Copper supply side increasingly tight

It would be a lie to suggest that the copper supply and demand situation is tenable.

In 2025, mining disruptions led to significant declines in output. Cruz noted that production in Q4 2024 exceeded that of any quarter in 2025; in fact, the sector lost around 1 million metric tons (MT) of output in total.

Much of the reduction was due to unforeseen situations, such as the mudslide at Freeport-McMoRan’s (NYSE:FCX) Grasberg in Indonesia, seismic events at Ivanhoe Mines’ (TSX:IVN,OTCQX:IVPAF) Kamoa-Kakula in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and worker strikes at BHP’s (ASX:BHP,NYSE:BHP,LSE:BHP) Escondida in Chile.

While the operations will eventually recover, the incidents come at a time when the copper market is increasingly tight and is expected to enter into a supply deficit in the coming years.

Cruz is predicting copper production growth of 1.5 percent in 2025, suggesting that the growth rate is behind what is expected from refined copper demand. The majority of the increase will come from mines returning to normal operations, with additional amounts from projects or expansions that began ramping up in 2025.

Cruz stated that pre-disruption growth was originally forecast at around 2 million MT in 2026, but has since been downgraded by around 700,000 MT, with the majority of the reduction coming from Escondida.

“We see that supply coming in this year will be highly skewed towards H2 as mines recover, with a 9 percent increase between Q1 and Q4, with most of this growth coming from South America, Africa and Asia, ex-China,” Cruz said.

From there, he expects growth to stabilize in 2027 at a much higher rate than this year, with Africa to experience a faster growth rate than the overall market. In the long run, Cruz predicts a compound annual growth rate of 0.9 percent between 2025 and 2035, with copper output peaking in 2033 at 27 million MT.

Copper demand drivers to watch

One of the main areas Cruz focused on was the acceleration of demand driven by the energy transition, artificial intelligence and technology. A lot of the new demand is coming from electric vehicles (EVs) — while the amount of copper in each EV is seen declining, demand growth will remain strong as sales increase.

“We do think that copper density on EVs is going to go down substantially. From 2010 to 2035, it’s going to go from 85 kilograms per unit to 64 kilograms per unit. In spite of this, we still think that copper demand from battery EVs and hybrid vehicles will grow substantially from around 2.3 million MT in 2025 to 6 million MT in 2035,” Cruz said.

It’s not just EVs, other technologies like artificial intelligence, data centers and communications are placing additional strains on the electrical infrastructure. Increasing demand for new power lines, electrical generators and energy storage is further bolstering downstream demand for copper.

“We anticipate demand from these particular sectors will grow from around 10 million MT in 2025 to 14 million MT in 2035. With most of the demand coming from energy transmission and generation,” Cruz said.

He went on to explain that transmission and generation account for 77 percent of the anticipated growth.

Cruz thinks energy demand has been overshadowed by the growth in data centers, where he suggested that copper demand will increase by only about 400,000 MT between 2025 and 2035.

“Of the growth I told you about from EVs with almost 4 million MT, or the demand from energy infrastructure with a little less than 3 million MT, it’s not that impressive. Although it still adds up to a substantial growth,” he said.

100 new copper mines by 2035?

The key takeaway from Cruz’s presentation was that a copper supply gap is developing. While he pointed out that the annual supply growth rate will come in at around 1 percent, demand is nearly double at 1.9 percent.

“This basically means that with the mines that currently exist, plus the projects that are under construction, we expect to see a difference in what needs to be mined and what will be mined in 2035 of around 7.4 million MT,” he said.

When probable projects are factored in, the supply gap narrows, but a 2.2 million MT shortfall still exists. However, these additional projects are not guaranteed. Cruz suggested that to avoid shortfalls, 100 new mines with output in the 75,000 MT range need to be built by 2035 — but this won’t be an easy task. Of the 10 largest mines in the world, only two were built after 2010; meanwhile, many of the others are decades or over 100 years old.

One reason new mines are scarce is long permitting processes, but Cruz also acknowledged that newly found large-scale deposits are at greater depths and lower grades. This has led to a scarcity of greenfield projects, with most growth coming from expansions at existing mines, a trend Cruz expects to continue over the coming years.

