00:00So let's just start kind of high level about where you kind of see the forces driving the
00:05copper market right now and how AI plays into all of that. I think there's a number of factors
00:10driving the market and you've got to start with the supply issue always and you know over the
00:15last 10-20 years you've had a dearth of mining investment in the source of raw materials whether
00:20it's existing mines upgrading the mineral reserves or finding new deposits and then you've so there's
00:28been a complete lack of that and then you have the existing mines a lot of them especially in
00:33South America have declining grades so if you look at some of the mine grades in Chile and that you're
00:38running at 0.9, 0.7, 0.8 percent that means you've really got to move a hundred, 110 tons
00:43of dirt
00:43to produce one ton of copper and how much does it cost to move that hundred tons of dirt when
00:49you
00:49look at fuel costs, human costs, vehicle costs etc etc. So you've got that issue in the supply side and
00:59then obviously on the demand side you've got these hyperscalers requiring what is it 50,000 tons of
01:05copper per unit. So you multiply that over a whole series of hyperscaler data centers being built out.
01:15In terms of regions of the the world where you are most bullish is is it fair to say it
01:21would be DRC?
01:22I'm very bullish on the DRC on the on the basis it's very very underexplored and historically
01:30it's been in constant conflict. Which is why it's probably underexplored. Correct and the new
01:35government under Felix that's coming in this second term where he's not in a coalition with
01:40Kabila. He's done an exceptional job. There's a lot of investment going in the country roads been
01:47built you go into Kinshasa's a lot of infrastructure been built buildings and a lot of mining investment.
01:54You had 32 plus billion dollars of mineral exports last year the highest ever for the for the DRC and
02:00it's on track to do probably in excess of 50 billion this year. So a huge amount of investment in
02:05copper.
02:05But what's exciting about Congo is the copper grade. So if you look at the average grade in Congo is
02:11running
02:11two, three, four, some deposits six percent means you got to move a lot less dirt to produce the same
02:18ton of
02:19copper than you do in a lot of these South American jurisdictions. How did the I guess how did the
02:26customers of
02:28the buyers of copper? How do they access the copper? Is it a market where it's there's still I guess
02:35more demand than there is supply and it's getting even harder?
02:40At the moment demand exceeds supply. I mean even going into this year I think you're going to have a
02:45three four hundred thousand ton shortfall and I see the banks they're targeting thirteen thousand eight hundred at the year
02:52end.
02:52So my own prediction would be more on fifteen thousand tons.
02:55Oh wow.
02:56So you saw Codelco recently announced twenty percent reduction in supply. I'm not sure if
03:05Grassberg has fixed its issues in Asia. And with the demand going, where's the supply coming from?
03:14So you mentioned the history of conflict in the DRC and it's also right now in the news as a
03:20result of what's happening with Ebola.
03:22And I'm curious about how that affects, you know, you're on the ground there oftentimes.
03:28It's one of the places you split your time between. What are you seeing? What are you hearing? How does
03:34that affect the industry?
03:35I mean it's a story about infectious disease and it's a story about people but it's also a story that
03:39affects exports.
03:41I mean Ebola at the moment is concentrated in that northeast area around Punya and it hasn't really spread and
03:47it kind of self contains itself and over time it burns out.
03:51I mean in 2014 we were in the Ebola area of Guinea near Ziracore where we were exploring iron ore
04:02and again as long as you're sort of hygienic and you're not sort of getting involved
04:10in any way with the locals and as far as sexual activity, as far as, you know, it's all driven
04:16by semen, saliva and blood.
04:19It's not an airborne disease.
04:21Dr. Amish Adalja from the Bloomberg School of Public Health was on our program on Friday and he reminded us
04:25about how, you know, we hear about how it spreads but he reminded us this is a, you know, blood
04:31and bodily fluids.
04:32Correct.
04:32Is the way that this spreads.
04:34And one of the traditions in African culture when a body dies, they wash it and then they all hug
04:40the body and the Ebola virus sits on the body and that's one of the big issues in their culture
04:48of perpetuating.
04:50But for you and for your business, not an issue.
04:52No, it's not an issue really.
04:53We've got, all our staff are well aware of the risks.
04:57We've, we've run a program informing everybody of what to do and what not to do.
05:02He's like, don't eat bush meat, don't eat bat meat, don't eat fruit that bats like because they urinate on
05:08the back.
05:08Does it make you, does this current outbreak make you spend less time there or will you go back?
05:12No, I'll go back.
05:13It's no problem.
05:15It's not an airborne disease.
05:16If it was, if Ebola was an airborne disease, I'd be staying, you know, a million miles away, but it's
05:20not an airborne disease.
05:21It's a, you know, it's a bodily fluid disease.
05:25So as long as you avoid bodily fluids in whatever shape or form, you're okay.
05:31Okay.
05:31So it's, it's not a huge risk.
05:33I do want to end just going back to, to copper here and the, the role, how you see the
05:39U.S.'s role kind of playing into this?
05:41Because you're not, are you seeing, guys, an increase in manufacturing and, and, and mining in, in the U.S.?
05:49I don't, I can't comment on that because I don't know too much what's happening in, in, in the U
05:53.S.
05:53It's sort of my, sort of, if you want to call it expertise is working in the DRC and finding
05:58a high grade copper assets that we can develop.
06:02But one, one advantage with us is we haven't signed any offtake or done any offtake agreements with anybody yet.
06:10So all our, our copper will be coming hopefully to the United States.
06:16What's the way that you identify a deposit?
06:20We identify the deposit normally looking at surface mineralization, where you look at the copper oxidization on the surface.
06:27And you, and that's very, very visible in, in, in, in Congo.
06:31And I'll just run you through quickly how we discovered Botembo.
06:35We have a, a sort of way of discovering deposits in, in, in the DRC with, whatever mineral it is.
06:41And, um, our local team called us, uh, at our office in the Mumbashi and said, uh, sort of, guys,
06:47you come up here, there's, um, very interesting copper.
06:50And how it was discovered in that area of Botembo, the locals were digging from the top surface through the
06:57laterite and then through an oxidized mineral layer of copper.
07:01So you looked at about 10, 12 meters of ore and they were panning for gold and getting very nice
07:07lumpy gold, three, four, five grams a ton out.
07:10But then at the bottom, they hit almost a layer of cement, of green cement, which was your solid copper.
07:18And then they'd move on to the next sort of 50 meters, a hundred meters away.
07:21Do the same.
07:22You'd hit the same.
07:23And it was over and over.
07:24So we then flew up there with our team.
07:26We, we bought in an excavator.
07:28Right.
07:28And we dug a long strike, 1.2 kilometers.
07:32And you found it.
07:33Andrew Gross.
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