| Account | Shares | Price | Value | % of acct | Cost/sh | Gain $ | Gain % | Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 401K | 14,774 | $0.44 | $6,440 | 0.26% | $0.47 | $-566 | -8.1% | — |
In short: The second of his two highly concentrated copper positions (SURG CN, alongside ALDE) — reaffirmed as the junior-producer/advanced-explorer expression of a copper call built on LME positioning, ex-COMEX inventory draws and the ratio work ($8-11/lb implied). Illiquid; no market orders.
Surge Copper is a British Columbia developer whose main asset (Berg) is a big copper-and-molybdenum deposit — again pre-production, so the value is the resource plus the plan to mine it, not current profits.
It is the other half of Paulo's concentrated pair with Aldebaran, held for exactly the same reason: he thinks the copper price is about to be squeezed higher and wants the highest-torque, cheapest way to own that. His argument for the squeeze is worth restating simply — the traders who normally sit on the "long" side of the London copper market have already sold out (their positions are back to levels last seen in the 2022 crash) even though copper is near record highs. So if physical buyers scramble for metal, there is nobody holding a long position to sell it to them, and the price has to jump to find supply. Small, illiquid shares like Surge are the leveraged expression of that. Same execution caveat: no market orders.
In short: Personal holding (not the Codex portfolio) — Berg PFS: 2.0:1 strip, 120kt/day, -US$0.17/lb by-product C1, C$9.4bn NPV / 36% IRR / 1.8-year payback / C$4.7bn capex — one of the highest-quality copper PFS results in years.
Surge Copper is a personal holding of Mart's — it is not in the official Contrarian Codex portfolio, but he owns it personally and shares the Berg Prefeasibility Study result as relevant context for the copper section of the newsletter. Berg is a large copper-gold-molybdenum porphyry deposit in British Columbia: 2.0:1 strip ratio, 120,000 tonnes per day throughput, -US$0.17/lb by-product C1 cost after gold, silver, and molybdenum credits, C$9.4bn NPV at a 5% discount rate, 36% IRR, 1.8-year payback on C$4.7bn initial capital.
The -$0.17/lb C1 cost is the number that demands attention: it means Berg's copper is effectively free after by-product revenues, placing it in the lowest-cost decile of the global copper supply curve. The market cap of Surge is a fraction of the project NPV because building a C$4.7bn mine requires either a major mining company as a partner or acquirer, or transformative project financing — neither of which is available to a junior on its own. That gap between what the asset is worth and what the market is paying for the shares is what Mart is holding for. The Berg PFS transforms what was a promising exploration story into a fully-costed, economically-modelled tier-1 copper development project.
Full passage: premium transcript (PDF).
In short: His 2nd-largest position (after Aldebaran), first written up in early December. The Berg PFS is "solid": after-tax NPV8 US$3.3bn (IRR 24%, payback 2.9yrs, 28-yr life) at $4.75 Cu/$20 moly/$45 Ag → US$6.7bn at spot ($6.45 Cu/$30 moly). Skeptics flag the 0.22% Cu grade, but "the draw here is the moly" (2nd-largest moly mine in Canada after Teck's Highland Valley). Mkt cap ~US$250mn fully diluted, no debt = ~7% of NAV on Berg alone; a recent raise cleared the Lassonde-Curve overhang for 18 months.
Surge Copper is a small Canadian mining company ("junior") developing a copper-and-molybdenum deposit called Berg. A pre-feasibility study (PFS) is an engineering report estimating what a mine would be worth if built. Berg's came back strong: using conservative metal prices, the project's after-tax value (NPV — net present value, today's worth of its future cash, discounted 8%) is about US$3.3 billion, earning back the build cost in under 3 years over a 28-year life. At today's higher metal prices that value roughly doubles to US$6.7 billion.
The copper grade is low (0.22%), which critics dislike, but Paulo's point is that the real prize is the molybdenum — a metal used to harden steel — where Berg would be Canada's second-biggest moly mine after Teck's Highland Valley. The eye-opener is the price tag: the whole company is worth only ~US$250 million with no debt, so the market is paying about 7 cents on the dollar for Berg's estimated value alone. A recent share sale also means it won't need more cash for ~18 months (avoiding the "Lassonde Curve" slump when developers dilute holders). It's his second-biggest position; he expects the market to ignore the good news for now.
In short: Reaffirmed as a current copper-basket name amid the Eldorado/Foran M&A tell — the copper juniors he rotated into after letting Foran go.
In short: The new position (SURG.CN, C$0.34, ~US$100mn FD; ~US$200k ADTV — low liquidity). Passes his full checklist: central-BC jurisdiction, proven M&A management, aligned anchors (ARM 19.9%, Centerra 10%). Flagship Berg (2023 PEA US$1.5bn NPV8 / 20% IRR → US$2.5bn / 27% at $4.80 Cu & $19.50 Mo), a top-5 Canadian copper mine with an outsized moly byproduct; Ootsa next to Huckleberry. Fully funded to a ~April-2026 PFS. Trades ~2-3% of NAV — "absurdly cheap."
Surge is a very small Canadian company that owns a big, low-grade copper deposit ("Berg") in British Columbia, plus neighboring ground. Paulo likes it because it passes his simple mining checklist — good location (near roads, ports and cheap power), a management team that has built and sold a mining company before, and big aligned backers who keep buying stock — and because it looks absurdly cheap.
The catch everyone fixates on is the low copper grade. Paulo's insight is that Berg also contains a lot of molybdenum (a metal used to harden steel), and selling that byproduct makes the mine very low-cost even at a modest copper grade. An early study valued Berg at US$1.5 billion, rising to US$2.5 billion at higher metal prices — yet the whole company is worth only about US$100 million. So you're paying roughly 2-3 cents for a dollar of estimated in-ground value, with a nearby idle mill that could process the ore thrown in "for free."
The trigger he's waiting for is a more detailed engineering study (a "PFS") due around April 2026, which he thinks will raise both the value and the size of the deposit — and it's fully funded, so no immediate need to dilute shareholders. He owns it as a long-term position but flags that it trades tiny volume, so don't chase it.
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Verbatim excerpts from the public transcripts (auto-pulled at each mention's timestamp, lightly cleaned). Timestamps link into the video; "source page" opens that commentator's full analysis at this row. Click a mention's header line to expand it (one open at a time). For personal study — not investment advice.