2025: Will We See Another Year Like It? (Peter Ker)

Money, manners, you know all about this one. Our final episode of the year, the wonderful peak Kerr, just in a moment. We can't wait to give you a very last bit of content for the calendar year 2026. But first, JD. Final episode of the year mate. It's been a ripping 2025. I hope everyone's portfolio out there reflects it. Commodities have been on a tear and you might be thinking it's time to take a few chips off the table. Diversify a bit. Yeah, yeah. No, I'm very pro cyclical.

The portfolio goes up. I want more. Well, we've been having a few wins across the portfolio and hopefully everyone else there has as well. And if you are thinking of taking a few trips off the table, we're in Australia. You think you're property, right? Mate, what could be? What could be more Australian than the property market? I don't know. Nothing's more Australian, right? So why not go with a group from Brizzy, a group called Exceed Capital Mate.

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So very interesting way to to to add something a little bit extra to your portfolio that is maybe a bit less volatile than mining stocks, but we love mining stocks. Thank you. Exceed capital go check them out go to Pete Kerr final episode of the year as always joined by the wonderful peak ker of the AFR or the financial review. Do we got to call it the fin from now on, don't we? I feel like we're just stuck in this habit of calling it the AFR but. Anything.

Anything you want, you can call it. Wow. We'll call it Pete's, Pete's, Pete's home ground. We're just, we're delighted to have you here every year you join us, Pete, we reflect on the year that was and the year ahead. We're going to do it again. And 2025 has been a blockbuster year in many respects, A defining year. JD's called some of the things that have happened this year is the most important stories of the decade in terms of our

industry. I'm I'm really keen to peel through some of those like big themes, big stories, big company and corporate moves and importantly look ahead at what could be in 2026. Again, we're going to we're going to get you predictions. We're going to predict some stuff ourselves and keep ourselves accountable for what we called last year. Pete, thanks for coming on Money and Mine. Great to be here. I feel like I'm like your father.

Christmas. I only appear once a year, like shortly, you know, late December. So three times in a row. It's a hat trick. I'm very pleased to be here. And everyone's thrilled for it, Pete. We're yeah, we're delighted to to jump into these stories. And we were tic tacking over the past week about what are the big stories? What should we unpack? And the first one on that list was geopolitics and how geopolitics has really made it

sort of presence felt across the minerals, the mining space. And it, it, the impact's been huge. Thinking of things like price floors of government grants of export import banks, getting involved in financing projects, be it rare earth, critical minerals, all these sorts of

things. So I want to start the, the conversation here and given that you've got a few years of experience on, on us here, I'd love to to hear from your perspective how monumental you kind of think these moves that we've seen are specifically what the US has done in underwriting price floors in, in things like rare earths. Yes. I mean, I've just sort of coming to the end of my 14th year covering this sector.

And I've always said, like going back right to the start, the thing that I found most fascinating about it of many things was the geopolitics that was always at play. So when I started, it was around the time of Kevin Rudd's mining tax proposal. And you know, that obviously blew up and became a big thing. And I remember Aceo, one of the CEOs of the big multinationals, saying to me one time about how the nation states, they've got us over a barrel in the

resources industry. And I was, I was sort of puzzled by this, right? Because the narrative was, oh, the big miners push around the politicians, they own the politicians, they tell them what to do. But the point he made was that if you're a shoe company, so let's say you're Nike or Puma or someone, and you've got a shoe factory in let's call it any like Thailand, for example, Thailand raises the taxes. You can just go across the border to Cambodia and build the exact same factory.

Goodbye Thailand, you know, continue on your merry way in the resources industry. The they are where they are in the ground. So the nation state has such more power over this industry. So that sort of for me was always the bit that I liked the most. You know, over the decade, we saw things like Indonesia, you know, do export bans and all these things that affected commodity markets. And that was kind of cool to

watch. But these past couple of years, it's just been geopolitics on steroids. This time last year, I was with you guys on this show, and we were talking about this, about how incredible it was that our taxpayer dollars were being lent to Alluca to make the Eniaba refinery. Yeah, this was a controversial thing and everyone's got different views about it. Well, that looks like child's play now.

Like, come this year, we've got U.S. government setting price floors, as you mentioned, we've got the Australian government buying shares in Lyntown. Like that was not on my list of predictions for 2025. You know, government support for the industry used to be drilling grants and then it was a bit of a step when they started giving concessional loans. Now they're just buying shares in pre revenue companies

sometimes. Obviously Lyontown now has some revenue, but there's other explorers who are pre revenue who the taxpayer now owns shares in. So this is incredible territory to be honest. And for me it just opens up so many more questions like those Lyontown shares as we sit here today, in December 2025, the Australian taxpayers done well out of that, right? Like they've probably tripled from that equity raise.

And who's the dude in Canberra sitting there managing the fund, like being the little, you know, Michael Barry of Canberra? Like are they are they selling the line town shares today to make a tidy profit? I don't know. So that's what keeps me fascinated, I reckon by this industry, just the growing interplay of of governments, this emerging, you know, bifurcation of the world between

a Chinese and A and AUS state. It's it's, it's moved markets all year and I think it probably will again next year. There's one more layer as well, Pete, which I think really started gathering steam around the AFR mining Summit in I think

May of this year. And that is the stockpile, the critical mineral stockpile that the Australian government was talking about. Yeah, going to put you on the spot here a bit, but how effective do you do you think that will be? And what form do you think that's going to end up taking when when we get a bit more detail over the next half year on it? So there was a bit more action on that front just last week.

So depending on when your audience is enjoying this podcast or hating this podcast, hopefully you're enjoying it. You know, I'm talking about sort of the middle week of December, I gather AMEC, the lobby group based in Perth, heavily involved in formulating the a proposal and the hope is that the this will be an industry LED proposal that the government can sort of rubber stamp. You know, the government came to them and said in broad terms, this is what we want to do, how

should we do it? The industry is now going back to them and saying we think you should do it this way. So if that model gets up, in really simple terms, it sounds like it would be nation to nation agreements. The governments of Australia and let's say for instance, South Korea agree that Australia will provide certain volume to South

Korea over certain years. And then the Australian government turns to miners in this country and says, well, can you guys please deliver that helps them out, you know, concessional loans, all those sorts of things. And I guess ultimately, if Australian mining companies failed to deliver on the promised volumes, then the

taxpayer is on the hook. That's when the taxpayer might have to step into the spot market, buy some volumes and get them to South Korea. So it's sort of if that model were to get up, you know, it's kind of smart in the sense that the government can play a big role here, but might not ever actually spend a dollar if if you know what I mean, If the if the Australian miners deliver to the promise that Canberra makes to South Korea, well, then it's just transactions between the

minor and the customer. So that seems to be the the default leading model. And it sounds as though rare earths NDPR is the most likely place it will start, but perhaps also gallium, maybe antimony. And I think that's because, say

gallium and germanium. The hope is that they'll be able to get those off the existing smelters and refineries, the near star ones and so forth or the Alcoa ones in WA, add a little circuit, it's not a lot of CapEx and you just extract, you know, gallium out of what was going to waste. So I'd expect those two or three will be the first commodities there. The lithium miners far less convinced about this as a concept, far less unified.

The rare earths guys seem relatively unified and I guess to some extent that makes sense really because the lithium miners generally are incumbents. They are out in the market selling this stuff already. They have contracts. So if you're going to try and set price floors, you're kind of interfering with the contracts they've already got set, whereas most of the rarest people in the conversation not yet in production. So it's sort of easier to start there. So that's where I would expect

it starts. The, the, the next layer that, that I think about heaps when it comes to, to geopolitics. And, and it's interesting what you say there, Pete, about the Aussie government perhaps not having to, to, to write a check because let's see which projects get funded. Let's see where, where the money to, to finance these projects come from. That's a very open-ended

question. But the countries with which we do do these deals is another really interesting layer from from my perspective, because you mentioned South Korea obviously with the US, but we're in the middle of this China, US kind of

trade war. And iron ore is the elephant in the room when it comes to this. And we have seen a lot of back and forth with BHB and the, the more unified iron ore buying group in, in China now that's trying to pull together all the interests for the, for the steel mills and have a bit more, bit more sway. How have you seen this story UN unvolve or evolve over the year rather? And where, where do you kind of think we're going on that trend? Are we going to see more renminbi deals?

