Copper is at the center of a historic supply crunch, and President Trump’s surprise 50% tariff just sent shockwaves through global markets.
In this exclusive compilation from our Rick Rule Natural Resources Symposium 2025 interviews (more coming soon!), top investors, analysts, and mining executives reveal why copper is entering a long-term bull market, driven by:
- Rising electrification & AI infrastructure demand
- Declining global copper grades & stalled new projects
- The U.S. Section 232 national security investigation into copper
- Trump’s tariff will create a two-tier copper pricing system
Featuring:
- Jason Jessup (Magna Mining CEO) – on why copper-focused juniors in stable jurisdictions are rare and valuable
- Lobo Tiggre – on why tariffs are reshaping U.S. vs global prices
- Dr. Nomi Prins – on Section 232 & China’s copper stockpiling
- Rudi Fronk (Seabridge CEO) – on why copper prices must rise further before new supply comes online
- Peter Grosskopf (SCP Resource Finance CEO) – on how tariffs may accelerate the supply crunch
Download our FREE Copper Investment Report here: https://wealthion.com/copper/
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Hard Assets Alliance – The Best Way to Invest in Gold and Silver: https://www.hardassetsalliance.com/?aff=WTH
Access all Rick Rule Symposium 2025 content virtually: https://registration.allintheloop.net/register/event/rick-rule-symposium-2025-ccha?via=Rohit
Lobo Tiggre 0:00
Copper that doesn’t make the threshold to be worth sending the United States is going to find another consumer like oil. You know, we couldn’t stop the oil flowing from Russia despite the war and the sanctions. It’s easy, the copper is even more valuable.
Trey Reik 0:18
Greetings and welcome to our wealthion show. My name is Trey Reich of Bristol Gold Group, and I’ve just returned from my favorite investment conference of the year, Rick rules Natural Resources investment symposium in Boca Raton, Florida. In my opinion, there is no other investment conference which can rival the depth and quality of Rick’s annual confab in terms of valuable information about companies, macro trends, and even the art of successful investing in the precious metals world. So truly amazing conference I encourage everybody to attend if they can in the future. This year, the wealthion team attended the conference with our partners at SCP resource finance in anticipation of launching a broker dealer in the states in coming months when we receive all of our FINRA registrations to give us investors the opportunity to invest in SCP Reese for Nance finance offerings. So at Rick’s conference, I was able to sit down with some of the biggest names in the investment business, from Grant Williams to Dr Nomi Prins to Adrian day to even Rick Rule himself. And we’ll be bringing you those interviews in coming days, but today we wanted to focus on copper and highlight some of the thoughts are gas shared on the copper market. Obviously, copper is very important metal. And current trends in electrification AI and green energy around the globe, and there are lots of investment opportunities in the copper sector. We’d like to explore in this Compendium, we’ll share some of the thoughts of copper bull Lobo Tigray, Dr Nomi Prins Seabridge, CEO Rudy Frank and SCP resource finance CEO Peter groscoff, but we’re going to start with our conversation with Magna mining CEO Jason Jessup and his thoughts on copper markets and President Trump’s recent tariffs on copper. Please remember that if you’re interested in learning more about investing in copper, please click on the link in the description below to receive a free copy of wealthion, recent white paper on copper markets. Greetings from the 2025 edition of the infamous brick rule Natural Resources symposium. My name is Trey Reich with wealthion, and we’re here this week with our SCP resource finance partners in anticipation of launching a broken broker dealer in New York when we get our FINRA registrations, and that will allow us to expose American investors to SCP deals. So we’re excited about that. It’s good to meet with some of those companies here. We’re here with Jason Jessup of Magnum mining, and he was kind enough to join us to talk about his company. So my question to you is, how long have you known Rick Rule and what what do you think of the conference?
