Oil & Gas Is Back on the Market's Radar

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I've always had a soft spot for frontier, “swing for the fences”, ultra high risk-reward oil & gas exploration stocks in Africa.

And over the last couple of years it feels like there hasn’t been a major drill campaign that has properly caught the markets undivided attention.

With thousands of punters eagerly following updates on rig mobilisation, spud date, drill depth updates and trying to understand technical oil & gas mambo jumbo in drilling progress reports.

And if you are extremely lucky - oil & gas shows, a new discovery... and (not even the norm anymore these days) a big share price pop.

It was an African oil & gas stock called Africa Oil Corp where I had my first ever 10x on a stock back in 2012 after they made an oil discovery in Kenya.

(after years of bumbling my way around in the small cap markets and learning from my many -90% returns).

So armed with a bit of cash and a lot of hubris I was able to move to writing about early stage stocks full time.

Hence the ongoing interest in oil & gas exploration.

Oil & gas has been "back" for the last few weeks with all the Strait of Hormuz stuff going on and oil prices whipsawing up and down depending on what Donald Trump says that day.

Strait closed: oil up.

Strait opening: oil down.

Strait closed again: oil up...

and last night straight opening again: oil down.

Then early this morning... closed again!

(I literally found this out as I was almost finished writing this note - even the tankers got caught off guard on this one)

(source)

Generally, oil & gas is back on the market's radar, probably after realising how fragile supply chains and logistics choke points can be for such an important commodity we all use everyday.

(kinda like when Covid made everyone realise how much important stuff we import in from overseas)

It makes you think, is oil and gas (energy) the OG critical mineral?

But back to high risk-reward African oil & gas exploration for a second.

Our African oil & gas Investment IVZ is up ~47% this week...

and into a trading halt yesterday for a capital raise.

We put in a decent sized bid... (and got scaled back in our offer letter).

IVZ is exploring and developing the Cabora Bassa Basin – one of Africa’s largest and last untested frontier rift basins (located in northern Zimbabwe).

We invested in IVZ back in 2020 and have held a material, core position through pretty much everything since.

We held through the Mukuyu-2 discovery share price drop.

(even though it was a gas-condensate discovery - why don’t small cap markets ever make sense?).

We held when IVZ went back up again after the Qatar deal (Al Mansour Holdings, US$500M potential project funding, the whole "Qatari marriage" thing).

And we held after it came back down ~50% when the Qatar deal fell over at the altar in January this year when the parties couldn't agree final terms.

(it's always that last remaining prickly clause at the 13th hour that scuttles contracts).

Now IVZ is in a trading halt for a capital raise and reads to us like they are going to drill another well in 2026 (Preparation and planning continues for Musuma-1 drilling campaign, with activities expected to commence H1 2026 ). (source)

We go again.

Early stage oil & gas stocks have many ups and downs.

Sometimes from their own drill results and actions, other times from the market's appetite for oil & gas in general.

As we saw with our other oil & gas Investment EXR - another example of up a lot, down for a while, then up again.

EXR is up ~60% in the last 4 weeks - adding to a great run from EXR over the last few months.

(the thing about small stocks is they're a double edged sword - we just hang on and pray that we are right in the long term... works for us but might not be right for everyone)

Speaking of movers, IVZ and EXR weren't the only movers in the Portfolio this week.

Our most recent Portfolio addition PAT (Patriot Resources) is up 25% for the week with its silver project in Peru (read our launch note here)

(Portfolio addition PAT and his black and white cat... sorry).

Precious metals prices had been steadily grinding up for yet another week (we’ll take that) - silver up 8%, gold up ~2% for the week...

Until last night when they both delivered some huge intraday spikes (silver up 6%, gold up nearly 3% at one point last light) reminiscent of the old glory days of... 10 weeks ago.

Another one of our precious metals Investments - HAR (high grade gold in California) is also up 31.82%.

Also, our second most recent addition PR1 closed at 49c, up 29% for the week.