Is is that something on the cards for next year? Wouldn't surprise me if we do, I think. I guess what we can be certain about is that there's currently no deal between BHP and the Chinese buying desk. Just last week in mid-december, we were continuing to see another little flurry out of CMG of of jawboning, I guess where they tried to crack down on essentially the port side trading in China. This is something that the three big W Australian miners have increased a lot the past few

years. The idea that you get the iron ore to a a yard at the port in China and you keep it there longer than you traditionally did and you can maybe blend it with some stuff from Simandu or from Valet or whatever. You'd have to say that as things stand, the Australian miners, I mean it proximity bias, maybe we're falling victim to that, but they seem to be winning, right? Like the iron ore price has been stronger than everyone expected. Late last week, it was still 105 US.

Who knows whether, you know, that becomes famous last words next year. But yeah, like it continues to it continues to hold strong. Rio Tinto shares hit an all time record on Friday. They've never been higher ever, you know, at an on oil price of 105. Keeping in mind the on oil price was, what, 230 back in 2021. So, yeah, it wouldn't surprise me if China wins some concessions. But if you look at it the other way, are they starting? Are they a bit desperate?

Like if they're resorting to a lot of these sort of regular sort of outbursts about, you know, unnamed sources say we'll do this and we'll do that, I don't know, Do you do that if you're getting traction? I did hear from someone extremely well placed on this debate that one of the world's BIG4 miners, and I actually don't know which one it is because the person refused to tell me which one it was.

But one of them has threatened to go entirely to spot, entirely to the spot market in terms of volumes as well. So whilst BHP is the focus of this, I think some of the others are dealing with it intensely as well. And some of them are ready to take the well the to really take the fight up and go. We're going to back ourselves to be able to withstand whatever you throw at us. I I think it's such a such a big and evolving story. I don't, I don't think I'd, I'd characterize the Australian

miners as as winning this fight. I think like, I know price elevated is, is a function of, of many things, but, but I think like CMRG on, on many fronts is exerting more and more power. And they're, they're absolutely like having an influence for for the first time in, in, in many years. And you know, we've seen the concessions that BHP sort of had to make around its Jimbo bar products and the, and the likes as a result of some of this market power.

One of the like, one of the underlying all of this is like what, what, what are we denominating trade in? Like what are we, what's that de facto currency? What's the reserve currency of trade and is and, and what are the terms of, of that trade going to be?

And it, it was such political hot potato to even kind of talk about the, you know, the, the denomination of, of, of iron ore trade in renminbi, despite the fact that 30% of spot spot volumes trading in renminbi was kind of standard practice until, until, and just not really discussed or anything like that. And that's a, that's clearly a, a point of contention from CMRG. They want, they want more trade in, in, in, in renminbi and they, they want to have more market power to negotiate with

the respective iron ore miners. You look, you look at a another like bulks oligopoly that exists. You've got the, the potash giants in Canada, the likes of, of nutrient and, and Mosaic and, and there you've got this effective oligopoly marketing machine, the two, you know, those two parties actually collectively determine what, what you know, what the, what the output is going to be and effectively fend off any, any, any new entrant, just, you know, but BHP is trying to enter that arena.

Do you think there's justification for a for a, for a potash type OPEC to emerge in the iron ore sectopy? Wouldn't it be amazing? Look, maybe, maybe I wonder. I mean, it gets hard with regulators potentially if BHP and Rio do it, but I mean, Amin resin, Hancock already close in that regard. I'll I'll phrase that as a question. I don't know. Yeah, it's not a that's not a statement, I guess. But I guess there's scope for that, isn't there?

And look, some people on the Chinese side might say that the Western miners already tried to do that with the creation of some of these price indexes. You know, there's global ore, which was set up about 1213 years ago and Global coal was set up in London as well. You've heard a veteran of that process, Tony Odeviano, Speaking of Lyontown talked about the lithium industry needs to go and follow that that process. So maybe, maybe, but I'm just not sure if it will come to

that. Like it's not like iron ore prices are at 200. You know, we, we saw last week the CMRG came out and said that there was some, I think the exact words were something like there's unreasonable heat in the iron ore price. I don't know. Is is 105 unreasonable heat given where it's been? Here's my question to you right. How much of that is CMRG buying up spot volumes to exert even more power?

CMRG is one of the reasons that the spot price is where it is because they're, they're, they're buying as you know, a lot, a lot of spot volumes themselves. And that gives them, you know, more and more collective bargaining power. Yeah, I, I don't know is the answer. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. It it it's gonna continue to roll on next year. The iron ore market's evolving fast. We've got Simandu coming in. And notionally that's been talked about as being a risk to

the Aussie iron ore miners. If you, if you watched Rio Tinto's Investor Day, I think it was December 4, or if you haven't, I'd urge you to go have a look at your audience. Have a look at what Vivek Toolpool talked about. He's Rio's sort of commodities and markets guy. And he was the guy who famously sort of said China will reach a billion tonnes of iron ore demand. And he got ridiculed for several years. And then when it came through, Vivek kept receipts and he made

sure everyone had come through. His presentation the other night was a bit more, bit more punchy than normal. Actually, he was, he was really mounting that case about how the market has drastically underestimated the impact of depletion in the iron ore market. Now they would say that they're talking their book, but you know, it's a theme that I saw Black Rock World Mining Trust pick up on. And they were sort of publicly talking a couple of weeks ago that they sort of you'd see that

as well. It wasn't just Rio, it was valet had a capital market stay the same week and and spoke to the exact same phenomenon. And and both of them I think have a very healthy like floor price on on what what iron ore you know, could be. And and we the the market likes to talk about the impact that SIM and do will have.

But the reality of of SIM and do coming online is it actually might just replace depletion that is that is coming from existing mines as opposed to really meaningfully impact, you know, the, the total supply equation. And that's if Simon do goes to plan, right? I mean, at the end of this month, it might be like December 28 or something. Guinea's gonna have its first elections in about 5 or 6 years now. Let's hope, fingers crossed they go smoothly and they are

peaceful and democratic. But I mean, who knows what's gonna happen, right? So yeah, I don't know. I sort of it makes sense that CMRG should have enormous power and basically should be able to just design this market however they want it. But they've been around a couple

of years now, right? And the price still seems to stay in that band that the big miners talk about between $80 USA tonne and $100 a tonne as being that that sort of big Bank of supply that, you know, if the price dips down, a fair bit of global supply becomes uneconomic. Yeah, that, that high price shoulder is a really interesting layer to the market. And I think if we we zoom out on the the pricing lens for a moment there as well and and not focus on Australia versus China for a moment.

I think the the US is the real loser having less priced in in the US dollar because what what is the actual impact to the iron ore price if it's priced in in another currency? I think. That, that impact is more on the margins, but in general, China is trying to just get more trade through its currency and that would be a win for it. But that's perhaps a bit of a, a bit of a side note.

I, I did have a question on SIM and Do for you, Pete and I, and I note you, you wrote a fantastic article maybe a month or so ago, a real deep dive into, into SIM and Do and

everything going on there. We have seen some talk lately with Rio Tinto and their interest and the DLC and everything with with new management looking at this in perhaps a slightly different light and the 15% Chenalco interest coming into question again, do you think SIM and Do is seriously on the cards to be perhaps a stake in that, in that negotiation in an eventual collapse of the DLC?

