Transcription
Hello and welcome back to Kiko Mining's digging deep with me Paul Harris, in which we take a closer look at some of the most interesting news items in the mining space. Today is Wednesday, April the 22nd, and joining me is Rick Rule, mining legendary investor. Rick, welcome back to KitKo.
>> Pleasure to be back with you. I enjoy the sessions with you and of course, as you know, I'm a KitKo fan, so this will be fun.
>> Excellent. Uh, hopefully so. We've got some really good things to talk about. We last spoke about a month ago, Rick, as the Iran conflict kicked off. Um, in terms of medals and OS, we're still in the conflict. We're still having those impacts. Where are we now, do you think?
>> I don't know. I mean, I'm not a foreign policy analyst. I note that the ceasefire has been on again, off again. I note too that at least so far, uh, not very much material has gone from north of the Straits of Hormuz out to markets. Uh, I think it's important that uh, viewers to this interview understand that as an example, the oil price increases or the LNG price increases that we've seen as a consequence of the Straits of Hormuz action are anticipatory rather than reactive, which is to say the world is still running on floating inventory, uh, and strategic reserves in various countries. If this conflict continues for another two or three weeks, you will see a very different level of pricing. If we actually get to the point where uh, prices reflect real rationing as opposed to anticipatory rationing, the price escalations that we've seen thus far, uh, might seem minor. I'm not saying that's going to occur because I don't know what will happen politically or geopolitically. What I do know is that if we run out of floating inventory south of the Straits of Hormuz, below the Straits of Hormuz, the price impact is going to be very different than the price impact that we've seen. That will extend, uh, to helium markets, uh, to, uh, nitrogen, nitrogenous fertilizer markets. To some extent, it may extend, uh, all the way to things like refined aluminum. Uh, but certainly with regards to oil and liquefied natural gas, people need to understand that the move that we've seen in prices from $65, uh, a barrel, uh, to $105 a barrel, or now settled out to $90, $95 a barrel. These are anticipatory price moves, not reactive price moves.
>> Okay? So there, there's potentially a lot more to come there, and obviously a lot of people are watching this very closely. You know, I've, I've read a lot of commentary on this. Iran has certainly proven to be more resilient politically and militarily than some commentators thought it would be. And in terms of, uh, the US negotiating Iran away from developing nuclear capability, this conflict seems to have strengthened Iran's bargaining position and weakened that of the US because effectively the weakest, sorry, the US has been unable to forcibly impose its will on Iran. Um, and the Iran conflict, I guess, shows that regime change in Iran seems to be a more distant possibility, but perhaps the unpopularity and the cost of the war in the US perhaps makes regime change in the US more possible. What are your thoughts on that?
>> Well, you know, I question, but there you go.
>> I've been a US voter now, uh, or at least I've been entitled to vote in the US for 50 years. Uh, there's been one mainstream candidate in 50 years that I voted for, and I made a mistake voting for him. Um, I, I mean, I think with regards to regime change, it always should begin at home. Uh, while I find the Iranian regime odious, I also understand, uh, that that is a matter for the Iranian people to decide, not for me to decide. Uh, and while I find, you know, I, I find the whole conflict, uh, reprehensible, I'm not a geopolitical analyst. Uh, I, I believe that Mr. Trump has domestic political troubles irrespective of Iran. But I think that Iran might, in the near term at least, uh, be the pin that breaks the bubble. Um, I, I don't know about the vast majority of Americans. It was very difficult for me to believe that he had the courage, if that's the right phrase. I'm tempted to say the stupidity, uh, to engage in this conflict, particularly when there were so many other irons in the fire that he had. Um, what he did is done. Uh, I understand the rationale. I understand the political rationale. Uh, the implication that part of US policy was to defend the state of Israel, uh, from what was considered to be an existential threat. I get all that. Um, at least in the near term, uh, that effort was a failure. Uh, and, you know, I think there's lots of implications around this, and I don't think, unfortunately, that we'll be as good at anticipating them as ultimately we will be at chronicling them. Uh, one of the things I'd like to point out, Paul, and I think I pointed this out to you in private conversation, is that in, at least in terms of extractive industries, one of the winners, uh, will be uranium. Uh, it is very clear that one outcome of this struggle is that countries that are, uh, net importers of energy, uh, will increasingly need to rely on the one energy fuel that's dense enough that you can store, uh, enough material to fuel your country for five or six years in a small warehouse. Students of history will remember that the construction of the Japanese nuclear fleet, and to a lesser extent the French nuclear fleet, occurred as a consequence of the Arab embargo in the early part of the decade of the 1970s. The strategic, the proponents of the strategic argument for nuclear power got a very strong wakeup call, uh, in the last four or five weeks, and the real unsung beneficiary, if there's a beneficiary in all of this conflict, will be the nuclear power industry, and by proxy, the uranium companies.