“Looking ahead, we expect this trend to continue to the point that we anticipate that by 2031, new production from greenfield projects will be half of what it was in 2011,” he said.

Additionally, Cruz said the copper market is becoming increasingly bifurcated, with China set to be a dominant force in both production and refinement of the red metal moving forward.

“The supply gap, or the future copper shortage, is something that the industry has been warning about for years now. The truth is, it seems not a lot of people are paying attention to it, but China has,” he said.

Cruz explained that China’s involvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo was the result of extensive planning and considerable investment. In fact, Chinese companies have collectively surpassed western producers and are securing their own supply chain.

Investor takeaway

Overall, Cruz believes the copper sector is well positioned for investment.

While he has some concern that smelting capacity is nearing saturation, he expects the situation to return to balance by 2031 and thinks that competition for concentrate will keep producer costs lower until then.

The combination of low treatment charges, high copper prices and even higher by-product gold, silver and molybdenum prices has helped increase margins and profitability for operators.

“We think that the market is in a very good position right now for miners at least. You could argue that for smelters it’s good as well despite the treatment and refinement charges, and we think that if these factors last a little bit longer, we expect some of these projects to bring the copper that humanity needs,” Cruz said.

Canada’s unique tax incentives crucial for mining investment

Canada owes its leading position in the global mining industry to its large landmass and abundance of natural resources. However, both Silver and Killeen pointed out that the nation’s flow-through share tax incentive — unique to Canada — is also “incredibly critical” to the success of the natioin’s mining sector.

Flow-through shares are a highly specialized financing tool that allow resource companies to transfer eligible exploration and development expenses to investors, who then deduct them from their own taxable income.

Under the Mineral Exploration Tax Credit (METC), funds generated from this type of capital raise must be put into a project within 18 months. There’s also the Critical Mineral Exploration Tax Credit (CMETC), which applies to critical minerals used for batteries and magnets, including rare earths, nickel, uranium, lithium and graphite, among others.

Generational shift shrinking pool of mining investors

Although Canada dominates the global mining finance sector and is teeming with multiple types of mineral deposits, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for the nation’s exploration-stage companies to attract investment dollars.

The tight financial landscape for today’s explorers stems in part from both a complex regulatory system that limits the areas open to mining activity, and a lack of proper infrastructure in the more remote regions of the country. Both of these shortcomings strike at the heart of perceived jurisdictional risk for both retail and institutional investors.

During his presentation, Killeen highlighted a few of the key financing trends affecting access to capital in the mineral industry, noting that last year saw a dramatic uptick in investment in the mining sector.

Where is capital originating from? Most of it was equity raised through private placements, which poses a problem as it represents a very narrow investor base that consists of friends and family of the management team and strategic investors that probably already own shares in the company.

“That just tells us that we’re not broadening the investor base. We’re not pulling in more investors. There’s no more new retail folks coming in investing in shares in Canada. This tells us that we’re in a very risky balance in terms of who actually can fund the sector through the next generation,” he warned the PDAC audience.

“There is a lesser population of retail investors as time goes on. You know that the Boomer generation is going away in terms of an investment pool, and the next generation isn’t necessarily replicating that.”

Silver also views the generational shift in the investment landscape as a problem for raising money in the mining industry. “There’s no question from what I’ve read and heard that the younger generations don’t pick individual stocks. They tend to lean towards ETFs or crypto or other stuff,” he said. “Crypto is definitely competing with mining.”

Gold grabbing all the dollars

Canada’s minerals industry did experience a strong rebound in terms of equity investment in 2025, but it was heavily targeted at producers and developers with large-scale, near-production projects. Gold dominated, but investment also increased in projects associated with critical minerals like lithium, nickel, copper and graphite.

“How much is going to the bottom end, to those sub-$100 million market cap companies, the lion’s share of the junior explorers that are out there? Well, in the Canadian marketplace, only about 10 percent of every dollar raised is getting down to those size of companies,” explained Killeen, highlighting the discrepancy.

In his view, the lack of investment over the past decade is bringing about a decline in grassroots exploration.

Gold is grabbing many mineral investment dollars, not only because its price is surging to unprecedented highs, but also because there’s a faster return on investment compared to other metals. Killeen said that’s due to the fact that gold mining doesn’t require large amounts of infrastructure such as railways and ports.