It's a fascinating question. And for any of your audience aren't aware, there was a story that Reuters published about a month ago, which which basically implied this, that Rio would effectively sell an asset to Chanelco, which is its biggest shareholder as a way and in exchange for some of Chanelco's shares in Rio as a way of reducing Chanelco's stake on its on its share register, which, you know, Chanelco's state is right at the limit imposed by Australia's Ferb prevents Rio

from doing share buybacks. Maybe, maybe I don't have any sort of personal confirmation that that is underway. I don't know. I can sort of see Simandu and Chinelka, obviously a partner in Simandu. So they're already there. Sort of makes it easy from from that point, if you're real. I think there is some sort of strategic merit in having a bit of Simandu as well as your WA business just gives you that great insight to the market. Maybe there's blending opportunities in future.

So I think, I think there is merit for Rio keeping Simandu if that makes sense. But yeah, like and I would have thought are there other assets that they could do the same sort of deal with with Chenelco, You know Chenelco do many things, but they are originally an aluminium company. Rio's got plenty of aluminium assets, plenty of assets. Riha would love to sell sell a million assets. Unfortunately, Janelko's not going to want that.

Let's give them Tobago. Although, I mean, there's fascinating things happening in the sorry to, you know, deviate from your question. No, no, no. Jonas But fascinating things happening in Illumina as well. And your audience is probably already crossed this, but sounds, you know, there is a prospect that Indonesia's going to do to Illumina what they did to Nickel two or three years ago and crush, you know, the rest of the world.

But yet China's, you know, sort of effectively got a self-imposed cap on its aluminium smelting. So people who own smelters outside China are sort of starting to get slightly more confident about being a aluminium smelter. The people who own the alumina refineries, which was quite a sweet spot for the past, you know, decade, 15 years. The former a sex company, Alumina Limited did really nicely for a long time. So yeah, so that's a fascinating market.

Coming back to your question, yeah, I don't know. Would be an awesome deal if they could do it. And Speaking of Simondu, I'm sort of also interested to watch where the Simondu is the, I guess, the first of many African iron ore projects. So our gut feeling is probably to say no. All these other smaller ones such as Ivanhoe Atlantic who are trying to take a Ghanaian iron ore deposit down through Liberia to the coast, Jin Min who are in Gabon, Zanaga who are in, I think, Republic of Congo.

You know, common sense says these guys will probably struggle, right, to get their projects up because, you know, iron ore's past its peak and all the things we've said for many years. But the thing that gets me is the people behind all these projects are people with serious

industry cred, you know? So Jen Min is Greg Lilyman, who ran Rio's Pilbara business for years and then was second in charge at Fortescue. Zenaga's got like a, you know, Bob Geldof style Band-Aid collection of mining industry luminaries from Mark Cudafani through to, I think Mick Davis from memory and Ivanhoe and Robert Friedland. Yeah, needs no introduction, so. And he got gone as well, yeah.

Exactly. So that's going to be really interesting to watch if some of those projects can start to get up in it. You would have seen with Jin Min, who are SX listed, I think they did a deal with a Chinese partner the other day, you know, which got them a bit closer to reality. So that's going to be fun to

watch. I think that's the secret to, to getting these projects into into production is, is partnering with the Chinese. There's, there's, yeah, the rate at which they can, they can build critical infrastructure to, to ship and and yeah, to to effectively rail and ship the product is, is just incredible. So you kind of you kind of need that. Hopefully Jemin wasn't planning to sell their iron ore in Gabbinese. What is the currency in Gabon? I don't. Know. Oh, you got me, Pete.

Got me. You got me stumped with that one. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of optimization that needs to take place to make these projects that we're talking about efficient and effective. And there's a company in our very own Perth here that I think is the perfect company to help them out with that job Switch technologies. Switch technologies, make concept through to deployment. Look no further. That's right.

These guys are specialist engineers for those out there who haven't quite heard of them yet, be it mechanical engineering, be it software and every other form of engineering that you can think of. And they've got a sole focus. That focus is make your operations more efficient and save you money. What more could you want? I want to bring ideas into reality with an engineering solution that is as cheap operating costs.

You know what I'm very interested in that and and I think I think the the best engineering partner you can think of to help with that problem mate, Switch Technologies. Call Mike at Switch Technologies today. Details in the show notes. Well, while we talk about the majors, the likes of Rio, we've got to move on to one of the other big themes of the year and that is big town M&A. So we got flavors of it in 2024. We had BHB and Anglo doing a bit of flirting and then we had a

deal that looks, you know, much closer than that one to completing with Anglo Tech. This year more drama with BHB expressing their love for Anglo once more. So this is a big, big theme that we've seen this year and I think there's a few more more chapters to evolve on this one. Throw in the background mate, you had you had Glenn Glencore tech rumours in in major, major publications. Glenn Glencore. Glencore Rio was earlier this year as well. Yeah, for a moment there.

Glencore Rio Yeah, lots of, lots of, lots of rumblings around the majors to, to to effectively merge. Yeah. And I listened to your episode a few weeks ago and I don't disagree with anything you guys upon where you effectively said that, you know, BHP will probably end up coming back for these assets some way, shape or form. So obviously now the Anglo Tech merger has gone through, but it still feels like an unfinished situation. Doesn't.

It the votes, the votes occurred, but, but there's still a lengthy timeline to completion here because of all of the regulatory approvals that are required and and that doesn't completely shut the opportunity for an interloper. Yeah. And if it's done right, let's say, even if it does get done, even then it still feels finished. So I mean, it's a, there are more things in this than just those sort of flagship assets.

You know, your audience probably knows, but really this deal is ultimately focused or you know, the biggest synergies available are QB 2 mines in Chile being put together to create value colour posse and QB. So let's say Anglotech does get finalised. Well, Glenn Glencore's still sitting there as a 44% shareholder in Colohassee. So there they are going to enjoy the synergies that would occur if these two minds get put together.

They presumably will have some sort of voice in how they get put together and when and the terms under which that happens. So that that probably makes Glencore's copper business more attractive maybe than it was two years ago, arguably. Shout out if you disagree. No, I certainly agree. Certainly agree. And Glencore know how to extract their pound of flesh in negotiations. They were the exact words in my mind, Yeah. And they and they've been pretty vocal.

They're not going to be a minority partner there. They want, they want to be big in that, you know, however that tie up emerges. Yeah. And they look like a company that just really is tired of waiting for something to happen. That was the vibe that I got from watching Glencore's Investor Day, which I think was December 3. And little wonder, right?

Like, I jumped on the Bloomberg Terminal a couple of weeks back and I looked at the Glencore Rio Tinto valuation comparison going back to mid 2014, which is when those two companies, well, Glencore invited Rio to a merger and Rio said no, thank you. I don't, I've forgotten the exact numbers, but Glencore's market cap is sort of roughly the same today as it was then. Rio Tinto's gained something like, I think it was $86 billion in value or something like that. So.

So it would have been a good deal for Glencore had it got done in 2014, Probably would have been a good deal for Glencore if it got done this year again as well. So, yeah, I mean, could you see a BHP or a Rio breaking Glencore in half and trying to take the base metals half possibly.