>> Exactly. And Rick, I understand that, um, you, you and I, we're going to be doing a, a deeper dive into the Iranian space through your Rule Investment newsletter at some point in the not too distant future. Um, we've got a lot to talk about today. So we're going to move on and, uh, um, not all of you know, some, some very positive news out there, but there's some very negative news out there as well. Burkina Faso, for example, is demanding the right to own 40% of West African Resources' gold mine. They already have a 15% free carry there and they're demanding the ability to purchase an additional 25%. Um, Rick, I guess the good news here is the government seems to have a pay not take model as it seeks to increase its, uh, its ownership there. Um, you know, to what extent do you think this will embolden governments in other countries to look to increase asset ownership? And I want to put this in context of news out today that the La Rioja province in Argentina has its hand out, closing the road to the Vicuña project because it doesn't get a share of the pie. The Vicuña project is mainly in San Juan, Argentina. Um, how do you see resource nationalism or things of this nature developing and progressing as time goes on?
>> That could be the whole interview. I'll try to keep it brief. Uh, elections were described once by H.L. Mencken as advanced auctions of stolen property. Government sees its job as stealing assets from one group of constituents to deliver benefits to their own supporters. That's the nature of government. Their real job, uh, if you strip it down, is to steal. Uh, that's what they're asked to do. Uh, to the extent that we accept that reality as natural resource investors, what comes to mind then is payment. Uh, do we get compensated for the risk we took? Does the payment, uh, involve a reasonable assessment of net present value, and what's the form of payment? If the Burkina government decides to pay for that deposit, as an example, in long-dated Burkina Faso denominated bonds, uh, that's the equivalent of true theft. Uh, if, by contrast, they were to pay us PV8, uh, with some makeup, uh, for the tail of the deposit after the net present value has subsided, uh, and, uh, they were to pay in either cash or in debt denominated in a real currency, uh, that might be different. With regards to the efficacy of resource nationalism, one needs to ask themselves how many circumstances where, uh, are there where governments acted intelligently, uh, in private sector activities? I'm myself, uh, I, I have a good memory of the round of resource nationalism that happened as a consequence of the increased natural resource prices in the 1970s. Uh, I watched Jaman have the unlikely ability to wreck the Congolese copper industry. I watched ZCCM do the same for Zambia. I mean, it took a real, real, real skill. Probably only a government could wreck industries as robust as central African copper. Uh, I watched the demise of the Venezuelan and Mexican petroleum industries through PDVSA and Pemex, in particular, with, uh, the cash flow from those businesses usurped to support politically expedient domestic spending programs. Uh, I, I look with some chagrin, uh, at the balance sheet and the deferred, uh, capital requirements of Codelco, probably the most successful state-owned, state-owned firm in resource history. So, in the first instance, I think that resource nationalism is morally wrong. Uh, I also think it's stupid from a utilitarian point of view. But what I think doesn't matter. Uh, it's going to occur if you assume that governments are elected, at least in a democracy, uh, because the constituents of one party believe that they can use the power of government to enforce their will, and, uh, because theft, where you're not the victim but rather the beneficiary, is popular, we can expect it to continue.
