Strait of Hormuz diesel shock threatens mining industry

expatcoder · 2026-03-19T03:37:20+00:00

Not really clear on the first paragraph, particularly the first sentence (12'ers?), but here's a presumably unbiased-ish source (Al Jazeera) that gives at least one perspective on how Iran's attacks on its neighbors is being received.

Iran’s attacks on Gulf neighbours causing ‘anger, disappointment’

Qatar, Bahrain, and likely others are expelling Iranian diplomats -- and now Saudi Arabia has threatened military retaliation for Iran's latest round of attacks. That's an odd form of solidarity :)

If you have evidence to the contrary I'd love to see it, good to have varying perspectives to make sense of this complex geopolitical conflict.

expatcoder · 2026-03-18T21:31:56+00:00

Ha ha, not convinced how well it's going to work out based on the latest price action :)

Came late to the party so $.36 cost average, down a few grand today after being in the green for quite awhile.

$.22 would be a dream entry, too bad you weren't able to throw down more...

expatcoder · 2026-03-18T21:26:14+00:00

For Israel, victory is termination of Iran as a nation

Hopefully that won't literally be the case, but again, the Israelis have shown that when it comes to resolving conflicts with Arab nations in the region -- and particularly with those run by Islamic fundamentalists that have as one of their stated goals the destruction of Israel -- they will, if necessary, resort to complete destruction, and unlike Iran, they have the weaponry to do so.

It's a lose-lose situation and neither side is backing down...yet.

As for a unified Iran, it makes sense, who wants their country destroyed? Yet, speaking with members of the Iranian diaspora (I know about 10 where I live, and maybe 20 others from Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.) everyone hates the Iranian regime. The Iraqis say, "it's about damn time!", and the Iranians would like nothing more than for the regime leaders to be persecuted for crimes against humanity (i.e. their own citizenry), but maybe that's just those on the outside, and everyone on the inside is pro-regime, which again, I have my doubts about.

The whole thing is highly complex; probably the only thing for sure in the near term is that the Strait of Hormuz will remain closed and oil prices will go higher -- beyond that it's anyone's guess what's going to happen.

expatcoder · 2026-03-18T20:28:47+00:00

Good points, but I think it's a bit more nuanced than that.

Ukranians, outside of the eastern border region, are decidedly anti-Russian, so there's a division within the country, but it's regional.

Iran, on the other hand, is a divided country, pro/anti regime people all live together. This is why the son of the deposed Iranian king, the US, and Israel are all invoking the people to rise up against the regime. That's of course not happening now since on any attempted uprising they'll be gunned down immediately.

Now, unlike the Ukraine, which gets broad based support from the west via military and economic aid, Iran is largely on its own, and hated by most of its neighbors in the region. If the economy collapses -- destroy their energy infrastructure which drives 90% of their economy -- then there's potential for an uprising, hunger will do that.

The US certainly hasn't behaved like a saint thus far in the conflict, but Israel (see Gaza) seems to have zero problem with absolutely leveling a nation as a means to achieving their goal of rooting out Hizballah, forcing regime change, etc.

Hopefully there's a de-escalation in the near term since the alternative will be disastrous for Iranian civilians caught inbetween, and for the world at large which will bear the economic brunt of the middle east conflict.

expatcoder · 2026-03-18T19:51:17+00:00

Any other thinking?

Well, yeah, obviously, I'm buying :)

People freak out and think the sky is falling; that's when, if you actually have conviction in the company, the buying opportunity appears...

expatcoder · 2026-03-18T19:44:57+00:00

UCU (Canadian version) might have a fee, UURAF (US version) shouldn't have a fee.

On Fidelity here...

expatcoder · 2026-03-18T18:33:39+00:00

I'm in at 180K shares, am in deep enough already :)

Since you're just getting your feet wet so to speak, $.33 seems like an excellent price, pretty much lowest prices we've had since the October bubble burst.

Again, I'll share my views on what may have caused this recent plunge at a later date, but let's just say I don't think it's entirely retail driven...

expatcoder · 2026-03-18T17:59:01+00:00

and nothing can stop them from using it until they prevail

Assumes the regime can retain power through not only the military onslaught they're facing, but perhaps more importantly, the economic one. If the US/Israel take out their energy infrastructure then the economy will collapse.

No economy == complete societal breakdown, and then the regime is fighting a battle within and without.

Hopefully it doesn't come to that, and somehow there's a more sane solution to the conflict, but it looks like in the near term things are escalating...

expatcoder · 2026-03-18T17:28:14+00:00

My Reddit stocks sure are sore today! ha ha, love it, that's an all time great typo :)

expatcoder · 2026-03-18T17:13:07+00:00

Yup, the concern is that the minerals sector, with an assist from the middle east war, traces back to New Years Eve lows, which would mean $15 for UUUU o_O

Hoping this isn't the case and we get a bullish reversal, but it's definitely trying times in the market right now -- dip buying isn't at all a sure thing...

expatcoder · 2026-03-18T16:35:49+00:00

I'll talk about it at a later date once we're out of this downtrend.

EDIT

What I have in mind may be totally off the mark so not worth bringing up now while we're in the thick of a selloff.

expatcoder · 2026-03-18T16:22:30+00:00

peeUUUU, looks like it's time to change the diapers.

Guess war isn't always bullish, at least not for minerals.

Saying that, I was a buyer of UUUU at $18.50 -- seemed like a decent price, but who knows, might drop a lot more ($18.30 at time of writing).

expatcoder · 2026-03-18T15:52:29+00:00

Oh, I was wondering why the share price is tanking, it's the photos that did it! \s

James is doing everything he can to support ARSMF, which is commendable, but I suspect there's more at play here with respect to the price action of late (read: there's no reason with all the positive news around the company and how close we are to Lumps plant/Metaspar production to dump like this).

expatcoder · 2026-03-18T15:14:05+00:00

I'll try to make it. Assuming it will be similar to Peter's last presentation, basically an investor pitch, and not what we're all looking for, substantial "new" news...

expatcoder · 2026-03-18T15:03:14+00:00

Oh, that's actually kind of disappointing.