You know, we saw earlier this year Glencore completed this internal restructuring process where all their carbon intensive assets are off in in one Australian registered company, everything from ferrochrome to coal and all those other things. So it's certainly easier now to break off the tasty bits of Glencore and leave the Brussels sprouts, you know, on the side. So yeah, it seems possible. But again, geopolitics comes

into this, doesn't it? Because as you guys discussed on your show, to get the Anglo Tech merger done, Anglo had to agree to the headquarters being in Canada. Now, BHP exists in Australia under its own FIB ruling. The headquarters must be somewhere in Australia. The CEO must reside in Australia. So there's probably ways around it, but simplistically, BHP can't do a deal where they promised to put the headquarters in Vancouver. Rio Tinto also exist under a

Ferb ruling. So, you know, these things could be worked around. You know, that could be the moment where BHP breaks off it's copper division and, you know, merges that with Anglo tech and keeps the steelmaking ingredients off to the side. But yeah, there's just these little complications that sort of make a few of these things difficult. I know like the big miners have all, you know, they've all covered it, Antofagasta as well. But there's big strategic shareholders who are hard to

move and make that difficult. They even they even these days talk about Cadelco, you know, the Chilean government controlled copper miner. You know, it it sounds as though they've made the efforts to go and have the conversations with politicians there to say, have you ever thought about making this thing more more marketable? You know, you know, clearly very

early stage, not formal offers. But yeah, like when you look at the available copper assets, sorry, copper companies that these guys could take over, there's sort of something difficult about most of them. Loon Dean stuffs to look like the your your mates at Loon Dean. What a great episode. If if money mine listeners, if you haven't gone and listened to the interview with Loon Dean boys, you should. It was terrific get for you

guys. You know, that would make so much sense for BHP, but it's not cheap now, right? So. All of the great coal companies have these yeah, big, big shareholders to bypass. They're not simple, not simple deals in general. There's yeah, the, the, I, I do think a bit about like, you know, BHP coming back for Anglo and it was a great call by you last year to say that they would come back. And, you know, we think that there's every merit for them to

come back again. But what why do we, why do we think that? It's because it's because BHP is starkly aware of, you know, how the, the very rich capital intensity, their own organic copper growth is and, and how, you know, likely and probable it is for that capital intensity to blow out over time because you don't realize it all straight away or as you get certainty in a deal.

And it's that discrepancy and that kind of, you know, internal look that drives their external like, you know, M&A ambition. So I expect them to try and be aggressive here. And it feels like it feels like Anglo is the big prize to get. And I struggle to see them letting it go without having one more crack. What do you think, Pete? Yeah. No, I think there's perfect merit in that. Perfect merit in that.

And yeah, to your point about BHP's internal options having relatively high cost to develop, there's also a fair bit of risk in some of them. So, you know, everybody loves what they did at Vacuna and they get a lot of praise for what was a precedent entry to sort of get their initial foot in there. And you know, they seem to have a high quality partner there who's sensible, calm headed, experienced. But you know, it's still like what, 5000 metres above sea

level? A lot of humans don't operate very well at 5000 metres. And I know there is some mines operating at that height, but it's still going to be an effort to get that thing developed right. And geopolitics, let's ring that bell again. Looks great right now while you've got Malay in power in Argentina with his with his Riggy package, which not only offers incentives but also safeguards for foreign investors. But who knows what the next

leader's going to be like? And to make the Vacuna project work well, they're going to have to bring the water up from the Chilean side. They're going to have to bring a lot of the equipment up from the Chilean side. And in their ideal world, they would export the product through the Chilean side. So this is Argentinian copper. So you're going to have to get the Argentinian government and society generally happy with that happening.

Now, we've seen at Simendou the reason there's a 650 kilometre railway is because Guinea said if you want to sell that iron ore, you know, they used it I guess, as a way to get a transnational railway built, to get ports built. So it could, you know, step them up and they have resisted the idea to some degree of it going the shorter route through

Liberia to port. So will Argentina, you know, will they will they sort of want some of Vakuna's copper to go out through Argentinian ports, which would be thousands of kilometres down to the coast. So I'm not saying that they will cause a problem there. But Vakuna is still a relatively high risk project, right? So difficult technical

difficulty is pretty high. That's, that's a fantastic point, Pete. And we saw just over the weekend as well, the Chileans had a hard tilt to the, the right politically with a new, with a new leader coming in there. So we'll see how that kind of shapes up. You, you sort of mentioned the, the softish issues around the these companies and getting deals done and, and that being complicated. And the other big one that has been pretty present throughout the year is succession.

So we've seen Newmont Barrick changed leadership, Rio Tinto obviously changed leadership. It was sort of framed, Henry announces. Exactly. It was framed as if this was a Hail Mary for Mike and Anglo. And that's a theme that's gone all the way throughout the the industry. How do you think that kind of shapes these these deals? I mean, the Rio example is

really interesting, right? Because Simon's come in and there's been a complete shift and we're seeing the share price, like you say, hit all time highs. On the back of that. The market is really liking the the renewed vigor with which he has taken to to cost cutting and and getting deals kind of done. But how do you think that plays a plays a role in the deal making going forward? Yeah, it's a good question. I don't know.

I mean, I think the fact that they went back as that BHP went back for a second go at Anglo in November, you don't do that if your CEO is a lame duck guy, you know, about to exit. So I think in hindsight that shows that Mike Henry was sort of perhaps more engaged than than, you know, many of us in the media sort of, I guess implied with our coverage as if, you know, any day now he'll hand over.

I mean, he's now, I think if he it'll be August next, next year, if he makes it to sort of July, August next year, he'll be in the job longer than Andrew McKenzie and will be the longest serving BHP boss since the merger with Billiton. How does it shape deals? I don't know.

I mean if, if BHP is of the same mind as Travis and thinks that there's going to be a window to get a deal done with Anglo whilst we're waiting for antitrust regulators and the like to rub a stamp the shareholder vote, then he'd be going nowhere soon, wouldn't he? He'd be there heavily engaged. So I don't know, I mean, succession's very, very hard to read. It's one of the, it's one of the, it's one of the topics that reminds me of the start of my career. I was a sport reporter.

And so we'd go down to, you know, Richmond training in the AFL and, you know, interview the assistant coach and you'd have like a little tip off that, oh, such and such player's got a dodgy hamstring and is actually going to miss 3 weeks. And you'd ask them the question and they'd go, no, he's right to go. And then, of course, there'd be a late withdrawal on the Saturday. And, you know, that openly sort of knew. Yeah. Yeah.

We lied to you about that one. And there was, you know, there was sort of no, no comeuppance for them. As a business journalist, right, Working in financial markets, continuous disclosure means that they can't really lie to you often. But secession is the one where you sort of get told one week, no plans, and then the next week, the CEO's gone. As for who would replace Mike, that's going to be a fascinating choice, right?

Because if you just judge it on the publicly available information, there's absolutely no doubt that Geraldine Slattery is considered to be in a more senior position than all the others. You just have to look at what she's paid. You know, you just have to look at the, the, I forget what it was called.

Was it the retention bonus? She got paid a retention bonus shortly after the BHP Woodside deal, which basically says thanks for not going to Woodside to be, you know, if not the senior person and extremely senior person. So she she presents as the logical choice. But you know, ACEO handover isn't you don't just hand it to the person who's next best performer or next most senior because it's a moment potentially of great cultural

change, right? Like someone might go into the boardroom and throw them an amazing idea to pivot the

company. Towards something else and that person gets it, you know, so there's dark horses in there like Johann van Jarsfeld, who's run a lot of the strategy in MNA in the past six years or so. You know, if the BHP board are minded to these sorts of creative things about deals and do you break the company in half to get a big deal done and all these other conversations, then, you know, people like Johann, you know, that sort of stuff's obviously Catherine Raw's beat

now. And you know, everyone says Catherine Raw's too young and too fresh. Well, she's been a CEO of a company in the UKA multibillion dollar company. She's been CFO of Barrick. How much? You know, BHP has previously appointed a 44 year old in Chip Goodyear to be CEO. So yeah, it's going to be interesting to watch.

And the, the Newmont you're do you still keep close tabs on Newmont Pete given the the, the Melbourne the Melbourne basic that was new Crest TomTom Palmer's announced his departure the exact same day that Bristow got booted. Seemed all very coincidental and and and now you know, very different reasons going on there. But the the the gold companies, they're having their own sense

of of turnover at the top. I feel like, I feel like on the other side of that, you get you, you get trepidation to do a, a big deal in your, in your early term as a new CEO, unless you're super bold. And, and heck, Speaking of that, like we're seeing that from Perseus right now, like the, the, the, the new CEO is, is going kind of to full steam ahead on, on, on, on predictive, despite being, you know, in that

top job just a couple of months. So it's not, it's not completely out of the realm of possibilities, but it is abnormal when you get a new CEO, especially one that's not an internal pick, come in and and do big deals right away. Yeah. And, and he's on that note, isn't it interesting that Simon Trott whilst has come in and been very active, it's divestments, right? Yeah, that's the easy thing to do.

