Happy Thursday! Pour the double-double, dust off the core boxes, and let's see who hit something overnight.
Gold just booked a third straight losing session, sinking under $3,900 as the US dollar grinds higher on hawkish Fed chatter, but the rock and the pipe underground don't care about currency markets. Altius Minerals is buying out TNR Gold's royalty book for about $122 million, ending a messy board fight in the process, while Tidewater Midstream just hiked its 2026 guidance 29% ahead of folding in its renewable-fuels sibling. Let's get into it.
⚡ TL;DR
Altius Minerals Corp. (TSX: ALS) agrees to buy out TNR Gold Corp. (TSXV: TNR) for about $122 million, picking up royalties on McEwen Copper's Los Azules project and Ganfeng's Mariana lithium brine, and ending a months-long board fight.
Tidewater Midstream and Infrastructure Ltd. (TSX: TWM) posts a record Q3, then hikes its 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance to $300 to $320 million from $230 to $250 million, a 29% bump at the midpoint, ahead of its merger with Tidewater Renewables.
Gold falls for a third straight session to near $3,877/oz as the US dollar climbs to a two-week high, while WTI crude and Henry Hub natural gas both buck the trend and push higher.
📊 Commodity Ape Quick Stats
As of Nov 12, 2026, late afternoon ET (TSX-V at Wednesday's 4 p.m. close) · Source: Kitco, Trading Economics, Cameco, company filings
🥇 Gold (spot): $3,877/oz 📉
🥈 Silver (spot): $49.98/oz 📉
🔌 Copper: $6.18/lb 📉
☢️ Uranium (U₃O₈ spot, Oct 30 month-end average): $91.55/lb 📈
🛢️ WTI Crude: $88.72/bbl 📈
🔥 Natural Gas (Henry Hub): $3.35/MMBtu 📈
🍁 TSX-V Composite: 817.02 📉
💵 U.S. Dollar (DXY): 103.19 📈
A firmer dollar and hawkish Fed chatter are keeping gold and silver on the back foot for a third straight session, while oil and natural gas both push the other way. Uranium is still Cameco's October month-end print, and the TSX-V figure is Wednesday's close, pending today's print.
⛏️ The Motherlode: Altius Swallows TNR Gold's Royalty Book and Ends the Board Fight
What happened. Altius Minerals Corp. ($ALS.TSX ( ▼ 5.77% )) agreed to buy out every TNR Gold Corp. (TSXV: TNR) share it doesn't already own through a BC plan of arrangement. TNR holders get 0.0072 Altius shares plus 0.25 of a share in a new spinout company per TNR share, valuing the deal at about $122 million, a roughly 60% premium to Tuesday's close.
Why it happened. The deal ends a months-long dispute with activist holder Eucalyptus Resources Opportunities Fund, which had pushed for board changes and fought Altius's earlier share purchases. Eucalyptus and every TNR director and officer, together holding about 28% of TNR, have now signed on in support. Altius already owned about 13% of TNR going in.
What it means for your position. Altius isn't buying drill holes, it's buying paper: a 0.36% royalty on McEwen Copper's Los Azules project and a 1.35% royalty on the Mariana lithium brine run by Ganfeng ($GNENF ( ▼ 1.77% )), both in Argentina. The new spinout keeps TNR's Shotgun gold project in Alaska, with Altius holding on to a 0.5% royalty there too. Expect a TNR shareholder vote in December and a close around Q1 2027.
⚙️ Drill Bit Tech & Trends: The World's Third-Biggest Driller Just Locked In Three More Years in the Outback
Foraco International SA ($FAR.TSX ( 0.0% )) just told the market it's good for at least three more years in Western Australia, without saying who's paying the bill.
What's in it: Foraco renewed a drilling services contract worth an estimated US$120 million over an initial three years, with an option for two more, covering hydrogeological drilling, diamond coring, and resource-definition drilling across multiple operating mines in Western Australia.
The trend: Foraco calls itself the world's third-largest mineral drilling-services company, and locking a long-standing customer into a multi-year contract instead of quarter-to-quarter rig bookings is a sign drilling budgets in Australia's mining heartland are flush enough to plan years out.
The skeptic's footnote: The release names neither the client nor the commodity, just "a longstanding senior mining customer." That makes this a read on drilling-sector sentiment, not a signal to buy any specific name.
