“Decade of the Miner”: Generational Opportunity & Smarter Due Diligence with Expert Jonathan Goodman

MiningStockEducation.com Apr 6, 2026

Summary

Goodman calls mining a generational opportunity: generalists abandoned the sector after 2010, and North America now needs its own mines.

His core warning: discounted cash flow models and NI 43-101 studies are engineering stage gates, not valuation tools.

The real signal sits in a study's recommendations and risk sections, where engineers flag where their numbers are least comfortable.

Orebody quality comes first. Good engineering cannot rescue a deposit, but a weak team can always be replaced.

He argues merchant banks hold their NAV discount because earnings are unpredictable, and only steady cash flow closes it.

Goodman uses Agnico's flagship underground gold mine — the deposit referred to in the interview as the 'demography' deposit, later renamed — as his model of a small mine that grew into a major asset, starting at roughly 750,000 ounces at about 5 grams per tonne.
He says the mine began as a joint venture with Noranda and became an Agnico asset after the parties settled a lawsuit.
Its small scale let Agnico keep fine-tuning metallurgy as it went, which he contrasts with today's majors wanting years of drilling and a multi-billion-dollar build they cannot adjust.
Because volcanogenic massive sulphide deposits often come in multiples, he argues each extra deposit found underground takes risk out, and that the mine likely has more ore ahead of it than behind.
He also notes the deposit would be turned down today: taking a mine of that size to major producers, he says, they would not raise it with management.

Goodman says Barrick's deal with Reunion Gold let Barrick earn controlling interest in any project Reunion advanced, which he describes as negative leverage for Reunion shareholders.
Barrick passed on the property after reviewing the trench work, telling the team the project did not have the potential — an assessment Goodman calls 'music to my ears'.
His general point is that nobody can judge ultimate potential from a surface expression of geology when the answer may sit 500 or 1,000 metres down, so a major's rejection often marks the opportunity for smaller investors.

Goodman cites the Yanacocha partnership with Newmont as his best case for starting small and scaling, and Buenaventura's part in it as the model he would copy.
The first mine was built for about $40 million, half equity and half debt, on a heap-leached hill with zero strip ratio, and he says it made more money than he can describe.
Each additional deposit was funded from cash flow and debt rather than new equity, so the junior partner's cash calls never put it under pressure — in his words, the junior became a senior.
He credits the Peru-based, family-run company with building an empire as part owner of a project it funded out of its own cash generation.

Goodman cites Fruta del Norte in Ecuador, which he calls one of the world's most successful gold companies, as the comparison point when assessing Westhaven Gold.
He distinguishes the geology, noting Fruta del Norte is high-sulfidation while Westhaven's system is low-sulfidation epithermal, but treats the deposit types as similar enough to compare.

Goodman calls Yanacocha one of Newmont's greatest lines and uses it, a partnership with Buenaventura, as his example of starting small and funding each new deposit from cash flow.
He says the first mine was a heap leach on a hill with a zero strip ratio — they simply leached the rock — built for about $40 million, split between $20 million of equity and $20 million of debt.
A second deposit was built for roughly the same $40 million, again half cash flow and half debt, and he estimates the operation reached about 3 million ounces of gold a year.
He says Newmont never had to write another equity cheque, refinancing the expansion with cash flow and debt lines.

Top takeaway Powers frames the interview around Goodman's published claim that mining has entered a 'generational opportunity', and presses him on whether Canadian and US governments will actually follow through on streamlining permitting.
He drives the due-diligence thread — that PEA, PFS and feasibility studies are engineering stage gates being used as valuation tools — and asks what a retail listener new to mining stocks should actually do.

Top takeaway Goodman's core thesis is that mining has entered a generational opportunity: generalist investors walked away around 2010 and are still underweight, while North America has woken up to needing its own raw materials. He expects the next 10 to 30 years to be better than the last for people in mining.
On permitting, he says it should not take a decade and that none of the environmental issues justify that; he was contacted by the Ontario minister's office in the week before the interview asking how to help, and he expects new mines to be built in Canada and the US.
He says discounted cash flow is the wrong valuation tool, quoting Robert Friedland calling DCF models 'BS', and adds the quip that you can always get net present value by building the mine and owning it. His example: a Bulgarian mine he bought in 2003 was valued on a 7-8 year life and 4-5 million tonnes a year, and by 2026 runs at 2.2 million tonnes a year on a 10-year life and is still finding more.
He argues the NI 43-101 stage gates were built as engineering checks, not valuation tools, but have become marketing documents that engineers sign off on at the edge of their comfort — so the industry has built disappointment into its own framework.
His ranking is orebody first: the one thing good engineering cannot fix is the ore body. A sound deposit in a badly run project can be rescued by changing management; a misread deposit cannot.