Money, manners, you know all about this one.
Our final episode of the year, the wonderful peak Kerr, just in
a moment. We can't wait to give you a very
last bit of content for the calendar year 2026.
But first, JD. Final episode of the year mate.
It's been a ripping 2025. I hope everyone's portfolio out
there reflects it. Commodities have been on a tear
and you might be thinking it's time to take a few chips off the
table. Diversify a bit.
Yeah, yeah. No, I'm very pro cyclical.
The portfolio goes up. I want more.
Well, we've been having a few wins across the portfolio and
hopefully everyone else there has as well.
And if you are thinking of taking a few trips off the
table, we're in Australia. You think you're property,
right? Mate, what could be?
What could be more Australian than the property market?
I don't know. Nothing's more Australian,
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So very interesting way to to to add something a little bit extra
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Thank you. Exceed capital go check them out
go to Pete Kerr final episode of the year as always joined by the
wonderful peak ker of the AFR or the financial review.
Do we got to call it the fin from now on, don't we?
I feel like we're just stuck in this habit of calling it the AFR
but. Anything.
Anything you want, you can call it.
Wow. We'll call it Pete's, Pete's,
Pete's home ground. We're just, we're delighted to
have you here every year you join us, Pete, we reflect on the
year that was and the year ahead.
We're going to do it again. And 2025 has been a blockbuster
year in many respects, A defining year.
JD's called some of the things that have happened this year is
the most important stories of the decade in terms of our
industry. I'm I'm really keen to peel
through some of those like big themes, big stories, big company
and corporate moves and importantly look ahead at what
could be in 2026. Again, we're going to we're
going to get you predictions. We're going to predict some
stuff ourselves and keep ourselves accountable for what
we called last year. Pete, thanks for coming on Money
and Mine. Great to be here.
I feel like I'm like your father.
Christmas. I only appear once a year, like
shortly, you know, late December.
So three times in a row. It's a hat trick.
I'm very pleased to be here. And everyone's thrilled for it,
Pete. We're yeah, we're delighted to
to jump into these stories. And we were tic tacking over the
past week about what are the big stories?
What should we unpack? And the first one on that list
was geopolitics and how geopolitics has really made it
sort of presence felt across the minerals, the mining space.
And it, it, the impact's been huge.
Thinking of things like price floors of government grants of
export import banks, getting involved in financing projects,
be it rare earth, critical minerals, all these sorts of
things. So I want to start the, the
conversation here and given that you've got a few years of
experience on, on us here, I'd love to to hear from your
perspective how monumental you kind of think these moves that
we've seen are specifically what the US has done in underwriting
price floors in, in things like rare earths.
Yes. I mean, I've just sort of coming
to the end of my 14th year covering this sector.
And I've always said, like going back right to the start, the
thing that I found most fascinating about it of many
things was the geopolitics that was always at play.
So when I started, it was around the time of Kevin Rudd's mining
tax proposal. And you know, that obviously
blew up and became a big thing. And I remember Aceo, one of the
CEOs of the big multinationals, saying to me one time about how
the nation states, they've got us over a barrel in the
resources industry. And I was, I was sort of puzzled
by this, right? Because the narrative was, oh,
the big miners push around the politicians, they own the
politicians, they tell them what to do.
But the point he made was that if you're a shoe company, so
let's say you're Nike or Puma or someone, and you've got a shoe
factory in let's call it any like Thailand, for example,
Thailand raises the taxes. You can just go across the
border to Cambodia and build the exact same factory.
Goodbye Thailand, you know, continue on your merry way in
the resources industry. The they are where they are in
the ground. So the nation state has such
more power over this industry. So that sort of for me was
always the bit that I liked the most.
You know, over the decade, we saw things like Indonesia, you
know, do export bans and all these things that affected
commodity markets. And that was kind of cool to
watch. But these past couple of years,
it's just been geopolitics on steroids.
This time last year, I was with you guys on this show, and we
were talking about this, about how incredible it was that our
taxpayer dollars were being lent to Alluca to make the Eniaba
refinery. Yeah, this was a controversial
thing and everyone's got different views about it.
Well, that looks like child's play now.
Like, come this year, we've got U.S. government setting price
floors, as you mentioned, we've got the Australian government
buying shares in Lyntown. Like that was not on my list of
predictions for 2025. You know, government support for
the industry used to be drilling grants and then it was a bit of
a step when they started giving concessional loans.
Now they're just buying shares in pre revenue companies
sometimes. Obviously Lyontown now has some
revenue, but there's other explorers who are pre revenue
who the taxpayer now owns shares in.
So this is incredible territory to be honest.
And for me it just opens up so many more questions like those
Lyontown shares as we sit here today, in December 2025, the
Australian taxpayers done well out of that, right?
Like they've probably tripled from that equity raise.
And who's the dude in Canberra sitting there managing the fund,
like being the little, you know, Michael Barry of Canberra?
Like are they are they selling the line town shares today to
make a tidy profit? I don't know.
So that's what keeps me fascinated, I reckon by this
industry, just the growing interplay of of governments,
this emerging, you know, bifurcation of the world between
a Chinese and A and AUS state. It's it's, it's moved markets
all year and I think it probably will again next year.
There's one more layer as well, Pete, which I think really
started gathering steam around the AFR mining Summit in I think
May of this year. And that is the stockpile, the
critical mineral stockpile that the Australian government was
talking about. Yeah, going to put you on the
spot here a bit, but how effective do you do you think
that will be? And what form do you think
that's going to end up taking when when we get a bit more
detail over the next half year on it?
So there was a bit more action on that front just last week.
So depending on when your audience is enjoying this
podcast or hating this podcast, hopefully you're enjoying it.
You know, I'm talking about sort of the middle week of December,
I gather AMEC, the lobby group based in Perth, heavily involved
in formulating the a proposal and the hope is that the this
will be an industry LED proposal that the government can sort of
rubber stamp. You know, the government came to
them and said in broad terms, this is what we want to do, how
should we do it? The industry is now going back
to them and saying we think you should do it this way.
So if that model gets up, in really simple terms, it sounds
like it would be nation to nation agreements.
The governments of Australia and let's say for instance, South
Korea agree that Australia will provide certain volume to South
Korea over certain years. And then the Australian
government turns to miners in this country and says, well, can
you guys please deliver that helps them out, you know,
concessional loans, all those sorts of things.
And I guess ultimately, if Australian mining companies
failed to deliver on the promised volumes, then the
taxpayer is on the hook. That's when the taxpayer might
have to step into the spot market, buy some volumes and get
them to South Korea. So it's sort of if that model
were to get up, you know, it's kind of smart in the sense that
the government can play a big role here, but might not ever
actually spend a dollar if if you know what I mean, If the if
the Australian miners deliver to the promise that Canberra makes
to South Korea, well, then it's just transactions between the
minor and the customer. So that seems to be the the
default leading model. And it sounds as though rare
earths NDPR is the most likely place it will start, but perhaps
also gallium, maybe antimony. And I think that's because, say
gallium and germanium. The hope is that they'll be able
to get those off the existing smelters and refineries, the
near star ones and so forth or the Alcoa ones in WA, add a
little circuit, it's not a lot of CapEx and you just extract,
you know, gallium out of what was going to waste.
So I'd expect those two or three will be the first commodities
there. The lithium miners far less
convinced about this as a concept, far less unified.
The rare earths guys seem relatively unified and I guess
to some extent that makes sense really because the lithium
miners generally are incumbents. They are out in the market
selling this stuff already. They have contracts.
So if you're going to try and set price floors, you're kind of
interfering with the contracts they've already got set, whereas
most of the rarest people in the conversation not yet in
production. So it's sort of easier to start
there. So that's where I would expect
it starts. The, the, the next layer that,
that I think about heaps when it comes to, to geopolitics.
And, and it's interesting what you say there, Pete, about the
Aussie government perhaps not having to, to, to write a check
because let's see which projects get funded.
Let's see where, where the money to, to finance these projects
come from. That's a very open-ended
question. But the countries with which we
do do these deals is another really interesting layer from
from my perspective, because you mentioned South Korea obviously
with the US, but we're in the middle of this China, US kind of
trade war. And iron ore is the elephant in
the room when it comes to this. And we have seen a lot of back
and forth with BHB and the, the more unified iron ore buying
group in, in China now that's trying to pull together all the
interests for the, for the steel mills and have a bit more, bit
more sway. How have you seen this story UN
unvolve or evolve over the year rather?
