The mill consists of one SAG mill, three ball mills, a rougher flotation circuit, regrind mill, a cleaner flotation circuit, a concentrate thickener, and a pressure filter. The mine is a conventional open pit, truck, and shovel operation. The property covers an area 67 square kilometres, making it not atypical for a large copper mine. Production of copper concentrate commenced during the third quarter of 2011. The mine is situated 20 km south of Princeton, British Columbia and 300 km east of the Port of Vancouver. They also have developmental property in Australia. They are small - they have only one operating mine, in Canada. That also was just before I changed my approach to one of holding larger positions that receive more scrutiny.Ĭopper Mountain is a pure-play copper miner (of course, they also sell the gold and silver that comes along with the copper). I made some pretty big gains from the rapid price increase in October, then sold. Perhaps the stock has dropped so far that it is now undervalued.Ī fellow member on EIA introduced me to CMMC last year. Perhaps those prospects have recently changed. Perhaps CMMC was overvalued relative to its prospects over its mine life. Beyond that, CMMC is down 64% from its May 2021 high. The price trend of CMMC looks qualitatively like the recent trend for copper from macrotrends:īut while copper has dropped 25%, CMMC has dropped 55%. They are much larger than CMMC but not yet cash-flow positive. Ivanhoe ( OTCQX:IVPAF), which is a copper pure play, has dropped about as much as RIO. If you date the comparison from November, the disparity is larger. CMMC has dropped far more than RIO, BHP since last September. It is informative to compare the price of two majors with the copper pure-play that is my subject here. If you want to focus on one of them, the majors may not be for you. Ultimately, though, each commodity is subject to its own vagaries of supply and demand. And iron ore demand is dominated by China even more than other commodities, because of the massive amounts of construction they do. The majors like RIO and BHP Group ( BHP) produce large quantities of coal and/or iron ore, in addition to copper.Ĭoal (leaving aside types of coal) is having a great year, but the long-term case for coal demand is fuzzy at best. In addition to that, my strong preference is to find a pure-play copper producer, or one close to that. It will be politically difficult to bring major mining developments to regions that do not have a long history with them.

The Serbian example is a snapshot of one thing among many that will prevent an energy transition on any timescale like those promulgated by the green-media-political complex. It is notable, though, that 'environmental' protests recently led Serbia to cancel plans for a lithium mine to be developed by mining giant Rio Tinto ( RIO). This leads me to favor North America, Australia, and perhaps Europe. And while Africa has made great strides economically and politically, it does not seem to me that one can count on stability there either. It seems to me that many South American countries dabble regularly with politicians who would happily nationalize their mines, or tax them excessively if not. I am more concerned than many of them are with the political stability of much of the world. Well that's an exaggeration nobody seems to be buying Venezuela, for instance.

Many investors will seemingly buy resource extraction companies in any country. I hope it may serve others who like me are new to mining investment. This all leads to a longer than normal article. Why an investor might choose to invest in CMMC.Geopolitical considerations for investing in mining.The article takes up the following topics in turn. I welcome corrections from those more knowledgeable. The present article is my first coverage of mining. An investment in CMMC would complement my established investing in oil and gas companies. Here I share my research seeking to understand a specific mining company, Copper Mountain Mining Corporation ( TSX: CMMC:CA). A commodity upcycle is plausible to probable over the next decade.

Copper mountian