THE DISPATCH

So it’s war then.

You went to bed Thursday with oil at $67. You woke up Saturday morning to a war.

If your inbox looks anything like mine, it's a mess of alerts, hot takes, and panicked forwards. So let's cut through it. Here's what I’ve observed happened over the past four days, what it means for Canadian mining and energy, and why the Medium Countries thesis we've been building in this series just got a whole lot more real.

Take these all with a grain of sand, this is a fluid situation right now.

Friday, February 27. Markets close. Oil's sitting around $67 WTI. Nuclear talks between the US and Iran, mediated by Oman in Geneva, have stalled. Trump had given Iran a 15-day deadline on February 19. That deadline passed with no deal. The largest US military buildup in the Middle East since the 2003 Iraq invasion was already underway.

Saturday, February 28, 1:15 a.m. ET. It starts. Over 100 US aircraft launch from land and sea. Israel sends 200 fighter jets, the largest combat sortie in IAF history, hitting roughly 500 targets across western and central Iran. The US calls it Operation Epic Fury. Israel calls it Operation Roaring Lion. Targets include Iran's missile infrastructure, naval forces, nuclear sites at Natanz and Fordow, and, critically, Supreme Leader Khamenei's compound in Tehran.

Saturday morning. Iranian state media confirms Khamenei is dead. Along with him: the head of the Revolutionary Guard, a senior security adviser, and reportedly around 40 other Iranian officials including the Defence Minister. Iran retaliates immediately, missile barrages targeting Israel, plus strikes on US military bases across six countries: Iraq, Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and the UAE. Iran fires at civilian areas in the UAE and Bahrain. The IRGC claims to have hit 14 US bases.

Saturday afternoon. Iran's Revolutionary Guard broadcasts over maritime radio that the Strait of Hormuz is closed. There's no official closure, it's psychological warfare, but it works. War risk insurance gets cancelled. Shipping traffic through the strait drops 40-50% within hours. By Sunday it's down 81%. Just one crude tanker transits. Zero LNG carriers. Around 240 ships cluster near Bandar Abbas and Fujairah, waiting.

Sunday, March 1. The IRGC claims it hit the USS Abraham Lincoln with four ballistic missiles and struck three oil tankers in the Gulf. Iran hits Qatar's Ras Laffan facility, the single largest LNG plant on Earth, with drone strikes. QatarEnergy shuts down production and declares force majeure. That's 20% of the world's LNG supply, gone. European gas futures spike the most since the 2022 energy crisis. Oil surges 10%. Brent touches $80. WTI crosses $72. Three US troops are confirmed killed, the first American casualties. Trump says the operation could last four to five weeks.

Sunday night into Monday, March 2. Hezbollah launches missiles and drones at Israel from southern Lebanon, claiming it's retaliation for Khamenei's killing. Israel calls it "an official declaration of war by Hezbollah" and strikes Beirut's southern suburbs. The Lebanese government demands Hezbollah hand over its weapons and bans the group's military activity, a massive domestic political shift. Israel begins seizing areas of southern Lebanon. The conflict is no longer contained to Iran.

Monday, March 3. Oil keeps climbing. Brent hits a 19-month high near $80. WTI over $73. Iranian drones strike a fuel tanker in the Strait. Analysts at Bernstein raise their 2026 Brent forecast to $80 but warn prices could hit $120-$150 if the conflict drags on. Goldman says if Hormuz stays shut for a month, European gas prices could more than double. OPEC+ bumps production quotas by ~220,000 bpd, more than expected, but it's a rounding error against the disruption.

That's where we are this morning. A dead supreme leader, a power vacuum in Tehran, a second front in Lebanon, the world's most important energy chokepoint effectively closed, and no off-ramp in sight.

