CMJ Daily Tape
DEMAND SIGNAL | COPPER
SMM data show social inventory of copper cathode across China's mainstream regions at 66,900 mt as of October 29, down 24,700 mt week on week and more than 60% below the 182,600 mt held a year earlier. Stocks have fallen from a year-to-date high of 578,900 mt on March 9, and cumulative destocking this year exceeds 500,000 mt, according to SMM. The SMM average for #1 copper cathode was 110,285 yuan/mt on October 30, with the spot premium at 1,225 yuan/mt. Copper rod producers ran at 77.65% in the week of October 29, against 60.43% a year earlier, yet SMM reports buyers accepted high premiums only to a limited extent and end-user stockpiling did not rise.
Rod mills run at 77.65% while holding 1.85 days of raw material, per SMM. That is a just-in-time posture at a 1,225 yuan/mt spot premium, and it holds only while East China shipments keep their pace. SMM expects smelter maintenance to end and imports to recover in November. If that metal lands while converters still refuse to restock, the premium gives way before the flat price does, and rod makers that bought forward at today's levels carry the loss.
ACQUISITION | NICKEL-COBALT
First Atlantic Nickel & Cobalt Corp. signed an asset purchase agreement dated October 30, 2026, with two arm's length vendors for a 100% interest in three mineral licences, 209 claims covering about 52.25 sq km on the North Arm massif of the Bay of Islands Ophiolite Complex. The company will issue 1,000,000 shares at a deemed $0.55 and reimburse $51,250 in security deposits. The property carries no royalties. Closing needs TSX Venture Exchange acceptance and is expected by January 31, 2027.
The price is 1,000,000 shares and $51,250, and the release reports no assays from North Arm. The company says the ground has not been systematically tested for hydrogen or awaruite. The awaruite case rests on magnetic separation into a concentrate that skips the smelter, and that flowsheet has to be proven on this rock, not borrowed from Pipestone XL. Until a concentrate test exists, this is a land position priced as an option, with the nearest road 5 km away.
PROPERTY OPTION | URANIUM-COPPER
Live Energy Minerals issued 120,000 common shares at a deemed $0.20, a deemed value of $24,000, as the first tranche under an October 15, 2026 option to acquire 100% of the Plaster Rock uranium-copper property, two claims of 73 units near Plaster Rock, New Brunswick. A further 1,000,000 shares are due by October 30, 2027 and 2,880,000 by October 30, 2028. The option carries no cash payments and no minimum exploration spend. The optionor keeps a 2% NSR, half of which the company can buy back for $500,000.
The option carries no work commitment, so October 2028 can arrive with 4,000,000 shares issued and no drill hole. The release discloses no geology, no results and no infrastructure distances. The royalty buyback, $500,000 for 1% NSR, is about 21 times the deemed value of this tranche, which shows where the optionor thinks the value sits. The next filing that matters is a permitted work program, not the next share tranche.
