Happy Thursday, Apes.
The US dollar just posted its longest winning streak since May, riding hawkish Fed chatter into a fourth straight up day, and gold, silver, and uranium are all feeling it.
None of that stopped a driller in Sonora from pulling half a metre of core running better than a kilogram of silver a tonne.
Grab the double-double: we've got Mexican silver by the kilogram, Shell edging toward doubling Canada's biggest LNG plant, and Washington swapping a diesel export ban for a round of phone calls.
📊 Commodity Ape Quick Stats
🥇 Gold (spot): $4,273/oz 📉
🥈 Silver (spot): $63.73/oz 📉
🔌 Copper: $6.69/lb 📈
☢️ Uranium (U₃O₈ spot): $89.58/lb 📉
🛢️ WTI Crude: $94.45/bbl 📈
🔥 Natural Gas (Henry Hub): $3.22/MMBtu 📈
🍁 TSX-V Composite: 933.52 📈
💵 U.S. Dollar (DXY): 101.26 📈
A four-day dollar rally is leaning on gold, silver, and uranium today, while oil and gas both catch a bid and the TSX-V shrugs off the pullback in precious metals.
⛏️ The Motherlode: A Mexican Silver Vein Runs Better Than a Kilogram a Tonne
What happened. Minaurum Silver Inc. (TSXV: MGG, OTCQX: MMRGF) released fresh step-out results today from its Phase II, 50,000 metre resource-expansion program at the Alamos Silver Project in Sonora, Mexico.
The standout: a 0.90 metre interval at the San Jose vein running 1,469 g/t silver-equivalent (1,103 g/t silver), including a 0.50 metre stretch at 2,425 g/t AgEq, or roughly 1,910 g/t silver on its own, north of a kilogram of silver in every tonne of rock.
Europa Sur and Quintera both extended too: 3.40 metres at 397 g/t AgEq at Europa Sur, including 0.30 metres at 1,433 g/t AgEq, and a 1.90 metre hit of 323 g/t AgEq at Quintera.
Why it happened. Alamos is a production-permitted project, and this is resource-expansion drilling doing its job: confirming that the high-grade vein systems Minaurum has been chasing keep extending along strike and at depth.
CEO Darrell Rader flagged that San Jose in particular is now delivering grades exceeding a kilogram a tonne, with an updated resource estimate targeted for the second half of 2026.
What it means for your position. A production-permitted project heading into a resource update is a very different risk profile than a grassroots discovery: the path from drill result to mine decision is shorter and better defined.
The San Jose grades are narrow, so don't extrapolate a kilogram-a-tonne average across the whole deposit, but if you're holding, this is the kind of quarter that gets a project re-rated once the resource catches up to the drill bit.
⚙️ Drill Bit Tech & Trends: A Deep-Sea Nodule Explorer Finds a Refiner Willing to Test the Rock
Deep Sea Minerals Corp. $SEAS.CSE ( ▼ 5.88% ) signed a non-binding letter of intent today with Westwin Elements, operator of what it calls America's only Class 1 nickel refinery, to evaluate processing routes for polymetallic nodules harvested from the deep ocean.
What's in it: Deep Sea Minerals supplies nodule samples and geological data; Westwin runs bench and pilot-scale test work to see whether nickel, cobalt, copper, and manganese can be economically pulled out of the nodules.
The trend: deep-sea nodules are one of the most contested new feedstocks in battery metals, and pairing a junior explorer with an operating refiner to test processing routes is the unglamorous step that decides whether the resource is minable at all.
The skeptic's footnote: the arrangement is non-binding and non-exclusive, with no supply commitment on either side. A processing test is a long way from a commercial offtake, and deep-sea mining remains politically and environmentally contested.
So what. The real catalyst here isn't the letter of intent, it's whatever comes out of Westwin's test work.
Deep-sea nodules only matter to your portfolio if someone can prove they can be refined at a cost that beats digging a hole in the ground, and that's exactly the question this deal is set up to answer.