>> Thank you, Rick. Um, interesting that you mentioned Chile's state copper company Codelco there. Last week I was at the 2026 CIU World Copper Congress, and during the, the event, Codelco's chair, Máximo Pacheco, spoke about these kinds of things, and he highlighted the fact that Codelco now has 18 joint ventures with private sector companies in which Codelco is the junior partner. 15 of those have been created within the last two years. So it seems Codelco is perhaps learning that lesson, and that it's better to hitch its wagon to the private sector company developers rather than look to do things itself. The, the government of Antonio Kast is also stressing this, that Codelco needs to do more with the private sector, with the growing wave of resource nationalism around the world. Uh, I guess one of the implications for this, Rick, is the potential for more M&A in Canada, the US, and maybe even Guyana, where we're going to now because G Mining Ventures announced it's to acquire G2 Goldfields in a $3 billion Canadian all-stock deal at a 72% premium to consolidate, uh, a large and low-cost gold district, adding G2's Oakagani project to its Oko West mine development. It said it creates the potential to have a mine that can produce more than 500,000 ounces a year. This deal will unlock more than $1 billion of initial capital cost synergies, uh, and forgo about $850 million of capital costs that would otherwise have been required to construct a standalone project at G2. Uh, the combined projects host almost 10 million ounces at the moment. Rick, this deal has been a no-brainer for years, but it's obviously finally just happened. What was the trigger, perhaps the fact that G2 was about to start developing a feasibility study using Strateon rather than G Mining services?
>> I think that the, um, I think that the timing was inevitable, and I think that the transaction involved common sense. The Ginyak family, uh, on behalf of shareholders, agreed to pay a premium price for a premium asset. The G2 management team, I think, did a wonderful job conducting negotiations where there was one logical bidder. Um, it's interesting that the synergies, which you accurately identified in the project, are so extraordinary that the bidder could pay a 72% premium, and that the acquisition would still be accretive on a per-share basis to G Mining shareholders. I think it's important to note too that, uh, in addition to the fact that G Mining was the logical acquirer, given the fact that this district only needs one processing facility. But I think the other thing that this points to, and this came out in the analyst call, is the absolute certainty that there is exploration and development upside on both sides of the line. Which is to say, while the combined project may be an 8.5 million ounce project at present, which you highlighted with your suggestion that it could produce 500,000 ounces a year, uh, my suspicion is that when the dust settles, this is a 10 or 12 or maybe even 15 million ounce district. Uh, people who are listening to you and I talk may not understand that the nature of these deposits is that companies build them when they can, when they've drilled off enough reserves and resource that they can advertise the capital cost of construction, uh, recoup capital, and get a reasonable return on capital employed, they stop drilling. You don't often drill off reserves that you're going to produce 20 years from now because they don't have a net present value. That notwithstanding, uh, these deposits, these very large deposits, invariably get bigger. Uh, and they're going to get bigger on both sides of the border. So what was an 8.5 million ounce acquisition likely was a 10 or 12 or 15 million ounce acquisition.
>> Okay. Now Rick, um, I watched one of your other video interviews today, this morning, that has just been published, and during that, you said that the big gold miners need to take action today, and that means M&A, with, um, G Mining consolidating this district for a potential 500,000 ounce producer when this transaction with G2 Goldfields is closed. Does that put G Mining in play for one of the big guys? All the big guys would love a 500,000 ounce a year producer.
>> I think it might. Uh, G Mining is unique, uh, in that they have a defensible competitive advantage. The Xenyak family's advantage is that they have been for 35 years building large gold mines in orogenic systems in tropical, high rainfall environments. They did it for the Lundins in Ecuador. They did it going way back, uh, in Cambi and IAMGold. They've done it now in G Mining. So they are uniquely competitive in the Guiana Shield, uniquely competitive in Brazil. They might, if they chose to be, uh, able to utilize that advantage in central Africa, as an example, although they don't need to. Uh, it's worthy to note that after they get done building, uh, the Guiana asset, uh, there's another asset in Guiana which might be amendable to what they do, and they have a development stage asset in Brazil. Would the whole circumstance be attractive to somebody else, or really allowing yourself to dream? Uh, would the Lundin family, who has a very high regard for the Ginyaks, as a consequence of the Ginyaks' demonstrated competence in Futa del Norte in Ecuador, consider combining Lundin Mining, another family-controlled firm, with G Mining? Uh, the shareholders of G Mining are in a lovely circumstance, which is to say that production growth for five to seven years is assured without them doing anything else. The company is also on extraordinarily firm financial footing, which means that should they want to acquire somebody or should they require capital for an upgrade, they won't have to go to market. Uh, they'll just be able to look in their bank account. So the G Mining shareholders are in a wonderful circumstance where the next five, seven, probably 10 years are baked in the cake, uh, and where they have the ability to grow, where they have the opportunity, but, uh, the family that runs the thing, the Xenyak family, while they think in generational terms, I suspect if the right offer came, uh, would have to consider selling.