I think like cut costs, divest non core like low return on capital business units, simplify like I think those are the easy and right decisions for capital markets to really get behind you. And I'm, I'm a big fan of the public rhetoric we've seen out of Simon Trott since his appointment. Like he seems seems like a breath of fresh air amidst what seemed to me like absurdity coming from the majors for the previous five years in general.

Yeah. And so as it pertains to Newmont, I don't have any particularly close insight on that. Like, you know, perhaps I shouldn't admit it, but I probably followed Newcrest closer than I do in Newmont today just because they felt closer. And I guess, you know, the ASX listing felt bigger and, and more real. But someone did point out to me recently that the gap between Newmont and BHP and Rio has closed dramatically in the past decade. Like the graph was quite

staggering. So I think, I mean, I won't try and dream up the number. Your audience will be able to Google whatever the market cap is of Newmont on the day they're listening to this. But you know, it's sort of getting right up there. Like, they're a big, and with the increasing focus on copper, you know, at what point can you sort of claim to be a diversified miner?

Zijin's the one to look at there in terms of creeping right on the the footsteps of of our BSP and Rio like it looked, it looked almost like they were going to overtake them earlier in the year. And they've they've they've held strong, but it's an evolving landscape at the at the top of

things. What's been you? What's been your favorite deal of the year, Pete? Look, one that I thought was really fun was Lavato Resources. I think you guys tracked this the the little gold antimony thing in New South Wales. So for people who haven't followed it, obviously antimony was this sort of Off Broadway thing that no one thought much about. And then it became one of the critical minerals that China, you know, choked supply of prices rally.

Next thing you know, the ASX announcements platform has the word antimony on it 17 times a day where everyone's finding it in their back pocket. But La Votto they had, they went and bought for like, I think it was like $2,000,000, this old gold project near I think near Armadale in New South Wales. And it's got antimony with it and just an incredible share price rise, like I think in the thousands of percent. And they're getting close to restart.

And then, you know, we're probably talking approximately what, October, September, October this year, in comes the takeover bid. In fact, it was October 21. I remember now because it was the exact day that Anthony Albanese was in the White House with Donald Trump signing the critical minerals sort of packed thing. And here we had an American company trying to buy an

Australian antimony company. So it was like for a journalist, it was like the perfect, you know, Segway of, you know, themes all happening on the same day. But the suitor was fascinating. United States Antimony Company, USAC and I, you know, I'd never heard of them, so I went and looked them up and have a look at their share price. If you think Lovato, it had a bit of a rise. This thing had gone from well, I mean, just look it up. It was crazy. And the bid, of course, was

script. I'm not. And the, so you know, the Lovato directors, they go away and they think about it and they say, oh, we're going to decline this. And the reaction to the USAC share price is hilarious because I think what it's actually done. I mean, USAC probably thought they were being clever trying to buy while their script was crazily inflated. And they, you know, fair play to them. But I think all it did was it made people turn around and look at USAC and go, what?

This thing's trading times earnings. And, you know, as a result, the balloon has completely deflated since as the market looked at US antimity company and said, holy crap, this is just this is like a cappuccino with about that much, you know, coffee and about that much froth on top. And so Lovato continue on their merry way as an independent ASICS listed company for now. And yeah, USAC haven't come back for a second crack. I suspect they probably won't.

How about you guys? Anything out there that you found fun? I think we're in the midst of a pretty unreal one with predictive Robex and Perseus. We haven't seen the final chapter there yet, but it's hard to look past that one. Yeah, the battle for bank hands. Unreal. I've got, I've got one more that I've I've learnt plenty on. It wasn't anywhere near as eventful, but I thought what's now DPM Dundee buying Adriatic

was just so interesting. I mean, we had been kind of critical of, of Adriatic that had problems ramping up, be it ground conditions, recoveries, these sorts of things. And the, the stock kept rising. They did so many fully funded capital raises, the stock kept rising and then they, they crowned it with a, with a buyout at almost an all time high. So I think kind of as, as an investor and, and as a kind of bystander watching that one, there was a lot of lessons to be

learned there. Do you have any others come to mind? Just Speaking of lessons learned, like I think my biggest like, yeah, reflection on on, on, on come on companies in the last year is actually just come from looking at at min rez. Yeah, the turn the turn around story that's there. Like I was, I was skeptical of their ability to execute, but they've surprised me at every at every step and and and yeah, it's just it's just been a very impressive turn around story there.

Despite kind of every every obstacle that was was thrown at them from from multiple directions. Operationally, things are going really well. They've deleveraged the balance sheet with, with some, you know, pretty, pretty impressive deals and they've executed Onslow like amidst some, some some hiccups on the road and the likes like in a, in a very impressive way. The volumes that they're exporting out of there are are, you know, truly commendable.

Yeah, it looks as though they're through the hardest part of the cycle, doesn't it? It looks like they've sort of you can. They can now see the path out of the forest. Totally. In fact, I I even think they're out of the forest like the the debt now is it's it's it's very manageable, especially post settlement of the POSCO deal. Yeah, yeah. And with, with iron ore where it is like it's, it's just happy

days, yeah. Yeah, so I who knows what happens on the regulatory front, but on the commodity side or asset selling front and operational front, you probably I think you're dead right question without notice. So feel free to blanket a deal that I haven't really understood and I'm curious if you have, is Z Gin Mining, you mentioned them earlier, the big Chinese gold miner that has gone from I think 10 billion to 100 billion or so over the past nine years.

This year they did an IPO in Hong Kong where I think they listed all of their non Chinese assets. Gold com yeah that yeah non Chinese gold assets. They they maintained an 87% interest. I think so. So they've floated 13% of the the gold assets and up 70% on day one. Just ripped an order, yeah. Off off the back I was. Just going to say off the back of that, Pete, I've just noticed tremendous appetite from from a variety of Chinese companies to acquire international gold assets.

In fact, as we're recording today, Seymour just bought spent a billion dollars buying Equinoxes Brazilian gold assets like a few days ago, Ling Ling Bao doing the the the deal with with Simberry. Like there's just, it's almost every, every every other day there's a a different Chinese gold company scooping up gold assets around the world somewhere. That the Lingbao mob, I mean,

that's very interesting. So Simberry obviously being an island of the sort of what, northeastern edge of Papua New Guinea, I think Lingbao, this time last year, we're talking about them. They were involved in the Woodlock Island, which is on the South side of PNG. It was held at the time and probably still is. Haven't done my research by Geo Pacific Resources, the ASX

listed company. So I'd, I'd love to be a family on the wall in Lingbao headquarters because it looks as though they've got like they like gold, but only if it's on a tropical island. So maybe this is like a White Lotus style gold mine and I don't know luxury resort style strategy that they're operating here. Yeah, there. There's another little one as well Titan in Ecuador and Chinese companies have been very active in in Ecuador to Jiangxi copper another Chinese group

there as well. But we butted in you were you were getting to a question on on XI Jin. I was wondering why, why do you think they've done it? Like do they just need a bit of cash? You know the the West Australian asset they own near Kalgoorlie, That is, I gather in the Hong Kong listed vehicle now. I believe so. Not in goldfields, yeah, yeah. Why do they do it? Yeah. I honestly, I just think the Hong Kong market has has had remarkable appetite for for gold exposure.

And that's expressed in in many ways, some of the the, you know, the pure black gold listings there, but but separate to that, even like the gold jewellers were some of the best performing like listings on that Hong Kong exchange. So I just think I just think it it was it was something that just lowers their incremental cost of capital for for, you know, for for overseas, you know, gold, gold, gold endeavors as well by but if you have an elevated share price, lower cost

of capital. Yeah. And there was there was massive appetite there. What what is interesting is it last week. So Chairman Chen, who's been a big, big entrepreneur behind Zijin's growth, he's he's actually stepping down from, from Zijin. So that's, that's a, that's a very big kind of succession transition departure kind of thing. Absolutely in that company

story. And remind me a little bit of the other big Hong Kong listing that's relevant for Australian miners of this year is the contemporary Amperex, the big battery maker, China's big battery maker. They of course did a, a Hong Kong float of of some sort as well earlier this year, which, you know, if you're awa lithium miner, you know that that matters. And that my memory is that IPO launched spectacularly as well.

