Required Reading
This page is a list of links to other people's writing (and audio and video) that I consider totally worth your time. A lot of these are linked in various articles I've written, but I am putting them in one place for convenience. Updated periodically.
Investing Legends
Basics
Independent Speculator's Drill Result Cheat Sheet is a great resource when looking at press releases of drill results. Like the you must be this tall to ride signs at roller coasters, it might still be a scary ride but this is the minimum level of knowledge you should have.
Crux Investor's "The Con" series by Merlin Marr-Johnson is really a great way to get the lay of the land.
(free 2 week trail, $30/month or $300/year thereafter)
https://www.cruxinvestor.com/
Investing Strategy
We linked to the success in progress article from Independent Speculator in another article, but in case you missed it.
You should read/watch everything by Paul Gait (formerly of Bernstein, now at a European hedge fund). His charts on gdp to steel and gdp to copper are just fundamental. His insight that markets aren't forward looking with respect to existing producers building new mines is shocking. Or that existing producers are basically priced on a multiple of basket revenues. The breakdown in the Moore's law of mining. That a country's GDP is highly predicted by the amount of metal in its economy. The labor scale productivity gains in mining and their limits. Evaporation of the wall of supply in copper. The reasons different commodities trade at different margins above cash costs. https://naturalresourcesforum.com/-/resources/bernstein-paul-gait-slides.pdf
https://s-i-a.ch/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2019/09/03-Metals-and-Mining-Bernstein_Paul-Gait.pdf
Franco Nevada is the greatest of all time (GOAT). The first 21 pages of their asset handbook lays out how they do it.
https://s21.q4cdn.com/700333554/files/doc_downloads/asset_handbook/2021/05/2021-Asset-Handbook.pdf
More from Independent Speculator. No they don't pay me for linking them. This is the best one, real data on gold mine construction returns.
https://independentspeculator.com/img/uploads/media/files/PDF/2003_SR_PPSS_final.pdf
How to value mining stocks with Kevin MacLean. He was a mining fund manager for many years and has a good track record. Here he shares a lot of details on how he invested.
Rick Rule is prolific in his media production. But he's also a smart successful investor. His thoughts on project generators is classic.
Kenorland Minerals did a research study on exploration in Canada and what constitutes a discovery. It's just amazing and set the bar for what I consider good drill results.
Francis then Outdid himself and did a great talk on exploration risk and project generation.
Copper
Goehring & Rozencwajg wrote an amazing piece on copper supply. There are lots of bull cases for long term high copper prices, but this one is one of the best.
(name and email required for free download)
http://gorozen.com/research/commentaries/1Q2021_Introduction
Horizon Kinetics on Copper
Really, all of Horizon Kinetics writing is worth reading, especially their quarterly commentaries.
https://horizonkinetics.com/app/uploads/Q4-2021-Quarterly-Review_FINAL.pdf
Porphyries
I created a youtube playlist to talk about this deposit type that is responsible for most of the world's copper and a significant amount of gold.
Lithium
A detailed look at cost learning rates for lithium batteries.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2007.13920.pdf
Changelog
June 29, 2022 - Added Lithium battery cost learning curve study.
June 16, 2022 - Added a link to a page I made excerpting Eric Sprott.
June 13, 2022 - Added a link to a page I made excerpting Pierre Lassonde.
May 27, 2022 - Added Francis MacDonal's Exploration Risk Talk.
Feb 24, 2022 - Initial Version, then added Kenorland Minerals "The Science of Discovery" presentation video.