Morning Briefing: Copper's Squeeze Continues to Tighten

Good morning and welcome back to the Mining Stock Daily morning briefing.

It's Wednesday, August 12.

It is a strong morning for precious metals. Gold is up 1% to $4,413 an ounce. Silver is up 2.54% to $66.31. Platinum is the outperformer, up 2.71% to $1,802. Copper is modestly higher, up 0.75% to $6.64 a pound.

All eyes this morning are on the July CPI inflation report, which is expected to be the most significant macro data point of the week for markets and the Fed. Economists are forecasting a 0.2% increase in headline consumer prices, which would nudge the annual rate down to 3.4%, while core inflation is estimated at 0.1% monthly and 2.5% annually — both prints that would be consistent with continued progress toward the Fed's 2% target and could all but lock in a September rate cut. A surprise to the upside would complicate that picture significantly.

Copper is back near record territory as an outage at the Gresik smelter in Indonesia. That is the plant that processes ore from the giant Grasberg mine. The outage compounds an already severe supply squeeze. Operators Mitsubishi Materials and PT Freeport Indonesia shut the facility after a boiler leak on August 8th and have not set a restart date; London benchmark copper has held above $14,000 a tonne for an unprecedented run of sessions, and Comex contracts for 2027 delivery are already trading above $7 a pound. 

We will get to the news from the miners and explorers in a moment, but first a mention of today’s sponsor:

This episode of Mining Stock Daily is brought to you by…Equinox Gold

In late July, Equinox closed its merger with Orla Mining, creating a new North American senior gold producer with a clear path to nearly two million ounces of annual production from an internally funded growth pipeline. Equinox Gold trades on the TSX and on the NYSE American, both under the symbol EQX.

Here’s what you need to know today. 

Integra Resources is out with second quarter 2026 results from the Florida Canyon Mine in Nevada, reporting gold production of 16,379 ounces — a 30% increase quarter-over-quarter — driven by record total tonnes mined of 87,867 tonnes per day at a strip ratio of 0.81. Revenue came in at $70.8 million and the company sold 15,794 ounces at an average realized price of $4,426 per ounce; Integra also noted that the DeLamar project in Idaho entered the federal NEPA permitting process in May 2026, with state-of-good-repair programs including test mining now underway on site to shorten the development timeline. Integra Resources trades on the TSX Venture Exchange as ITR and on the NYSE American as ITRG. NEWS RELEASE

Elemental Royalty is reporting record quarterly gold equivalent ounce sales and record operating cash flow for Q2 2026, with 5,248 GEOs sold — up 65% from 3,184 in Q2 2025 — generating revenue of $23.8 million, the company's second-highest quarterly result and a 127% increase year-over-year, along with record operating cash flow of $15.5 million. Key contributors included Bonikro, Caserones, Karlawinda, Timok and Leeville, and the company remains on track to deliver 17,000 to 21,000 GEOs for 2026 after banking 10,231 GEOs through the first half. Elemental Royalty trades on the Nasdaq and on the TSX, both under the symbol ELE. NEWS RELEASE

Relevant Gold has commenced its largest-ever drill program — a fully funded and permitted 5,000-metre campaign at the Burr target zone within the Lewiston Project in west-central Wyoming's South Pass Gold Camp. The 2026 program is designed to test the gold-bearing structural system well beyond the 300-metre corridor drilled in 2024, when six holes totalling 1,026 metres intersected shear-hosted gold mineralization in every hole, with select holes this year targeted to approximately 400 metres depth — 225 metres deeper than before — and an expanded permit application submitted covering an additional 2.5 kilometres of strike along the Burr and parallel Sweetwater trends; 2025 surface sampling in the area also returned overlimit results of up to 506 grams per tonne silver and 5.38% copper. Relevant Gold trades on the TSX Venture Exchange as RGC and on the OTCQB as RGCCF. NEWS RELEASE

And Riley Gold is reporting that partner Kinross Gold has commenced the 2026 drill campaign at the PWC Pipeline West/Clipper Gold Project in Nevada's Cortez District, targeting areas south along the highest-grade gold-in-soil anomalies on the property and a major interpreted structure identified through recent seismic work, geophysics and geologic mapping — ground that has never been drill-tested within the project's 27.2 square kilometre land package. Kinross has the right to earn up to a 75% interest by spending a minimum of US$20 million and holds a 9.9% equity position in Riley Gold; PWC directly adjoins Nevada Gold Mines, the Barrick-Newmont JV that operates the adjacent Cortez and Pipeline complexes, top producers in a state that has historically delivered four to five million ounces of gold per year. Riley Gold trades on the TSX Venture Exchange as RLYG and on the OTCQB as RLYGF. NEWS RELEASE

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That's it for today everyone. Have a great day. Stay safe.