1
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Everybody screams are heavy. 
Rehearse in USA and terrible. 

2
00:00:04,080 --> 00:00:08,640
Well, last year China exported 
to the US 60kg of dysprosium, 

3
00:00:09,160 --> 00:00:11,960
10kg of turbulent. 
It's not really a very 

4
00:00:11,960 --> 00:00:20,080
irrelevant market. 
Energy. 

5
00:00:21,480 --> 00:00:23,720
It's tacky. 
I don't know if you've been 

6
00:00:23,720 --> 00:00:26,280
following what's going on. 
In the rare earth market, maybe 

7
00:00:26,440 --> 00:00:29,240
you've been paying attention. 
Rare earths have become the 

8
00:00:29,440 --> 00:00:32,040
hottest topic in global news, 
right China. 

9
00:00:32,479 --> 00:00:35,200
US embargoes? 
Export crunch downs. 

10
00:00:35,680 --> 00:00:39,080
It's called mainstream, like the
the conversation around rare 

11
00:00:39,080 --> 00:00:42,600
earths, which is kind of crazy 
because we're in the world of 

12
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like mining news and I don't 
feel like I know enough about 

13
00:00:44,520 --> 00:00:47,480
this yet somehow the mainstream 
has like an opinion on rare 

14
00:00:47,480 --> 00:00:50,080
earth, on rare earth projects, 
like share prices of weird 

15
00:00:50,120 --> 00:00:53,080
projects are going crazy. 
It's a, it's a, it's a truly 

16
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bizarre time. 
Weird projects to say the least.

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00:00:55,120 --> 00:00:57,960
Yeah. 
So I just really wanted to kind 

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00:00:57,960 --> 00:01:00,480
of get to the bottom of what's 
going on, what it means, what's 

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00:01:00,480 --> 00:01:05,160
relevant to markets by summoning
three of the best thinkers I 

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00:01:05,160 --> 00:01:08,800
know that are obsessed and 
addicted to the rare earth 

21
00:01:08,800 --> 00:01:13,000
industry. 
A truly All Star crowd like rare

22
00:01:13,000 --> 00:01:17,600
earth observer, DK sustainable 
dude, this is, you know, All 

23
00:01:17,600 --> 00:01:21,240
Star type material to actually 
just teach us and help us and 

24
00:01:21,240 --> 00:01:23,560
the money miners learn about 
what is going on, right? 

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00:01:23,840 --> 00:01:26,480
Absolute All Star crowd I'm. 
I'm pretty excited to share this

26
00:01:26,480 --> 00:01:29,200
conversation. 
This panel of absolute rare 

27
00:01:29,200 --> 00:01:33,520
Earth Experts JD is brought to 
you by the Mining Experts MMS 

28
00:01:33,520 --> 00:01:36,640
Mineral Mining Services. 
Mate, the team that specializes 

29
00:01:36,640 --> 00:01:40,000
in maximizing operational 
efficiencies across WA mine 

30
00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:42,680
sites. 
MMS, the go to name when it 

31
00:01:42,680 --> 00:01:47,080
comes to turnkey contract mining
services all the way technical 

32
00:01:47,080 --> 00:01:48,640
services to your open pit mining
here's. 

33
00:01:48,920 --> 00:01:50,200
What you need to know? 
No money minus. 

34
00:01:50,200 --> 00:01:52,840
They will tailor the solution to
fit your needs. 

35
00:01:53,160 --> 00:01:55,720
There is no job across the state
that they can't handle. 

36
00:01:55,720 --> 00:01:58,200
They just get it done. 
JD the proof is in the pudding 

37
00:01:58,200 --> 00:02:01,120
here with the results they've 
delivered for companies across 

38
00:02:01,200 --> 00:02:03,880
the state came from nowhere. 
They are killing it. 

39
00:02:04,320 --> 00:02:06,720
Get in touch with MMS and see 
what value they can unlock. 

40
00:02:06,720 --> 00:02:09,199
For you get it done. 
Go MMS. 

41
00:02:09,199 --> 00:02:12,000
Go MMS. 
Utterly delighted to be joined 

42
00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:16,160
by three of the preeminent 
experts in the rare earth 

43
00:02:16,240 --> 00:02:18,600
industry. 
This expert panel is led by none

44
00:02:18,600 --> 00:02:21,280
other than the rare Earth 
observer, Thomas Crummer. 

45
00:02:21,400 --> 00:02:24,000
Everyone would be very familiar 
with your blog, which is 

46
00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:27,280
prolific for anyone who wants to
get up the curve in rare earth. 

47
00:02:27,680 --> 00:02:30,200
An up and coming person who's 
been writing very thoughtfully 

48
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is Sustainable Dude, which is 
the frog you see on camera right

49
00:02:33,120 --> 00:02:34,040
now. 
Hilarious. 