And where, where do you kind of think we're going on that trend?
Are we going to see more renminbi deals?
Is is that something on the cards for next year?
Wouldn't surprise me if we do, I think.
I guess what we can be certain about is that there's currently
no deal between BHP and the Chinese buying desk.
Just last week in mid-december, we were continuing to see
another little flurry out of CMG of of jawboning, I guess where
they tried to crack down on essentially the port side
trading in China. This is something that the three
big W Australian miners have increased a lot the past few
years. The idea that you get the iron
ore to a a yard at the port in China and you keep it there
longer than you traditionally did and you can maybe blend it
with some stuff from Simandu or from Valet or whatever.
You'd have to say that as things stand, the Australian miners, I
mean it proximity bias, maybe we're falling victim to that,
but they seem to be winning, right?
Like the iron ore price has been stronger than everyone expected.
Late last week, it was still 105 US.
Who knows whether, you know, that becomes famous last words
next year. But yeah, like it continues to
it continues to hold strong. Rio Tinto shares hit an all time
record on Friday. They've never been higher ever,
you know, at an on oil price of 105.
Keeping in mind the on oil price was, what, 230 back in 2021.
So, yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if China wins some
concessions. But if you look at it the other
way, are they starting? Are they a bit desperate?
Like if they're resorting to a lot of these sort of regular
sort of outbursts about, you know, unnamed sources say we'll
do this and we'll do that, I don't know, Do you do that if
you're getting traction? I did hear from someone
extremely well placed on this debate that one of the world's
BIG4 miners, and I actually don't know which one it is
because the person refused to tell me which one it was.
But one of them has threatened to go entirely to spot, entirely
to the spot market in terms of volumes as well.
So whilst BHP is the focus of this, I think some of the others
are dealing with it intensely as well.
And some of them are ready to take the well the to really take
the fight up and go. We're going to back ourselves to
be able to withstand whatever you throw at us.
I I think it's such a such a big and evolving story.
I don't, I don't think I'd, I'd characterize the Australian
miners as as winning this fight. I think like, I know price
elevated is, is a function of, of many things, but, but I think
like CMRG on, on many fronts is exerting more and more power.
And they're, they're absolutely like having an influence for for
the first time in, in, in many years.
And you know, we've seen the concessions that BHP sort of had
to make around its Jimbo bar products and the, and the likes
as a result of some of this market power.
One of the like, one of the underlying all of this is like
what, what, what are we denominating trade in?
Like what are we, what's that de facto currency?
What's the reserve currency of trade and is and, and what are
the terms of, of that trade going to be?
And it, it was such political hot potato to even kind of talk
about the, you know, the, the denomination of, of, of iron ore
trade in renminbi, despite the fact that 30% of spot spot
volumes trading in renminbi was kind of standard practice until,
until, and just not really discussed or anything like that.
And that's a, that's clearly a, a point of contention from CMRG.
They want, they want more trade in, in, in, in renminbi and
they, they want to have more market power to negotiate with
the respective iron ore miners. You look, you look at a another
like bulks oligopoly that exists.
You've got the, the potash giants in Canada, the likes of,
of nutrient and, and Mosaic and, and there you've got this
effective oligopoly marketing machine, the two, you know,
those two parties actually collectively determine what,
what you know, what the, what the output is going to be and
effectively fend off any, any, any new entrant, just, you know,
but BHP is trying to enter that arena.
Do you think there's justification for a for a, for a
potash type OPEC to emerge in the iron ore sectopy?
Wouldn't it be amazing? Look, maybe, maybe I wonder.
I mean, it gets hard with regulators potentially if BHP
and Rio do it, but I mean, Amin resin, Hancock already close in
that regard. I'll I'll phrase that as a
question. I don't know.
Yeah, it's not a that's not a statement, I guess.
But I guess there's scope for that, isn't there?
And look, some people on the Chinese side might say that the
Western miners already tried to do that with the creation of
some of these price indexes. You know, there's global ore,
which was set up about 1213 years ago and Global coal was
set up in London as well. You've heard a veteran of that
process, Tony Odeviano, Speaking of Lyontown talked about the
lithium industry needs to go and follow that that process.
So maybe, maybe, but I'm just not sure if it will come to
that. Like it's not like iron ore
prices are at 200. You know, we, we saw last week
the CMRG came out and said that there was some, I think the
exact words were something like there's unreasonable heat in the
iron ore price. I don't know.
Is is 105 unreasonable heat given where it's been?
Here's my question to you right. How much of that is CMRG buying
up spot volumes to exert even more power?
CMRG is one of the reasons that the spot price is where it is
because they're, they're, they're buying as you know, a
lot, a lot of spot volumes themselves.
And that gives them, you know, more and more collective
bargaining power. Yeah, I, I don't know is the
answer. Yeah, I don't know.
Yeah. It it it's gonna continue to
roll on next year. The iron ore market's evolving
fast. We've got Simandu coming in.
And notionally that's been talked about as being a risk to
the Aussie iron ore miners. If you, if you watched Rio
Tinto's Investor Day, I think it was December 4, or if you
haven't, I'd urge you to go have a look at your audience.
Have a look at what Vivek Toolpool talked about.
He's Rio's sort of commodities and markets guy.
And he was the guy who famously sort of said China will reach a
billion tonnes of iron ore demand.
And he got ridiculed for several years.
And then when it came through, Vivek kept receipts and he made
sure everyone had come through. His presentation the other night
was a bit more, bit more punchy than normal.
Actually, he was, he was really mounting that case about how the
market has drastically underestimated the impact of
depletion in the iron ore market.
Now they would say that they're talking their book, but you
know, it's a theme that I saw Black Rock World Mining Trust
pick up on. And they were sort of publicly
talking a couple of weeks ago that they sort of you'd see that
as well. It wasn't just Rio, it was valet
had a capital market stay the same week and and spoke to the
exact same phenomenon. And and both of them I think
have a very healthy like floor price on on what what iron ore
you know, could be. And and we the the market likes
to talk about the impact that SIM and do will have.
But the reality of of SIM and do coming online is it actually
might just replace depletion that is that is coming from
existing mines as opposed to really meaningfully impact, you
know, the, the total supply equation.
And that's if Simon do goes to plan, right?
I mean, at the end of this month, it might be like December
28 or something. Guinea's gonna have its first
elections in about 5 or 6 years now.
Let's hope, fingers crossed they go smoothly and they are
peaceful and democratic. But I mean, who knows what's
gonna happen, right? So yeah, I don't know.
I sort of it makes sense that CMRG should have enormous power
and basically should be able to just design this market however
they want it. But they've been around a couple
of years now, right? And the price still seems to
stay in that band that the big miners talk about between $80
USA tonne and $100 a tonne as being that that sort of big Bank
of supply that, you know, if the price dips down, a fair bit of
global supply becomes uneconomic.
Yeah, that, that high price shoulder is a really interesting
layer to the market. And I think if we we zoom out on
the the pricing lens for a moment there as well and and not
focus on Australia versus China for a moment.
I think the the US is the real loser having less priced in in
the US dollar because what what is the actual impact to the iron
ore price if it's priced in in another currency?
I think. That, that impact is more on the
margins, but in general, China is trying to just get more trade
through its currency and that would be a win for it.
But that's perhaps a bit of a, a bit of a side note.
I, I did have a question on SIM and Do for you, Pete and I, and
I note you, you wrote a fantastic article maybe a month
or so ago, a real deep dive into, into SIM and Do and
everything going on there. We have seen some talk lately
with Rio Tinto and their interest and the DLC and
everything with with new management looking at this in
perhaps a slightly different light and the 15% Chenalco
interest coming into question again, do you think SIM and Do
is seriously on the cards to be perhaps a stake in that, in that
negotiation in an eventual collapse of the DLC?
It's a fascinating question. And for any of your audience
aren't aware, there was a story that Reuters published about a
month ago, which which basically implied this, that Rio would
effectively sell an asset to Chanelco, which is its biggest
shareholder as a way and in exchange for some of Chanelco's
shares in Rio as a way of reducing Chanelco's stake on its
on its share register, which, you know, Chanelco's state is
right at the limit imposed by Australia's Ferb prevents Rio
from doing share buybacks. Maybe, maybe I don't have any
sort of personal confirmation that that is underway.
