Michael Meding

🇦🇷 Is Argentina the next copper powerhouse? Great piece by @alexbusch in @NZZ: Los Azules and other major projects could be key to the energy transition — if infrastructure, trust, and capital align. 🔗 nzz.ch/english/is-argentina-… #Copper #Argentina #LosAzules #Mining #EnergyTransition #CriticalMinerals

Nordic Funds & Mines w/ @StefanSpears: Los Azules — cathode on site, ~205 ktpa Cu, C1 $1.71 / AISC $2.11. Over $450M equity raised + $240M bridge loan closed. Stellantis & Nuton in; first cathode ~2030. 22 year project life ~148 ktpa Cu with upside of more than 30 years and another 141ktpa Cu. youtu.be/NblDz0M96zU

"For decades, conditions in Latin America haven't been this favourable." Citi's Ernesto Revilla, in @handelsblatt. German companies are optimistic. Good. But optimism doesn't drill holes. Argentina explores with ~US$400M a year. It needs US$1bn+. Willkommen in San Juan 🇩🇪🇦🇷 handelsblatt.com/politik/int…

"Who's going to smelt that?" asked @jpmorgan's Greg S hearer at #LMEWeek (via @Fastmarkets). Los Azules is designed to skip the smelter entirely, with 99.99% copper cathode planned right at the mine in San Juan. 🇦🇷 fastmarkets.com/insights/ai-… @McEwenCopper @McEwenInc #Copper

Copper is the one transition metal still headed for a deficit, according to @BloombergNEF's Transition Metals Outlook 2026, published today during #LMEWeek. Nine of the ten transition materials BNEF covers are on track for sufficient supply through 2050. Copper is the exception: 
• Supply deficit from 2028, widening to 20 Mt by 2050, or 44% of projected demand 
• Demand up 61% from 2026 to 2050, to almost 46 Mt 
• US$332B needed in new mines 
• New mines take 17 years on average to come into operation, so the shortfall could persist for decades @business adds that even with that investment, the gap is likely to stay open until at least 2043. Los Azules is slated to come online right in that window. McEwen targets a final investment decision in mid-2027 and commercial copper cathode production in 2030, subject to project financing and customary approvals. Sources:
BNEF: about.bnef.com/insights/comm…
Bloomberg via @MiningWeekly: miningweekly.com/article/cop…
McEwen: mcewenmining.com/investor-re… #Copper #CriticalMinerals #Argentina

Yesterday at #LMEWeek, Iván Arriagada, CEO of @AntofagastaPLC, said Chile, Peru and Argentina could eventually supply 35–40% of the world's copper. One condition he named: taking binational mining treaties already signed to effective implementation. I agree, and I'd go further on timing. He put discovery-to-production at about 15 years, in line with @SPGMarketIntel's long-run average (16 years across 232 mines, July 2026). But for new mines still in the pipeline, with feasibility done and not yet producing, S&P puts it at nearly 30. Either way, the mines the world needs by mid-century have to be found now. That is where Argentina comes in. By @GEMERA_AR's figures:
• Drilling density: 3–5 metres per km² in Argentina, 15–20 in Chile.
• Around 80% of our geologically prospective ground is still unexplored.
• Argentina invests about US$400M a year in exploration. It needs to exceed US$1bn. The Chile–Argentina Mining Integration Treaty, signed in 1997 and in force since 2000, already covers prospecting and exploration, and it already works project by project. Several border projects explore under treaty protocols, each in a single shared "Operating Area". Some of the largest recent discoveries in the Andes sit on or near that frontier, and there is room for many more. Argentina doesn't lack geology. It lacks drilling. This is world-class discovery country, and with the treaty working as designed, both sides of the Andes win. #Copper #Argentina #Chile #CriticalMinerals

How to ask startups to give you their ideas for 🥜🥜🥜

Huge congrats to @jayleaton and @ashxhart for TensorFold and the DGX Spark recipe! 👏 Credit to @MiaAI_lab for the EXL3 pack and vLLM kit. Just tested abliterated DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash on my two connected DGX Sparks, using the same installed 2.9bpw weights. ⚡ Strict profile: 600K context, 2 slots Code generation jumped from 42.4 to 83.0 tokens/sec versus our existing vLLM setup. Almost 2× faster! Both scored 176/200 on our MMLU sample. 🚀 Fast profile: 300K context, 4 slots, approximate settings 88.9 tokens/sec for single-stream code. 101 tokens/sec aggregate across four clients, including prefill and queueing. 🔎 Successfully retrieved a passkey from a 599,758-token prompt in strict mode. ✅ 142 requests with zero errors during a 10-minute mixed workload test. Worker failure recovery passed too. Fantastic work pushing local inference forward. These little boxes keep surprising me! github.com/jayleaton/deepsee…

More people, more GDP but not better living standards or higher GDP per capita, it’s actually average which is just shy of 12,000 USD/capita. Brazil’s half of South America’s total GDP does not translate into top per-capita living standards. IMF April 2026 projections put the continent’s nominal GDP per capita ranking as follows (USD): 1Guyana — $33,167 2Uruguay — $27,608 3Chile — $20,240 4Argentina — $14,357 5Brazil — $12,313 6Peru — $10,960 7Colombia — $10,104 8Paraguay — $9,372 9Suriname — $8,856 10Ecuador — $7,575 11Bolivia — $6,333 12Venezuela — $4,140 The regional average is about $11,775, so Brazil sits just above it. Guyana’s lead is oil-driven and covers a population under 1 million; Uruguay and Chile lead among larger economies. In PPP terms the order is similar at the top (Guyana, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina), with Brazil around 5th near $24,400 international dollars.

Key note @JMilei now at @OECD #argentina Argentina Week Paris.

Participating in Argentina week hearing about economic advances of Argentina by @LuisCaputoAR #argentina