Jason Jessup 3:35
Yeah, so I met Rick Rule about three years ago, and we have a large shareholder in Dundee Corp. It’s run by Jonathan Goodman, and Jonathan and Rick go way back and yeah. So we met him. I told him about what we’re doing in Sudbury, and you know, he seemed very keen on it, because about 2530 years ago, he invested in another junior company in Sudbury, f and x mining, and did very well on that investment so, and I was part of that f and x team, so that’s kind of how we met. And last year was our first year coming to the conference. It was fantastic. Came back this year, and I think it’s even better.
Trey Reik 4:14
And you mentioned Sudbury, from what I’ve read about your background, you’ve spent a lot of time in that part of the world. So can you tell us a little bit about your background?
Jason Jessup 4:24
Sure, I moved to Sudbury in about 2000 and I started working for one of the large mining companies up there, inco at the time. And inco, I’d been mining in Sudbury at that time for about 100 years, and I really enjoyed my time there. And 2003 a another junior company, f and x mining came in, and f and x acquired five past producing inco mines, non core assets, and brought the first one into production the McCready West mine. And then 2005 I left inco to join the f and x team, and I got a. It was one of the best decisions of my life. We were able to bring two more mines back into production over the next five years, and were acquired for $1.5 billion in 2010 f and x was actually the best performing stock on the TSX from 2000 to 2010 so a great story, really exciting. I stayed on with the new company, Quadra f n x, and in 2012 Quadra f n x was acquired by k, G, H, M, out of Poland for $3 billion I moved on, did a bunch of other things and but by 2016 I recognize that these mines that f and x owned and we ran and created so much value for our shareholders, and we’re now back in the hands of a major mining company, and we’re viewed as non core to them, and the capital wasn’t being invested. You know, one mine shut down, I could see the writing on the wall for another mine. And this is what really inspired me to found Magna to recreate that entrepreneurial spirit again in Sudbury mining camp, which had been like, say, a long history of mining dominated by two major mining companies. So yeah, we founded the company in 2017 made our first acquisition of a non core past producing open pit mine, and 2021 took the company public. 2022 acquired the crane Hill mine, another past producing inco mine, advanced that project to a point now where it’s fully permanent and ready to be built. And then in just February of this year, we acquired eight properties from kghm, the old f and x properties, so finally brought them back into Magna, and that includes the producing McCready West copper mine, the Levac mine and Podolski mine, which are in care and maintenance, and five exploration properties. So now Magnus sits with one producing copper mine in Sudbury for past producing permitted mines that can go back into production very quickly. And I think there’s a lot of growth potential from that.
Trey Reik 6:55
And your output in terms of metal, is copper, 100% or
Jason Jessup 7:01
so. Our breakdown by revenue basis is about 70% of our revenues coming from copper and about 20% from platinum, palladium, gold and silver, and the remaining 10% approximately is from nickel and cobalt right now.
Trey Reik 7:14
And is that the geologic structure of the Sudbury system, or is it unique to you that mix
Jason Jessup 7:22
so Sudbury has different types of deposits. They have the largest, I guess, and most common are the called the contact deposits. And they are primarily nickel with some copper and cobalt and some small percentage of precious metals. And then there’s these foot wall deposits, and that’s what we’re focused on. Foot wall deposits tend to be separated further into the foot wall from the contact and higher grade copper and precious metals. So right now, we’re focusing on copper, and it’s very typical for Sudbury mines to have both the contact and foot wall deposits. And copper right now is giving us the best margins, but we can turn our nickel zone back on when the price is right and the time is right.
Trey Reik 8:01
Nickel peaked where, and has come to where. What’s the where are we on the nickel price curve?
Jason Jessup 8:07
So I would say that we are in the bottom. We’re in the trough of the nickel cycle. You know, we hit a peak in about 2022 recently, and nickel, you know, was very strong. Since then, a bunch of macro factors have come into play that have driven the price down, largely because of an increase of supply in Indonesia. Now I think that over the next couple years, we will see stronger nickel prices. I think it’s at a depressed price that’s not really sustainable, even for the Indonesian producers. So yeah, we’re going to be prepared to take advantage of that optionality when it happens.
