Transcription
Hello everybody and welcome into Commodity Culture, where our goal is to make you a better investor in the commodities sector. My name is Jesse Day.
Before we dive in, standard disclaimer. Nothing here is investment advice. Do your own due diligence.
Today is November 20th, 2025. And my guest is the CEO of 29 Metal Corps, a company advancing its Opamisca and Theieri copper projects, two significant Canadian copper assets. It's Guy Leel. Great to have you on the show.
Good afternoon, Jesse.
I want to start things off today by discussing the copper market, uh, and and recent price action. Then I want to dive, of course, into 29 Metal Corp. It's been a very interesting year for copper, highlighted by the price action. We saw a surge to nearly $6 on the back of a copper tariff announcement coming out of the Trump administration, and then a collapse back down to around $4.50 on news that those tariffs weren't going to have quite the impact that people anticipated. But now, here we are, back above $5 a pound. What do you make of copper's recent price action, and how do you see it playing out as we close out the year and head into 2026?
Well, I mean, metal prices are suddenly more volatile these days than in the past number of years than it was, let's say, 20 years ago. And and that volatility increased, and you know, 20 years ago was more volatile than, you know, 40 years ago. Uh, at the end of the day, you have to concentrate on the long-term fundamentals. Everything short-term is noise, and you know, what interests me is not really the price of copper in six months, it's the price of copper in six years, and you know, that's what I'm focusing on.
And so, g, give us your thoughts on the six-year time horizon because as we were talking about before we hit record today, people these days are very focused on short-term. When, of course, looking at the commodities market, this is a long-term bull cycle, I believe, unfolding for copper and many other metals. So how do you see things going as, as we go out three years, even a decade into the future for copper?
I, I think that, you know, if we, if we look at, you know, the, the, the way copper is is moving, there's an increased consumption just based on demographics and, you know, people getting access to more, what I would call, the benefit of society. We're, we're at the age of electricity, and, you know, electricity only works if there are copper wires somewhere. And, you know, [clears throat] if you don't, you know, if you don't have copper, you know, every everyday object, I mean, your phone, it's just a nice piece of conversation. I mean, this computer we're working on right now doesn't. So th, this is something that is is needed. And I mean, this, I would say, there's probably an embedded growth of demand of, you know, say 2% per year just based on on this. Now, we also have the, what I would call, the electrification and decarbonization, electrification of transport and decarbonization of the whole society. And this is adding on top of, you know, what I would call the baseline demand growth. And again, it, you know, people used to see this coming as a S-curve type of demand where, you know, as more and more electric cars and and charging stations and all this, they were seeing a, uh, we call it S-curve increase in the demand. They're now flattening out this demand expectation and they're saying, you know, what, it's, and it's most, you know, even in the US and even in Canada, the electric car is not that popular. I don't know in Europe, but it, it is not going as the penetration rate is not as great as it was expected, say, five years ago. So I mean, you probably get more of a flatline year-over-year demand increase. And we get to, uh, the, uh, artificial intelligence and, you know, the new chips and that, you know, is this, is this another S-curve type of thing or is it going to taper down? I mean, I cannot predict. What I can see is that there is a, a demand growth that is there, and we know that it's difficult to maintain the supply. So I, I think the price will increase, and that's, you know, the supply-demand fundamental. The other big thing that is happening is what I would call the debasement of the US dollar. And if that trend continues, every hard asset, you know, copper, gold, or even real estate, anything that's denominated in US dollar, we'll see an increase in price just on that basis. So I, my, my, my view right now, I'm very bullish on on the next 10 years of of copper price, and for those reasons. And I kind of see this a bit like what the early 2000s, 2010s were when China was electrifying, where, you know, there was this, this big demand that we could see in front of us, and, you know, it finished by tapering off, and and a lot of projects, you know, came on on stream during that period. I expect the same thing will happen, uh, with copper over the next 10 years. I mean, some supply will show up when we reach what I would call the the price incentive, which is around $5, as far as I'm concerned.
That was a great summary. I, I want to talk about the supply side, as you hinted to there. We keep hearing about structural deficits. Many analysts looking to 2026 or '27 as the time frame when we really see a squeeze. Are you seeing the same thing? And how large and how sustained could this copper deficit be?
