Good Afternoon Team.
As long-term readers will know, I have highlighted three London-listed junior resource companies as the top plays for 2025:
Sovereign Metals, Greatland Gold & Amaroq Minerals.
SVML operates in Malawi, GGP in Australia, and Amaroq in Greenland. You could not get more disparate locations if you tried.
But what all three share in common is this: extremely competent management, highly desirable assets, and the ability to grow even further than they have already.
Today I want to talk to you about Amaroq from perhaps a different perspective than previously. As you all know, first gold has been poured and the company is on the verge of announcing its MRE update for flagship Nalunaq.
I would encourage anyone new to the story to listen to this fairly comprehensive overview I recorded with the chap in charge of corporate development a couple of months ago.
You might also want to consider this brief rundown if you’re short of time.
The bottom line is that Amaroq will be generating a serious amount of free cash flow by the middle of 2025.
Let’s say it’s Q4 2025. AMRQ is processing around 280 tons per day, with a 92% plant recovery and a diluted grade of 14g/t (all figures in the most recent corporate presentation).
And let’s assume a gold price of today at circa $2,900/oz - where a troy ounce weighs around 31g.
Do some back of a napkin maths and it really does seem ridiculous - and yet, it’s only half of a much, much larger story.
Before we go there though, let’s consider the Trump factor and what it means for the junior.
The Trump Factor
Is Trump mad, bad, or a negotiating genius?
From tariffs to crypto, nobody really knows. What we do know is that he is happy to announce grand plans to change the world map.
He wants Greenland. He wants Canada as a 51st state. He wants to make Gaza into an Israeli casino -or the ‘Riviera of the Middle East.’ I live close to the English Riviera and can promise you that other than eight weeks in the summer, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
I’m pretty sure I also read some nonsense about the Panama Canal.
This would all be quite funny, except the man is in charge of the most powerful empire on Earth, and is treating international diplomacy as you might a game of Monopoly. Everyone is worried he might flip the board, so everyone does what he says.
Until someone calls his bluff.
But I digress.
Trump is unlikely to bring Greenland under US ‘ownership,’ though it is likely that he wants to bring the region further under the United States’ sphere of influence.
Greenland’s Parliament (population 56,865) has called a snap election for 11 March 2025 - but while Trumpian pressure clearly had a hand in this decision, it seems clear they don’t want Trump in charge.
The US President has on record noted (abridged comments):
‘I think we're going to have it. I think the people want to be with us. I don't really know what claim Denmark has to it, but it would be a very unfriendly act if they didn't allow that to happen because it's for the protection of the free world. I think Greenland we'll get because it has to do with freedom of the world. It has nothing to do with the United States other than that we're the one that can provide the freedom. They can't.’
Ruling party leader Erik Jensen has advised that should he be re-elected, he will accelerate the independence process by triggering Section 21 of the Greenland Self-Government Act, and hold an independence referendum within the next parliament.
Jensen has already admitted that Trump’s views are partially behind this plan - though independence is not going to be easy. Denmark currently pays Greenland a sizeable grant worth around £500 million a year - and polling indicates Greenlanders want this to continue.
Perhaps the US will stump up? Nvidia fluctuates by this amount in minutes.
Regardless, the territory is going to attract ever more interest.
It’s home to Thule Air Base - an important strategic US military base which hosts an early-warning radar system critical for missile defense. It’s critical for US security given Russia's presence in the region.
Greenland is also incredibly rich in rare earths (which China dominates - note that two REEs were subject to Chinese export bans last year - and Trump has already told Ukraine he wants theirs).
But Greenland also has copper, nickel, oil and gas (though oil and gas exploration has been banned since 2021 in climate concerns) - and as the ice caps melt, these elements are going to become both more geographically accessible, and more financially accessible.
Melting ice is not just a climate issue - you are going to see new Arctic shipping routes, and Greenland will control them like Cape Town controls trade around the tip of Africa.
Of course, China itself has shown keen interest in Greenland, including attempts to invest in infrastructure and mining projects. Getting control is as much about preventing China - and for those thinking it’s impossible that the US will get it, consider the Louisiana Purchase, or when the US bought Alaska from Russia.
In 1946, the US even offered to buy Greenland from Denmark for $100 million - and Trump floated the idea again during his first term.
How to play Greenland
Amaroq is, by a long distance, the best way to gain exposure to Greenland’s resources.
Yes, it is primarily a gold miner - but rebranded from AEX Gold specifically because it views itself as a long-term multi-commodity producer - and there is literally no rival getting anywhere close to the company’s competitive edge.
Who else is in Greenland?
Well there’s Lumina Sustainable Materials - majority owned by Cordiant, which produces anorthosite (an essential ingredient in fibre glass). That’s the only other actual operating mine in-country.
ASX-listed Energy Transition Minerals’ Kvanefjeld project was put on hold because uranium was found alongside the REEs (though a legal battle is ongoing to get it unlocked).
ASX-listed Critical Metals spent $200 million on Tanbreez - a gallium rich deposit, but with no infrastructure in place.
And then there’s many frontier explorers - from 80M to GreenRoc - but the bottom line is that only Amaroq has the operational expertise and financial capacity to develop Greenland.
But it’s not just about the money.
Rio Tinto CEO Jakob Stausholm noted last month: ‘We have looked at Greenland, we have been exploring it for 15 years. We have never been able to come up with a profitable project.’
You need to live the land, and understand it - and Amaroq is staffed and run, from top to bottom, by people who do. Just read the biography of the CEO.
These people don’t just understand the region, they care about it.
This matters.
Amaroq is the largest strategic license holder in the country, with 6,800 square kilometres under its belt - including most recently the Johan Dahl licenses. AMRQ now holds 3,147 square kilometres of the South Greenland Copper Belt, through its Gardaq Joint Venture.
Other operators have had to hand licenses back for lack of activity. AMRQ is the activity - with 20 active project sites across copper, nickel and rare earths.
Some of these are in Joint Venture, but the bottom line is that nobody can hold a candle to their exploration efforts.
The company has more than 20 active project sites - four of them advanced - exploring a proven copper porphyry, nickel at its Voisey’s Bay analogy (the major deposit across the Labrador Sea which sold for CAD$4.3 billion in 1996 dollars) and rare earths in the Gardar province.
Upcoming Exploration News Flow
And these exploration efforts are bearing fruit. Right now we’re waiting for:
75 Vein Resampling Results
Nalunaq 2024 Surface Drilling Results
Nalunaq Outcrop Sampling Results
Nanoq Scout Drilling Results
Eagle’s Nest Surface Sampling Results
Stendalen Exploration Drilling Results
Stendalen Downhole Geophysics Results
Target North Scout Drilling Results
Josva Scout Drilling Results
Copper Belt Reconnaissance Results
But its own exploration is not all. Because Amaroq is the only game it town, it could become the cornerstone of all Greenland mineral exploration.
You can see this for yourself in its corporate presentation:
There is effectively no point in any other company drilling for metals in Greenland by themselves. Amaroq can do it cheaper, more efficiently, and with better results.
And whether Trump gets his way or not, this is not going to change.
The bottom line
‘Greenland’ mining is going to become an investing theme.
There’s only one way to play it.
Amaroq.