Had a terrific first few days. Yeah, they're, they're fiddling with the on off switch at Jiangxiwu has been the yeah, a lot of ink has been spilled over that one this year.

That's an interesting one. Should we move on to a few more predictions for the coming year? Before you do that, JD, I feel like we've got to, we've got to revisit what our predictions were last year. So we've just come come on the back of Pete asking 30 fund managers, what's the highest conviction prediction? What's the most non consensus prediction? What's the best performing commodity and what's the worst performing commodity?

And JD and I actually answered those questions in one of our, our last episodes of the year last year. I'll, I'll, I'll let you, I'll let you hear how we responded to those and then maybe we'll come up with some new ones. Price conviction diamond price is lower in 12 months time. Lab diamonds continue to. Ah. High conviction pit be hard, but I'd I'd rest pretty easy with some of the met coal kind of names. I don't know if that's a specifically 2025 thing, but I

think hold them in time. You'll do well on some of those names. So well, don't JD, I think what havens up up nicely diamond price, natural diamond price I think is down 5%. So we both did well then mate on the highest condition prediction. It's a one way Rd. I don't know if this is consensus or not, but I I think the Chinese mining equities will outperform the Australian producers of equivalent stature. So like yeah, you say gins your sign of mines.

Like those sorts of companies would do better than the equivalent ASX listed car. Non consensus, pretty pretty beaten up, eaten into the cost curve, which we've touched on a couple times throughout the year. I think PGMS to narrow it down, I'll say plats or could go more nation, say Rhodium. We'll have a good year, something nobody really cares about. There's a few companies in in South Africa to kind of look at not. Bad mate plants plants was like

up 100%. Mate, Chairman Chen back into Asian, Yeah, also had a good, good year. The Chinese did that before. Yeah. Yeah. Well, mate, we're 2 from 2. How good is this? I'll go tin best. I think Tim will do well. Oh mate, 3 from three best performing from. Not that Tim was the best, but it did do very well and let's see if we can take the cake by predicting the worst performing commodity. Worst cardball up 117%. Gold underperforming.

Oh, we, we threw it away. The wheels came up at the end there. That's UN Australian. We cooked it. We cooked it. Pete, you also threw some predictions out there. They weren't in relation to those four questions, but we put you on the spot quite a bit in our last episode. Let's revisit how you did, you know, because we'll keep

everyone accountable here. One thing that should happen there at Lahia is that that gets combined with some Barbara's Simbari. Coba obviously is going to be a scene of consolidation most likely. There's some deals that can be done there you would have thought. Interesting to watch what's happening up in those PNG islands with Geo Pacific and their close neighbor Kingston at Misama.

Who else is going to do a deal? We mentioned Sierra Gorda and Spencer, Probably may not be next year but that's going to happen sometime soon. I do wonder if some of those ASX listed coal miners make sense to come together between the and coal Stanmore New Hope to like make a more liquid register. And I wonder what's gonna happen with Chalice right? A few years ago Sabani Stillwater come into Australia and they wanted us to know they were here and they were coming.

I wonder if they saw Chalice as their next thing. If you're a company like Fortescue who still is saying we still think hydrogen's a big thing and we want to be in hydrogen, why aren't they going and buying Nell like and instantly getting hold of what is it like 10% of the world's electrolyzer manufacturing supply chain? So Pete, I think I think you had some, some great, you know, Yep, deal, deal predictions there, great logic, I think. That's a zero out of about 15 isn't?

It you threw a lot of darts and none of them came to fruition, but the logic was. When I counted back, I was surprised because the the rationale was so good. I mean, we saw a deal with Simbiri for 1:00. We, we saw a geopacific deal as well. Yeah, we didn't see the the coal consolidation there, but I thought the thinking with with a bunch of them, I guess we saw a deal in the cobar as well. We saw CSA. Hey, Mark consolidation, I'm giving you 0P, sorry, but.

I'll give my I'll give myself 0 as well. Yeah. Is it Cobar? The Cobar district? Kind of fascinating that nothing's happened. Oh. It's it's, it's always a next year story. Let's let's see how you fit on the other questions. We put you on the spot for a. Couple quick fire predictions for 2025 What will the iron ore, lithium and gold price be in one year's time? Iron ore. Iron ore will be 91 US lithium spodumain.

Cover your ears now. Tony Odeviano 800 USA ton and gold I'm I'm getting on the Greg Robinson train, $5000 an ounce. So I've got to give you credit there. You had some pretty good predictions there, mate. I think your predictions on commodity price were probably better than any research analyst who who tried to endeavour and predicting the same last year. There was some great kills, yeah. Gold 5000 bucks an ounce people.

We would have laughed you out the door last year, but you actually seem pretty damn close to reality, so well done. Lithium was 800 bucks about a week ago, yeah. And I know staying resilient. Yeah, well done. That was great. Four points for for that one. Let's let's see how you did on the the rest. Will BHB have another bite at Anglo in the next year? Yeah. Yes, I think so, yeah. Look, look, the end of your question is probably the only

uncertainty, isn't it? Will it be next year or will they, will they wait longer? But look, they've, they've looked like a place that is a bit impatient. And I don't say that as a criticism, but Mike Henry and Ken McKenzie are not going to die wondering. They've made that abundantly clear these past few years. That's a stellar code. I don't pay. What's the big theme that we reflect back on in 12 months time? Maybe the AFR takeover bid for money or five. Still waiting for that one.

Pete, we're done. Look forward. To that. We're that close. No, the the rationale with BHP and Anglo as we kind of touched

on before was was great as well. So I thought there was some really good picks and I'm very keen to hear what you've got in store. Should we run through a few for 2026 guys? I have to think about how he's like 10 minutes before we started recording, mate. So Pete, why don't you kick us off? What's your highest conviction prediction for the year ahead? I think if you think about the top five ASX listed gold miners, Yep, I think there'll be a new entrant by this time next year.

And really, predicting this within one year is probably a bit bullish. It's probably a two to three-year call. But for the sake of the theatre, let's do it for this time next year. Top five ASX gold miner Endura Mining. Wow. So your audience who aren't familiar with this, this is a privately held company that largely owned by Australian Super and it is. The leadership of this company is * studded. You've got directors basically from all of the big ASX listed

gold miners. You've got Jake Klein from Evolution as the chairman, Bob Vassey, the former St. Barbara CEO. And now what is the chairman of Remelius? Is that right? Yes, you've got a director on there, Tony Keenan, Northern Star. Correct me if I'm wrong. Is it miss, Miss Langer from Genesis?

Shout out if I'm wrong. So anyway, you've got this weird thing where all of the big gold miners are allowing their directors to go onto this other thing privately held with Australia's biggest Superfund involved and all for like some little thing in New Zealand. So it's, it almost feels like a hobby farm, right? It's like, but so surely this thing is actually made for greater honours. It will be a vehicle to do something like it. And I've racked my brain as to what they could do right?

Like, you know, Oceana Gold's got 2 gold mines in New Zealand. Does this thing end up buying them or, or what does it do? And the thing that fascinates me most, so it's already pretty high-powered and pretty star-studded just for those names that I've mentioned and, you know, Australian Super, no

one's got more money really. But in my conversations with the big multinational diversified miners, they are strangely conscious of this thing and I can't really work out why, but they are taking notice of it. So I'd watch this space. I like it. That's a big, that's a big prediction for in the space of one year to go from private to top five, a big goal. Nice, Pete. What's the bar? There's a $5 billion company to be the top five. It's. Probably higher now, probably a bit high.

