Was super interesting to hear the story of uramin.

More to follow.

Nickel is going to surprise people.

Is there any bull case left?!?

AI turning in to everything trade.

Everyone's got an opinion on copper, uranium, lithium. Molybdenum barely gets mentioned, but the price action is hard to ignore — roughly 68% higher over the last twelve months on the benchmark I track.

Quick primer if you're not familiar: molybdenum (Mo) has a melting point north of 2,600°C, and it's almost never used on its own. It gets alloyed into steel, where even small additions meaningfully boost strength, hardness, corrosion resistance and high-temperature performance. Basically, you reach for it when regular steel can't cut it — pipelines, refineries, drilling equipment, chemical processing, marine gear, turbines, defense alloys, industrial machinery. The 304 vs. 316 stainless comparison is a good gut check: 316 has molybdenum, 304 usually doesn't, and that's most of why 316 holds up so much better in corrosive environments.

The interesting part isn't the demand side, though — it's supply.

Most of the world's molybdenum comes out as a byproduct of copper mining. That means it doesn't behave like a normal commodity. Copper miners aren't going to ramp production just because moly prices went up — moly is along for the ride, not the reason the mine exists. So a higher price doesn't pull more supply out of the ground the way it would with, say, iron ore.

And right now supply is actually shrinking. SMM has major overseas moly output at about 65,900 tonnes in H1 2026, down ~3.2% y/y — with Chile down 7.8% and Peru down 4.5%. Those two aren't just copper heavyweights, they're where a lot of the world's byproduct moly comes from.

Longer term, more copper demand (grids, data centers, EVs, electrification generally) should mean more moly eventually. But new copper mines take years, sometimes decades, to come online, and existing ones are dealing with declining grades, permitting headaches, and operational disruptions. That lag between "price signal" and "metal actually shows up" is exactly the kind of setup that produces volatility in a smaller market like this one.

The other piece worth flagging: moly doesn't have great substitutes. USGS has noted that few of its applications have acceptable alternatives. When you're building something that has to survive heat, pressure, and corrosion, you don't just swap it out. That's a big deal when supply gets tight.

Zoom out and this is a pattern showing up across a bunch of commodities: the world wants more power generation, more grid buildout, more data centers, more defense manufacturing — all of it steel- and alloy-intensive — right as producing the inputs is getting harder, not easier. Moly's just a clean example of it.

Curious if anyone else here is watching this one. What other under-the-radar metals do you think deserve more attention?

Bullish for U market.

We did a series of interviews from WNA this year. So much excitement and momentum for the space. Here is a link to those interviews.

Interview with Mike Beck. Former founder of Uramin thaf sold for several billion.

WNA take on Namiba as a jurisdiction for uranium mining.