From May 11th-13th in Fort Lauderdale, Florida a group of 30 resource companies and about 100 vetted investors poured into the Four Seasons Hotel, for an insightful 3 days of networking, 1-on-1 company meetings, keynote presentations and panels, and evening company dinners all geared around investing in junior mining and energy stocks. My goal is to give readers here the main takeaways and investing insights that I gleaned from this event, provide updates in catching up with portfolio company positions in attendance, and also introduce a few new potential company ideas for consideration.
I had attended this event last year in October, and benefitted greatly as an investor, by being able to take deeper dives into portfolio company value propositions than one typically gets to experience at conferences. In addition, that event was a great opportunity to get introduced to new companies, learn about their flagship projects and key upcoming catalysts, look management teams in the eyes and ask pointed questions, and add new positions to either my portfolio, or my close watchlist of stocks that could be potential future positions. This event last week achieved those exact same goals, and I’ll do my best to distill this all down into an article for readers here, along with embedded images, recent news, and related KE Report interviews.
So, let’s get into it…
My plan was to get to the event a day earlier, so that I could wake up early and enjoy some of the sunshine and fresh Florida breeze blowing in off the Atlantic Ocean along the Fort Lauderdale coastline. This was an ideal way to depressurize a bit, after flying in on fumes with hardly any sleep, having pushed my schedule to attend the MIF conference in Vancouver the prior evening. We covered that mining conference in the prior article.
Throughout the day the calls came in for meeting up for lunch and drinks, and it was nice to meet up with friends in the industry to pregame before the networking event and kickoff dinner that evening.
Below is picture of my friend and colleague, Erik Wetterling (The Hedgeless Horseman), where we met up to devour an epic brunch on day 1 of the conference. Erik presented in the “Young Guns” panel on Day 3 of the conference.
Many attendees appreciated the “soft start” to the conference at the mixer and dinner on Day 1 of the conference, where everyone in attendance could meet up for introductions, share investing war stories, and air out the latest sector scuttlebutt.
These are invaluable opportunities to get candid answers from companies on their upcoming catalysts and review prior news, get a pulse on investor sentiment, which stories were trending, and people’s outlook moving forward.
These are not official meetings, but there are plenty of stock ideas being pitched at investors by companies and also by other investors… That’s really the whole point to being there, so I welcome those discussions and new ideas received.
For example, someone snapped a pic of me from behind chatting with my friend Scott Petsel, President of Metallic Minerals Corp. (TSXV:MMG)(OTCQB:MMNGF) at the pre-dinner networking mixer. We’ve discussed this company before on this channel in the series on Opportunities In Copper Explorers and Developers Part 1, because of their flagship La Plata Copper-Silver Project near Durango, Colorado.
At that networking event, we were chatting about their gold alluvial royalty claims in the Yukon, and how the increased number of projects for this summer could result in higher production and incoming revenues. As a junior explorer it is very unique that they can use these growing royalties to generate revenues to cover much of their G&A expenses, and plow the remainder into further exploring and derisking La Plata.
I was also getting more color around all the critical minerals they’ve been discovering on their property, along with the copper and precious metals. The company had recently released this news to the market, so it was nice to chat for a few minutes on what this could mean for the value of the project moving forward and the related follow-up drilling planned.
Metallic Minerals Highlights Significant Critical Minerals Potential Including Rare Earth Elements and Other Strategic Metals at La Plata Project in Colorado
Metallic Minerals Corp. is pleased to announce the identification of significant potential for co-product critical minerals at its flagship La Plata copper-silver-gold-platinum group elements (“PGE”) project, located in the prolific La Plata Mining District of southwest Colorado. Recent exploration and geochemical analyses have demonstrated elevated levels of critical minerals including light rare earth elements (“REEs”) with lanthanum (“La”) and heavy REEs with yttrium (“Y”). In addition to light and heavy REEs, the company has also discovered significant concentrations of fluorine (“F”), gallium (“Ga”), scandium (“Sc”), tellurium (“Te”) and vanadium (“V”).
Steve Hyland (Small Cap Steve of The Deep Dive) is mingling with Dan Sauer, CEO of Vertical Petroleum Industries, at the pre-dinner networking mixer.
Here’s a picture of my friend and colleague, and the Co-Founder of Top Shelf Partners and this conference,(the host-with-the-most),John Feneck, networking at the dinner event on day 1.
It is incredibly insightful to find out which companies are on investors radars, get introductions to companies that are not on your official meetings “dance card,” and hear other investors back stories and approaches to allocation in the resource sector. John showcased a number of precious metals companies at this event, but also put a big spotlight on companies with critical minerals exposure, and also featured several energy companies focused on uranium and oil. This gave the event a more unique and well-rounded character than other events that are primarily precious metals focused.
Here is a link to a full list of all the companies in attendance at this conference:
The next day had a networking breakfast where the conversations kept going, and then everyone rolled into a full schedule of 1-on-1 meetings between companies and investors. Even though there were a number of portfolio companies present at this event, there was plenty of time to catch up with most of them at the event (more on that later in this article).