Well, let's, let's say that first of all, that the deficit, a real deficit doesn't exist at the end of the year. You know, all the, all the, the tons of copper available will be bought. Or, you know, if, if there is more demand, it's going to come out of inventory somewhere. If, if prices keep going up, I mean, it's, it's going to disincentivize people to use it, and they'll, they'll look at substitution or they'll look at, you know, being what they call thrifting, you know, using a bit less, uh, but from a, from a supply issue, yes, we have a problem. Uh, the grade of operating mines is going down. In, in 1970, the average grade in the world was 1.1% copper, plus or minus. In what I've seen now, in 2030, the average grade should be around 0.56, which is ex, almost exactly 50%. Over a 60-year period. Uh, so that's, that's the grade that have operating mines right now. On top of it, if you look at discovery, copper discovery in the past 10 years has been much less than the 10 years before. And this is not with, you know, the same or, you know, equivalent amount of exploration spending. We just find less. And when we find it, it's deeper. Okay. So, and it takes, you know, more time to bring to, uh, to production. Then we've got permitting issues. Uh, maybe things will be changing now in the US and and in Canada, they're saying, you know, yes, if you're strategic, maybe permitting, we'll see that. But there was a time when six, seven years of permitting, and and sometimes 10 years of permitting in the US was, you know, the, the common. Uh, I've heard people saying yesterday at a conference where I was that they, they actually track permitting demand that stayed 180 days on the desk of a civil servant without moving. So I mean, those kind of things cannot happen if you want to, you know, get copper on the market. There's geopolitical risk and everything that, you know, make people, I mean, it's, it's much easier to have a mine like us in Canada, in Quebec, than having it in a, in a country where, you know, you wake up in the morning and you don't know if you own the mine. Uh, and and that happened. I mean, it happened to some big companies recently. Uh, and and the last thing that, you know, constrains supply is the capacity to build. So if you divide mining companies in three big tiers, you have the, the giant companies, the, the, what are diversified. Then, you know, the copper project competes internally on rate of return with another commodity, and could be coal or iron ore. And if the company has, you know, two, three, four billion dollars to spend, they'll, they'll decide internally, you know, which, where they allocate the money, and copper might might not be the one that has the highest rate of return at the time of the decision. What I would call the, the, the intermediate companies, either totally focused on copper or smaller diversified, they have the capacity to do, you know, one project at a time. Especially now, I mean, it's always in the billions of dollars. And then the junior companies like us, if, if your project, you know, if your market cap is, you know, less than $100 million, and your project is a, a plus $1 billion, even if you allow for a 50% you know, debt package, you still need to find, you know, a multiple of your market cap in equity to do the project. And, you know, this brings up delays in getting the project to the market to production. So all those things are, you know, constraining supply, and I don't see anything changing in the short term.
Well, Guy, I could talk to you forever about the intricacies of the copper market. You, you've got a very deep knowledge base, but of course, I do want to discuss how 29 Metal Corp fits into the picture. Uh, maybe you could start by giving us an overview of the company.
The company has two projects, two assets, like you mentioned at the introduction. Both are brownfield, and, you know, they, they benefit from great infrastructure, you know, community nearby that supports projects, uh, air, airport, rail link, power, everything like this. And that brings you, what I would call, a low CAPEX, you know, construction CAPEX because of that. I don't have to, to build a cap, I don't have to build a road, I don't have to, you know, bring infrastructure, you know, in, in northern Canada type of thing, or in the middle of the desert, top of the Andes, you know, you name it. Uh, the, also the company is part of the OR group. It's eight companies under more or less the same umbrella. We, we share the back office, we share physical office, and that permits to spread a lot of the fixed costs between eight companies. And, you know, the money we raise, you know, gets on the ground, uh, better ratio of of money raised to money spent on the ground. And on top of it, right now, you know, 29 Metal is fully funded for the next 12 months for, you know, everything that we have, uh, in the, in the book coming in, in the next, for the next year. Opamiska, we, we just put a PA out, you know, it, it really showed that we have, you know, there will be a mine there. It's going to be a low-cost mine, it's a low CAPEX, uh, project, and it's, uh, a very great rate of return in terms of, you know, getting the money back. At Siri, we have the largest, you know, primary copper resource in Ontario. And it's probably, from a, a development timeline point of view, it's 18 months behind Opamiska. I mean, we still have a lot of drilling to do over there to bring it to a PE, but, you know, this is where we're going.
Yeah, let's dive a little deeper into the PA you recently released for the Opamiska project in October. Walk us through those numbers and lay out your next plans for advancing that project.