PR1 does carbon-nanotube fibre thermal management for AI data centres, aerospace and military weapons systems - read our launch note here

And EIQ (AI-powered heart disease diagnostics, FDA cleared) just keeps on rolling - up 32% for the week to $1.23.

Even ION (critical metals recycling - extracting lithium/nickel/cobalt/rare earths from old electronic equipment) went up 30%.

(ok you know I’m all about robots at the moment... for ION, picture how many old iPhones and laptops you have lying around the house or have sold “pre-loved” in the past... now imagine that for the various old household robots everyone will have piling up in 10 years... second hand “pre-loved” sex-bot anyone? Nah recycle that one)

The past performance is not and should not be taken as an indication of future performance. Caution should be exercised in assessing past performance. This product, like all other financial products, is subject to market forces and unpredictable events that may adversely affect future performance.

US critical metals in the news. Again.

We've been saying for years that US Investors would eventually catch on to the USA mining theme...

And that's when things would get very interesting for ASX stocks with critical metals projects in the USA.

(ASX is like the “silicon valley for resources” and is usually first and early to emerging themes in the resources space)

US investors just need to catch on for that next big wave of capital needed to develop some of these projects into mines.

This week we saw two high profile US people, with big US audiences going hard on US critical metals.

And not just a 10 second sound bite or casual mention to a journalist.

A few days ago US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent essentially told the IMF and World Bank to start funding critical minerals projects to break China's grip.

(source)

And went on a global tour, meeting various country leaders to talk about critical minerals supply.

Billionaire tech Investor from the All in Podcast Chamath Palihapitiya, released a 103 page report on the USA’s critical minerals challenges.

(source)

Two major, high profile voices taking bigger steps and actions to secure USA critical minerals supply.

And of course, the latest edition of “what happened in robots this week” because frankly, it's fun to write.

Bessent to the World Bank: start funding critical minerals

So a few days ago, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent essentially told the IMF and World Bank to start funding critical minerals projects to break China's grip.

Bessent told the World Bank's steering committee to stop obsessing over climate financing and "move quickly to support projects to develop critical minerals to diversify supplies away from China." (source: Reuters)

His words - critical minerals are "central to economic growth, technological leadership, and countries' economic security."

Translation: The world's biggest development bank is about to pivot from solar panels to rare earths.

He called out the stat everyone in our game knows - China supplies over 90% of rare earths and several other critical minerals.

Then he spent the next 48 hours (on X) doing the rounds - meetings with France, Italy and Ukraine, all with the same theme: critical minerals cooperation.

(source)

(source)

(source)

He also backed the IMF quota revamp (16th review) - basically a reshuffle of voting power at the IMF that the US had previously blocked.

Why does a boring voting reshuffle matter?

Because it clears the way for the US to push their critical minerals agenda through multilateral finance - without a new spending bill.

(yep, using the plumbing of the global financial system to fund the USA's metals and mining rebuild - smart)

And on Ukraine - he highlighted the US-Ukraine Reconstruction Investment Fund (URIF) had approved its first investment in March.

URIF is the minerals-linked Ukraine reconstruction deal.

It's happening.

And if there is one thing we have learnt over the years, it's that micro caps react exponentially to big capital inflows.

Tech billionaire, Chamath’s 103-page report on the USA’s critical minerals challenges

For readers who don't know - Chamath Palihapitiya is an early Facebook exec, founder of venture firm Social Capital, SPAC king of 2021, and co-host of the (massively popular with US fund managers... and politicians) All-In Podcast.

(I wrote about him before in our Sunday Edition from 7th September 2025 - take a stroll down memory lane)

The point is - when Chamath writes about something, US money listens.

And this week he released a 103-page report on... US critical minerals.

(source: Chamath Substack)

The kick-off line from the post:

"We are still completely underestimating how short we are in terms of the global demand and supply dynamics of a handful of critical minerals that we need."

(sound familiar? we've been saying this since 2022. Great minds and all that... right?)