I don't know. I can sort of see Simandu and
Chinelka, obviously a partner in Simandu.
So they're already there. Sort of makes it easy from from
that point, if you're real. I think there is some sort of
strategic merit in having a bit of Simandu as well as your WA
business just gives you that great insight to the market.
Maybe there's blending opportunities in future.
So I think, I think there is merit for Rio keeping Simandu if
that makes sense. But yeah, like and I would have
thought are there other assets that they could do the same sort
of deal with with Chenelco, You know Chenelco do many things,
but they are originally an aluminium company.
Rio's got plenty of aluminium assets, plenty of assets.
Riha would love to sell sell a million assets.
Unfortunately, Janelko's not going to want that.
Let's give them Tobago. Although, I mean, there's
fascinating things happening in the sorry to, you know, deviate
from your question. No, no, no.
Jonas But fascinating things happening in Illumina as well.
And your audience is probably already crossed this, but
sounds, you know, there is a prospect that Indonesia's going
to do to Illumina what they did to Nickel two or three years ago
and crush, you know, the rest of the world.
But yet China's, you know, sort of effectively got a
self-imposed cap on its aluminium smelting.
So people who own smelters outside China are sort of
starting to get slightly more confident about being a
aluminium smelter. The people who own the alumina
refineries, which was quite a sweet spot for the past, you
know, decade, 15 years. The former a sex company,
Alumina Limited did really nicely for a long time.
So yeah, so that's a fascinating market.
Coming back to your question, yeah, I don't know.
Would be an awesome deal if they could do it.
And Speaking of Simondu, I'm sort of also interested to watch
where the Simondu is the, I guess, the first of many African
iron ore projects. So our gut feeling is probably
to say no. All these other smaller ones
such as Ivanhoe Atlantic who are trying to take a Ghanaian iron
ore deposit down through Liberia to the coast, Jin Min who are in
Gabon, Zanaga who are in, I think, Republic of Congo.
You know, common sense says these guys will probably
struggle, right, to get their projects up because, you know,
iron ore's past its peak and all the things we've said for many
years. But the thing that gets me is
the people behind all these projects are people with serious
industry cred, you know? So Jen Min is Greg Lilyman, who
ran Rio's Pilbara business for years and then was second in
charge at Fortescue. Zenaga's got like a, you know,
Bob Geldof style Band-Aid collection of mining industry
luminaries from Mark Cudafani through to, I think Mick Davis
from memory and Ivanhoe and Robert Friedland.
Yeah, needs no introduction, so. And he got gone as well, yeah.
Exactly. So that's going to be really
interesting to watch if some of those projects can start to get
up in it. You would have seen with Jin
Min, who are SX listed, I think they did a deal with a Chinese
partner the other day, you know, which got them a bit closer to
reality. So that's going to be fun to
watch. I think that's the secret to, to
getting these projects into into production is, is partnering
with the Chinese. There's, there's, yeah, the rate
at which they can, they can build critical infrastructure
to, to ship and and yeah, to to effectively rail and ship the
product is, is just incredible. So you kind of you kind of need
that. Hopefully Jemin wasn't planning
to sell their iron ore in Gabbinese.
What is the currency in Gabon? I don't.
Know. Oh, you got me, Pete.
Got me. You got me stumped with that
one. Yeah, yeah.
There's a lot of optimization that needs to take place to make
these projects that we're talking about efficient and
effective. And there's a company in our
very own Perth here that I think is the perfect company to help
them out with that job Switch technologies.
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today. Details in the show notes.
Well, while we talk about the majors, the likes of Rio, we've
got to move on to one of the other big themes of the year and
that is big town M&A. So we got flavors of it in 2024.
We had BHB and Anglo doing a bit of flirting and then we had a
deal that looks, you know, much closer than that one to
completing with Anglo Tech. This year more drama with BHB
expressing their love for Anglo once more.
So this is a big, big theme that we've seen this year and I think
there's a few more more chapters to evolve on this one.
Throw in the background mate, you had you had Glenn Glencore
tech rumours in in major, major publications.
Glenn Glencore. Glencore Rio was earlier this
year as well. Yeah, for a moment there.
Glencore Rio Yeah, lots of, lots of, lots of rumblings around the
majors to, to to effectively merge.
Yeah. And I listened to your episode a
few weeks ago and I don't disagree with anything you guys
upon where you effectively said that, you know, BHP will
probably end up coming back for these assets some way, shape or
form. So obviously now the Anglo Tech
merger has gone through, but it still feels like an unfinished
situation. Doesn't.
It the votes, the votes occurred, but, but there's still
a lengthy timeline to completion here because of all of the
regulatory approvals that are required and and that doesn't
completely shut the opportunity for an interloper.
Yeah. And if it's done right, let's
say, even if it does get done, even then it still feels
finished. So I mean, it's a, there are
more things in this than just those sort of flagship assets.
You know, your audience probably knows, but really this deal is
ultimately focused or you know, the biggest synergies available
are QB 2 mines in Chile being put together to create value
colour posse and QB. So let's say Anglotech does get
finalised. Well, Glenn Glencore's still
sitting there as a 44% shareholder in Colohassee.
So there they are going to enjoy the synergies that would occur
if these two minds get put together.
They presumably will have some sort of voice in how they get
put together and when and the terms under which that happens.
So that that probably makes Glencore's copper business more
attractive maybe than it was two years ago, arguably.
Shout out if you disagree. No, I certainly agree.
Certainly agree. And Glencore know how to extract
their pound of flesh in negotiations.
They were the exact words in my mind, Yeah.
And they and they've been pretty vocal.
They're not going to be a minority partner there.
They want, they want to be big in that, you know, however that
tie up emerges. Yeah.
And they look like a company that just really is tired of
waiting for something to happen. That was the vibe that I got
from watching Glencore's Investor Day, which I think was
December 3. And little wonder, right?
Like, I jumped on the Bloomberg Terminal a couple of weeks back
and I looked at the Glencore Rio Tinto valuation comparison going
back to mid 2014, which is when those two companies, well,
Glencore invited Rio to a merger and Rio said no, thank you.
I don't, I've forgotten the exact numbers, but Glencore's
market cap is sort of roughly the same today as it was then.
Rio Tinto's gained something like, I think it was $86 billion
in value or something like that. So.
So it would have been a good deal for Glencore had it got
done in 2014, Probably would have been a good deal for
Glencore if it got done this year again as well.
So, yeah, I mean, could you see a BHP or a Rio breaking Glencore
in half and trying to take the base metals half possibly.
You know, we saw earlier this year Glencore completed this
internal restructuring process where all their carbon intensive
assets are off in in one Australian registered company,
everything from ferrochrome to coal and all those other things.
So it's certainly easier now to break off the tasty bits of
Glencore and leave the Brussels sprouts, you know, on the side.
So yeah, it seems possible. But again, geopolitics comes
into this, doesn't it? Because as you guys discussed on
your show, to get the Anglo Tech merger done, Anglo had to agree
to the headquarters being in Canada.
Now, BHP exists in Australia under its own FIB ruling.
The headquarters must be somewhere in Australia.
The CEO must reside in Australia.
So there's probably ways around it, but simplistically, BHP
can't do a deal where they promised to put the headquarters
in Vancouver. Rio Tinto also exist under a
Ferb ruling. So, you know, these things could
be worked around. You know, that could be the
moment where BHP breaks off it's copper division and, you know,
merges that with Anglo tech and keeps the steelmaking
ingredients off to the side. But yeah, there's just these
little complications that sort of make a few of these things
difficult. I know like the big miners have
all, you know, they've all covered it, Antofagasta as well.
But there's big strategic shareholders who are hard to
move and make that difficult. They even they even these days
talk about Cadelco, you know, the Chilean government
controlled copper miner. You know, it it sounds as though
they've made the efforts to go and have the conversations with
politicians there to say, have you ever thought about making
this thing more more marketable? You know, you know, clearly very
early stage, not formal offers. But yeah, like when you look at
the available copper assets, sorry, copper companies that
these guys could take over, there's sort of something
difficult about most of them. Loon Dean stuffs to look like
the your your mates at Loon Dean.