Trey Reik 8:44
And what’s, what was the peak, and where are we now? Well, the
Jason Jessup 8:48
very highest peak to trade on the LME for a very short period of time, for a few trades, was about $40 a pound. Now those trades were pulled back, and it was due to a short squeeze. Oh, right. Everybody quite it traded quite a bit in 2022 in that 14 to $16 per pound range, and then since then, has traded down to currently just below $7
Maggie Lake 9:11
if you have any questions about how to navigate the current environment, wealthion can help connect you with a vetted advisor to get a free portfolio review, just click The link in the description below, or head to wealthion.com/free there’s no obligation, and it will just take a few minutes of your time. Again, that’s wealthion.com/free
Trey Reik 9:29
thanks so much for joining us. I remember that story. It’s good to be a large hedge fund, because they’re the only people that get to cancel their trades when there’s a short squeeze, right?
Jason Jessup 9:40
Well, it was, I don’t know if it’s ever been precedent, but it just tells me that, personally, I don’t have a lot of trust in the LME and how it may be manipulated by by Asian
Trey Reik 9:52
players. Yeah, so copper is a story that obviously is fairly front page. The last year or two with the electrification trends, etc, maybe we’ve taken a little step back in terms of of the financial media and coverage of copper. But how do you see the copper market shaping up over the next two to five years?
Jason Jessup 10:14
Well, I’m quite bullish on copper. I think that we are in the very early days of a very strong copper bull market, as you mentioned. You know, the world is electrifying, and maybe not as quickly as some people had predicted a few years ago, but we are electrifying. There is huge amount of electrical infrastructure being put in place. AI is huge. And all the centers that need to power those computers and that systems all require copper. So globally, I think that the demand for copper is quite high, and on the other side is the grade of copper on the world average has been going down, and the cost to build these large Porphyry copper deposits will be needed in the future. Those costs have ballooned, and a lot of the projects out there right now, capital costs are five to $10 billion so before those projects get built, I think we’re going to need a higher incentive price. So I’m very bullish on copper. I think the fundamentals are strong. And you know, if you talk to most analysts and banks, they’re predicting higher copper prices going forward.
Trey Reik 11:19
And we can’t resist talking about what happened this week, whether or not it sticks or where it comes from, but apparently, President Trump has indicated a willingness to put a 50% tariff on copper. I was reading this morning. I’m not sure that it’s even written in stone yet, but this comes out of the I think it’s called Section 232 examination of whether copper, you know, is of the security to the United States. So how does that impact the copper market? And you specifically?
Jason Jessup 11:53
Well, it’s, I just saw this yesterday afternoon, and I’m still trying to digest and understand it myself and see how it plays out, you know, directly for us. We get paid on selling ore to valley and Glencore. They process our ore, but we actually sell them the ore, and then they’re
Trey Reik 12:09
responsible to sell that. Talk about that a little. You mine the copper.
Jason Jessup 12:14
We mine the copper ore. We bring it to surface at our McCready West mine. We crush it, we run it through a sample tower that takes a representative sample of each 4000 ton lot. We assay one sample. We give one to valet to assay. We compare assays, and then agree on what they are, and based on that, that’s how we get paid. So typically higher grades have higher recoveries, and then, along with that, all the precious metals, nickel and cobalt. So that’s how we get paid. But once we drop the ore at their mill site, they own it, and they’re responsible to sell it. So whether they sell it to the US, where there’s a large tariff on or whether they sell it onto the LME or to another customer is up to them. So it doesn’t directly affect us, but what does affect us is if it changes the price of the LME. So I guess one of the questions people have is, will you see some kind of two tiered pricing between comics and and the LME? And we see some difference right now in those two markets. So I’m still waiting to see what’s going to happen. I’m I think I’m optimistic that at the end of the day, it doesn’t make sense in the short term, I think for the US, there would be a lot of inflation around the use of copper, because if copper is coming in from outside of the US to meet the needs, then I think that’s going to have to keep happening, and at a 50% tariff, it gets very expensive. So we’ll see what happens. But I’m optimistic that there’ll be smarter things to do than a 50% tariff on copper coming to the US
Trey Reik 13:50
at SCP. I’ve talked to our team, and there’s sort of a dearth of investable copper companies that are independent and you know, not majors. So are you unique in that? How many companies are in your competitor list?
