Greetings Contrarian,

This is The Next Big Rush, your daily drop of mining/energy investing news. Where we come together and dance, because why not.

Here are the highlights:

🛢️Strikes Threaten UK Oil Output

🍁 First Nations in Fight Between Ottawa And Provinces

⛰️ Hudbay Buys Copper Mountain

🚀 NGEx Hits 390 of 1.13% Cu Equivalent

⛽️ Strikes Threaten UK Oil Output

More than 1,300 offshore workers in the North Sea oil and gas industry are set to stage a 48-hour strike over pay from 24 April, with the action expected to bring dozens of platforms to a standstill.

The five companies affected are Bilfinger UK Limited, Petrofac Facilities Management, Stork Technical Services, Sparrows Offshore Services, and Worley Services UK Limited. Sharon Graham, general secretary of Unite Scotland, stated that the action would challenge the “scale of corporate greed” in the industry.

Maggie Thatcher called and she says:

 🚨 First Nations In Fight Between Ottawa And Provinces

The premiers of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba have criticized federal Justice Minister David Lametti for comments he made last week regarding the Natural Resources Transfer Agreement (NRTA), a set of agreements negotiated in the 1930s that transferred control over natural resources from the federal government to the provinces.

First Nations have appealed to the federal government to rescind the agreements, which excluded First Nations land.

Lametti said he would look into the issue and called it "not uncontroversial."

However, the premiers argued that the federal government should not even be considering stripping resource rights away from the Prairie provinces, and called on Lametti to retract his comments.

Lametti later clarified that the federal government had not promised to reopen the agreements.

We’re going to refrain from saying that stripping away provincial powers in natural resources would be unprecedented (there’s that word again), and possibly catastrophic.

🤑 Hudbay Buys Copper Mountain

Canadian mining companies Hudbay Minerals and Copper Mountain Mining Corporation have entered into an agreement for Hudbay to acquire all issued and outstanding common shares of Copper Mountain, in a deal valued at approximately CAD 439m ($346m).

The transaction will create a premier Americas-focused copper mining company, with a portfolio of three long-life mines, and three large-scale development projects, with estimated 2023 copper production of more than 150,000 tonnes.

The deal is expected to close in the second or third quarter of 2023, subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals.

✅ NGEx Hits 390m of 1.13% Cu Equivalent

NGEx Minerals Ltd. (TSXV: NGEX) is reporting additional assays from four holes drilled at the Los Helados copper-gold project located in Region III, Chile.

Highlights:

• LHDH081-2: Fenix Zone:

  • 343.8m at 0.90% CuEq, including 63.8m at 1.25% CuEq

• LHDH081-3: Fenix Zone:

  • 234.0m at 0.90% CuEq, including 28.0m at 1.49% CuEq

• LHDH084: Fenix Zone:

  • 390.0m at 1.13% CuEq

• LHDH086: Alicanto Zone:

  • 104.0m at 0.69% CuEq

The latest drilling results from Los Helados indicate high grades, particularly in molybdenum, which surpass previous records.

Notably, most of the new drilling in these areas falls outside the current Mineral Resource.

Juicy. 🧃

Happy Speculating!

The Editor

DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.