What a great episode. If if money mine listeners, if
you haven't gone and listened to the interview with Loon Dean
boys, you should. It was terrific get for you
guys. You know, that would make so
much sense for BHP, but it's not cheap now, right?
So. All of the great coal companies
have these yeah, big, big shareholders to bypass.
They're not simple, not simple deals in general.
There's yeah, the, the, I, I do think a bit about like, you
know, BHP coming back for Anglo and it was a great call by you
last year to say that they would come back.
And, you know, we think that there's every merit for them to
come back again. But what why do we, why do we
think that? It's because it's because BHP is
starkly aware of, you know, how the, the very rich capital
intensity, their own organic copper growth is and, and how,
you know, likely and probable it is for that capital intensity to
blow out over time because you don't realize it all straight
away or as you get certainty in a deal.
And it's that discrepancy and that kind of, you know, internal
look that drives their external like, you know, M&A ambition.
So I expect them to try and be aggressive here.
And it feels like it feels like Anglo is the big prize to get.
And I struggle to see them letting it go without having one
more crack. What do you think, Pete?
Yeah. No, I think there's perfect
merit in that. Perfect merit in that.
And yeah, to your point about BHP's internal options having
relatively high cost to develop, there's also a fair bit of risk
in some of them. So, you know, everybody loves
what they did at Vacuna and they get a lot of praise for what was
a precedent entry to sort of get their initial foot in there.
And you know, they seem to have a high quality partner there
who's sensible, calm headed, experienced.
But you know, it's still like what, 5000 metres above sea
level? A lot of humans don't operate
very well at 5000 metres. And I know there is some mines
operating at that height, but it's still going to be an effort
to get that thing developed right.
And geopolitics, let's ring that bell again.
Looks great right now while you've got Malay in power in
Argentina with his with his Riggy package, which not only
offers incentives but also safeguards for foreign
investors. But who knows what the next
leader's going to be like? And to make the Vacuna project
work well, they're going to have to bring the water up from the
Chilean side. They're going to have to bring a
lot of the equipment up from the Chilean side.
And in their ideal world, they would export the product through
the Chilean side. So this is Argentinian copper.
So you're going to have to get the Argentinian government and
society generally happy with that happening.
Now, we've seen at Simendou the reason there's a 650 kilometre
railway is because Guinea said if you want to sell that iron
ore, you know, they used it I guess, as a way to get a
transnational railway built, to get ports built.
So it could, you know, step them up and they have resisted the
idea to some degree of it going the shorter route through
Liberia to port. So will Argentina, you know,
will they will they sort of want some of Vakuna's copper to go
out through Argentinian ports, which would be thousands of
kilometres down to the coast. So I'm not saying that they will
cause a problem there. But Vakuna is still a relatively
high risk project, right? So difficult technical
difficulty is pretty high. That's, that's a fantastic
point, Pete. And we saw just over the weekend
as well, the Chileans had a hard tilt to the, the right
politically with a new, with a new leader coming in there.
So we'll see how that kind of shapes up.
You, you sort of mentioned the, the softish issues around the
these companies and getting deals done and, and that being
complicated. And the other big one that has
been pretty present throughout the year is succession.
So we've seen Newmont Barrick changed leadership, Rio Tinto
obviously changed leadership. It was sort of framed, Henry
announces. Exactly.
It was framed as if this was a Hail Mary for Mike and Anglo.
And that's a theme that's gone all the way throughout the the
industry. How do you think that kind of
shapes these these deals? I mean, the Rio example is
really interesting, right? Because Simon's come in and
there's been a complete shift and we're seeing the share
price, like you say, hit all time highs.
On the back of that. The market is really liking the
the renewed vigor with which he has taken to to cost cutting and
and getting deals kind of done. But how do you think that plays
a plays a role in the deal making going forward?
Yeah, it's a good question. I don't know.
I mean, I think the fact that they went back as that BHP went
back for a second go at Anglo in November, you don't do that if
your CEO is a lame duck guy, you know, about to exit.
So I think in hindsight that shows that Mike Henry was sort
of perhaps more engaged than than, you know, many of us in
the media sort of, I guess implied with our coverage as if,
you know, any day now he'll hand over.
I mean, he's now, I think if he it'll be August next, next year,
if he makes it to sort of July, August next year, he'll be in
the job longer than Andrew McKenzie and will be the longest
serving BHP boss since the merger with Billiton.
How does it shape deals? I don't know.
I mean if, if BHP is of the same mind as Travis and thinks that
there's going to be a window to get a deal done with Anglo
whilst we're waiting for antitrust regulators and the
like to rub a stamp the shareholder vote, then he'd be
going nowhere soon, wouldn't he? He'd be there heavily engaged.
So I don't know, I mean, succession's very, very hard to
read. It's one of the, it's one of
the, it's one of the topics that reminds me of the start of my
career. I was a sport reporter.
And so we'd go down to, you know, Richmond training in the
AFL and, you know, interview the assistant coach and you'd have
like a little tip off that, oh, such and such player's got a
dodgy hamstring and is actually going to miss 3 weeks.
And you'd ask them the question and they'd go, no, he's right to
go. And then, of course, there'd be
a late withdrawal on the Saturday.
And, you know, that openly sort of knew.
Yeah. Yeah.
We lied to you about that one. And there was, you know, there
was sort of no, no comeuppance for them.
As a business journalist, right, Working in financial markets,
continuous disclosure means that they can't really lie to you
often. But secession is the one where
you sort of get told one week, no plans, and then the next
week, the CEO's gone. As for who would replace Mike,
that's going to be a fascinating choice, right?
Because if you just judge it on the publicly available
information, there's absolutely no doubt that Geraldine Slattery
is considered to be in a more senior position than all the
others. You just have to look at what
she's paid. You know, you just have to look
at the, the, I forget what it was called.
Was it the retention bonus? She got paid a retention bonus
shortly after the BHP Woodside deal, which basically says
thanks for not going to Woodside to be, you know, if not the
senior person and extremely senior person.
So she she presents as the logical choice.
But you know, ACEO handover isn't you don't just hand it to
the person who's next best performer or next most senior
because it's a moment potentially of great cultural
change, right? Like someone might go into the
boardroom and throw them an amazing idea to pivot the
company. Towards something else and that
person gets it, you know, so there's dark horses in there
like Johann van Jarsfeld, who's run a lot of the strategy in MNA
in the past six years or so. You know, if the BHP board are
minded to these sorts of creative things about deals and
do you break the company in half to get a big deal done and all
these other conversations, then, you know, people like Johann,
you know, that sort of stuff's obviously Catherine Raw's beat
now. And you know, everyone says
Catherine Raw's too young and too fresh.
Well, she's been a CEO of a company in the UKA multibillion
dollar company. She's been CFO of Barrick.
How much? You know, BHP has previously
appointed a 44 year old in Chip Goodyear to be CEO.
So yeah, it's going to be interesting to watch.
And the, the Newmont you're do you still keep close tabs on
Newmont Pete given the the, the Melbourne the Melbourne basic
that was new Crest TomTom Palmer's announced his departure
the exact same day that Bristow got booted.
Seemed all very coincidental and and and now you know, very
different reasons going on there.
But the the the gold companies, they're having their own sense
of of turnover at the top. I feel like, I feel like on the
other side of that, you get you, you get trepidation to do a, a
big deal in your, in your early term as a new CEO, unless you're
super bold. And, and heck, Speaking of that,
like we're seeing that from Perseus right now, like the,
the, the, the new CEO is, is going kind of to full steam
ahead on, on, on, on predictive, despite being, you know, in that
top job just a couple of months. So it's not, it's not completely
out of the realm of possibilities, but it is
abnormal when you get a new CEO, especially one that's not an
internal pick, come in and and do big deals right away.
Yeah. And, and he's on that note,
isn't it interesting that Simon Trott whilst has come in and
been very active, it's divestments, right?
Yeah, that's the easy thing to do.
I think like cut costs, divest non core like low return on
capital business units, simplify like I think those are the easy
and right decisions for capital markets to really get behind
you. And I'm, I'm a big fan of the
public rhetoric we've seen out of Simon Trott since his
appointment. Like he seems seems like a
breath of fresh air amidst what seemed to me like absurdity
coming from the majors for the previous five years in general.