>> Now Rick, um, you, you said Lundin Mining, but, um, do you mean Lundin Gold?
>> Lundin. I'm very sorry, Paul, you're correct. Absolutely correct. Uh, Lundin. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Be an interesting family negotiation or two families getting together.
>> Another very well.
>> Yeah. Another no-brainer deal, and one that's been executed with some style, uh, was Agnico Eagle Mines, which used to consolidate gold development properties in the central Lapland Greenstone Belt of northern Finland through $3.5 billion Canadian dollars worth of deals to acquire Rupert Resources, Orion Resources, and a JV interest held by B2Gold to establish a pathway to develop a 500,000 ounce a year production hub. Um, it's paying a 67% premium for Rupert in an all-stock deal and a 46% premium for Orion in an all-cash deal. Um, Rick, um, this deal is another no-brainer that's been brewing for quite a while. Um, it seems that Agnico perhaps got fed up with the squabbling between Rupert and Orion and their inability to reach terms to consolidate Ikkari with Hölmö, and they've come in and, you know, basically just done it all for themselves. I haven't had the opportunity to talk to Ammar Aljundi since the transaction. He's been a busy guy. Uh, you will recall, however, Paul, that, uh, I had an in-depth conversation with him at the Natural Resources Investment Symposium in both, now almost a year ago, and this is very consistent with Agnico Eagle's growth strategy, which is to say, invest in assets, pay a full price for assets where it enables Agnico Eagle to leverage existing assets they have in the area, and where they think that the district inevitably will grow. Again, you have a circumstance where the acquirer paid what is on the face of it a very full price. Uh, I have watched Agnico Eagle now for 45 years, uh, and they tend to be extremely astute acquirers. They regard themselves as a construction company as much as a mining company. And it's very obvious that they see growth in the district. Uh, they have said for many years that they wouldn't acquire at all for non-strategic purposes. In other words, they wouldn't acquire to grow. Uh, and they have also said that every acquisition that they make, uh, has to meet the hurdle that it's a more efficient use of capital than buying back their own shares. They operate, Agnico Eagle, uh, on a per-share basis, uh, which gives me some confidence. I have not had the opportunity to talk to Ammar Aljundi on a specific basis around this acquisition, nor did I attend the conference call. So I'm a little less informed on this acquisition than I was on the G Mining G2 transaction. And, uh, I understand that Agnico Eagle will be one of the participating companies in the 2026 Rule Symposium in Boca Raton in the first week of July. So hopefully we'll find out more from Ammar, um, at that event. Um, sticking with the large gold M&A theme, Barrick Mining has said recently that it would get back onto the M&A train to try and recover some of the ground it has lost to companies such as Agnico Eagle Mines and Newmont in recent years. Um, Rick, again, going back to your, um, the comment I picked up on on one of your other videos, that big gold miners need to take action, and that means M&A. What kind of M&A target would move the needle for Barrick? Would that be gobbling up somebody like Kinross Gold?
>> Uh, I don't know the answer to that. Uh, Barrick's acquisition track record has been somewhat less sterling. Uh, so that'll be interesting to watch. The company's competitive advantage until fairly recently was Mark Bristo's acumen in West Africa. That's clearly gone. The most obvious transaction, uh, for Barrick, I think, is going to be fairly tough to affect. The most obvious transaction would be to combine their North American assets with Newmont's North American assets and perhaps sell off the rest of Barrick. Uh, a Nevada-focused supermajor, where you combined Newmont's assets with Barrick's assets, would give you tremendous operational synergy, and the market would regard it as a highly, highly, highly attractive asset that would afford Barrick the ability, if they wanted to, to sell off all the rest of the assets that they have on a global basis, including perhaps Pueblo Viejo. Uh, I don't think that that was, that's what Barrick intended to do. Nor do I believe that that's what Newmont intends to do. I think that the management teams of both companies understand that in a transaction like that, one side or the other would be the losers. And for reasons no more, um, altruistic than personal greed and larceny, uh, I don't think you see that transaction occur. But that would be the most intelligent transaction. You know, this is clearly a company in transition. One looks at their existing assets outside of, uh, Nevada, and one wonders where the synergistic acquisitions are. I mean, certainly the companies producing facilities in West Africa are substantial enough that if they were to proceed on the Agnico Eagle, uh, theorem, where you looked at assets that are more economic combined with your own than there would be on a standalone basis, that there are some opportunities there. The capital markets do not like Barrick's focus on West Africa or other emerging countries. So one wonders about their cost of capital. The second thing one wonders is that Barrick trades on lower market multiples than Newmont, and if Barrick benchmarks their merger and acquisition strategy, uh, against the metric that Agnico Eagle uses, which is to say, retiring their own capital, uh, they're going to be challenged, uh, in the acquisition space, given their own valuations.
