Getting back to commodities, he argues that Saudis killed the Alberta oilsands
and devastated U.S. shale “but no one can do that to copper.” Friedland
dismisses some copper miners as “little old ladies waiting to die,” saying
some grades fall so low that companies are “practically mining air.”
(Robert Freidland)
A “miner’s miner” was how Rick Rule introduced Robert Friedland. The founder and executive chairperson of Ivanhoe Mines TSX:IVN also serves as executive chair of the Sprott-Stansberry Natural Resource Symposium in Vancouver, where he delivered the opening day’s keynote speech on July 28. That was the original plan, anyway. Instead, a relaxed-looking Friedland eschewed a script to sit back and, in response to questions posed by Rule, discuss commodities, jurisdictional risk, markets and the problem with the majors.
Friedland’s favourite metals? They’re currently copper, platinum, palladium and zinc—stuff for which he sees bright futures and, not surprisingly, the stuff he’s currently pursuing. He also likes diamonds but considers himself “an agnostic on gold.”
“Copper is the metal if you believe in human advancement,” Friedland says. “Gold is the opposite.” Meanwhile this market has either hit bottom “or it’s the end of the world.” He says he’s never seen such a severe devaluation, with stocks “priced for Armageddon.”
He’s cynical of the prognosis industry. The media report obituaries for all commodities, disregarding the bullish case that Friedland sees for some metals. JP Morgan, he points out, couldn’t predict oil’s fall. Goldman Sachs’ forecasts come from “just two guys, they don’t really know, they go to the bathroom about as often as the rest of us.”
As for his own forecasts, Friedland sees economic recovery and growth, as well as specific mining opportunities because “you can’t have economic growth without copper.” He notes recovery in Europe and describes the U.S. undergoing a “slow, gentle, lousy recovery,” but a definite recovery just the same.
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