Yeah. And so as it pertains to
Newmont, I don't have any particularly close insight on
that. Like, you know, perhaps I
shouldn't admit it, but I probably followed Newcrest
closer than I do in Newmont today just because they felt
closer. And I guess, you know, the ASX
listing felt bigger and, and more real.
But someone did point out to me recently that the gap between
Newmont and BHP and Rio has closed dramatically in the past
decade. Like the graph was quite
staggering. So I think, I mean, I won't try
and dream up the number. Your audience will be able to
Google whatever the market cap is of Newmont on the day they're
listening to this. But you know, it's sort of
getting right up there. Like, they're a big, and with
the increasing focus on copper, you know, at what point can you
sort of claim to be a diversified miner?
Zijin's the one to look at there in terms of creeping right on
the the footsteps of of our BSP and Rio like it looked, it
looked almost like they were going to overtake them earlier
in the year. And they've they've they've held
strong, but it's an evolving landscape at the at the top of
things. What's been you?
What's been your favorite deal of the year, Pete?
Look, one that I thought was really fun was Lavato Resources.
I think you guys tracked this the the little gold antimony
thing in New South Wales. So for people who haven't
followed it, obviously antimony was this sort of Off Broadway
thing that no one thought much about.
And then it became one of the critical minerals that China,
you know, choked supply of prices rally.
Next thing you know, the ASX announcements platform has the
word antimony on it 17 times a day where everyone's finding it
in their back pocket. But La Votto they had, they went
and bought for like, I think it was like $2,000,000, this old
gold project near I think near Armadale in New South Wales.
And it's got antimony with it and just an incredible share
price rise, like I think in the thousands of percent.
And they're getting close to restart.
And then, you know, we're probably talking approximately
what, October, September, October this year, in comes the
takeover bid. In fact, it was October 21.
I remember now because it was the exact day that Anthony
Albanese was in the White House with Donald Trump signing the
critical minerals sort of packed thing.
And here we had an American company trying to buy an
Australian antimony company. So it was like for a journalist,
it was like the perfect, you know, Segway of, you know,
themes all happening on the same day.
But the suitor was fascinating. United States Antimony Company,
USAC and I, you know, I'd never heard of them, so I went and
looked them up and have a look at their share price.
If you think Lovato, it had a bit of a rise.
This thing had gone from well, I mean, just look it up.
It was crazy. And the bid, of course, was
script. I'm not.
And the, so you know, the Lovato directors, they go away and they
think about it and they say, oh, we're going to decline this.
And the reaction to the USAC share price is hilarious because
I think what it's actually done. I mean, USAC probably thought
they were being clever trying to buy while their script was
crazily inflated. And they, you know, fair play to
them. But I think all it did was it
made people turn around and look at USAC and go, what?
This thing's trading times earnings.
And, you know, as a result, the balloon has completely deflated
since as the market looked at US antimity company and said, holy
crap, this is just this is like a cappuccino with about that
much, you know, coffee and about that much froth on top.
And so Lovato continue on their merry way as an independent
ASICS listed company for now. And yeah, USAC haven't come back
for a second crack. I suspect they probably won't.
How about you guys? Anything out there that you
found fun? I think we're in the midst of a
pretty unreal one with predictive Robex and Perseus.
We haven't seen the final chapter there yet, but it's hard
to look past that one. Yeah, the battle for bank hands.
Unreal. I've got, I've got one more that
I've I've learnt plenty on. It wasn't anywhere near as
eventful, but I thought what's now DPM Dundee buying Adriatic
was just so interesting. I mean, we had been kind of
critical of, of Adriatic that had problems ramping up, be it
ground conditions, recoveries, these sorts of things.
And the, the stock kept rising. They did so many fully funded
capital raises, the stock kept rising and then they, they
crowned it with a, with a buyout at almost an all time high.
So I think kind of as, as an investor and, and as a kind of
bystander watching that one, there was a lot of lessons to be
learned there. Do you have any others come to
mind? Just Speaking of lessons
learned, like I think my biggest like, yeah, reflection on on,
on, on come on companies in the last year is actually just come
from looking at at min rez. Yeah, the turn the turn around
story that's there. Like I was, I was skeptical of
their ability to execute, but they've surprised me at every at
every step and and and yeah, it's just it's just been a very
impressive turn around story there.
Despite kind of every every obstacle that was was thrown at
them from from multiple directions.
Operationally, things are going really well.
They've deleveraged the balance sheet with, with some, you know,
pretty, pretty impressive deals and they've executed Onslow like
amidst some, some some hiccups on the road and the likes like
in a, in a very impressive way. The volumes that they're
exporting out of there are are, you know, truly commendable.
Yeah, it looks as though they're through the hardest part of the
cycle, doesn't it? It looks like they've sort of
you can. They can now see the path out of
the forest. Totally.
In fact, I I even think they're out of the forest like the the
debt now is it's it's it's very manageable, especially post
settlement of the POSCO deal. Yeah, yeah.
And with, with iron ore where it is like it's, it's just happy
days, yeah. Yeah, so I who knows what
happens on the regulatory front, but on the commodity side or
asset selling front and operational front, you probably
I think you're dead right question without notice.
So feel free to blanket a deal that I haven't really understood
and I'm curious if you have, is Z Gin Mining, you mentioned them
earlier, the big Chinese gold miner that has gone from I think
10 billion to 100 billion or so over the past nine years.
This year they did an IPO in Hong Kong where I think they
listed all of their non Chinese assets.
Gold com yeah that yeah non Chinese gold assets.
They they maintained an 87% interest.
I think so. So they've floated 13% of the
the gold assets and up 70% on day one.
Just ripped an order, yeah. Off off the back I was.
Just going to say off the back of that, Pete, I've just noticed
tremendous appetite from from a variety of Chinese companies to
acquire international gold assets.
In fact, as we're recording today, Seymour just bought spent
a billion dollars buying Equinoxes Brazilian gold assets
like a few days ago, Ling Ling Bao doing the the the deal with
with Simberry. Like there's just, it's almost
every, every every other day there's a a different Chinese
gold company scooping up gold assets around the world
somewhere. That the Lingbao mob, I mean,
that's very interesting. So Simberry obviously being an
island of the sort of what, northeastern edge of Papua New
Guinea, I think Lingbao, this time last year, we're talking
about them. They were involved in the
Woodlock Island, which is on the South side of PNG.
It was held at the time and probably still is.
Haven't done my research by Geo Pacific Resources, the ASX
listed company. So I'd, I'd love to be a family
on the wall in Lingbao headquarters because it looks as
though they've got like they like gold, but only if it's on a
tropical island. So maybe this is like a White
Lotus style gold mine and I don't know luxury resort style
strategy that they're operating here.
Yeah, there. There's another little one as
well Titan in Ecuador and Chinese companies have been very
active in in Ecuador to Jiangxi copper another Chinese group
there as well. But we butted in you were you
were getting to a question on on XI Jin.
I was wondering why, why do you think they've done it?
Like do they just need a bit of cash?
You know the the West Australian asset they own near Kalgoorlie,
That is, I gather in the Hong Kong listed vehicle now.
I believe so. Not in goldfields, yeah, yeah.
Why do they do it? Yeah.
I honestly, I just think the Hong Kong market has has had
remarkable appetite for for gold exposure.
And that's expressed in in many ways, some of the the, you know,
the pure black gold listings there, but but separate to that,
even like the gold jewellers were some of the best performing
like listings on that Hong Kong exchange.
So I just think I just think it it was it was something that
just lowers their incremental cost of capital for for, you
know, for for overseas, you know, gold, gold, gold endeavors
as well by but if you have an elevated share price, lower cost
of capital. Yeah.
And there was there was massive appetite there.
What what is interesting is it last week.
So Chairman Chen, who's been a big, big entrepreneur behind
Zijin's growth, he's he's actually stepping down from,
from Zijin. So that's, that's a, that's a
very big kind of succession transition departure kind of
thing. Absolutely in that company
story. And remind me a little bit of
the other big Hong Kong listing that's relevant for Australian
miners of this year is the contemporary Amperex, the big
battery maker, China's big battery maker.
They of course did a, a Hong Kong float of of some sort as
well earlier this year, which, you know, if you're awa lithium
miner, you know that that matters.