What It Means for Canadian M&E Industry

While all of this was unfolding, Energy Minister Tim Hodgson was standing at PDAC in Toronto, the biggest mining conference on the planet, delivering a keynote that suddenly sounded less like aspirational policy and more like a pitch the world desperately needed to hear.​

"The world right now is feeling incredibly insecure," Hodgson said. And then his phone started ringing. Countries, he wouldn't say which, calling Ottawa asking how fast Canadian energy producers can fill the gap.​

He was honest: "You don't change the amount of production of LNG or oil in days."

But here's the line that matters. The one that separates Canada from the chaos:

"Canada will never use our resources as a coercive tool."​

In a world where Russia turned off the gas to Europe, where China restricts rare earths whenever a dispute flares, where Iran just shut down 20% of global LNG by attacking its own neighbour's facilities, Canada is saying: our word means something. We show up. We deliver. We don't hold your energy security hostage.

That's the Medium Countries thesis in one sentence.

Eric Nuttall at Ninepoint called it a "massive, massive opportunity." He told BNN Bloomberg that Canadian oil sands and Clearwater represent decades of stable supply, and that equity valuations don't reflect where oil is heading. "All prior playbooks are not applicable," he said. Because this isn't a temporary spike followed by a reversion to the mean. This is a structural shift in how the world thinks about where its energy comes from.​

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said the quiet part out loud on Monday: the world needs a new pipeline to Canada's West Coast, and the Iran conflict just made the case for her.​

The PDAC Numbers

Hodgson didn't just talk. He showed up with money:

• 30 new partnerships across 10 allied countries, the EU, and the UN, unlocking $12.1 billion in critical minerals investment​

• Total mobilized under the Critical Minerals Production Alliance: $18.5 billion in six months​

• $3.6 billion in new investment in critical mineral mines and processing

• $1.5 billion First and Last Mile Fund to move minerals from ground to processing

• $2 billion Critical Minerals Sovereign Fund, the first of its kind, allowing Ottawa to make equity investments, loan guarantees, and offtake agreements with mines

"In trade negotiations… our critical minerals are cards in our hands, giving us an advantage as we engage in the world as it is, not as we wish it to be," Hodgson told the PDAC crowd.​

Canada produces 60+ minerals and metals from roughly 200 mines. The sector supports 724,000 jobs. $156 billion in GDP. Exports to 200 countries. World's leading producer of potash. Second in uranium. Third in palladium. Top-five in eleven others.​

And unlike the countries where half the world's supply currently comes from, nobody's launching drones at our processing facilities.

The Medium Country Moment

Edition 1, if you recall, in the previous series was about the rupture, the end of American-led globalization, Carney at Davos saying "the old order is not coming back".

Since then we've tracked medium countries building new partnerships: Canada and South Korea on defence and steel, Canada and the EU on battery minerals and rearmament, critical minerals becoming geopolitical cards.

This weekend just put up a giant billboard that says “Canada - Open for Business!”

Our neighbour to the south is currently busy, missiles flying, bases getting hit, a four-to-five-week military campaign underway, tariffs still live on allies. Washington is taking on the world. That's their choice.

Canada's making a different one. Arms open. Phone answered. Billions deployed. Reliable, predictable, stable. The kind of boring that's worth a premium when tankers are burning in the Strait of Hormuz.

Carney said it at Davos: "Middle powers must act together because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu".​

Monday at PDAC, Canada set the table. The phone is ringing. And we picked up.

// THE DIRT

A Closing Thought

NOTES FROM THE NORTH

I’m heading into PDAC tomorrow to have another gander, hit reply if you’ve got a booth and I’ll try to swing by and say hello.

HUGE updates to the site this week, the new events section is live, so is the “On Air” section (both have updates to come still) as well as a deals section that is going to be coming online this week.

I’d love if you took a look at the updates to the sites that I’ve been working on. I’m pretty proud of it.

Last week to get the rad ad deal I have on right now, on boarding more advertisers each day. I appreciate you all.
_{(7 spots left as of writing this)}

-Lee

Horse for sale, bites often, temperamental, no heat, no A/C - $500 OBO