In short: His own company (CEO). Up ~730% in a year and "it's still really early in the story." Mocoa passed 1 billion tonnes (now 1.1B) — "the first 20 years of a project," big enough for majors and countries to care, ending the "Mr. Miyagi problem." Funded to a construction decision (~$45M cash + ~$14M warrants vs a ~$50M path), fourth rig arriving and a fifth planned, PEA due by year-end, and "a construction decision under existing policy in three years." It sits in a 130,000-hectare land package with nine untested targets.
Copper Giant is an exploration company with one big asset: Mocoa, a deposit in southern Colombia containing about 1.1 billion tonnes of rock with copper and molybdenum near the surface. Harris runs the company, so this is his sales pitch, but the milestones are real: the deposit is now big enough that large miners and governments pay attention, and a major commodity trader (Trafigura) has already agreed to buy part of the future output.
What's left is to show it can be built profitably. First comes an early economic study (the PEA) by year-end, then a more detailed one (the PFS) about a year later, which in Colombia is enough to apply for the environmental permit. He says the company has the cash to reach a build decision in about three years. The big risks: politics in Colombia can change again, and the mine will cost far more than the company has, so it will likely need a partner or a buyer.
4:08Once you hit that billion-ton threshold, it's important for two reasons. One, then you get on the eyeballs of all the major, major companies and even countries, right? They start paying attention, because that's a scale that can actually matter. The second part of it, which is important especially as a mining engineer, is that you would rarely ever design a project bigger than that to start.
In short: His own company — controlling shareholder (with Serafino Iacono ~30%, shares locked up). Mocoa, Colombia: 1.1B tons of near-surface copper-moly, "second largest undeveloped moly deposit in the world," near infrastructure with a friendly community; PEA due end of year, four rigs, ~$50M cash, 1,300 km² package. Trafigura paid $30M for an offtake before a PEA — proof buyers are "getting very desperate."
Copper Giant is an exploration company that owns the Mocoa copper-and-molybdenum deposit in Colombia — about 1.1 billion tons of rock close to the surface, near roads and power, which makes it cheaper to mine than remote or deep deposits. It has not built a mine; a first economic study (a "PEA") is due at year-end.
Keep in mind this is Giustra talking about his own company: he and his partner control about 30% and have locked up their shares. His evidence that the deposit is valuable is that the commodity trader Trafigura paid $30 million in exchange for the right to buy future production before any study was even out. The likely payoff is either a big partner joining or a larger miner buying the company.
26:04We agreed that we're going to lock our shares up. We're going to see this thing through. There's only less than a handful of 1-billion-plus-ton copper deposits that are near surface, high-grade, and near infrastructure. Okay, there's lots of copper deposits, but some of them are very remote, some of them are very deep, some of them are low grade.
In short: Owned, for the deposit and for the backer, with the warning attached to the same answer. "I own Copper Giant. It's aptly named… it is a giant copper porphyry. I own it for that reason. And I own it because I've seen Frank Giustra be persistent and tenacious in resource development over the 40 years that I've known him." The two costs he names are exploration spend and jurisdiction: "they need a lot more exploration expenditure. Drilling off porphyries like this is not something for small folks," and the ground sits in "a very risky, very sociologically challenged part of Colombia, Paramo, which extends down into Ecuador. The narcotraficantes and others go back and forth across a porous border. So your political and social risk here is challenging." The closing line is a suitability screen, not a rating: "highly risky. People who can't afford to take speculative risks should look elsewhere."
Copper Giant holds a very large copper porphyry in Colombia — porphyry being the low-grade, enormous-tonnage deposit type that supplies most of the world's copper. Rule owns it, and the two reasons he gives are the deposit's size and the persistence of its backer, Frank Giustra, whom he has watched develop resources for forty years.
He is equally direct about the two costs. Proving up a porphyry means drilling an enormous amount of very expensive holes — "not something for small folks" — so the company will have to keep raising money, which dilutes existing shareholders. And the ground sits in the Páramo region, a poor, thinly-governed part of Colombia extending into Ecuador where the border is porous and armed groups move freely.
What makes this entry useful is how he closes it, because it is a suitability screen rather than a rating: "highly risky. People who can't afford to take speculative risks should look elsewhere." He is not arguing anyone else should own it. He is explaining why he does — a size of prize that justifies a specific, named set of risks he is personally equipped to carry.
51:32— I own Copper Giant. It's aptly named. They need a lot more exploration expenditure. Drilling off porphyries like this is not [laughter] it's not something for small folks. It's backed by Frank Giustra who I've known for years and very good guy. It is in a very risky, very sociologically challenged part of Colombia, Paramo, which extends down into Ecuador.
In short: Video sponsor. In his own words (20:29–22:25): he believes Copper Giant's exploration thesis for the ~1.12 billion-tonne Mocoa copper-moly deposit and trusts backer Frank Giustra, but thinks it's unlikely they self-fund the ~$1–2B mine — the play is "derisk, derisk, derisk, sell," using the Giustra threat to make a copper major that must buy a pipeline pay a fair price.
Copper Giant is a small exploration company that owns Mocoa, a very large but early-stage copper-and-molybdenum deposit in Colombia (~1.12 billion tonnes of rock at about 0.51% copper-equivalent). It makes no money yet — it's proving up a resource — so it's speculative. It was also the paid sponsor of this video, and Rick discloses that; the polished mid-video segment praising it is a sponsor read, while his own opinion comes later.
His genuine view: he believes the geology and trusts the well-connected backer, Frank Giustra, but he thinks it's unlikely a tiny company can raise the roughly $1–2 billion to build the mine itself. Instead the smart plan is "derisk, derisk, sell" — spend a few years clearing the permitting, environmental and legal hurdles so a big copper miner can simply buy a shovel-ready project. Why a major would pay up: after 20 years of under-investing, the giants have no new mines in their pipeline, so by the late 2020s the only way for them to grow is to acquire — which hands leverage to a derisked seller.
20:29permitting. But that's one of the big, I guess, shortfalls of the amount of, like you were saying, there's not enough capital in this space. How can a company like Copper Giant, for example, get that mine into production and return value to shareholders? — In the case of Copper Giant, more likely than not, if their exploration thesis is true — which by the way I happen to believe it is —
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