And that my memory is that IPO launched spectacularly as well.
Had a terrific first few days. Yeah, they're, they're fiddling
with the on off switch at Jiangxiwu has been the yeah, a
lot of ink has been spilled over that one this year.
That's an interesting one. Should we move on to a few more
predictions for the coming year? Before you do that, JD, I feel
like we've got to, we've got to revisit what our predictions
were last year. So we've just come come on the
back of Pete asking 30 fund managers, what's the highest
conviction prediction? What's the most non consensus
prediction? What's the best performing
commodity and what's the worst performing commodity?
And JD and I actually answered those questions in one of our,
our last episodes of the year last year.
I'll, I'll, I'll let you, I'll let you hear how we responded to
those and then maybe we'll come up with some new ones.
Price conviction diamond price is lower in 12 months time.
Lab diamonds continue to. Ah.
High conviction pit be hard, but I'd I'd rest pretty easy with
some of the met coal kind of names.
I don't know if that's a specifically 2025 thing, but I
think hold them in time. You'll do well on some of those
names. So well, don't JD, I think what
havens up up nicely diamond price, natural diamond price I
think is down 5%. So we both did well then mate on
the highest condition prediction.
It's a one way Rd. I don't know if this is
consensus or not, but I I think the Chinese mining equities will
outperform the Australian producers of equivalent stature.
So like yeah, you say gins your sign of mines.
Like those sorts of companies would do better than the
equivalent ASX listed car. Non consensus, pretty pretty
beaten up, eaten into the cost curve, which we've touched on a
couple times throughout the year.
I think PGMS to narrow it down, I'll say plats or could go more
nation, say Rhodium. We'll have a good year,
something nobody really cares about.
There's a few companies in in South Africa to kind of look at
not. Bad mate plants plants was like
up 100%. Mate, Chairman Chen back into
Asian, Yeah, also had a good, good year.
The Chinese did that before. Yeah.
Well, mate, we're 2 from 2.
How good is this? I'll go tin best.
I think Tim will do well. Oh mate, 3 from three best
performing from. Not that Tim was the best, but
it did do very well and let's see if we can take the cake by
predicting the worst performing commodity.
Worst cardball up 117%. Gold underperforming.
Oh, we, we threw it away. The wheels came up at the end
there. That's UN Australian.
We cooked it. We cooked it.
Pete, you also threw some predictions out there.
They weren't in relation to those four questions, but we put
you on the spot quite a bit in our last episode.
Let's revisit how you did, you know, because we'll keep
everyone accountable here. One thing that should happen
there at Lahia is that that gets combined with some Barbara's
Simbari. Coba obviously is going to be a
scene of consolidation most likely.
There's some deals that can be done there you would have
thought. Interesting to watch what's
happening up in those PNG islands with Geo Pacific and
their close neighbor Kingston at Misama.
Who else is going to do a deal? We mentioned Sierra Gorda and
Spencer, Probably may not be next year but that's going to
happen sometime soon. I do wonder if some of those ASX
listed coal miners make sense to come together between the and
coal Stanmore New Hope to like make a more liquid register.
And I wonder what's gonna happen with Chalice right?
A few years ago Sabani Stillwater come into Australia
and they wanted us to know they were here and they were coming.
I wonder if they saw Chalice as their next thing.
If you're a company like Fortescue who still is saying we
still think hydrogen's a big thing and we want to be in
hydrogen, why aren't they going and buying Nell like and
instantly getting hold of what is it like 10% of the world's
electrolyzer manufacturing supply chain?
So Pete, I think I think you had some, some great, you know, Yep,
deal, deal predictions there, great logic, I think.
That's a zero out of about 15 isn't?
It you threw a lot of darts and none of them came to fruition,
but the logic was. When I counted back, I was
surprised because the the rationale was so good.
I mean, we saw a deal with Simbiri for 1:00.
We, we saw a geopacific deal as well.
Yeah, we didn't see the the coal consolidation there, but I
thought the thinking with with a bunch of them, I guess we saw a
deal in the cobar as well. We saw CSA.
Hey, Mark consolidation, I'm giving you 0P, sorry, but.
I'll give my I'll give myself 0 as well.
Yeah. Is it Cobar?
The Cobar district? Kind of fascinating that
nothing's happened. Oh.
It's it's, it's always a next year story.
Let's let's see how you fit on the other questions.
We put you on the spot for a. Couple quick fire predictions
for 2025 What will the iron ore, lithium and gold price be in one
year's time? Iron ore.
Iron ore will be 91 US lithium spodumain.
Cover your ears now. Tony Odeviano 800 USA ton and
gold I'm I'm getting on the Greg Robinson train, $5000 an ounce.
So I've got to give you credit there.
You had some pretty good predictions there, mate.
I think your predictions on commodity price were probably
better than any research analyst who who tried to endeavour and
predicting the same last year. There was some great kills,
yeah. Gold 5000 bucks an ounce people.
We would have laughed you out the door last year, but you
actually seem pretty damn close to reality, so well done.
Lithium was 800 bucks about a week ago, yeah.
And I know staying resilient. Yeah, well done.
That was great. Four points for for that one.
Let's let's see how you did on the the rest.
Will BHB have another bite at Anglo in the next year?
Yeah. Yes, I think so, yeah.
Look, look, the end of your question is probably the only
uncertainty, isn't it? Will it be next year or will
they, will they wait longer? But look, they've, they've
looked like a place that is a bit impatient.
And I don't say that as a criticism, but Mike Henry and
Ken McKenzie are not going to die wondering.
They've made that abundantly clear these past few years.
That's a stellar code. I don't pay.
What's the big theme that we reflect back on in 12 months
time? Maybe the AFR takeover bid for
money or five. Still waiting for that one.
Pete, we're done. Look forward.
To that. We're that close.
No, the the rationale with BHP and Anglo as we kind of touched
on before was was great as well. So I thought there was some
really good picks and I'm very keen to hear what you've got in
store. Should we run through a few for
2026 guys? I have to think about how he's
like 10 minutes before we started recording, mate.
So Pete, why don't you kick us off?
What's your highest conviction prediction for the year ahead?
I think if you think about the top five ASX listed gold miners,
Yep, I think there'll be a new entrant by this time next year.
And really, predicting this within one year is probably a
bit bullish. It's probably a two to
three-year call. But for the sake of the theatre,
let's do it for this time next year.
Top five ASX gold miner Endura Mining.
Wow. So your audience who aren't
familiar with this, this is a privately held company that
largely owned by Australian Super and it is.
The leadership of this company is * studded.
You've got directors basically from all of the big ASX listed
gold miners. You've got Jake Klein from
Evolution as the chairman, Bob Vassey, the former St.
Barbara CEO. And now what is the chairman of
Remelius? Is that right?
Yes, you've got a director on there, Tony Keenan, Northern
Star. Correct me if I'm wrong.
Is it miss, Miss Langer from Genesis?
Shout out if I'm wrong. So anyway, you've got this weird
thing where all of the big gold miners are allowing their
directors to go onto this other thing privately held with
Australia's biggest Superfund involved and all for like some
little thing in New Zealand. So it's, it almost feels like a
hobby farm, right? It's like, but so surely this
thing is actually made for greater honours.
It will be a vehicle to do something like it.
And I've racked my brain as to what they could do right?
Like, you know, Oceana Gold's got 2 gold mines in New Zealand.
Does this thing end up buying them or, or what does it do?
And the thing that fascinates me most, so it's already pretty
high-powered and pretty star-studded just for those
names that I've mentioned and, you know, Australian Super, no
one's got more money really. But in my conversations with the
big multinational diversified miners, they are strangely
conscious of this thing and I can't really work out why, but
they are taking notice of it. So I'd watch this space.
I like it. That's a big, that's a big
prediction for in the space of one year to go from private to
top five, a big goal. Nice, Pete.
What's the bar? There's a $5 billion company to
be the top five. It's.
Probably higher now, probably a bit high.
Yeah, maybe Genesis rounds it out.
Yeah, I like it, Pete, highest conviction prediction just like
you. I'll, I'll have a bit of a, a
caveat that I think this plays out over a few more years, but I
just think the energy space, when I look across the
commodities and think about what's, what's really beaten up,
I think the, the energy names and I think you can sort of
search high and low. The ASX really doesn't have too
many of these names. I think there's names in even
weirder kind of parts of the world in, in the North Seas
ones. We've spoken about Trev, where
you're getting paid nearly a 15% dividend to kind of wait.