Yeah, maybe Genesis rounds it out. Yeah, I like it, Pete, highest conviction prediction just like you. I'll, I'll have a bit of a, a caveat that I think this plays out over a few more years, but I just think the energy space, when I look across the commodities and think about what's, what's really beaten up, I think the, the energy names and I think you can sort of search high and low. The ASX really doesn't have too

many of these names. I think there's names in even weirder kind of parts of the world in, in the North Seas ones. We've spoken about Trev, where you're getting paid nearly a 15% dividend to kind of wait. And I think with, you know, oil under 60 bucks, you will get the chance. Who knows exactly what they're going to be in 12 months time, but you will get the chance to to have have a bit of an uplift or get paid to wait there. So that's one I'm kind of comfortable in.

What about you, Trev? Nice, 2025 was a was a year of massive margin expansion for especially, especially gold producers, right? And I, I'm still still bullish gold, don't get me wrong, but I think, I think 2026 royalty companies are going to outperform because like to your thesis as well, If you have, if you have the energy complex come up, well, that actually increases costs.

And, and you, you know, you might actually have a very healthy like gold price outlook, but you could still experience margin compression. And when there's margin compression in the miners like it's, it's still gravy for the royalty companies because guess what, royalties don't have costs. So I'm banking on royalties versus -2026. I like it Pete.

Non consensus view. Just on royalties, before we move on, if I may slightly hijack your show, did you see the Black Rock World Mining Trust sold at a great profit? The royalty they had on the Brazilian copper and gold assets of what was Avanco became as minerals became BHP. That was an interesting one, Yeah, yeah. Something like the like the buy in was somewhere close to 10 million I think and they sold it for 13 times that or something. Yeah. Royalties are amazing.

Like, yeah, they're true special assets. Yeah, sorry, Jonas, what was the question? Most non consensus prediction for 26. Hydrogen, the commodity is to be on is back now. I mean, I'm I'm really swinging for the fence here for the sake of entertainment. But if, as I know, you guys do, if you take the theory that you should buy stuff when it's hated, hydrogen's hated. What's hated right now, you'd probably say nickel and hydrogen, and hydrogen's

probably hated even more. So I can't really give you a credible reason as to why hydrogen is going to have a Goodyear, only that, you know, maybe the elastic band is being pulled back in a negative direction far enough that you know it'll come back a bit. The thing about hydrogen also is that you can play it through an ETF. You know, there are some ETFs that hold, you know, a basket of 20 hydrogen stocks. 19 are probably scams.

Yeah, 19 of them will probably go broke, but if one of them goes right, you might go pretty well. Sorry. So I look forward to this being replayed in a year's time when, yeah, hydrogen's been erased from the human dictionary. I like it. I I dread this being played in a year's time. Trev, have you got a non consensus for you? I, I, I do and I'll before I give mine, I kind of like you

thinking on what's hated. So I was, I was pitching to JD the other day, but look at carbon credit markets, like surely they're a place to look for, for hated, hated commodities right now. Anyway, I I'd deter because my no non consensus prediction. I actually think another thing 2025 was the year of geopolitics influencing metals of mining markets. And everyone talks about 2026 to just be an extension of that theme or growth of that theme.

I think, I think 20. I think geopolitics is going to matter less in 2026 than it did in 2025. I think it's peak geopol in the same way 2021 was peak ESG. Like it still mattered in 2223 but less and less. And I think I think 25 is peak geopolitics. I like that so. Would you extend that, Trev, to say that there will be a, a sort of a coming back together of China and the US? Is that what we're going to see? A bear hug between Donald and GE?

I'm no expert on this, but, but I, but I think, I think a deal will happen at some stage there. Yeah. And the and the deal by the way, probably will see, yeah, the US leave the Asia Pacific, which will be a very, very interesting new world order for Australia. We'll have lots of very affordable railroads. Very good. I'll throw 1 into the mix. PGMS to outperform versus gold. So gold has obviously done phenomenal. That ratio is out of whack and it has been for a long time.

So who's to say it'll close this year. But you know we've seen the one between silver and gold close up a bit. So I'm curious to see if, if platinum, which is aged gold this this year and that kind of basket, the PGM basket, I'm curious to see whether that continues to to kind of close its gap after 15 years of of kind of shocking performance. And I'll throw one more into the mix as well. We kind of live in a world where volatility has been just on the nose.

So I think volatility will will rise. We have plenty of ATS in which you can play this. And yeah, I think we've seen these big spikes. You know, there's probably been three or four or five over the last five years. Liberation Day is 1. COVID is obviously a massive 1. But I think volatility will will come back as the world keeps heading in the direction it is going. Next up is best commodity. Who's going to go first here, Pete? Well, I've I've kind of have gone hydrogen, but why don't I

throw in? I was going to throw a nickel just because it's hated. But maybe, maybe met coal. Maybe met coal just based on, I don't know, there's a complex interplay happening at the moment between China and the US, sorry, between China and India on steel. You know, the, there are sections of the Indian business community, the steelmakers like Tata who are fuming at all the Chinese steel that's getting dumped in India.

There's a there's a lot to think about there for Australia because, you know, the default position was the Indian steel industry is going to grow dramatically out, you know, in the next decade. And that that would really help Queensland met coal exporters because India does not have much of its own met coal. If China is going to continue to produce over produce steel at the rate it is and, you know, export it everywhere, does Indian steel growth occur?

And therefore, you know, does QLD metcoal miss out on that? These are all sort of questions that I don't know the answer to, but perhaps I don't know, perhaps if there's some sort of deal, as we were mentioning before for China to sort of, you know, ease tensions, maybe they'll be a bit less steel exported. Maybe Indian steel will go ahead, maybe metcoal wins, I don't know. A. Bit of retrieve, yeah, Yeah.

How about you, Trev? I, I am, I'm pretty buoyant on, on all commodities next year with the exception of a small number like diamonds in particular. But I'm pretty, pretty buoyant on most, most commodities I think. I think like uranium, lithium, gold are all going to have good years. So the retail guys will be happy.

I think I'm still very bullish on TN and PGMS, but what I'm picking to be the best performing, the best performing commodity, thermal coal, specifically nuke current the index currently at US108 per ton. I think that's a, that's a cyclical low, I reckon. I reckon, yeah, you've got a chance of a 5060% uplift on that next year. Yeah.

Can't argue with that. And yeah, it might be a bit of a cop out, but I've got a similar kind of basket approach and I've got a bit of a basket approach on the the short side as well. But I said rhodium and PGMS last year, I think they continue to to do well. And the other one is energy and energy is oil, coal and uranium. I think uranium's on, we've been a touch quieter on lately, but I think that continues to to grind

higher. So yeah, I think maybe you can mark me by averaging those ones, but I think they they'll all do well. Which coal? Newcastle Thermal. Yeah, yeah. Cool. Worst commodity guys, what are we bearish on? I'll double down. Well, I'm going to make, I'll make myself a target. I'll say gold because Travis told me that there's going to be, you know, coming together between China and the US So therefore gold, you know, suits. Jeez. Don't put that one on me here. I don't want to be able to

count. I would have had. That's like a 2028 prediction. Worst commodity and very non consensus there Pete. What are you going for, Trav? Cobalt doubling down here. Cobalt absolutely surprised me that it's up 170%. That's not based on, you know, supply really being curtailed. That's based on export controls from the DRC. That supply needs to rinse out and that commodity should fall. Yeah, yeah. I've got to kind of, you know, build your own ETF here and it's

a basket. There's a few different layers to it, so tungsten and antimony. I think these have just had incredible runs this year and I think that'll incentivize new production. NDPR is such a weird one because I'm very curious what happens with the the price flaws and what that then leads to for a kind of spot floating price.

If all these producers are producing and they're just selling to governments or there's government agreed off takes for 110 bucks NDPR, does that mean the spot price kind of falls? I'm not sure I'll throw it in the in the mix there. And then to round out my ETF diamonds, I think I'll just pick up another 5% down and cobalt because of the exact reasons you've you've laid out there.