Terry Lynch, CEO of Power Metallic Mines Inc. (TSXV: PNPN) (OTCBB: PNPNF) is pitching Mike Chadwick, President of Fiscal Wisdom Wealth Management, on why he should take an even larger strategic position than he already has in their 1-on-1 meeting. :-)
For my 1-on1s, I elected to go with meeting mostly new companies that I was not positioned in, such as:
Masivo Silver Corp, Silver Viper Minerals Corp, Zeus North America Mining (we’ve had them on the KE Report as neighbors to Hercules in Idaho, but this was my first official deeper dive into a better geological understanding), Upside Gold Corp., Terra Balcanica Resources Corp. (possibly the next Adriatic Metals in the making in Bosnia),Nicola Mining Inc. (which I was invested with many years ago and have recently references in relation to processing the ore from Talisker Mining as they move into gold production this month), Guardian Metal Resources PLC, American Tungsten Corp. (I knew this team from prior roles in Steppe Gold and Ion Energy), and Vertical Petroleum Industries (a private oil well investing company).
I did meet with some companies that I already had a better understanding of, but still came away with all kinds of new insights:
· U.S. Gold Corp. (Nasdaq: USAU)- I was invested in this company a few years back and am considering it again as gold-copper development project with an intriguing gold exploration project that may be bigger than the first project. We’ve had the company on the KE Report a few times in years past, but it was good to get a refresh on their project derisking, permitting milestones achieved, and timeline for moving their CK Gold-Copper project forward.
· NexGold Mining Corp. (TSXV: NEXG; OTCQX: NXGCF) - I’ve been following for years all the component companies that were rolled up into this company over the last 2 years (Treasury Metals – I was invested in many years ago, Blackwolf Copper& Gold – familiar with mgmt. team and board and hosted on the KE Report a few times, and Signal Gold – formerly Anaconda Mining – which I did quite well investing in a number of years back and have been keeping an eye on it from afar.) We’ve interviewed NexGold a few times on the KE Report over the last 2 years and I’ve met with management at Beaver Creek and VRIC in the past; and am strongly considering then as my next gold developer to add to the portfolio
· Luca Mining Corp. – This was the only 1-on-1 meeting with a portfolio position company, but I had a lot of questions and it was interesting meeting with a different team member (the President, Ramon Perez). I’ve previously met twice in person with the co-founder Javier Reyes, and had multiple Zoom calls with CEO Dan Barnholden for interviews over at the KE Report. This is a position I intend to hang onto, and am very bullish on their exploration, development, and production over the next 18 months. (that’s not investment advice… just my own outlook and personal thesis)
Sometimes it is helpful to meet with different members of a management team, because they’ll each share some different info and you’ll often learn new things about their projects, newsflow, and company financials, that you may not have previously learned from a different member of the board or team.
We’ve discussed Luca Mining before in this channel in the article below:
As for other portfolio positions at the conference:
First Nordic Metals Corp. (TSX.V: FNM, OTCQB: FNMCF) - I caught up with Adam Cegielski, President of First Nordic Metals at breakfast one morning. We reviewed their upcoming exploration catalysts where the drills will move soon to the Nippas target at Storjuktan, and that assays should be coming back in soon where the drills have been turningat the high-priority Aida Target at their 100% owned Paubäcken Project.
Both Adam and CEO, Taj Singh have been very busy marketing their opportunity in Florida over the last 2 weeks, having just presented at the prestigious Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida on May 7. Those guys were slammed at this event as well, and other than a few passing fist-bumps and waives, I didn’t really get to catch up with Taj at this event. (However I did spotTaj with a rare moment of downtime to check his emails, sittingat the table behind Questcorp and iMetal CEO, Saf Dhillon meeting investors in the foreground).
I had actually just caught up with both Adam, and Taj the week before the conference on May 8th, for an FNM update over at the KE Report.
First Nordic Metals – BOT Results At Nippas Setting Up For Diamond Drilling and Assays Anticipated Soon From The Aida Target
At an evening investor dinner, hosted by both Metallic Minerals (already ready mentioned with Scott Petsel up above in this article), and CEO of Stillwater Critical Minerals Corp. (TSXV:PGE)(OTCQB:PGEZF), Mike Rowley - I had a chance to really catch up on all the government interest and progress being made on both the permitting side, and the prior and potential future government funding initiatives for the Stillwater West project in Montana. This project is adjacent to Sibanye Stillwater’s project, and my thinking is that it will play a critical role in further developing a US-based supply chain of many critical minerals down the road.
It is always nice to catch up with Scott and Mike in person at conferences, since we normally on speak together on Zoom calls. I had just hosted a call with Mike outlining some of these themes on the KE Report in March, so it was nice to dig in a bit deeper at dinner.
