Morning Briefing: Blue Moon Metals, The Elmet Group and EQ Resources Announce a US$150 to $175M Investment into the Springer Tungsten Complex

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

Good morning, and welcome back to the Mining Stock Daily Morning Briefing, presented by the Clear Commodity Network, and delivering today's top news in mining and mineral exploration. From the new ClearCom studios, here's your host, Trevor Hall.

Trevor Hall (0:18)

Hey, good morning, everybody. Welcome back to the Mining Stock Daily Morning Briefing. Happy Monday to you. It's Monday, September 14th, one week until the Beaver Creek Precious Metals Summit. But for now, gold is under pressure this morning, down 1.4% to $4,290 an ounce. Silver is off harder, down over 2% to $62.89. Copper is also lower, off almost 2% to $6.35 a pound. On the energy side, Brent crude, it is surging again, up over 3.5% at 108 a barrel. That move in crude is the story behind the move in metals. Brent is up more than 15% this month after the Houthis seized strategic islands near the Bab al-Mandeb and Saudi Arabia shut its East-Wise pipeline following drone attacks. Ordinarily, that is a gold bid, but instead gold is falling because the oil shock is feeding into an inflation picture that already surprised to the upside. Friday's CPI showed headline inflation accelerating to 0.4% month over month, with Core at 0.3%, and the market now prices an 86% chance the Fed raises rates on Wednesday. That's up from 59% a week ago. That would be the first hike in more than three years.

Meanwhile, up in Canada, Prime Minister Mark Carney opens the Canada Investment Summit today, alongside CPP Investments and PSP Investments, arriving with a 66-page pitch book aimed at attracting $1 trillion Canadian dollars of investment over five years.

Of the 167 opportunities at that book, 63 are mining and metals projects. Named projects include Lithium Banks Broadwalk, Critical Elements Rose Lithium Tantalum Project, Cannigold's New Polaris, FPX Nickel's Baptiste, and Surge Copper's Berg.

We'll get to the news out of the miners and explorers here in just a minute, but first a quick mention of today's sponsor.

Today's morning briefing is brought to you by Integra Resources. Integra is a growing precious metals producer in the Great Basin of the Western United States. They're focused on demonstrating profitability and operational excellence at its principal operating asset, the Florida Canyon Mine in Nevada. In addition, Integra is committed to advancing its flagship development stage heat bleach projects. That includes the past producing Delamar Project in Idaho and the Nevada North Project in Western Nevada. Learn more about the business and their high industry standards over at integraresources.com.

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Trevor Hall (3:37)

And here's what you need to know this morning. Blue Moon Metals, The Elmet Group, and EQ Resources have announced a US. $150 to $175 million investment into the Springer Tungsten Complex in Nevada. It's structured as a $50 million Tungsten prepayment facility, a $25 million equity subscription into Blue Moon, and a $75 million injection into the ammonium para-tungstate plant-joint venture that leaves Elmet holding 70%, Blue Moon 20%, and EQ Resources 10%, with Blue Moon retaining the mine and mill. The deal is backed by a $450 million US. Department of War commitment to Elmet, of which $150 million is earmarked here, and Springer, historically one of the largest tungsten mines in the United States, comes with a 1,200-ton per day mill, an APT plant capable of 4,000 tons per year, and a historical unverified resource of 10.5 million tons at 0.45% tungsten trioxide. Nevada approved bonding requirements last month. The NEPA review is complete, and the mine and mill are expected back in production in the fourth quarter of 2027, with the APT plant restarting in the second half of 2028 Blue Moon Metals trades on the Venture Exchange with M00N and on the NASDAQ with BMM. The Elmet Group trades on the NASDAQ with ELMT, and EQ Resources trades on the ASX with EQR.

Franco-Nevada has announced a second financing package with Minerals 260 for the Bullabulling Gold Project in Western Australia, committing in Australia $170 million for an additional 1.45% gross royalty and $30 million as a cornerstone equity investment. That's all for $200 million Australian on top of the $220 million package that it put together back in February. The transaction lifts Franco-Nevada's total royalty to 3.9% gross, stepping down to 2.75% after 6 billion ounces of production and expands the area of interest from 2.5 km to 10 km from the historical 10-year boundary. Bullabulling sits 65 km from Calgurley and hosts 4.4 million indicated ounces and 1.7 million inferred, with a first stage contemplating 150,000 ounces a year over 10 years and first production targeted for the second half of 2028