Midnight Sun Mining (MMA.V, MDNGF)

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Midnight Sun Mining (MMA.V, MDNGF)

An 'Experts Roundtable' Conversation

Matt Smith @ Crisis Investing

Lau Vegys

, and

Doug Casey

May 05, 2025

Our panel of experts put Midnight Sun Mining (TSX-V: MMA, OTCQB: MDNGF) under the microscope recently.

Where Is It, and What’s There?

Midnight Sun’s Solwezi Project covers about 500 km² in Zambia’s Domes District, sandwiched between First Quantum’s Kansanshi mine and Barrick’s Lumwana super-pit. Inside that land package are four separate prospects:

Dumbwa – a 20-km copper-in-soil streak the size of Manhattan.
Kazhiba (a.k.a. 22 Zone) – shallow, high-grade oxide blanket with deeper sulphide potential.
Mitu – a 17-km trend already showing both oxide and sulphide hits.
Crunch Zone – early-stage soil/copper anomaly between the domes.

Midnight Sun’s Game Plan in Two Tracks

Quick cash: Mine the easy, shallow oxide copper at Kazhiba/Mitu and truck it a few kilometres to First Quantum’s processing plant. That could start generating revenue in roughly a year once the toll-treating deal is finalized.
Big prize: Drill 10,000 m at Dumbwa to see if the huge soil anomaly hides a “company-making” sulphide deposit. Dr. Kevin Bonel, ex-Barrick geologist who helped add over 1 billion tons to Barrick’s Lumwana mine, is running the exploration.

Novice-Friendly Takeaway

Think of Midnight Sun as a junior explorer with two bets: A quick-win cash machine by scooping shallow copper dirt and selling it to the big mine next door; and a home-run drill play chasing a giant copper body just beneath the soil. They have enough cash for this year’s work, an experienced Lumwana-veteran geologist in charge, and brand-new targets to test.

This presentation was filmed for our Experts Roundtable series, where veteran speculators & mining experts—Doug Casey, Brent Cook, Lawrence Roulston, Lobo Tigre, Byron King, Brien Lundin, Micky Fulp, Nick Giambruno and others—listen to the company pitch then grill the company on geology, management, and valuation.

Disclosure: Companies pay to present on Doug Casey’s Experts Roundtable, but the questions are real and the feedback unfiltered.

How the Experts Grilled Midnight Sun—and How Kevin Bonel Calmed the Storm

This roundtable is long but highly instructive because it consists of two sessions. In the first, we heard the pitch but our experts had many unanswered questions. So, Adrian O’Brien, Director of Marketing and Communications at Midnight Sun Mining, brought Kevin Bonel, Chief Operating Officer, on for a round two.

Part 1 – The Hot Seat

Data transparency – Brien Lundin asked for drill sections from the 54 holes into Kazhiba’s high-grade oxide blanket; none were ready yet, raising skepticism.
Geological coherence – Brent Cook couldn’t reconcile the scattered geochem anomalies on the slides and pressed for clearer maps and pointers.
Valuation risk – Lobo Tigre warned that at a ±C$40M market cap “there’s plenty of room to get hurt” if the facts don’t back the story.

The panel left unconvinced; they wanted a deeper dive into geology, budget, and timelines.

Part 2 – Enter Dr. Kevin Bonel (starting at ~1:35:00 into the video)

A follow-up session was scheduled specifically so Dr. Kevin Bonel—Chief Operating Officer at Midnight Sun Mining—could tackle the hard questions head-on.

Methodical plan – Bonel laid out a 16-line-km IP survey followed by up to 10,000 m of core drilling at Dumbwa, explaining why IP first would slash wasted meters.
Live 3-D demo – He screen-shared soil, VTEM and stratigraphy models, distinguishing hard-rock sulphides from transported-oxide palaeochannels—answering Cook’s earlier confusion in real time.
Scale & grades – Bonel pegged Mitu’s conservative target at 15-20 Mt grading ~1 % Cu and detailed a two-step drilling approach: RC for oxides, diamond for deeper sulphides.
Cost discipline – He argued every dollar saved on geophysics goes “straight into drill meters,” echoing Byron King’s mantra of de-risking before big spend.

Result: By the end of Part 2, the experts agreed the curtain had finally been lifted. They got the technical depth they’d demanded, a clear spend plan, and proof that Bonel has the same playbook that found Lumwana’s billion-ton extensions. The project still has to deliver systematic drill results, but the panel left the call “cautiously optimistic” instead of merely curious.

Disclosure: Doug Casey and Matt Smith both own shares of Midnight Sun.

Fresh Developments Since the Roundtable Session Was Filmed

Feb 27, 2024 – Recent sampling and IP work have outlined three new oxide targets and a 4 km × 2 km sulphide target at Kazhiba. Drilling is set to begin in early Q2. This ups the exploration pipeline, with Kazhiba offering the potential for both quick-cash oxide production and deeper, more valuable “source” sulphides.
Apr 02, 2025 – Phase-one exploration program is underway: 56 line-km of IP at Dumbwa, 4,000 meters of RC drilling and 1,000 meters of core drilling at Kazhiba, plus 1,800 Ionic-Leach samples at Mitu.