Stillwater Critical Minerals – White House Executive Order On Critical Minerals Puts The Stillwater West Project Into Focus – Survey Targets Setting Up For 2025 Drill Season
Another portfolio position that I caught up with multiple times at this conference and the one afterwards in Atlanta was CEO Brad Rourke of Scottie Resources Corp. (TSXV: SCOT) (OTCQB: SCTSF). We’d run into each other at the networking mixers, or in the hallways before meetings, and in small groups of investors as we discussed their recent Maiden Resource Estimate that was released to the market on May 7th.
Scottie Resources Announces Maiden Mineral Resource Estimate for the Scottie Gold Mine DSO Project
I had Brad on the KE Report shortly thereafter to unpack this resource, and more importantly their upcoming Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) that is in the works. This study will look at utilizing the Direct Shipping Ore (DSO) model, where they’ll upgrade the grade of their open pit ore using an ore-sorting machine, and then combine it with the high-grade underground ore and ship it over to Asian refiners for a saleable product. This process will be moving Scottie from just another explorer, over to a fast-track to become a developer and eventual producer. The conversation below encapsulates that conversation.
Scottie Resources – Key Takeaways From The Maiden Inferred Resource Estimate, Building Towards A PEA Which Utilizes A DSO Development Strategy
Another portfolio company that was at this Commodities Global Expo in Fort Lauderdale was Cerrado Gold Inc. (TSX.V: CERT) (OTCQX: CRDOF). I briefly clinked glasses with Vice President of Investor Relations, Mike McAllister, in celebratory toasts at a few of the networking mixers, but didn’t have any official meetings (preferring to let them meet with new investors in the 1-on-1s). We had discussed in advance that it wasn’t necessary to meet, as I’d just had CEO and Chairman, Mark Brennan, on the KE Report on May 2nd.
In that discussion (linked below), Mark and I reviewed their Q4 and full-year 2024 operations and financials at Minera Don Nicolas in Argentina, the transformative acquisition that was still underway of Ascendant Resources (which just closed today on May 20th) and the value proposition at the Lagoa Salgada VMS Project in Portugal, along with the further value and optionality at the Mont Sorcier Iron-Vanadium project in Quebec.
Cerrado Gold – Full-Year 2024 Financials and Operations at Minera Don Nicolas, Value Proposition of Lagoa Salgada, and Optionality At Mont Sorcier
The final day of the conference had a number of solid keynote addresses and panels from the stage on gold stocks, physical gold allocations, critical minerals, oil & gas, the commodities complex, and portfolio management from financial advisors.
Commodities Capital Insights - Macro Meets Micro (above)
Paul Harris moderated panelists: Mike McGlone, Senior Commodity Strategist, Bloomberg Intelligence, and John Feneck, Portfolio Manager, The Feneck Metals & Mining Portfolio.
As a “silver bug,” my favorite talk was the Silver panel (shown above) with:
John Feneck moderating panelists: John Miniotis, CEO of AbraSilver Resource Corp (TSX: ABRA) (OTCQX: ABBRF), and Michael Williams, Founder and Chairman of Aftermath Silver (TSX-V: AAG) (OTCQX: AAGFF)/
Both AbraSilver Resource and Aftermath Silver are portfolio positions. These are silver stocks that I believe still have a lot of upside torque and optionality to higher underlying silver prices in this PM bull market, as it moves into the next phase. We’ve also discussed both companies at length in prior articles, and I’ll repost those below for readers here that may have missed them.
Part 6 is Aftermath Silver, and Part 1 is AbraSilver Resource.
I recently interviewed John Miniotis from AbraSilver, along with Chief Geologist, Dave O’Connor on April 29th over at KE Report and will include that interview below:
AbraSilver Resource – Final Batch Of Phase 4 Drill Results From JAC Extension Zone, Starting Up Phase 5 Drilling, And Working On A Resource Update
Update: AbraSilver just put out a banger of a gold intercept from Occulto East this morning!
AbraSilver Drills Best-Ever Gold Intercept at Diablillos; 31.0 Metres Grading 10.0 g/t Gold Including 6.0 Metres at 41.9 g/t Gold
Another Update: Here is an interview out today, conducted at the KE Report, with John Miniotis, President and CEO and David O’Connor, Chief Geologist of AbraSilver Resource Corp to review one of the first drill assays returned from the ongoing Phase V exploration program, hitting the best gold intercept to date at their wholly-owned Diablillos property in Salta Province, Argentina. Due to the timing, this hole # DDH 25-024 early on in this Phase V program, will still make it into the updated Resource Estimate due out in mid-year in July.
AbraSilver Resource – Early Phase 5 Drilling Intersects 31.0 Metres Grading 10.0 g/t Gold For The Best Gold Intercept To Date At Diablillos
There is a lot more I could say about about investor sentiment and trends in the resource stocks, that I picked up from the attendees of this conference. I’ll be unpacking more of that in the next article that recaps the companies and keynote addresses from the next Top Shelf Partners event, the Natural Resource Stock Expo in Atlanta, Georgia; which took place right after the event in Fort Lauderdale. So stay tuned for that update coming later this week…
Thanks for reading and may you have prosperity in your trading and in life!