👉 Dig in
🪨 The Tailings: A New BC Vein Confirms It Wasn't a One-Hole Wonder
Independence Gold Corp. (TSXV: IGO, OTCQB: IEGCF) confirmed today that the Balrog vein it discovered earlier this year at the 3Ts Project in British Columbia holds up at depth, intercepting 3.11 g/t gold and 48.69 g/t silver over 8.03 metres at the Tommy Vein target.
So what. It's not a bonanza number, but it's the unglamorous follow-up drilling that turns "we found something" into an actual target, proof the mineralization continues below surface rather than pinching out after one lucky hole. 3Ts has delivered several new vein discoveries this year, and this is the company doing the work of confirming which ones are real.
🛢️ The Gusher: Shell Edges Toward Doubling Canada's Biggest LNG Plant
What happened. Shell and its LNG Canada partners, Petronas, PetroChina, Mitsubishi, and Korea Gas, with Abu Dhabi's XRG reportedly circling a stake, are said to be close to a final investment decision on doubling the Kitimat, BC terminal's capacity to 28 million tonnes a year, a call that could land within the week or by year-end.
The price tag runs into the billions.
Why it happened. Global gas markets have been tightening since the Iran-linked disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz, Prime Minister Mark Carney has been pushing the project in Ottawa, and the plumbing to support a doubling is already largely lined up.
TC Energy's Coastal GasLink $TRP.TSX ( ▼ 0.64% ), which remains 100% owned and operated by TC Energy, signed commercial agreements with LNG Canada back in March to advance a Phase 2 expansion under a structure where LNG Canada leads construction, and Coastal GasLink provides technical advisory, precisely so a positive FID here doesn't turn into a repeat of Phase 1's cost overruns.
What it means for your position. This is the single biggest swing factor for Montney gas demand and AECO pricing over the next decade
. A positive FID validates the multi-year thesis behind every gas-weighted producer and every inch of pipe feeding Kitimat, TC Energy included. It's still "poised to approve," not signed, so don't spend the re-rate before the actual announcement lands.
🚧 The Pipeline: A Microcap Producer Steers a Seven-Legged Well With Big-League Tech
Wescan Energy Corp. (TSXV: WCE) released the rig today on its third multilateral horizontal well in the Provost area of east-central Alberta, a seven-lateral-leg well totalling 6,159 metres drilled into the Rex Member of the Mannville Group, completed in 13 days, on budget, with no safety or environmental incidents.
The company used Pathfinder geosteering technology, blending 3D seismic with real-time data, to place the legs.
So what. Multilateral drilling with real-time geosteering is how a microcap producer competes with a major on a shoestring budget: same technology stack, a fraction of the metres.
No production numbers yet, completion and tie-in are scheduled for October, and that's when we find out whether the budget-conscious approach actually pays off.
🔥 The Flare Stack: Washington Swaps a Diesel Ban for a Round of Phone Calls
Remember yesterday's scare that Washington might ban diesel exports for 90 days, the one that knocked Valero $VLO ( ▲ 1.87% ), Marathon Petroleum $MPC ( ▲ 0.66% ), and Phillips 66 $PSX ( ▼ 0.24% ) lower?
Update: Energy Secretary Chris Wright has reportedly moved from considering a ban to personally phoning five major refiners, Marathon Petroleum, Valero, Chevron $CVX ( ▲ 0.07% ), ExxonMobil $XOM ( ▲ 0.56% ), and Phillips 66, asking for voluntary export restraint instead.
Citgo warned the approach could still have serious consequences. Diesel is still sitting near $6.52 a gallon, with inventories about 13% below the five-year average.
So what. A voluntary ask is a much softer landing for refiner margins than a mandatory ban, so today's news is a quiet relief setup for the names that got hit yesterday, at least until Trump decides he wants the harder version after all.
📈 Stat of the Day
6.
That's how many major US refiners the Energy Secretary personally called this week, asking them to voluntarily throttle diesel exports instead of writing a law that would force it.
Six phone calls in place of one regulation.
Democracy's group chat, apparently.
Stat of the Day: 6
That's the desk for today, Apes.
Keep your grades high, and your dilution low.
See you tomorrow. ⛏️