“In some cases, you don’t need roads. The capital to develop a gold mine might be one-sixth of, one-10th of or one-20th of a copper mine or a zinc mine,” he commented. “So the rate of return for the average investor who’s looking at an exploration stock saying, ‘Could I get money back into this? Could I get value back into this?’ Today that timeframe is much shorter, and the capital to bring it to market is much lower.”

Looking at copper, which is much more capital intensive, Killeen said production is down nearly 30 percent from seven or eight years ago. Reserves are also down, even though rising copper prices have resulted in more resources being upgraded to reserves. Silver agreed with that take — his research shows that the Canadian mining industry is overflowing with gold companies. Of the 1,555 mining companies in Canada in 2024, 42 percent of them were gold-focused firms compared to only 17 percent for copper, the second highest amount.

“So why do we have so many gold companies? I think the answer is pretty obvious to me, which is if you want to build a porphyry copper mine, you’ve got to go raise $5 (billion) or $10 billion,” said Silver. “That’s very difficult in the mining industry, because we just don’t have that much gross capital available to us relative to what some of the other industries have … but you can build a gold mine for a couple hundred million (dollars).’

Despite the massive focus on gold, Killeen and Silver both noted that Canada is actually seeing increasing exploration activity for rare earths, lithium, cobalt, graphite and uranium.

Improving the investment case for Canada’s juniors

Killeen said PDAC and its members are pushing for the Canadian government to make the METC and CMETC permanent to bring more investment into mineral exploration in greenfield regions and making new discoveries.

Last year, flow-through shares generated C$1.6 billion in investment into the sector, according to Silver’s research, or about 76 percent of funding received by mineral exploration companies in Canada.

“When you look at the role of Canadian flow through, it’s so incredibly critical to Canadian mining,” he said. Silver too is advocating for the mining industry and investors to “fight for flow through way more than you do.’

To address infrastructure challenges for bringing critical metals projects into production sooner for a quicker return on investment, Killeen suggested more pension funds investing in Canada and easing government regulations.

“We need them cooperating together with the federal government to develop major infrastructure that doesn’t exist beyond 100 kilometers from the border,” he said.

Killeen noted that “the world is changing” and governments, including Canada’s, are becoming more focused on securing domestic sources of critical minerals. For example, at PDAC, Tim Hodgson, Canada’s minister of energy and natural resources, announced a C$3.6 billion suite of investments targeting the critical minerals sector.

Investor Insight

With a strong asset foundation, C$8 million in cash, and an experienced technical team, Prince Silver is well-positioned to capitalize on the current macro tailwinds in the silver and manganese markets. The project has a US Critical Minerals advantage, hosting silver, zinc, lead, and manganese, in addition to gold.

Overview

Prince Silver (CSE:PRNC,OTCQB:PRNCF) is a Vancouver-based exploration company focused on unlocking value at the Prince silver project in southeastern Nevada.

In July 2025, the company completed a transformational acquisition of Stampede Metals Corporation and subsequently rebranded from Hawthorn Resources to Prince Silver Corp.

The flagship asset is a district-scale, past-producing silver-gold-zinc-manganese carbonate replacement system, historically mined through the early to mid-1900s. The immediate objective is to validate and expand upon the 129 historic drill holes (over 16,600 meters) to convert the exploration target into a maiden NI 43-101 mineral resource, targeted for the fourth quarter of 2026.

Company Highlights

• Flagship Project: 100 percent ownership of the historic Prince silver mine in Lincoln County, Nevada, an open, near-surface silver-gold-zinc carbonate replacement deposit. It has an exploration target of 23 to 45 million tons, with strong historic grades.
• Fully Funded Drilling Program Underway: A 9,000-meter reverse-circulation drill program is now underway with a steady stream of assay results expected from January to May 2026. This follows an recent funding raise of approximately C$4.75 million in gross proceeds.
• Clean Corporate Reset: Hawthorn Resources completed the Stampede Metals acquisition and re-listed as Prince Silver Corp. on July 11, 2025.
• Tight Share Structure: The company has 58.9 million shares issued and outstanding as of February 23, 2026.
• US Critical Minerals Leverage: The Prince Project hosts critical and strategic minerals on the 2025 USGS list: silver, zinc, lead, and manganese, in addition to gold.
• Experienced, Hands-on Leadership: President Ralph Shearing, CEO Derek Iwanaka, and new directors Marco Montecinos, Robert Wrixon and Darrell Rader add mine-building, corporate, and capital-markets depth to the leadership team.
• Expanded Land Position: The land package at the Prince Silver Project has more than doubled, securing over 7 kilometers of prospective strike length along the mineralized fault system.