Here's what's in the cover email::

• 60 in 2025 after modelling 1,200+ supply disruption scenarios.
  The USGS critical minerals list has grown from 35 in 2018 → 50 in 2022 →
• 
  16 of 17 rare earth elements are critical minerals. He quotes Deng Xiaoping: "The Middle East has its oil. China has rare earths."
• China controls ~85% of critical minerals processing - even for the ones sitting in the ground in the USA.
• 
  Seven industry "baskets" that are exposed: batteries, power grid, magnets, chips and displays, defense, agriculture, industrial.
• "Whoever solves cheap energy wins the century, and critical minerals are the first input into that race." His big framing:

The killer line:

"The U.S. has minerals in the ground, it cannot easily process them."

Step #1 find the minerals in the ground (that's what we are helping with with our US critical mineral Investments)

Step #2 build processing plants to turn into final products.

(you can subscribe to Chamath's paid substack here if you want the full report - we don’t have any commercial arrangement, just saying it's worth the read if you're into this stuff like we are)

We've been saying for years that a big tailwind for ASX small caps with critical minerals projects inside USA borders would be the day that US Investors realise the urgency of the US critical mineral rebuild.

This week it has accelerated with “early adopter”, prominent US voices starting to bang the drum a bit harder.

Bessent telling the World Bank to fund it.

Chamath explaining it and telling his millions of followers to pay attention to it.

The White House has already called it a national emergency.

Here are the critical minerals stocks with projects in the USA that we are Invested in:

• SS1 ($269M) — silver and antimony in Nevada. [Investment Memo]
  
  
• RML ($155M) — gold, silver, antimony, tungsten in Idaho. [Investment Memo]
  
  
• LKY ($69M) — antimony, rare earths in California. [Investment Memo]
  
  
• AW1 ($54M) — indium, gallium, germanium in Utah. [Investment Memo]
  
  
• OD6 ($47M) — fluorspar in Nevada. [Investment Memo]
  
  
• VKA ($34M) — tungsten in Nevada. [Investment Memo]
  
  
• ION ($34M) — critical minerals recycling (Li, Ni, Co, Mn, rare earths) — US offtake partnership. [Investment Memo]
  
  
• LSR ($23M) — heavy rare earths in Arizona. [Investment Memo]
  
  
• PFE ($9M) — antimony, silver, gold, lithium in Arkansas. [Investment Memo]

The metals needed to build the future (and this week's what happened in robots?)

Now - critical metals aren't just a US thing.

We have written in the past our views that the next global super power(s) will be the country that wins the race in:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• AI-driven defence
• Autonomous war robots and drones
• Quantum computing, and
• Advanced energy technologies.

To win this race the country needs:

1. To be the most technologically advanced in each area
2. To have capability to rapidly manufacture each technology at large scale, and
3. The raw materials and inputs (critical minerals) to manufacture at a large scale

Every single one of those themes requires a giant global buildout.

And every mining and minerals boom is born from a giant buildout.

(We wrote the full thesis on this a few weeks ago - read it here: Triple Crown Supercycle, the 3 incoming global buildouts)

We said the three parallel buildouts driving the current “all commodity” boom:

• Military rebuild - every country re-arming independently
• AI data centres - the world's biggest infrastructure build since electrification
• Humanoid robots - billions of metal bodies needing copper, lithium, nickel, rare earths

Here is the shortlist of big historical buildouts that drove past mining supercycles we wrote about a couple of weeks ago:

• Railroad Era (1840s–1870s) — US rail network expanded from 4,800km to 115,000km in 30 years, driving demand for iron, steel, coal and timber.
  
• Electrification (1880s–1920s) — Edison/Tesla/Westinghouse era wired up America and Europe; global copper demand tripled between 1880 and 1920.
  
• Post-WW2 Industrial Buildout (1945–1970) — Marshall Plan rebuild of Europe, US interstate highway system (~66,000km), suburban expansion, plus Korean and Vietnam wars; materials and energy hit ~20–30% of the S&P 500 by the early 1970s.
  
• 1970s Stagflation / Commodity Supercycle (1968–1982) — Not a buildout, but included for context: Nixon closed the gold window (1971), OPEC oil shocks, gold $35→$850, silver $3→$50, Barron's Gold Mining Index +1,247% over 11 years; energy and materials peaked at over a third of the US market.
  