>> Thank you, Rick. Um, it'll be interesting to see how this folds out, works out. Barrick is going to proceed with spinning out its North American assets. I've been reading that they're potentially valued at $60 billion, given that the overall company has a market capitalization of $72 billion. That shows how, how poorly perhaps the market values everything else in Barrick outside of North America. Um, another big name in the M&A space, making waves in the M&A space this week, was Mick Davis and his vision Blue Resources, who said that portfolio company Sar Verdie agreed to a $2.8 billion US combination with USA Rare Earth to create a geographically diversified and integrated mine-to-magnet producer of rare earth elements outside of China. Rick, um, how important is this deal in the supply chain, it hopes or claims to be able to to put in place?
>> I think it's potentially quite important. I think it, it, uh, speaks to a new geopolitical reality too. And I, I don't want to make this whole discussion about politics. Uh, the geopolitical tensions around the world, and I don't just mean China against the rest of the world. I mean the formation of trading blocks, the Japanese, the Europeans, the North Americans, uh, means that increasingly, whether there should be or not, there's going to be government involvement in the mining business, and government involvement, uh, while problematic, has the ability to lower the cost of capital of mining companies. The mining business, as you know, Paul, loves dumb money, and there's no money in the world as dumb as governments. Uh, and I suspect that in, as politically charged a topic, uh, as strategic materials, that the government will be particularly generous, and I think that Mick Davis, in particular, is smart enough to understand that there's a new potential shareholder on the side, um, who is unusually generous. Uh, I know the Reagan, the Reagan, the, uh, Trump administration's purchase of, uh, equity in Mountain Pass, which, if my memory serves me well, has been bankrupt three times in my career.
>> Okay. Um, I, I think it's been insolvent more times than that, actually. Rick, um, but your, your point is well made. USA Rare Earth does seem to be leveraging its highly, very highly valued paper to buy Brazil's only operating rare earth mine. Um, given that this is putting quite a large valuation on Sar, what will this do for valuations of other rare earth assets in Brazil and indeed elsewhere?
>> Yeah, I was going to say, uh, you need to include the rest of the world, probably. You know, uh, we haven't, well, first of all, rare earths aren't rare. Uh, we haven't found them because we haven't looked for them, and we haven't looked for them because China produced them so efficiently. But production costs are rising very rapidly in China. Uh, the environmental devastation done by rare earth production in western China has been so extraordinary that it's become unacceptable, both to the Chinese people and the Chinese government. So the pricing umbrella that existed in the rare earth business was starting to go away even before geopolitical concerns. It's important to understand that, uh, looking for rare earths, where, first of all, the costs are rising, but also where the utilization is expanding incredibly rapidly, means that we're going to find more. That's going to happen. Uh, Brazil, I suspect, is the world leader in non-Chinese sourced resource. There's a lot of work that needs to be done in those deposits in terms of process, in terms of metal energy. But the idea that the United States government would be interested in building an integrated supply chain around rare earths, uh, to rival, uh, or at least to insulate US manufacturers from a Chinese monopoly, seems like a certainty. And the axis, which is to say Brazil, uh, for production, and the US, Gost, as an example, for processing, seems like, uh, a no-brainer. As you know, I, uh, own three, uh, Brazilian, uh, rare earth deposits, and I look at this circumstance with some favor. Uh, I think that the Brazilian government, uh, will also, although I do believe that Lula, the president of Brazil, uh, has some aspirations to steal more of the benefit of rare earths, uh, I do believe that he has no second choice fiscally, uh, than to do whatever he can to develop, uh, the deposits, uh, in the interest of Brazil.