Key Projects

Prince Silver Project

The Prince silver project is a large-scale, polymetallic Carbonate Replacement Deposit (CRD) located just west of Pioche, a historic mining district in southeastern Nevada. The project hosts a structurally and stratigraphically controlled system of silver-rich mantos, breccias, and fissure veins. Historic underground production between 1912 and 1949 totaled approximately 1.12 million tons (Mt) at average grades of 100 grams per ton (g/t) silver, 4.5 percent zinc, and 10 percent manganese.

Highlights

• Geological compilation work has defined an exploration target ranging between 23 and 45 Mt, grading approximately 37 to 40 g/t silver, 1.5 percent zinc, and 0.8 percent lead.
• The fully-funded 9,000 meter drill program is underway with a steady stream of assay results expected from January to May 2026, targeting a maiden NI 43-101 Mineral Resource Estimate (MRE) in the fourth quarter of 2026.
• The company recently expanded its land position, securing over 7 kilometers of prospective strike length along the mineralized fault system.

Stampede Gap Copper-Gold-Molybdenum Project

The Stampede Gap Copper-Gold-Molybdenum Project is a large, early-stage porphyry target in Nevada featuring over 200 claims. Historical geophysics have identified multiple IP-resistivity anomalies, and a single 700 meter drill hole encountered extensive skarn alteration. Its location is only 150 kilometers south of KGHM’s Robinson copper-gold-silver-molybdenum mine. The project presents a deep-seated exploration target that has the hallmarks of a large-scale copper-molybdenum deposit.

Management Team

Derek Iwanaka – Chief Executive Officer and Director

Derek Iwanaka is a mining-sector executive with over 23 years of investor relations, corporate development, and capital markets experience. He has supported more than 20 corporate transactions and helped raise over US$100 million, including one of Canada’s first at-the-market financings. Iwanaka previously held senior roles at BeMetals and First Mining Gold Corp., contributing to strategic acquisitions, project advancement, and significant market-cap growth.

Ralph Shearing – President and Director

Ralph Shearing is a professional geologist and mine developer with over 35 years in mineral exploration development and public company management. Since 1987, Shearing has held senior executive positions with public junior mining and exploration companies, notably Luca Mining, a company he founded and guided through exploration, development, construction, and pre-production of the Tahuehueto mine in Mexico. He currently acts as a Qualified Person for Prince Silver’s technical disclosure.

Rob Scott – Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Secretary

Rob Scott’s professional experience has helped raise over $200 million in equity with past and current executive and board positions with TSXV issuers, including Great Bear Resources, Valore Metals, Riverside Resources, Capitan Silver, and First Helium.

Dr. Robert Wrixon – Independent Director

Robert Wrixon is the managing director of Starboard Global, a Hong Kong-based project incubator and VC firm. Wrixon is a seasoned executive and engineer with over 20 years’ experience across ASX- and LSE-listed mining companies. He holds a PhD in mineral engineering from UC Berkeley and brings deep technical, corporate development, and mergers and acquisitions experience.

Darrell Rader – Independent Director

Darrell Rader is the president and chief executive officer of Minaurum Gold, a silver explorer in Mexico. He has directly raised over $150 million for mineral exploration and development and has strong relationships with institutional investors and bankers. Rader founded Defiance Silver Corp, a silver developer, and previously was the head of corporate development at IMPACT Silver. Rader holds a BBA in Finance from Simon Fraser University.

Marco Montecinos – Independent Director

Marco Montecinos has over 40 years of mineral exploration experience across the Americas, including a key role in the three-million-ounce Marlin Gold discovery, multiple gold discoveries, and current roles as chief president of exploration at Gunpoint Exploration and US Critical Metals, as well as president of Tigren, Inc.