• China's Industrialisation (2000–2012) — Largest construction boom in history; iron ore $30→$190/tonne, BHP $5→$50, RIO $15→$122, FMG 10c→$12; China consumed 90% of additional copper demand 2000–2006.

Remember that China industrialisation that put a rocket under so many ASX resources stocks?

China built a high speed rail network that now connects every major city in the country in the span of 20 years:

Imagine how many resources that would have taken?

(In Australia we can't even manage to build one high speed rail between Sydney and Melbourne.)

The point is - we need metals for big global buildouts.

And the next three?

Robots. AI data centres. A tripolar military rebuild.

All three. At the same time. Over the next 10 years.

There’s already noise about shortages of critical minerals to build out AI data centres:

We also saw this in the Financial Times yesterday:

(source)

This was actually some pretty cool reporting by the FT, they are tracking the progress of various AI data centre builds over time using satellite imagery, and predicting a lot of missed timelines.

And even thermal-emerging using drone flyovers to detect if data centres were operational (based on heat signatures):

It's worth a read if you are an FT subscriber.

So what happened in robots this week?

Continuing the trend from the last few weeks - here's this week in dystopia vs utopia robots.

This time with some AI thrown in.

Utopia:

China robot marathon - humanoid robots literally running a marathon in China.

Robot sports for our entertainment: Good.

(source)

Robot chasing away wild pigs in Poland - a robot was seen chasing off some wild boar that had strayed onto public streets in Warsaw (apparently this is a thing, Kurwa!).

Robots protecting humans: Good.

(source)

AI homemaking - AI agent that runs the household calendar, grocery orders, meal plan, the works, and homeschooling curriculum.

Offloading the mental load of running a house to an AI: Good.

(watch it here)

Now for Robot Dystopia:

An autonomous AI robot turtle that can fire missiles and chase you on land, air AND water - sure, why not?

Obviously not good. At least it looks slow...for now.

(source)

Remember that weird human looking robot torso from last week?

Now they stuck a robot head on it. Getting creepier: not good.

(source)

Here is a real doctor cruising around a hospital on tablet perma-video call, not convinced this is what I’d want to see rolling into my hospital room in my time of vulnerability:

(source)

Having said that... I'd actually use this one myself to attend broker lunches without me having to leave my home office.

Anyway, for utopia or dystopia, AI and AI Robots are coming - and we are going to need a lot of metals to build them.

And ION’s “extraction or critical minerals from discarded electronics” tech to recycle them?

Robot metals stocks we are Invested in:

• CAY - Bauxite (aluminium feedstock) at Minim Martap, Cameroon. Stage: Development.
• ION - critical minerals recycling for Li, Ni, Co, Mn - South Australia. Stage: Development.
• NC1 - Nickel and cobalt (one of the top 10 largest undeveloped Ni-Co projects globally) in Western Australia. Stage: Exploration/Development.
• AW1 - Copper in Nunavut, Canada + Utah, USA. Stage: Exploration/Development.
• LKY - Rare earths + antimony in Arizona, USA. Stage: Exploration/Development.
• LSR - Copper, gold, rare earths across WA, Arizona, Chile. Stage: Exploration.
• MAN - Lithium brine in Utah, USA. Stage: Exploration.
• OD6 - Rare earths + fluorspar in Western Australia. Stage: Exploration.
• PNN - Lithium brine at Rincon, Salta, Argentina. Stage: Exploration/Development.
• SGQ - Rare earths + niobium at Araxá, Brazil. Stage: Exploration.
• SLM - Lithium + copper in Brazil, Peru, and Canada. Stage: Development.
• TG1 - Copper and gold in Western Australia. Stage: Exploration.
• TTM - Gold and copper at Dynasty, Ecuador. Stage: Exploration/Development.
• VKA - Gold and tungsten in WA + Ghana + Nevada. Stage: Exploration/Development.

See you next week, and have a great weekend

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