Dave Lotan, President of LHI, a strategic resource investor in small cap commodities companies, and Non-Executive Chairman of Aurion Resources (TAX.V:AU – OTCQX:AIRRF), joins me for a wide-ranging discussion on the macro drivers for commodities, tips for investing in critical minerals and precious metals resource companies, and some of the key trends he is paying attention to.

We start off reviewing the recent move to new highs in gold, followed by the retreat back lower again over the last week, how the gold equities responded, and the continued muted sentiment by investors in this sector. Dave brings up the importance he sees in the prior Evergrande real estate debacle in China, and how Eastern investors liquidated gold to shore up other falling investments, which had an reverberations within the precious metals sector the last few years.  Ultimately Dave feels we need to see generalist investors switch from the “buy the dip” mode in US equities to more of a safe haven defensive posture when they become more cognizant of the economic weakness to come and possibly another corrective move in the stock markets.

Next we dug into the critical mineral sector, where he is most bullish on the longer-term value proposition that copper and copper stocks offer, and notes a few of the glaring mismatches in political agendas versus the reality with regards to permitting and approvals of large copper projects to bring on more production.  Dave also illustrates the pent up interest in new discoveries from investors highlights the recent movements in 3 junior stocks (2 of them being copper stocks) that put out encouraging drill results: Hercules Silver (BIG.V) (BADEF), Lavras Gold Corp. (LGC.V) (LGCFF), and Aston Bay (BAY.V) (ATBHF).  With regards to nickel stocks, he finds it more challenging top pick juniors, and sticks to the bigger names like Vale (VALE) or in a secondary manner through Altius Minerals (ALS.TO) (ATUSF) nickel-copper-cobalt royalty stream on Voisey’s Bay.  With regards to the lithium stocks, he notes that it’s been a mixed bag with companies like Sayona Mining (SYA.AX) (SYAXF) struggling, but companies like Pilbara Minerals (PLS.AX) (PILBF), Patriot Battery Metals (PMET.V) (PMETF), and Brunswick Exploration (BRW.V) (BRWXF) having attracted a large amount of investor interest this year.

The discussion loops back around to Barrick Gold (ABX.TO) (GOLD) recently taking out a large stake in Hercules Silver, and this moves us to look into some past and present larger companies taking strategic stakes in junior companies. Dave fields the question about how large strategic positions so ideally be without it discouraging potential future merger or acquisition deals from other companies. He noted that companies like Liontown Resource (LTR.AX) (LINRF) and Azure Minerals (AZS.AX) (AZRMF), that allowed in strategic positions larger than 10% to upwards of 19.9% stakes, just saw recent takeover bids from Albemarle (ALB) and Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile S.A. (SQM) respectively sterilized. We get into some of the nuances in bringing in larger partners,  and why he is focused on the investors rights agreement during these partnerships, and how they structured things when Kinross Gold (K.TO) (KGC) wanted to get positioned in Aurion Resources.  Dave wraps us up with some of the key milestones and work strategy at Aurion’s JV project and 100% owned projects during 2023, and then looks ahead to what he’s excited about in 2024.

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https://aurionresources.com/corporate/management-board/board-of-directors/david-lotan/