>> Thank you, Rick. Um, interesting that in Brazil, um, the vast majority of the exploration companies are Australian ASX companies. Um, continuing with the rare earth lines, Rick, I spoke to Steve Schoffshaw this week, who is heading Sprott's new rare earth ETF. He said there's considerable investor appetite to invest in rare earths. Part of the reason for the ETF is that, as I said, a lot of the companies are Australian-listed, which makes it sometimes difficult or impossible for US investors to invest in. But it's interesting that there is enough demand to justify and sustain an ETF. Rick, what does this perhaps say, uh, about the, the increasing maturity or, or raising the bar in the rare earth sector? It seems to be coming out of the, the shadows from being a very small thing that very few people know about, really getting into the mainstream now.
>> I think it's true. I think it also, uh, speaks to, uh, the lead that the Australian investment community has shown in resources. Australia has been a resource-centric economy for a very long time, and the fact that the Australians, through Lynas and others, have been leaders in rare earth exploration, rare earth technology, is no accident. They came first, and they've done a good job. So their capital markets, uh, have at least a 10-year lead time relative to Americans. I think Sprott is to be congratulated, uh, is to be, uh, praised for bringing to market an investment product, uh, designed specifically for US investors to take advantage of this theme. Uh, and unlike the VanEck product, uh, which, by the way, is a good product too, uh, that is more general, the Sprott product is very much around the theme of ex-China rare earths, uh, and I think it will find good market demand. I would tell people listening to this, uh, broadcast, by the way, that if your broker can't assist you in buying or selling Australian stocks, that you should fire that broker. There is no reason why, as an American, as an example, you can't go to Sprott Private Wealth, or if you're a global investor, that you can't go to Interactive Brokers. The truth is that the, uh, major, uh, wealth managers worldwide, uh, are often either lazy or greedy, which is to say they don't develop a trading capability in global stocks because they're too lazy, or they don't do it because they want to support the house issues. Those issues aren't your issues. If your broker can't buy you Australian stocks, if they can't buy you Eurozone stocks, if they can't buy you Hong Kong stocks, fire your broker.
>> Fair enough. I want to finish our conversation today, Rick, talking about another company that is going to be attending the symposium, and that is Seabridge Gold, which has reported a maiden inferred resource for the Snip North deposit of 9.22 million ounces of gold, 28.3 million ounces of silver, and 923 pounds of copper. It's also renamed the project the Bronson Corridor. However, uh, I want to talk more broadly about Seabridge because there's been other news items related to the company as well. Its push to for the permits to dig tunnels to its giant KSM project are being delayed until the miners' court fight with neighbor Tudor Gold is resolved. The regulators have said they want that resolved before they progress with the permit application. Um, and another bit of bad news for the company has come out that consultants who used to work for Seabridge are supposedly now working for the government, helping to write its permits, which suggests there's some possible, uh, conflicts there. Um, Rick, a lot going on at Seabridge Gold at the moment.
>> Uh, this is going to be very interesting to watch. Uh, my understanding, and it's incomplete. Uh, I don't want to attribute this to Rudy Frang, but I think that the dispute between Tudor and Seabridge is probably best moderated by the hosts, by the Tahltan. Uh, there is nobody who has more incentive to see KSM produce than the indigenous hosts. Uh, and, uh, I think that both Seabridge and Tudor are, uh, unusually reliant on the goodwill of the hosts. And from the host's viewpoint, uh, the accretion of net present value from development that would accrue to the relatively small number, uh, of, uh, indigenous host inhabitants, means that nobody has as much incentive to arbitrate this dispute, nor as much knowledge, frankly, as the hosts. And I think what you're going to see, um, is, uh, some work behind the scenes, tripartite work, uh, between, in particular, the Tahltan, but also the other, uh, native groups and nations royalty to resolve that part of the dispute. It's important to note that, uh, Seabridge has acted in good faith with regard to the Tahltan, the BC government, by achieving substantial start status, which is to say they have invested over the course of time almost a billion dollars in the deposit, including $350 million in pre-works. So, I would suggest that the goodwill associated with Seabridge in the local community has been established. Uh, I understand certainly the obligation of the Tudor management to defend their shareholders' interests should there be any. Uh, and I think that the right way to settle this, uh, would be outside the courts, uh, with the concurrence, uh, of the indigenous hosts. With regards to the Snip deposit, that, uh, I mean, I knew there was mineralization there. I was first in Snip, uh, if my memory serves me well, in 1984 with Ron Nettleship, and it's a, uh, it's a wonderful piece of real estate. Uh, I will say that the size of the resource, uh, you know, was a pleasant surprise to me. Uh, I haven't looked in detail, uh, at the deposit in terms of how much of that deposit would theoretically report to a mine, but it's certainly an encouraging start.