The, the, the big number, we, we did, we did the, uh, the financial, if you wish, at $4.35 copper, $3,000 gold, and, and $30 silver. So it's, it's a copper-gold project, and the split in revenue is about two-thirds, one-third between copper and precious metals. The numbers were excellent. You know, rate of return at the base price, the, the rate of return was, you know, over 27%. The, uh, the NPV 8% was half a billion dollars. The payback of this $614 million, $620 million Canadian capital was, you know, two and a quarter years, that type of thing. And, you know, it's a 17, 17-year mine life, and everything, everything is happening the way that we were envisaging it. I mean, and and the pre-scoping that we had done, the thing kind of fell almost where we were expecting it. Uh, it's a long life, and on top of it, right now, we're only using 50, well, 51, 50% of the resources that we declared in June. So there's still a lot of potential. If you change a bit of the margin between, uh, the price of copper and my cost, a lot of copper can come out of the ground. Um, the fact that, you know, the payback is only two years, basically, once you pay back the capital, it's like I say, it's a margin game, you know, going forward. It's, it's very easy to operate the mine when, you know, the capital is paid. We, we need now to, to bring it to the PFS, pre-feasibility. To me, that's the most important study because this is where you define what the project will be. You do all the trade-offs, you know, all the good ideas. This is where you test it. And to do that, you need to have the support studies to be able to, for the engineers, you know, to do the, you know, meaningful comparison. And this is on what we're going to work on the next 12 months or so. Um, again, I don't, there's no technical issue. I mean, we're going back to a mine that operated 45 years. There was, there was four underground mines where, you know, everything I talk about is just going at at two of those four underground mines and, you know, making a pit out of it. But, you know, from a metallurgical point of view, it's the same ore, you know, from everything historically was going well. There's no nasties in the, in the, in the mineral. The concentrates going to be clean. Uh, if it, from a, I mean, from a mining engineering point of view, it's, it's a charm. And the, the, we have two types of mineralization over there, what I would call the high-grade, which is, you know, over 1.1% copper equivalent, and then around those high-grade zones, it's, uh, what I would call the stockwork, which is a 0.40 copper equivalent. And the split is about 50/50. So we can, we can schedule the, the ore to the mill on a decreasing grade type of thing. So that, you know, it's a, we can almost mine this like in in the textbook that, you know, when I was studying mining, where, you know, you, you front-end the maximum high-grade to get your payback, and then you go with the reducing grade as the mine life continues, and you finish with your stockpile. So this is, this is what this is the plan, and, you know, it, it's going to work very well, and it's going to be, from an investor point of view, it's going to be a great, a great place to invest because, you know, you get the cash at the front end. U, the [sighs] the thing that we have to talk about is, you know, the social aspect. I mean, we, we went in town to tell the, the citizens what we had been doing, you know, over there for the past six years, and show them what the plans were, because the mine is, is very adjacent to, to the town of Chapeau. And people are very happy and supportive of the mine. I mean, they, they want to see a gen, it's a generational project. It's going to bring revenue to the town, just on a fiscal basis, and and then, you know, it's going to bring probably 450 direct jobs in a town where there's 1400 people. So, you know, it's going to change their life for the next 20, 25 years.
Could you shed some light on the team behind 29 Metal Corp, and perhaps starting with your own background and how you came to become CEO of the company?
Yes. Yes. So myself, I'm a mining engineer, you know, 40 years. I graduated like in the other millennium, that century, the millennium. Uh, I was, as a student, I worked at this mine when it was an underground mine in, in this, in '79. And basically, I remember the good times in Chapeau, I remember the good people, and how great this, this place was. And basically, I, I would say that I was more or less semi-retired at the time. I was, you know, am I going to go for another round or not? And I spent my career, uh, in, in South America and in the, lately, the last few, uh, co-jobs or, you know, assets in the US. So to be able to come back to Quebec, where I live, and know, get on the mine site on a paved road from my house to your body, to me was something new. And on top of it, because it was a place where I had worked before, it was very interesting for me. And, you know, I was, I was very happy to, you know, take on the challenge. We're a very small team. The rest of the team is comprised of a geologist, or geology technician. Uh, two of them born and raised in Chapeau, and one still lives there. The other one, you know, nearby. Uh, one of my board members, the former vice president of the company, as a property in Chapeau. I go there a week per month. So, you know, we, and I bring the team to work in Chapeau for a week. So we, we're getting our roots, you know, in the town. And all, all the guys are, I would say, dedicated in in making this project a success. You know, Steven Stewart, which, you know, as chairman and, you know, running the OR group, you know, supports us, uh, across the board for everything that we do.
