Recording date: 28th August 2026
Olive Resource Capital's latest Compass episode centres on two connected observations: a summer drilling season that is quietly delivering strong results, and a persistent shortage of the advanced copper projects the market increasingly wants exposure to.
On the drilling side, Derek Macpherson said a quick scan of recent releases turned up roughly ten notable holes in a two-day window, spanning gold and copper-equivalent results from companies including Lake Victoria Gold, Free Gold, ATEX Resources and VR Resources. He attributed the volume to well-funded companies - many of which raised capital during the frothy financing window of late 2025 and early 2026 - finally reaching the drill bit with larger, multi-rig programmes than in past cycles. Despite the quality of results, Samuel Pelaez noted that most of the underlying stocks have moved only modestly, framing individual holes as a starting point for deeper diligence rather than a signal to react to immediately. He illustrated the point with VR Resources Ltd. (TSXV:VRR), whose strong copper-equivalent grade at its New Boston project in Nevada turned out to be molybdenum-led on closer inspection, and with Heritage Mining Corp., where a genuinely strong gold result failed to move the share price because of an unresolved warrant overhang from prior financings.
Both Macpherson and Pelaez pointed to operational bottlenecks as a growing constraint on the pace of news flow. Assay laboratory turnaround times have roughly doubled industry-wide, and at least one Nevada-based lab has stopped accepting new clients. Macpherson cited a conversation with White Gold Corp. CEO David D'Onofrio, who described Yukon labs as overwhelmed by the scale of concurrent drill programmes in the territory - a dynamic likely to push meaningful drill-result reporting into the fourth quarter and beyond the traditional autumn conference season.
This episode returned to a recurring theme: the scarcity of tier-one copper development projects. Pelaez cited comments from Mineral Resources Limited (ASX:MIN) chief executive Chris Ellison, who told investors on a results call that the roughly A$10 billion Australian miner intends to buy a copper project outside Australia within the next 12 months - a sign, in Pelaez's view, that copper demand is broadening well beyond specialist resource investors. Macpherson highlighted Rio Tinto's US$15 million strategic investment in Mogotes Metals Inc. (TSXV:MOG), closed on 27 August, as further evidence of major producers competing for exposure to early-stage assets in Argentina and Chile's Vicuña district, home to NGEx Minerals Ltd.'s (TSXV:NGEX) four significant discoveries. Closer to home, Olive continues to build positions in Edge Copper Corporation's (TSXV:EDCU) Zonia project in Arizona, Gladiator in the Yukon, and Valhalla in Alaska.
Olive's preferred strategy is buying advanced development assets likely to be built or acquired this cycle, on the view that the valuation gap between developers and producers is typically widest early in a bull market, a gap they expect to become more pronounced in copper as competition for scarce, advanced assets intensifies.
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