>> Well, let's hope this dispute is resolved quickly and promptly to the benefit of everyone. Um, a lot riding on this, uh, for Seabridge as well, because Seabridge needs a partner to develop the massive KSM project, and obviously it's hard to see a partner coming on board while a dispute is active. Um, Rick, want to sort of end things there. Um, your symposium is on the 6th to the 10th of July. Kitco is going to be there. Um, looking forward to that. Um, what's one thing you're really looking forward to about your event this year?
>> It's tough to specify one thing. You know, Paul, we've done that, uh, conference now for, some people tell me 30 years. My memory doesn't go back that far, but if you do something for 30 years and you make it a little bit better every year, you end up making it pretty good. Uh, we've attracted, uh, a lot of participants in the conference, uh, Kitco included, which I'm very proud of. But the whole range of what we do at the conference is very different than other conferences. We have big-picture thinkers that tell you the way the world really is, not the way that the CBC or Fox would have you believe it was. It was. That's important. Last year, we had David Stockman, you'll remember, who had been the, uh, director of the Office of Management and Budget under Reagan, telling us why Dodge would fail. Boy, was he right. Um, so we do that well. Uh, after we've established a worldview that allows you to understand the background of resource investing, we have analysts and portfolio managers who have made money over 40 years in resources through bull markets and bear markets. Not Johnny-come-lately newsletter writers, you know, who've established whatever reputation they might have in the last 12 to 18 months. That's important. We have the living legends. We have the Robert Friedlands and the Bob Quartermains and the Ross Beaty's and the, you know, those people who get on stage and tell you how they built multi-billion dollar natural resource companies from scratch and how you can identify the $10 million company that's going to become a $2 billion company. Always the most popular feature of the conference. In addition, Paul, as you know, uh, every single, uh, issuer company at the conference has to be owned in the organizers' accounts. At most conferences, the qualification to be an exhibitor is a check that cashes. At our conference, we have to know you well enough that we own you. And I need to frankly, uh, brag on our livestream. We've worked for five years bringing the conference to people who can't be at the conference physically. Last year, 1,400 people enjoyed the conference from 33 foreign countries. Uh, we have a commentator, uh, a person who is in charge of bringing the livestream, the livestream named Paul Harris. I'm extremely proud, uh, of Paul's accomplishment, and I'm delighted to have Kitco, uh, as a joint venture partner in that endeavor. We believe that the livestream audience this year will exceed 3,000 people, and it's important that those people understand that they are now an integral part of the conference. In other words, the conference programming has been designed in part to enhance the experience of the livestream audience that can't be there personally. Unlike any other investment conference that I know of in the world, our conference comes with an ironclad money-back guarantee. Whether you attend live, and by the way, the live seats are sold out, or livestream, two things: you have access to the recordings of the conference, which you will need, and you have a complete money-back guarantee if you think for any reason that we didn't earn the tuition that we charged you. Simply let us know, and we will refund, uh, your attendance. I'm delighted to say too, in 30 years of money-back guarantees, we've had to refund about one-tenth of 1% of the tuitions we've charged, but that guarantee is your guarantee that we've spent a lot of time on content.
>> Well, I'm really looking forward to the event, Rick, and engaging with some of the, the, the amazing panel of macro and company speakers that you've programmed for your livestream audience. Um, that's it for this week. Thank you very much for joining me again.
>> Thank you, Paul. And for those of our viewers, if you like what you see, don't forget to hit that subscribe button. I'm Paul Harris, digging deep for Kitco Mining.