Jason Jessup 14:09
Yeah, it’s actually, it’s quite challenging to find comparables to Magna, where you have copper production and good grade, very good grade copper production in a stable jurisdiction with infrastructure and, you know, good government, laws and supportive communities, and especially as a junior typically, copper companies are much larger, right? It’s just the base metal space. So we’re a bit unique. We have a real challenge that,
Trey Reik 14:34
does that work out for you? Is that a good thing? Said? Well, it has been good investors. Yeah, we’ve
Jason Jessup 14:39
had a lot of investors telling us they’re looking for for more copper exposure and and Magna is one of those few producers that they can invest in, and in the very early days. So as I said, we have, you know, our producing mine for fully permitted mines that we plan on bringing back into production, potentially one a year over the next three. Years, and you know, with that, there’s a lot of growth, and it’s a great time, I think, for investors to be looking at Magna, and that’s the feedback we’ve been getting. So it’s been quite
Trey Reik 15:09
positive, terrific. So in the next, say, year or two, what are the milestones that investors should be keeping track of to judge how you’re doing?
Jason Jessup 15:19
Yeah, so there’s, you know, a number of milestones we’re looking to achieve, but really it comes back to our three pillars of growth. And we’ve had these same three pillars since the inception, and to some degree, they’re largely based on our experience with FNX mining and Sudbury. The first one is on production. And so it’s about utilizing our production, maximizing that, creating that cash flow that we can reinvest to start new mines up and pay for exploration. So we’re working on that right now. So we will be able to, you know, provide guidance later on this year, as well as as we complete quarters and report our our earnings, we’re going to be able to give a lot more color on the direction we’re going in that growth as well. The second pillar is exploration. So we have two exploration drills turning right now at Levac mine, as well as two more underground at the McCready West mine. And with that, we think there’s a huge opportunity. And we just put out some some news results and drilling from Levac today to make another significant copper discovery in the foot wall at Levac, so that we think is a really exciting opportunity of growth. And then the third one, much like the acquisitions we’ve made already, is we’re still looking to make other accretive acquisitions of non core assets from the majors in Sudbury. And so these are the three things we’re really focused on doing. We have a great team that’s done it before, and I think those are all potential catalysts that investors should be watching for.
Trey Reik 16:49
Have always been sort of agnostic about which metal to take a peek at, and I know that you follow most of them. So currently, how would you rank the attractiveness of the various metal markets. I
Lobo Tiggre 17:04
have to say. I’m not patting myself on the back, and I’ll tell you what, but my top call for 2025 was copper, and last year it was gold, and the year before that was uranium. And I think I was right about uranium in 23 and I was right about gold in 24 but I’m not right about copper this year, even though the copper price has gone up, my thesis was inflationary, like what is now coming down the pike, with the big, beautiful bill and all that stuff, and copper supply constraint, unlike, say, oil, which is also necessary, like Dr copper, but copper supply constraint, and that really hasn’t arrived yet, that’s still in the future. You know what’s driven copper up to a record price earlier this year was Trump. What’s doing it right now, as you and I speak, is Trump. And you know, who can say that this won’t be another taco trade, right? You know, 50% tariff on copper now, until
Trey Reik 17:58
you’re referring to what happened yesterday?
