Issue link: http://resourceworld.uberflip.com/i/937377
F E B R U A R Y / M A R C H 2 0 1 8 www.resourceworld.com 21 I think commodities like lithium, cobalt, manganese and graphite will all do okay. These are not particularly rare metals or minerals. The questions are: can you find an economically viable deposit, can you attract the capital to build a mine and the talent to run it – they can be tricky. It's not like the world has a shortage of lithium; it has a shortage of current lithium produc- tion. There's no shortage of graphite either, there's a shortage of graphite production. The caveat I would give people is that if you're going heavily into this space, you need to keep an eye on what is com- ing down the pipe in terms of production because most of these things will get to the point where greatly increased production will drive down the underlying commod- ity price. Once those mines open, you'll see what always happens with commodi- ties –the price will go back down closer to the cost of production. RW: There have been some big gains on discovery projects such as Garibaldi and GT Gold. Does that mean mining stock investors are now keen on higher risk – but higher reward – discovery contenders? EC: I think so. That's been a specific trend of a relatively small number of com- panies, but if you look at the ones that really moved, by and large it was compa- nies that were able to present potential shareholders the idea that they have a really big target. If this works, the valua- tion potential is very big and people will be willing to jump in and chase prices higher even though in some cases the odds of discovery didn't change much through the year. But people cottoned on to the big picture that this could be a $5 billion valuation sort of deal. You haven't seen that kind of move in, say, a company that picks up a half million ounce gold deposit and wants to turn it into a three-quarter million ounce deposit – investors were not interested. So there's definitely an appetite for dis- covery contenders. It's not for everybody but there are enough investors out there to drive these stocks. I think that's a good sign. It's a speculative sector and you need speculative money to drive it. RW: What is your outlook for uranium and uranium stocks? EC: I'm not a uranium bull but I'd like to be one. There are lots of uranium juniors around and it would certainly help the index a lot if uranium stocks took off. Notwithstanding the production cuts at companies such as Cameco, there's a huge amount of uranium inventories. There are several different forms but there's lots of it around. I've tried to talk myself into being a uranium bull and I just can't do it. I don't disagree with the underlying thesis that at current prices you're not going to see new uranium mines. I agree with that and at some point, you're going to have to see a big move in price – like $20 or $30 a pound, to incentivize new production. However, I just don't think it's going to happen for at least a couple more years. "…I don't think commodities are very risky right now simply because they are so undervalued compared to other asset classes. I don't think there's a lot of downside right now for commodities." • Exploring and developing Canada's two premier zinc camps: the Bathurst Mining Camp in NB and Pine Point Camp in NWT • 50,000 metres of drilling underway at the Bathurst Camp; aggressive drill campaign planned for the Pine Point Camp • Québec GenEx (generative exploration) offers further blue-sky through innovative grassroots exploration of twelve zinc targets (>42,000Ha) • Strong cash position and debt free balance sheet • Sharing knowledge and technical teams with the Osisko Group of Companies OSISKO GROUP'S EXPERIENCE APPLIED TO BASE METAL EXPLORATION AND DEVELOPMENT WITH AN EMPHASIS ON ZINC WWW.OSISKOMETALS.COM TSX-V: OM