valuation is based upon and create a whole lot more value uh than it costs us to get there, right? Um so that's that's that's that's what we're looking at today roughly and you know I I know you don't have an answer but roughly when can we expect a pea? My goal is to have one before during or immediately after we have a new president. So I mean my goal it might be ambitious would be to get something done by August of next year is that time frame. It's it's a you know it's a goal right now. Um we need to get there right and and the only way to you know we need to get more rigs running more things and more activities going on on the project. Um but um I think we'll you know we'll get there one way or another right um uh my goal is to do it with the biggest resource possible and we might have to do it while the resource is still growing, right? I mean that might be the sacrifice that we have to go through. Uh we'll keep tabs then on your progress. So, congrats again on a very successful third quarter and let's see what the fourth quarter has in stock for us. We'll put the link down below so you can follow Carper Giant there. Thanks very much, Ian. Appreciate your time. Thanks, David. Thank you for watching. Don't forget to like and subscribe.