Lobo Tiggre 18:01
Yes, Trump just announced 50% tariffs on copper, and copper goes up to almost six bucks in the US. I will lose the thread of the conversation. The points are that copper is actually cheaper now, as you and I are recording in London, than it was a year ago, but it’s all time highs in the US because of Trump. So that’s not my call. That’s not why I was bullish on copper this year. So no, I’m not going to pat myself on the back and congratulate myself, because this isn’t what I was planning on or betting on. And in fact, I’m sitting on a lot of cash because I haven’t deployed yet into copper in a big way. But that, having been said, this is, this is really significant. It does matter. I’m not sure what it will be like. This isn’t, this isn’t an anti China thing, like China didn’t mean any copper. They get it from Chile, the way we do. I think this might be revenue, because copper isn’t everything. It’s like, you know, why do we pay so much tax at the gas pump? Because everybody needs it. It’s a way to get money. You know, in cities and gas taxes are everywhere because it is a ubiquitous tax. Copper is like that. So this might actually be revenue, and if that’s true, it’ll stick, because it’s not like Chile will suddenly open its markets to United States and, you know, or Peru, like Peru is not on the top of Trump’s beep list, right, right? So I don’t see what deal he can extract from the art here that would make him lower the prices. So I suspect it’s revenue in this case, and if so, that lasts. But here’s the thing, higher prices the US, you know, manufacturers will pay, but that will divert copper away from the US, so then you’ll pay lower prices somewhere else. That copper that doesn’t make the threshold to be worth sending the United States is going to find another consumer like oil. You know, we couldn’t stop the oil flowing from Russia despite the war and the sanctions. It’s easily fine. Copper is even more valuable. Yeah. Yeah, $60 a barrel weighs quite a few pounds. $6 a pound is a much smaller amount of value to send around. So it’s even easier for copper to flow fungibly around the world. So I think this is investable. I think obviously, if it sticks, it’s a benefit to people that have US assets or close enough to the US that Trump might consider it as friendly. You know, who knows how that’ll play out. But you know, if you’ve got a Peruvian copper miner that’s selling all its output to China, the fact that Americans are paying more for copper is completely irrelevant your business. So this is not a rising tide necessarily. Floats all boats. You still need, I think, exercise like right now, everything is going nuts because it’s new, and everybody’s always Ooh, copper, but at some point the reality of the industry matters. And I’m saying that this is something you need to be careful with
Trey Reik 20:56
in terms of the realities in the industry. Do you think the electrification trend is overplayed or under Yes,
Lobo Tiggre 21:04
but that doesn’t matter, okay, and maybe yes and no, like the electrification, it’s going to happen anyway. Two things. One is, as the population grows all by itself, it means Dr copper, and it goes in, so there’s going to be more demand, and as people want a higher standard of living and agitate in that direction. And as we see with China, it happens. India is following along like that’s going to require megatons and megatons of copper regardless. And this has nothing to do with EVs or solar panels or any of that. It’s just global demographics. So the case for copper is super, super solid. Now, on top of that, you put the EVS and stuff, and, yeah, that’s even more demand. So it’s a tailwind, and that’s why I say but if that goes away, it’s not like copper goes away and and we have seen this, like mainstream analysts have, when, when the news from China about the deep seek model being so much more efficient came out, and that whacked copper, whacked uranium even harder. And it was all very silly, because the thesis for copper was never, oh, it’s aI play. That’s just icing for the cake.
Nomi Prins 22:16
Silver has that industrial use value. Silver has a historical monetary value. It’s not your own asset, but it has all that has all that value as well, and that’s one of the reasons we’ve seen it pop and I think it will continue to pop. Silver right now, could get to 50 by the end of the year, and it could get to 60 or 70 by the end of the following year. It needs the economy overall to sort of be a little bit more growth oriented. Right now. We’re flat to negative in the US. It has to be more pan growth. But I think that’s all going to help silver and copper. Of course, it is necessary for all electricity, all wiring, all power. It’s had some issues because of economic numbers. Copper is in your portfolio. Copper as well. We’ve got a really good Junior miner. It’s done really well. Got a big minor copper is important too. It’s a longer term play, I think, for the real big upsides on juniors. But it’s part of the investigation, something called Section 232 investigation of the US White House treasury, US White House, for the first time since the 232 protocol of our trade policy was created in 1962 first year for copper, in September, there’s going to be reports it’s going to come out and decide or show whether copper is intrinsic to our national security.