Fantastic. Well, let's hone in on the Theieri project. Uh, you've got some good existing infrastructure there. It's a past-producing mine as well. Could you perhaps provide some color on your plans for that project and provide a timeline to an initial resource update or or a PA?
The, the, the Theieri project is probably the best-kept secret in Ontario right now. It's the, what we said, the largest resource of primary copper. It is a mine that was operated by UMX, Union of Belgium, from '76 to '82, six years only, an underground project. And it was probably the, the worst six years to operate a mine in Canada or even to start one for anything. It was a second oil shock. I mean, interest rates were in the teens, and and that type of thing. Uh, you had to give raises to your employees twice a year just to keep, for them to keep up with cost of living. So they developed the mine, and it was supposed to be a 4,000 tons per day mine, underground. And and, you know, basically, it didn't work. And, uh, six years later, you know, they stopped. Everything was dismantled. But just in terms of the, the replacement cost of all those underground openings, probably worth $200 million today. And, you know, this is what was, you know, was the primary target when we acquired it. However, on the same mineralized horizon, 3 kilometers away, there is an outcrop. And this outcrop is 1.4 kilometers long. It dips at 55 degrees and has a thickness that varies between 100 and over 300 meters. In 2012, which is kind of, you know, 20 something years, you know, 30 years after the mine was shut, you know, some junior put out a resource statement for the first 200 meters below surface for that zone, and they declared 53 million tons of 0.38 copper plus nickel plus PGs, you know, not a great grade, even, you know, even in those years. However, when my guys start recompiling the data, you know, and and remember, should have said between 2012 and now, that property was owned by a number of junior companies, and and they kept drilling that that that zone, but never declared resources. After that, we recompiled a quarter million meters of historical drill holes, both at in the underground project and on this project there that's going to be a pit. What my brain trust, geology brain trust, discovered was that at K1, that outcrop, the grade increases with depth. There's a gradient of grade increasing with depth. So no matter which section you do on on the 1.4 kilometers, uh, if you have two holes that are one on top of the other, the grade in the second hole is always higher than the grade in the in the hole on top of it. So this begs for additional drilling and deeper drilling. And this is what we will do in the first half of the year next year. We have a program to, what I would call, prove the concept, and, you know, go in a number of sections, drill some deeper holes to 600 meters in depth. And if, if the concept holds on, then, you know, we'll go back and, you know, drill this thing at, you know, 70-meter centers, 1.4 kilometer strike length, 600 meters down dip, and declare, you know, a resource on it. And I think that we could go to a PA very quickly after that. But first, we need to prove the concept. And then, if that's the case, there's a lot, you know, that mineral mineralized trend on the property can be followed with geophysics across the property. So there is other areas that we could test eventually. So this is, I mean, we have no value for this in our stock price today, but it could be as great as Opamiska in 18 months' time.
Great. Well, is there anything that we haven't yet covered, or anything that you think it's important to emphasize that you think potential shareholders of 29 Metal should be aware of?
Yes. Well, I mean, it may surprise you, but as a CEO, I will tell you that my stock is highly undervalued. Uh, [laughter] we, we, our, we are at a very low valuation. You know, and I, I suggest people to go on our website and and look at the material that we have, and there is, you know, some comparison. You know, for a company that has a PA that, you know, we show high profitability, quick payback, low cost. I mean, one thing that we didn't mention at Opamiska, the first six years of operation, I mine a grade that is 50% higher than the average grade of of the, uh, of the resource. So my cost is about, would be a dollar [clears throat] US per ton per pound of copper, net of byproduct. This is first quartile production. I mean, everybody dies for that kind of numbers. So, I mean, what I would say to, uh, the people that listen to the podcast, you know, go to the website, do your due diligence, but, you know, you'll realize that it's a great project, that my job right now is to get the valuation upgraded to what I would call the comparable in the market. And, you know, this is what this is my focus.
Great. Well, I'm going to put a link in the description below to 29 Metal Corp's website, as well as social media, so people can follow along with the company. Guy, this has been a great conversation. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Thank you very much.
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