Happy Thursday!
Pour the double-double: Congo just slammed the door on copper and cobalt concentrate exports, and the metal is knocking on the door of an all-time record.
Snowline banked a nine-figure bought deal before most of us finished breakfast, Canadian Natural posted a record quarter, and Tenaz's own buyback desk is paying six times what it used to cost. Let's get into it.
Commodity Ape Quick Stats
🥇 Gold (spot): $4,252/oz 📈
🥈 Silver (spot): $62.07/oz 📈
🔌 Copper: $6.74/lb 📈
☢️ Uranium (U₃O₈ spot): $86.63/lb 📈
🛢️ WTI Crude: $75.05/bbl 📉
🔥 Natural Gas (Henry Hub): $2.67/MMBtu 📉
🍁 TSX-V Composite: 898.89 📈
💵 U.S. Dollar (DXY): 99.72 📈
The Motherlode
What happened: The Democratic Republic of Congo has banned all exports of copper and cobalt concentrate, effective immediately, under a joint ministerial order signed in late June and made public this week.
Miners now have to smelt or refine domestically, or apply for a one-year "strategic" waiver. It's the fourth such ban Kinshasa has rolled out since 2013.
Why it happened: Congo produces roughly 70% of the world's cobalt and is the second-largest copper supplier on the planet, and the government wants more of the refining margin to stay onshore instead of shipping raw concentrate to smelters overseas.
What it means for your position: Benchmark three-month copper on the LME spiked as much as 1.8% to its highest level since January, brushing up against the all-time record set earlier this year.