And I think with, you know, oil under 60 bucks, you will get the
chance. Who knows exactly what they're
going to be in 12 months time, but you will get the chance to
to have have a bit of an uplift or get paid to wait there.
So that's one I'm kind of comfortable in.
What about you, Trev? Nice, 2025 was a was a year of
massive margin expansion for especially, especially gold
producers, right? And I, I'm still still bullish
gold, don't get me wrong, but I think, I think 2026 royalty
companies are going to outperform because like to your
thesis as well, If you have, if you have the energy complex come
up, well, that actually increases costs.
And, and you, you know, you might actually have a very
healthy like gold price outlook, but you could still experience
margin compression. And when there's margin
compression in the miners like it's, it's still gravy for the
royalty companies because guess what, royalties don't have
costs. So I'm banking on royalties
versus -2026. I like it Pete.
Non consensus view. Just on royalties, before we
move on, if I may slightly hijack your show, did you see
the Black Rock World Mining Trust sold at a great profit?
The royalty they had on the Brazilian copper and gold assets
of what was Avanco became as minerals became BHP.
That was an interesting one, Yeah, yeah.
Something like the like the buy in was somewhere close to 10
million I think and they sold it for 13 times that or something.
Yeah. Royalties are amazing.
Like, yeah, they're true special assets.
Yeah, sorry, Jonas, what was the question?
Most non consensus prediction for 26.
Hydrogen, the commodity is to be on is back now.
I mean, I'm I'm really swinging for the fence here for the sake
of entertainment. But if, as I know, you guys do,
if you take the theory that you should buy stuff when it's
hated, hydrogen's hated. What's hated right now, you'd
probably say nickel and hydrogen, and hydrogen's
probably hated even more. So I can't really give you a
credible reason as to why hydrogen is going to have a
Goodyear, only that, you know, maybe the elastic band is being
pulled back in a negative direction far enough that you
know it'll come back a bit. The thing about hydrogen also is
that you can play it through an ETF.
You know, there are some ETFs that hold, you know, a basket of
20 hydrogen stocks. 19 are probably scams.
Yeah, 19 of them will probably go broke, but if one of them
goes right, you might go pretty well.
Sorry. So I look forward to this being
replayed in a year's time when, yeah, hydrogen's been erased
from the human dictionary. I like it.
I I dread this being played in a year's time.
Trev, have you got a non consensus for you?
I, I, I do and I'll before I give mine, I kind of like you
thinking on what's hated. So I was, I was pitching to JD
the other day, but look at carbon credit markets, like
surely they're a place to look for, for hated, hated
commodities right now. Anyway, I I'd deter because my
no non consensus prediction. I actually think another thing
2025 was the year of geopolitics influencing metals of mining
markets. And everyone talks about 2026 to
just be an extension of that theme or growth of that theme.
I think, I think 20. I think geopolitics is going to
matter less in 2026 than it did in 2025.
I think it's peak geopol in the same way 2021 was peak ESG.
Like it still mattered in 2223 but less and less.
And I think I think 25 is peak geopolitics.
I like that so. Would you extend that, Trev, to
say that there will be a, a sort of a coming back together of
China and the US? Is that what we're going to see?
A bear hug between Donald and GE?
I'm no expert on this, but, but I, but I think, I think a deal
will happen at some stage there. Yeah.
And the and the deal by the way, probably will see, yeah, the US
leave the Asia Pacific, which will be a very, very interesting
new world order for Australia. We'll have lots of very
affordable railroads. Very good.
I'll throw 1 into the mix. PGMS to outperform versus gold.
So gold has obviously done phenomenal.
That ratio is out of whack and it has been for a long time.
So who's to say it'll close this year.
But you know we've seen the one between silver and gold close up
a bit. So I'm curious to see if, if
platinum, which is aged gold this this year and that kind of
basket, the PGM basket, I'm curious to see whether that
continues to to kind of close its gap after 15 years of of
kind of shocking performance. And I'll throw one more into the
mix as well. We kind of live in a world where
volatility has been just on the nose.
So I think volatility will will rise.
We have plenty of ATS in which you can play this.
And yeah, I think we've seen these big spikes.
You know, there's probably been three or four or five over the
last five years. Liberation Day is 1.
COVID is obviously a massive 1. But I think volatility will will
come back as the world keeps heading in the direction it is
going. Next up is best commodity.
Who's going to go first here, Pete?
Well, I've I've kind of have gone hydrogen, but why don't I
throw in? I was going to throw a nickel
just because it's hated. But maybe, maybe met coal.
Maybe met coal just based on, I don't know, there's a complex
interplay happening at the moment between China and the US,
sorry, between China and India on steel.
You know, the, there are sections of the Indian business
community, the steelmakers like Tata who are fuming at all the
Chinese steel that's getting dumped in India.
There's a there's a lot to think about there for Australia
because, you know, the default position was the Indian steel
industry is going to grow dramatically out, you know, in
the next decade. And that that would really help
Queensland met coal exporters because India does not have much
of its own met coal. If China is going to continue to
produce over produce steel at the rate it is and, you know,
export it everywhere, does Indian steel growth occur?
And therefore, you know, does QLD metcoal miss out on that?
These are all sort of questions that I don't know the answer to,
but perhaps I don't know, perhaps if there's some sort of
deal, as we were mentioning before for China to sort of, you
know, ease tensions, maybe they'll be a bit less steel
exported. Maybe Indian steel will go
ahead, maybe metcoal wins, I don't know.
A. Bit of retrieve, yeah, Yeah.
How about you, Trev? I, I am, I'm pretty buoyant on,
on all commodities next year with the exception of a small
number like diamonds in particular.
But I'm pretty, pretty buoyant on most, most commodities I
think. I think like uranium, lithium,
gold are all going to have good years.
So the retail guys will be happy.
I think I'm still very bullish on TN and PGMS, but what I'm
picking to be the best performing, the best performing
commodity, thermal coal, specifically nuke current the
index currently at US108 per ton.
I think that's a, that's a cyclical low, I reckon.
I reckon, yeah, you've got a chance of a 5060% uplift on that
next year. Yeah.
Can't argue with that. And yeah, it might be a bit of a
cop out, but I've got a similar kind of basket approach and I've
got a bit of a basket approach on the the short side as well.
But I said rhodium and PGMS last year, I think they continue to
to do well. And the other one is energy and
energy is oil, coal and uranium. I think uranium's on, we've been
a touch quieter on lately, but I think that continues to to grind
higher. So yeah, I think maybe you can
mark me by averaging those ones, but I think they they'll all do
well. Which coal?
Newcastle Thermal. Yeah, yeah.
Cool. Worst commodity guys, what are
we bearish on? I'll double down.
Well, I'm going to make, I'll make myself a target.
I'll say gold because Travis told me that there's going to
be, you know, coming together between China and the US So
therefore gold, you know, suits. Jeez.
Don't put that one on me here. I don't want to be able to
count. I would have had.
That's like a 2028 prediction. Worst commodity and very non
consensus there Pete. What are you going for, Trav?
Cobalt doubling down here. Cobalt absolutely surprised me
that it's up 170%. That's not based on, you know,
supply really being curtailed. That's based on export controls
from the DRC. That supply needs to rinse out
and that commodity should fall. Yeah, yeah.
I've got to kind of, you know, build your own ETF here and it's
a basket. There's a few different layers
to it, so tungsten and antimony. I think these have just had
incredible runs this year and I think that'll incentivize new
production. NDPR is such a weird one because
I'm very curious what happens with the the price flaws and
what that then leads to for a kind of spot floating price.
If all these producers are producing and they're just
selling to governments or there's government agreed off
takes for 110 bucks NDPR, does that mean the spot price kind of
falls? I'm not sure I'll throw it in
the in the mix there. And then to round out my ETF
diamonds, I think I'll just pick up another 5% down and cobalt
because of the exact reasons you've you've laid out there.
So. Just to make myself really
unpopular, guys, I wonder, devil's advocate, should we be
saying copper because everybody loves copper, right?