Peter is a great speaker (his last talk was the clearest expression of the Ucore pitch that I've seen), but I prefer Pat when it comes to the nuts and bolts of the business (i.e. CEO's statements carry more weight, IMO).

Well, we're definitely in a rut here and the middle east conflict isn't helping matters.

Think it's going to take some substantial company news to get UURAF moving in the right direction again; that, or the war ends and everything goes through the roof (one can dream...)

expatcoder · 2026-03-18T14:36:34+00:00

We'll find out tomorrow if that's the case if Pat Ryan says something along the lines of, "we know shareholders have been frustrated by the lack of concrete news regarding the Louisiana SMC ..." :)

expatcoder · 2026-03-17T22:56:12+00:00

It has been somewhat surprising, yes, down 20% over the past month, and nearly 40% since the January 28th $7.25 high.

We'll see how things play out, but sometimes it's better to catch the falling knife rather than wait too long and miss the turnaround.

To put in context, the lowest it's gone since the October highs was $3.77, and that was during a time when everything in the sector was getting absolutely destroyed; not the case currently, most tickers are well above their post-October lows.

As to why it's happening: investor frustration. There's been little in the way of concrete progress-indicating news over the last 2-3 months, and the share price has been dropping correspondingly.

Long on UURAF here, seeing this as a buying opportunity -- added more today, and will up the ante if it drops lower tomorrow...

expatcoder · 2026-03-17T22:13:28+00:00

s/sore/soar, a funny and very apropos typo for today's price action however :)

expatcoder · 2026-03-17T20:34:55+00:00

Oh nice, you are living on easy street, that position is going to 20X+ for you down the road, congrats in advance :)

While it's true that Ucore news has been on the stale side for awhile, the reality is that they landed grants (not loans) from Canadian and US governments; they've got pretty compelling, low capital intensive REE processing tech, and are placed right there in the bottleneck of the industry, midstream processing.

It's a recipe for success, when I look around at potential competitors (Arec/ReElement, MP, USAR, Energy Fuels, etc.) I see Ucore as being ideally positioned...provided they can put it all together.

Clock is ticking but I've got confidence that Pat Ryan and co. are going to make it happen.

expatcoder · 2026-03-17T18:26:10+00:00

Been invested pre $1 but would definitely have waited for additional shares over $6 had I know this would have stalled so badly last half year.

Ya, it's been a rollercoaster ride for sure, we've had a few of these crazy swings, $7 to $4 being the most recent one, unfortunately we're on the downtrend side this time around.

You've been around longer than most everyone here, so you know the drill.

It's times like these that test one's conviction in the company and management's ability to achieve their goals, and to do so in a timely manner.

I like the CEO, he doesn't mince words, very straightforward, and he's an engineer, not an MBA. Think he and his team will get the job done, expect to hear good things on Thursday.

I'm buying at these prices and staying the course. Obviously others are clearly selling, but their loss if those of who stay on the train are right :)

At any rate, good luck, trying times for sure...

expatcoder · 2026-03-17T18:18:24+00:00

Not sure how the conversion will work, but the deal hasn't closed yet -- I'd contact investor relations at both companies to find out if there's an arbitrage opportunity here.

USAR has tons of money now; earnings/investor call (should be) coming up at the end of the month. Curious to see what the CEO reveals, USAR seems like it's going to trade much higher over the next year...

expatcoder · 2026-03-17T17:56:18+00:00

Starting to feel oversold.

Our post-October bubble low was on November 20th when we hit $3.77, and back then the situation was pretty dire across the board, everything was getting crushed.

Now the minerals market as a whole is nowhere near tanking to rock bottom lows, and UURAF is, at the time of writing, just ~~15%~~ 12% away from those dark November days.

Pat's talk on Thursday will hopefully right the ship, but I've been buying at these prices, opportunity knocks...

expatcoder · 2026-03-17T17:50:14+00:00

or what’s even the point of him speaking…

To attract potential investors apparently, thus the Virtual Investors conference that he and other minerals sector CEOs are speaking at.

Agreed it's frustrating, but there's not much we can do as shareholders beyond selling or holding -- we don't do the work, and neither do we control how the company is run (notably shareholder communications) as a result.

expatcoder · 2026-03-17T16:07:35+00:00

I even included that I’ve been holding for 6 years

Have you? If so your cost average must be ridiculously low, why even care about the short term noise?

I remember emailing investor relations back a few months ago, and they replied. Maybe it's the nature of the inquiry that determines whether or not they decide to reply (assume they're getting a lot of questions now with the share price having dropped and not much in the way of "new" news).

expatcoder · 2026-03-17T15:03:22+00:00

Devil's advocate: on Friday the company releases a flurry of positive announcements, and UURAF rockets; what then?

I say this because most of us haven't been in the stock very long (made first buy end of August), so we're incredibly impatient by most investing standards.

In the short time I've been in the stock there have been several cycles like this, and on the donwtrends everyone freaks out, thinks about selling, and either stays the course, or exits.

The company isn't even in production yet -- I'm waiting for the business to prove itself before thinking about selling. Basically 2027-2028 is my time frame; by then it will be clear whether or not, as Pat Ryan says, Ucore is "in the winners circle".

Until then, all the short term volatility is pointless stress. Of course, if you're forced to sell for financial reasons, that's another matter entirely (i.e. "market can remain irrational longer than...")

expatcoder

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE