James Cooper

Geologist and commodities analyst. Regular contributor to print and broadcast media focussed on #copper #nickel #REEs more here

[CommonSenseSkeptic @C_S_Skeptic]

@MarioNawfal @elonmusk He's prioritizing his useful idiots. Nothing more. And attempting to bypass the lockout period - meaning, long-term investors would be able to dump their shit for top dollar right out of the gate onto these flocks of dipshits lined up for scraps of Musk's broken space company.

[Shanaka Anslem Perera ⚡ @shanaka86]

JUST IN: The Strait of Hormuz is open. It has been open every day since February 28. The IRGC never closed it. What the IRGC did is convert 21 miles of international waterway into a permissioned gate with a toll booth, a vetting process, and a guest list. Traffic has collapsed 70 to 80 percent. But the handful of tankers that transit each day do so with IRGC clearance, paid in yuan or USDT, at $2 million to $4 million per vessel.

The process is now documented. A tanker operator contacts an IRGC-linked intermediary. The operator submits vessel ownership, flag state, cargo manifest, destination, crew list, and AIS transponder data. The IRGC runs background checks: no US-linked ownership, no Israeli cargo, no flagging to aggressor states. If approved, a toll is negotiated. Payment is executed in cash, Chinese yuan, or USDT on the Tron network. The IRGC issues VHF radio clearance with a specific time window and route through Iranian territorial waters near Larak Island, where IRGC Navy performs visual confirmation. The vessel transits. No physical escort is provided. The “protection” is the removal of the interdiction threat. You are safe because the entity that would attack you has decided not to.

China passes. India passes. Pakistan, Turkey, Malaysia, Iraq, Bangladesh pass. Shadow fleet operators aligned with Russia pass. Not all pay the full toll. Some receive exemptions through government-to-government arrangements. Some pay reduced rates. Some pay nothing because the geopolitical alignment is payment enough. The system is not a blockade. It is a membership club with a cover charge denominated in currencies that are not the US dollar.

And here is what nobody is covering. Lloyd’s of London and the international insurance market have withdrawn standard hull and machinery coverage for Hormuz transits. War-risk policies now carry premiums of up to 5 percent of vessel value, $5 million for a $100 million tanker, per voyage. But the actuarial models that price those premiums now incorporate IRGC vetting status as a risk-reduction variable. If a vessel can prove it has paid the toll and received VHF clearance, the probability of loss drops from above 20 percent to below 5 percent. The same models that price hurricane risk and earthquake exposure are now pricing IRGC compliance as a safety factor.

The insurance industry has done something no government intended: it has formalised IRGC authority over the strait in actuarial mathematics. A tanker that pays the toll is insurable. A tanker that does not is stranded. Dozens of vessels sit outside the strait right now, unable to transit because no underwriter will cover them. The insurance withdrawal is not a market reaction. It is a structural enforcement mechanism that makes IRGC permission the prerequisite for commercial shipping.

Every toll paid in yuan is a barrel that settled outside the dollar system. Every USDT transaction on Tron is a 3-second settlement bypassing SWIFT and sanctions. Iran’s parliament is drafting legislation to formalise the toll as “security compensation.” If that bill passes, ad-hoc extortion becomes sovereign law, and the precedent for chokepoint monetisation enters the international legal framework.

Gold watches from the side. Spot prices muted at $5,000 to $5,400 by dollar strength and rising yields, while central banks in China, Russia, and India quietly accumulate on every dip. The short-term safe-haven has not fired. The long-term de-dollarization trade is loading.

The strait is open. The molecules move. But only for those who pay the toll, in the currency the toll booth accepts, after the vetting the toll booth requires. The rest wait. The clocks tick. Saturday arrives.

https://t.co/iFmUcarGdV

[Rick @Rickaus75]

Just in case you don’t know:

If you want to see a global crisis, let Australia run out of fuel…

Did you know that Australia is the 22nd largest exporter on earth.

15th largest country by measure of GDP.

As far as minerals go, we are the 3rd largest exporter of minerals on earth but per capita, we are by far the largest.

We are the 3rd largest overall energy exporter on the planet, largest of the OECD countries.

We are the Largest exporter of iron ore #1
$87,700,000,000
87.7 billion dollars or 55.9% of the global total.

Largest lithium producer #1
61,000 tons
46.9% of global supply.

Largest exporter of zinc #1
$2,2100,000,000
2.21 billion dollars

Largest exporter for barley #1
$2,370,000,000
2.37 billion dollars

Largest exporter for Bauxite #1
110 million tonnes

Largest exporters of Liquid Natural Gas #1 in volume
#3 in revenue.
$27,400,000,000
27.4 billion dollars

Largest wheat exporter #1
$10,200,000,000

Largest exporter of sheep #1
49% of global supply
$1,500,000,000

Largest exporter of opals #1
90% of global supply.

Largest exporter of manganese #1
$1,390,000,000

2nd Largest beef exporter after Brazil. 12 billion dollars.
$12,200,000,000

2nd Largest gold exporter #2
310 tons annually
34.2 billion dollars

3rd Largest grain exporter #3
14% of global supply.

Large exporter of copper #3
$64,200,000,000 - 7.1%

2nd largest exporter of uranium. #2
4.1 billion tonnes
We have 30% of the known global uranium reserves.

5th Largest exporter of silver #5

Number 8 exporter of aluminium #8
$4.1 billion dollars
4.5% of global supply

26th Largest exporter of oil #26
$7,540,000,000
$7.54 billion dollars

Australia is the 4th Largest coal producer of coal on earth.

