👷‍♀️ Greetings Contrarian,

This is The Next Big Rush, your daily drop of mining and energy investing news. Where we come together and play with the kids. 🤸‍♀️

📌 Commodity Prices

📝 Here are the highlights

💸 How To Lose Half A Trillion

🤞 Are 10m Oz About To Be Unlocked?

🐦 This is What Will Make You Rich

💸 How To Lose Half A Trillion

In a delightfully optimistic report titled “How to lose half a trillion”, Planet Tracker illustrates how mining the ocean floor for EV battery metals could spectacularly backfire, costing the industry up to $132 billion in sheer value annihilation. Because, apparently, unearthing potato-sized nodules of cobalt, nickel, and friends from the seabed might just inflict 25 times the biodiversity damage of land mining.

This venture into the abyss, valued between a modest $8 trillion and an eye-watering $16 trillion, could also make the deep-sea mining pioneers at The Metals Company and their ilk ponder why their returns are swimming with the fishes. Even without considering the environmental cost, it seems deep-sea mining's economic promise is as hollow as a sunken ship, with the prospect of turning any profit sinking to the ocean floor.

Meanwhile, Norway can't wait to dive into its Arctic Ocean treasure hunt, proving that the lure of seabed riches trumps boring old terrestrial concerns like ecosystem collapse. Who knew exploiting the ocean's depths could be so unprofitable and contentious?

🤞 Are 10m Oz About To Be Unlocked?

Gabriel Resources Ltd. (TSXV:GBU), a Canadian company focused on the Rosia Montana gold and silver project in Romania, has announced that the World Bank's International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) Tribunal expects to issue its final decision on March 8, 2024, regarding Gabriel's arbitration claim against Romania.

This project is among Europe's largest undeveloped gold deposits, with Gabriel holding an 80.69% interest and the remainder owned by a Romanian state-owned company. Despite efforts to develop Rosia Montana responsibly, Gabriel claims Romania has unlawfully blocked the project, leading to the current arbitration focus. The project holds more than 10 million oz of gold (proven and probable). 

Is this finally going to be resolved? How much is this project worth?

📰 In Other News

🐦 This is What Will Make You Rich

📮 Other Great Newsletter

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.