Mining Can Make You Rich or Wipe You Out | Ross Beaty

The Deep Dive Aug 20, 2026

Summary

Beaty likens exploration investing to a casino — high risk, low return, though rare 10-bagger discoveries can emerge on the Lassonde curve.

Equinox Gold targets ~1.9 million ounces of annual production via Nevada's new Railroad mine and existing assets, with no further deals required.

Beaty personally bought $10 million of Equinox shares after retiring, citing the team's growth runway and a strong balance sheet.

Lumina Metals' Polish copper-silver deposit ranks among the world's largest, with $6 billion capex financing plausibly available in today's market.

Beaty kills project interest in the first hour over non-geological issues: no water, no power, hostile communities, or missing roads.

Ross argues Equinox has a 'really assured future': 1.1M oz production this year and a built-in path to ~1.9M oz in a few years without further M&A, which he says would put it in the global top-10 gold producers.
Ross says he retired as chair about two weeks ago, right after closing the Orla combination deal; he invested $10M of his own money in new shares, has not sold since over a year ago, and is staying on as an adviser.
The portfolio is loaded with growth: a Nevada record of decision under the Fast 41 program just announced for a new mine adding ~133,000 oz, a Valentine mine expansion in Newfoundland, and the now-resolved Los Filos land deal in Mexico, which Ross calls the biggest deposit in the portfolio and capable of generating 200,000-500,000 oz/year.
The balance sheet is described as very solid with significant cash and cash generation, and new chair Chuck Janes (ex-Goldcorp CEO) plus a new CEO are positioned to execute the growth plan.

Ross founded Pan American after selling his first company Equinox Resources to Hecla, and says his goal at the time was to build the biggest silver mining company on the planet.
Ross argues Peru has been Pan American's best jurisdiction in Latin America for the past 30 years despite a violent history, and Bolivia has been its safest and most hassle-free jurisdiction.

Top takeaway Ross is cautiously bullish on mining because critical minerals are 'in vogue,' capital is abundant, and political and social acceptance of mining is at its highest of his career — but he explicitly throws cold water, warning that synchronous global encouragement of mining will produce a 'wall of new supply' 4-7 years out and that metals are at peaky cyclical highs.
His first-hour deal-killer is not geology but infrastructure and surroundings: no water, no power, no roads, or a community or cemetery sitting on or next to the ore body (he cites Yukon power and diesel costs as the kind of thing that turns a great deposit into a bad project).
On social license, he argues you should hold your nose and take the long view because quantified deposits have fundamental value; he says Bolivia and Peru 'got right' and Argentina (Navidad), Russia, and arguably Guatemala 'got wrong,' though the Tahoe gold mines bundled with the Guatemala deal turned the acquisition profitable.
His investment thesis is to buy hated or forgotten assets and time metal cycles, leaning on the Lassonde curve: discovery-stage juniors can produce 10-20 baggers, and when a metal price spikes even companies with 20-year paths to production rally across the board regardless of fundamentals.

Top takeaway Host Steve frames the conversation around Canada's permitting, the Equinox-Orla combination, and why Ross is 'cautiously bullish,' then pushes him on whether the U.S. Fast 41 program offers lessons for Canada's major-projects office.
He surfaces the Yukon power-supply concern from his own recent Whitehorse project visits, which Ross treats as a real example of the infrastructure risk that deters developers even when the geology is strong.