So what. When the contractors turning the drill bits are comfortable signing three-year paper, somebody up the chain has a flush exploration budget, even if they're staying anonymous about it.
👉 Dig in
🪨 The Tailings: Troilus Finds Gold in Ground It Had Filed as Waste
Troilus Mining Corp. ($CHXMF ( ▼ 1.89% ), TSX: TLG) drilled 34 metres grading 1.29 g/t gold starting 207 metres down, including 12 metres at 3.04 g/t and a one-metre slug running 21.10 g/t, in the Z87 hangingwall at its namesake Quebec project. The catch: historic holes through that exact ground were often never fully sampled, so the block model had quietly treated them as waste.
So what. Desjardins called the results a legitimate shot at converting waste into ore, which would trim the strip ratio and sweeten early mill feed at the restart-stage Z87 pit. Shares still slipped 2.8% to $1.56 the day it came out, proof the market wants reserve ounces, not just a press release, before it pays up for the upgrade.
🛢️ The Gusher: Tidewater Midstream Hikes Guidance 29% Ahead of Folding In Its Renewable Sibling
What happened. Tidewater Midstream and Infrastructure Ltd. ($TWM.TSX ( ▲ 18.37% )) posted record Q3 2026 consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $96.9 million, more than five times last year's $16.2 million, and cut net debt by $139.3 million since the start of the year. It then raised full-year 2026 adjusted EBITDA guidance to a $300 to $320 million range, up from $230 to $250 million, a 29% bump at the midpoint.
Why it happened. The Prince George Refinery ran at 98% of design throughput with crack spreads up 78% year over year, and the HDRD renewable diesel complex ran at 114% of design capacity with more than 65% of 2027 and 2028 output already under contract.
What it means for your position. Tidewater is also folding in Tidewater Renewables Ltd. ($TDWRF ( ▲ 15.75% )) at 0.88 Midstream shares per Renewables share, expected to close around December 18. Raising guidance this hard right before the two companies combine says management likes the combined math enough to put a number on it before the ink is even dry.
🧰 The Pipeline: Total Energy Services Posts a Record Quarter and Zero Bank Debt
Total Energy Services Inc. (TSX: TOT) just had the kind of quarter oilfield-services shops spent two years praying for.
What's in it: Q3 2026 revenue hit $343.0 million, up 32% year over year, EBITDA rose 20% to $51.4 million, and net income climbed 48% to $21.6 million. The Compression and Process segment's fabrication backlog hit a record $733.8 million, up 93% year over year, and the company ended the quarter with zero bank debt and $93.4 million of cash.
The trend: Canadian drilling demand is strong enough that Total's high-capacity rigs are fully committed for winter, and it's converting a second idle mechanical double into an AC triple to meet the overflow.
The skeptic's footnote: Net income absorbed a $15.9 million share-based compensation charge tied to the stock's own run-up this year, a reminder that a record headline number can hide a real cash cost when the share price is doing some of the work.
So what. A services shop that's record-backlogged and debt-free at the same time is the services cycle finally paying landlords instead of just surviving them.
👉 Dig in
🔥 The Flare Stack: Prairie Provident's Insolvency Sale Comes With a Price Tag
Prairie Provident Resources Inc. ($PPR.TSX ( ▼ 3.23% )) and its Lone Pine Resources affiliates are now mid-CCAA, with court-appointed monitor Alvarez & Marsal running a formal sale-and-investment process on the roughly 2,000 boe/d Mannville-area producer. Non-binding letters of interest are due December 17, binding bids January 27, and the company's own numbers show $590 million of tax pools, including $330 million of non-capital losses, sitting alongside the actual barrels.
So what. A small producer with 93 drilling locations and that much tax shelter stuffed inside a CCAA shell is exactly the kind of bargain a bigger junior with real cash flow can scoop up cheap, assuming anyone actually bids before the January deadline.
📈 Stat of the Day
Speaking of one man's trash: that 21.10 grams per tonne one-metre hit from Troilus above was sitting in rock the company's own model had filed away as worthless waste.
Twenty-one grams per tonne, the gold grade sitting in rock one junior miner had filed away as waste rock
Keep your grades high and your dilution low. See you tomorrow. ⛏️