It's like the Saint of the industry that no one ever has a
bad word to say. But isn't it the case that the
strong rally in copper prices this year was partly about this,
the tariffs, right, the physical thing that people were trying to
get the metal into North America ahead of tariffs occurring and
there's now some unnaturally large amount of the world's
copper in North America. So is it possible that the price
this year just rallied on a short term temporary dynamic and
that perhaps next year if some of the interrupted mines around
the world resume a bit of production and you know, and
this factor of trying to get it into North America fades, maybe
copper eases a bit? I think your thinking is is
really sound there, Pete. I couldn't put it in either
basket and a lot of that came down to what you said right at
the end there. It's just so primed for for
disruptions and we don't know exactly how they'll play out.
So I'm. Super bullish, copper, super
bullish. Yeah, the whole base metal is
complex. I'm like, I'm very bold.
Bold on, yeah. Yeah, I think there's a a lot of
reasons, but putting a one year timeline on all these things
makes it that much more difficult, doesn't it?
That's right. So yes, everyone's bullish on a
10 year view. But yeah, I wonder, I wonder on
a one year view. But again, look forward to that
being replayed in a year's time. And why don't we wrap up with a
few M and A predictions, Just throw a few more darts at the
board. Trev, I know you're a big fan of
M&A. I'll start.
With Pete, Pete's got great Pete, great logic and a 0%.
Stronger. Well, yeah, I'll, I'll lean back
on my Endura mining. That was my main one.
I still think maybe I'll just keep saying Spence copper and S
32 until it happens. I think that's fairly fairly
difficult to to not back in and it'll be interesting to watch.
Rare earths weren't it? I mean, we saw a lioness and MP
were talking. That sort of doesn't feel like
it can happen now with the big rise that MP had.
For a while there, you might have thought Neo performance
materials would be a target from someone wanting to vertically
integrate, and maybe that still happens.
But yeah, like, yeah, maybe, maybe I'll stick with Endura and
Spence. I like it.
I like backing yourself for a second year in as well, Travis.
I'll pick up on your Linus thread there.
So, so we've got news last week that Tronox is now getting their
lick of of refinery bucks. I was big on big on my theory
that Lioness would buy Luca. I've changed my mind Linus to
Bytronox. I like it and I think I think
they've got a common director, don't they?
Isn't Vanessa Guthrie on the board of both?
I didn't know that. Not that that would matter.
High, high quality, very proper person.
But of course. But yeah, they, they know each
other well, yeah. I've got a bunch of deal
prediction stuff there but I'll I'll save them for a later date.
I've got like 20 deal predictions.
Look like a lunatic saying them all.
Sounds like a bonus episode for the new year period while you
feed her up. Pete, you've you've spoken and
written about Lion Town over the year and they've actually popped
up on potentially doing a brine related deal.
Is that in your in your bingo card for next year?
Well, maybe I mean, I, I should probably stop making predictions
about Lyontown because in an article over the last Christ,
last year's Christmas period, I sort of made the point that
based on the crude mathematics of how much cash they're
burning, 1/4 Lyontown could be broke by this time next year, IE
Christmas 2025. And that didn't go unnoticed
down at Lyontown headquarters. If you're a shareholder in
Lyontown, you should be very, very happy because.
We're all shareholders. Well, there you go.
This is the Australian government well.
Well said, well said. Lion Town fights for its honour
in a way that I very much admire.
Maybe. I mean, so when Pilbara Minerals
or PLS as they now called went and did a spodge mean deal, I
don't know. We sort of looked at that and
said shouldn't you be diversifying?
And their rationale was, well, we don't have spodge mean is the
thing we have core competency in.
So I guess, I guess that's the sort of, that's the tension,
isn't it? Do you go and buy something
you've got core competency in or do you try and straddle both
sides of the lithium world? I would have thought it's they
need to get on top of Kathleen Valley first, don't they?
I don't feel like that situation's in control to be
going off and buying things. Well said.
Well said, Pete. In, in general, I think I think
the best M&A opportunities are looking around the sector and
I'll look at, I look at my own portfolio, what have I got?
A lot of it's undeveloped projects and I think are worthy
of of corporate action. And I think that that that
there's yeah, that's, that's like a, you know, the
mispricing. They're very attractive, very
worthy undeveloped projects. Like, you know, it doesn't take,
doesn't take much for, for a corporate to appreciate that
value and then price it appropriately with a deal.
So that's kind of a just a, you know, a female I'm I'm willing
to continuously bet on. I've got about 5 here and they
all fit that category. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Pete. And and another one to watch
will be interesting is the little known ASX listed company
called DGR Global. Oh.
Jeez, so. In the last couple of days,
we've seen BHP support a takeover of Sogod by the Chinese
company Jiangxi Copper. Now, this ASX listed company
called DGR owns about 6 to 7% of Soul Gold.
So notionally that stays worth what, like 114 million or
something like that? DG Rs market cap is 38 million.
And so on face value, you could look at that and go, wow,
there's a mismatch here. You know, someone's going to get
in and it will rewrite. Why isn't it rewriting?
Well, everyone can have their own views, but in the spirit of
do your own research, read the DGR annual report and look for
the many disclosures about the fact that you know there's lots
of places that the sole gold windfall will go before it
potentially gets returned to shareholders.
World's worst financing ever like.
Isn't. That fair?
Oh my God, but I that that that was abhorrent.
What that company did like 16 months ago.
I want to say abhorrent. No regard for shareholders other
than certain certain someone. Pete, you've given us a bit more
Christmas reading to do. Love speaking with you, as
always. Have enjoyed this chat.
And yeah, it's been a very eventful 2025.
Here's hoping 2026 is just as good.
I hope you have a great Christmas and New Year's period,
Matt. Likewise, and if I may be so
bold as to try and speak on behalf of your audience, thanks
to you guys for, you know, the big year you've had and keeping
it going. It was a huge year for you guys,
you know, with, you know, the great Matt Michael moving on.
And what you guys have done this year, I reckon reminds me of
when Buddy Franklin left Hawthorne.
You know, Hawthorne came out the next year and won the flag.
And when Gary Ablett junior left Geelong in 2010 to go to the
Gold Coast, Geelong came out the next year and won the flag.
So, you know, Matt Michael was a star, an absolute like star
quality is just poured out of that guy into a camera, into a
microphone. But even with his departure,
this is a great show that when I move around the industry I meet
so many people who love it. So well done to you and hope you
get a great rest and come back and do it all again next year.
I. Appreciate it Pete means a lot.
Thanks Pete. We look forward to working
alongside you after the AFR money of my merger in 2026.
No, it's a reverse merger. There we go mate, have you got
any? What else is left on your mind
before we say goodbye to the money miners for another year?
For another year. Well, chatting with Pete is
always great. He's a man who I get a lot of
value from reading his work and especially his deep dives
lately. And as to answer your question,
what is on my mind? Plenty of things that was, yeah.
I think we covered the highlights of 2025, but like you
kind of alluded to in some of your predictions, it could be a
few different things that we're talking about come this time
next year. So I'm very, very excited for
the year it comes, that it comes.
I think we're in a great part of the world, commodities.
I think it's one of the most interesting sectors to be in.
I think it's going to be more and more volatile as you kind of
got the a bit of a hint in one of my predictions.
Is there anything standing out to you mate?
What are you excited for? Excited for I'll change that
question. What am I grateful for?
I'm grateful that we've got the wonderful audience that is that
is the money miners whoever you are listening to this episode or
watching this episode. Yeah, I'm very grateful for for
your consistent consumption of, of our podcast and and hopefully
our our e-mail medium as well. The director special.
It means a great deal to us that there's a sufficiently large
audience out there that makes this a doable day job, and we're
very grateful for that. Could not have said that better.
We are tremendously privileged to be able to do what we do
right. And yeah, all that is thanks to
the money miners out there, so. Not just the money miners, the
partners too. The partners, the fantastic
partners, Sandvik Ground Support, we've been there almost
since day one. We are very grateful for the
support you've given us as well as some fantastic partners who
have come along the journey for the past year.
Focus the platform by Market Tech, Introlinks, Switch
Technologies and Exceed Capital. Thanks a bunch to all of you
guys for supporting us. Now remember, I'm an idiot.
JD is an idiot. If you thought any of this was
anything other than entertainment, you're an idiot
and you need to read out disclaimer.