Trey Reik 23:29
By 232 you’re talking about the process whereby the executive branch studies whether a certain process or industry is necessary for national defense. Correct? That’s
Nomi Prins 23:41
correct. If it is so determined for copper, it’s the first year it’s being under investigation. That’s going to give a big bid to copper. And ahead of that, that report supposed to come out in September, the first preliminary report ahead of that September moment, China has been stockpiling copper. So, so there’s a lot of movement, I think ahead for copper as well, and uranium and rare earths.
Trey Reik 24:07
One of the things that in the first day I found a bit surprising is no one is talking about copper, and since KSM has a heck of a lot of copper in it, and is a big part of the story. Aren’t you a bit surprised by how Copper has even given all the electrification and all the things that are going on? No one’s talking about it here.
Rudi Fronk 24:30
Yeah, maybe that’s a good sign in terms of we’re early yet in the copper. I mean, you look at some of the copper stocks, and copper is at 450 a pound. That’s not a bad price, but it’s not enough yet to get new projects built, and I think the copper price has to go a lot higher, and I think it will as a result of the growing demand we’re seeing for it, and the constraint in supply because new mines are not getting built.
Trey Reik 24:52
So as a bit of a lead in and a softball what are the largest undeveloped copper deposits? In the world.
Rudi Fronk 25:01
Pebble is the largest in Alaska on the northern dynasty. KSM, if you ignore our gold and just look at our copper content, we are the third largest undeveloped copper project in the world. The focus has been on gold over the years, but we also have a lot of copper.
Trey Reik 25:18
So Peter, we’ve talked a lot about precious metals and critical minerals, uranium, rares. But we haven’t touched on copper, which, of course, is one of the biggest trends globally in terms of electrification and all of the different applications. And now on top of that electrification trend, we have the AI, you know, icing on the cake for the copper picture over the next 10 years. So you know, what’s your view on copper, and what do you think the impact is of the news that we just got in the last 24 hours from Mr. Trump, that he may slap a 50% tariff on incoming
Peter Grosskopf 25:56
copper? Oh, wow. Talk about making a difficult situation worse, I think copper requires a lot of investment, and it takes an awfully long time to find a viable copper deposit, and they’re generally speaking, big, bigger than gold deposits. So I would say a lot of investment needs to go into copper. And if you put tariffs on it, it’s it’s going to be exacerbated. The value of copper is going to go up. And I don’t know if he, that is Mr. Trump, President Trump appreciates that we’re already in short supply on copper. So I think it’s going to give investors a lot of opportunities again, just adding to our universe of what we’re going after.
Trey Reik 26:50
Does the US have a lot of undeveloped copper? There’s pebble, there’s Donlon, probably has little copper, yeah, but we are there. Do we have copper to develop here?
Peter Grosskopf 27:02
It’s getting tougher and tougher, so the large scale deposits that the US has relied on, like Bingham Canyon, those are boy, like you said, probably count them on less than a handful. I think there’s one or two undeveloped projects in Arizona and Utah, and then you’ve got Alaska, which is probably where some of the Virgin deposits are, so not a lot.
Trey Reik 27:27
And we talked to an interesting company, Magna, earlier today, and I think SCP has done some work, work with them, correct?
Peter Grosskopf 27:35
Yeah, they’re Canada. They’re in a developed basin, so that’s in Canada. That’s quite, I’d say, quite rich, but quite small quantity. It’s not one of the massive deposits that the US is going to
Trey Reik 27:48
need, but it’s one of the few small companies to get your teeth into. It is
Peter Grosskopf 27:53
and it was very cheap, and it’s doing a great job, and it can be in production immediately.
Trey Reik 27:59
Thank you for taking the time to watch the highlights of our copper conversations at Rick’s conference. We certainly hope the video was educational and insightful, and if you enjoy what you saw, please don’t forget to like, subscribe or share our video with others. And most importantly, if you’re interested in learning more about investing in copper, please remember to click on the link in the description below to receive a free copy of wealthion, recent white paper about copper markets. Thanks and see you soon.