We are the Largest coal exporter on earth. 50% of worlds sea born coal comes from Australia.

150 million coming from the mighty Hunter which is the largest single coal export port on earth.

It is completely irresponsible to allow a country that feeds and powers the world to get into a situation where we may need to pull up trucks because we have a fuel shortage…

And you still have to work and get only 50% of your earnings?
You kidding me!
Where’s the money?

[Angelica 🌐⚛️🇹🇼🇨🇳🇺🇸 @AngelicaOung]

To me, the fact that it’s a thorium-containing molten salt reactor is less big of a deal than the fact that it’s a successful continuous operation of a molten-salt reactor full stop.

China has its strategic reasons for using Thorium. It’s basically dirt in its own backyard whereas Uranium, while still cheap as chips, might need to be imported at some point. But it’s so bountiful everywhere from Australia to Canada to Kazakhstan to Namibia I don’t take uranium scarcity as a serious concern.

But the molten salt part…that’s where it gets interesting. The bulk of the world’s reactors work with solid fuel under very high pressure. This necessitates the construction of a huge containment dome to keep everything inside in the case of an accident.

The molten-salt reactor works at atmospheric pressure. And in an accident condition, the salt “freezes” in place. There can of course still be nuclear accidents, but not the kind of widespread contamination that causes disproportionate panic. Could this pave the way for smaller, lighter, cheaper reactors to be licensed?

Anyhow. This tantalizing success is just the beginning of the hard work of the commercial molten salt reactor. It’s over time that corrosion and the thorny issue of neutron-poison buildup rears its ugly head.

[James Cooper @JCooperGeo]

Trump looking to establish critical mineral processing on Pentagon bases.

Still need to get the ore from somewhere though (much of it will be outside the US).

Plus find willing miners happy to give up their ore and miss out on value adding.

https://t.co/SPj1Tn506O

[James Cooper @JCooperGeo]

Despite tariff war, Trump may meet Xi in China as soon as April, insiders say - https://t.co/ucfF2d66gS

[James Cooper @JCooperGeo]

Just what the Doctor ordered a bit of China stimulus to get things moving... #ChinaTwoSessions #copper

[James Cooper @JCooperGeo]

A good piece detailing Ukraine's Rare Earth fallacy: https://t.co/MAAJ7ltIUb

[Peter Spina ⚒ GoldSeek | SilverSeek @goldseek]

Excellent visualization of the largest undeveloped N. American silver deposits not owned by a major…

[Megatron @Megatron_ron]

JUST IN:

🇺🇸🇷🇺 Boeing is returning to Russia, they need titanium

Boeing plans to return to the Russian market

The company is going to allow Russian airlines to purchase aircraft and establish supplies of spare parts to the domestic market, and in return receive titanium from Russia.

[Jason Smith - 上官杰文 @ShangguanJiewen]

Hundreds of millions pour into Chinese malls to shop to escape the misery of China's Collapsing economy.

#China

[James Cooper @JCooperGeo]

Is there any room for metal investors to benefit from AI? #silver might be an option... this is world's most conductive metal making it innovation-proof:
https://t.co/BNI1ZYY9WN

[Reuters Energy and Commodities @ReutersCommods]

Exclusive: Images show China building huge fusion research facility, analysts say https://t.co/0fGTYRdHaa

[James Cooper @JCooperGeo]

Mining… The one industry Saudi Arabia can pivot towards to diminish its oil dependence:

https://t.co/CceZkGkYGH

#FutureMineralsForum #Crudeoil

[Lundin Group @LundinGroup]

NGEx drills 51.10m at 13.84% CuEq within 205.35m at 5.08% CuEq at Lunahuasi and expands program to 25,000m with two additional rigs. Wojtek Wodzicki, President and CEO, commented, "Lunahuasi continues to surprise to the upside and deliver some of the best copper-gold intercepts in the world." Read release: https://t.co/31tYbfLaLR #NGEx $NGEX.TO

[James Cooper @JCooperGeo]

King Charles can’t get enough of renewables. And it’s no wonder, the Royal Family owns the sea bed surrounding the UK and reaps a fortune from offshore wind farm licenses!

https://t.co/o2ThJVKXUo

[James Cooper @JCooperGeo]

Trump could mean a pivot back to oil stocks: https://t.co/6hu8fvkyMK #Crudeoil #NaturalGas

[Brandon Beylo @marketplunger1]

Feels like a "Buy The Dip" moment in precious metals and industrial metals.

Will delete if wrong, obv.

[Ole S Hansen @Ole_S_Hansen]

China's August imports of key #commodities:
Crude Oil: 11.59 mbd, +16% MoM, -7% YoY
Coal: 45.8 mn tons, -1% MoM, +3.4% YoY
Soybeans: 12.1 mn tons, +23% MoM, +30% YoY
Copper ore & concentrates: 2.57 mn tons, +19% MoM, -4.7% YoY
Iron Ore: 101.4 mn tons, -1% MoM, -4.7% YoY
Natural gas: 11.8 mn tons , +8% MoM & YoY

[James Cooper @JCooperGeo]

Exxon suggests lack of exploration will drive #Oil prices 5-times higher by 2030. Big call, but even if they're only partly correct, it means we might be sitting in a lull of a broader inflationary storm:
https://t.co/X0V3Gwvyf3