So. Just to make myself really unpopular, guys, I wonder, devil's advocate, should we be saying copper because everybody loves copper, right? It's like the Saint of the industry that no one ever has a

bad word to say. But isn't it the case that the strong rally in copper prices this year was partly about this, the tariffs, right, the physical thing that people were trying to get the metal into North America ahead of tariffs occurring and there's now some unnaturally large amount of the world's copper in North America. So is it possible that the price this year just rallied on a short term temporary dynamic and that perhaps next year if some of the interrupted mines around

the world resume a bit of production and you know, and this factor of trying to get it into North America fades, maybe copper eases a bit? I think your thinking is is really sound there, Pete. I couldn't put it in either basket and a lot of that came down to what you said right at the end there. It's just so primed for for disruptions and we don't know exactly how they'll play out. So I'm. Super bullish, copper, super bullish. Yeah, the whole base metal is

complex. I'm like, I'm very bold. Bold on, yeah. Yeah, I think there's a a lot of reasons, but putting a one year timeline on all these things makes it that much more difficult, doesn't it? That's right. So yes, everyone's bullish on a 10 year view. But yeah, I wonder, I wonder on a one year view. But again, look forward to that being replayed in a year's time. And why don't we wrap up with a few M and A predictions, Just throw a few more darts at the

board. Trev, I know you're a big fan of M&A. I'll start. With Pete, Pete's got great Pete, great logic and a 0%. Stronger. Well, yeah, I'll, I'll lean back on my Endura mining. That was my main one. I still think maybe I'll just keep saying Spence copper and S 32 until it happens. I think that's fairly fairly difficult to to not back in and it'll be interesting to watch. Rare earths weren't it? I mean, we saw a lioness and MP

were talking. That sort of doesn't feel like it can happen now with the big rise that MP had. For a while there, you might have thought Neo performance materials would be a target from someone wanting to vertically integrate, and maybe that still happens. But yeah, like, yeah, maybe, maybe I'll stick with Endura and Spence. I like it. I like backing yourself for a second year in as well, Travis. I'll pick up on your Linus thread there.

So, so we've got news last week that Tronox is now getting their lick of of refinery bucks. I was big on big on my theory that Lioness would buy Luca. I've changed my mind Linus to Bytronox. I like it and I think I think they've got a common director, don't they? Isn't Vanessa Guthrie on the board of both? I didn't know that. Not that that would matter. High, high quality, very proper person. But of course. But yeah, they, they know each

other well, yeah. I've got a bunch of deal prediction stuff there but I'll I'll save them for a later date. I've got like 20 deal predictions. Look like a lunatic saying them all. Sounds like a bonus episode for the new year period while you feed her up. Pete, you've you've spoken and written about Lion Town over the year and they've actually popped up on potentially doing a brine related deal. Is that in your in your bingo card for next year?

Well, maybe I mean, I, I should probably stop making predictions about Lyontown because in an article over the last Christ, last year's Christmas period, I sort of made the point that based on the crude mathematics of how much cash they're burning, 1/4 Lyontown could be broke by this time next year, IE Christmas 2025. And that didn't go unnoticed down at Lyontown headquarters. If you're a shareholder in Lyontown, you should be very, very happy because.

We're all shareholders. Well, there you go. This is the Australian government well. Well said, well said. Lion Town fights for its honour in a way that I very much admire. Maybe. I mean, so when Pilbara Minerals or PLS as they now called went and did a spodge mean deal, I don't know. We sort of looked at that and said shouldn't you be diversifying? And their rationale was, well, we don't have spodge mean is the thing we have core competency in.

So I guess, I guess that's the sort of, that's the tension, isn't it? Do you go and buy something you've got core competency in or do you try and straddle both sides of the lithium world? I would have thought it's they need to get on top of Kathleen Valley first, don't they? I don't feel like that situation's in control to be going off and buying things. Well said.

Well said, Pete. In, in general, I think I think the best M&A opportunities are looking around the sector and I'll look at, I look at my own portfolio, what have I got? A lot of it's undeveloped projects and I think are worthy of of corporate action. And I think that that that there's yeah, that's, that's like a, you know, the mispricing. They're very attractive, very

worthy undeveloped projects. Like, you know, it doesn't take, doesn't take much for, for a corporate to appreciate that value and then price it appropriately with a deal. So that's kind of a just a, you know, a female I'm I'm willing to continuously bet on. I've got about 5 here and they all fit that category. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Pete. And and another one to watch will be interesting is the little known ASX listed company called DGR Global. Oh.

Jeez, so. In the last couple of days, we've seen BHP support a takeover of Sogod by the Chinese company Jiangxi Copper. Now, this ASX listed company called DGR owns about 6 to 7% of Soul Gold. So notionally that stays worth what, like 114 million or something like that? DG Rs market cap is 38 million. And so on face value, you could look at that and go, wow, there's a mismatch here. You know, someone's going to get in and it will rewrite. Why isn't it rewriting?

Well, everyone can have their own views, but in the spirit of do your own research, read the DGR annual report and look for the many disclosures about the fact that you know there's lots of places that the sole gold windfall will go before it potentially gets returned to shareholders. World's worst financing ever like. Isn't. That fair? Oh my God, but I that that that was abhorrent. What that company did like 16 months ago. I want to say abhorrent. No regard for shareholders other

than certain certain someone. Pete, you've given us a bit more

Christmas reading to do. Love speaking with you, as always. Have enjoyed this chat. And yeah, it's been a very eventful 2025. Here's hoping 2026 is just as good. I hope you have a great Christmas and New Year's period, Matt. Likewise, and if I may be so bold as to try and speak on behalf of your audience, thanks to you guys for, you know, the big year you've had and keeping it going. It was a huge year for you guys, you know, with, you know, the great Matt Michael moving on.

And what you guys have done this year, I reckon reminds me of when Buddy Franklin left Hawthorne. You know, Hawthorne came out the next year and won the flag. And when Gary Ablett junior left Geelong in 2010 to go to the Gold Coast, Geelong came out the next year and won the flag. So, you know, Matt Michael was a star, an absolute like star quality is just poured out of that guy into a camera, into a

microphone. But even with his departure, this is a great show that when I move around the industry I meet so many people who love it. So well done to you and hope you get a great rest and come back and do it all again next year. I. Appreciate it Pete means a lot. Thanks Pete. We look forward to working alongside you after the AFR money of my merger in 2026. No, it's a reverse merger. There we go mate, have you got

any? What else is left on your mind before we say goodbye to the money miners for another year? For another year. Well, chatting with Pete is always great. He's a man who I get a lot of value from reading his work and especially his deep dives lately. And as to answer your question, what is on my mind? Plenty of things that was, yeah.

I think we covered the highlights of 2025, but like you kind of alluded to in some of your predictions, it could be a few different things that we're talking about come this time next year. So I'm very, very excited for the year it comes, that it comes. I think we're in a great part of the world, commodities. I think it's one of the most interesting sectors to be in. I think it's going to be more and more volatile as you kind of got the a bit of a hint in one of my predictions.

Is there anything standing out to you mate? What are you excited for? Excited for I'll change that question. What am I grateful for? I'm grateful that we've got the wonderful audience that is that is the money miners whoever you are listening to this episode or watching this episode. Yeah, I'm very grateful for for your consistent consumption of, of our podcast and and hopefully our our e-mail medium as well. The director special.

It means a great deal to us that there's a sufficiently large audience out there that makes this a doable day job, and we're very grateful for that. Could not have said that better. We are tremendously privileged to be able to do what we do right. And yeah, all that is thanks to the money miners out there, so. Not just the money miners, the partners too. The partners, the fantastic partners, Sandvik Ground Support, we've been there almost

since day one. We are very grateful for the support you've given us as well as some fantastic partners who have come along the journey for the past year. Focus the platform by Market Tech, Introlinks, Switch Technologies and Exceed Capital. Thanks a bunch to all of you guys for supporting us. Now remember, I'm an idiot. JD is an idiot. If you thought any of this was anything other than entertainment, you're an idiot and you need to read out disclaimer.