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00:02:34,200 --> 00:02:35,680
Well done. 
I'm loving that Sustainable 

51
00:02:35,680 --> 00:02:38,000
Dude. 
And to round out the panel, 

52
00:02:38,040 --> 00:02:41,680
we've got Dylan Kelly or DK of 
Terror Capital, who has come on 

53
00:02:41,680 --> 00:02:44,200
before and has that investor 
lens in the buy side, kind of 

54
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equities in the names and has 
shared with us generously in the

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past his rules for investing in 
the very complex rare earths 

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space. 
Because by the way, a lot of the

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time, gentlemen, thank you so 
much for making the time to talk

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about rare earths. 
What a topical commodity to be 

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00:02:58,200 --> 00:03:01,200
talking about right now. 
I've never seen rare earths so 

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00:03:01,200 --> 00:03:03,480
hot, although I'm sure they have
been in the past. 

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It's not entirely rare, after 
all, for it to be topical. 

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No, it's true. 
I think I also made a tweet 

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about this before. 
Interesting red flag. 

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Consider it a red flag, and now 
it's market foresight, so times 

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can change. 
Absolutely. 

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What is going on? 
I'm struggling to make sense of 

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what's real, what's not, what's 
policy, what's conjecture, what 

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is moving markets like if we 
were just to kind of step back 

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and assume that I know nothing 
about what's happening 

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geopolitically right now, which 
is true. 

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What the hell is going on? 
I want to go straight to the gut

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on all things in the subject 
matter. 

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00:03:41,280 --> 00:03:43,680
Thomas. 
What's, what's the story mate? 

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00:03:43,680 --> 00:03:47,400
What's is the geopolitical 
problem? 

75
00:03:48,240 --> 00:03:52,840
Reality. 
Or is it really just a fuss 

76
00:03:52,840 --> 00:03:58,640
about nothing? 
Well, when, when China started 

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00:03:58,680 --> 00:04:03,920
messing around with with gallium
and germanium, I, I'm used that 

78
00:04:04,360 --> 00:04:10,000
if, if they would blanket 
Bandra's exports this that they 

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would shoot themselves with an 
elephant rifle into both feet. 

80
00:04:14,520 --> 00:04:19,160
So, and actually they didn't 
several years ago, I think 

81
00:04:19,160 --> 00:04:23,480
somebody in the Chinese Foreign 
ministry said that China does 

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not want to aid the production 
of weapons that can threaten 

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00:04:28,080 --> 00:04:31,600
China. 
And what they did I think over 

84
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many years was to work out which
are the most relevant materials.

85
00:04:37,480 --> 00:04:43,960
And I think this seven element 
ban or say dual use 

86
00:04:43,960 --> 00:04:48,640
classification may have come. 
Anyway, it is not really related

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00:04:48,640 --> 00:04:52,400
to the trade war, and that is 
why the Americans have also so 

88
00:04:52,400 --> 00:04:56,000
much trouble to make the Chinese
take a step back from that, 

89
00:04:56,520 --> 00:05:00,360
because from the Chinese side it
may not be really related. 

90
00:05:00,360 --> 00:05:04,320
It would have come anyway. 
My view for all of the seven 

91
00:05:04,320 --> 00:05:08,680
elements, for each of them, 
there is at least one Pentagon 

92
00:05:08,680 --> 00:05:14,040
contractor who is a major user 
of this product, of the relevant

93
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product. 
That is probably why these seven

94
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were chosen. 
The seven also referred to the 

95
00:05:20,920 --> 00:05:25,360
six strategic weaknesses that 
the Chinese military has 

96
00:05:25,360 --> 00:05:28,920
published. 
I think it's less trade war 

97
00:05:28,920 --> 00:05:31,480
related. 
Also now the result from the 

98
00:05:31,480 --> 00:05:35,920
talks in London shows that the 
Chinese side has absolutely no 

99
00:05:35,920 --> 00:05:39,720
intention to reverse this in any
way. 

100
00:05:40,360 --> 00:05:43,240
I'm quite interested like dual 
use makes total sense to me. 

101
00:05:43,600 --> 00:05:45,920
What I've found really 
interesting is that like the six

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records we've seen so scanning 
I'm leaving aside right now 

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because it's like be covered in 
very different process than the 

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other ones. 
Generally, what happened 

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interesting is it also coincides
with very, I would say 

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vulnerable feedstock supply 
chain. 

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I'm wondering what your thoughts
are and does it play a role in 

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this what we've seen today? 
I think Dylan can sing a song 

109
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about this. 
This in general a problem of 

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00:06:11,920 --> 00:06:17,240
everyone who wants to enter rare
earth that rare as production, 

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rare separation, rare as metal 
making and so on that the cost 

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are and the CapEx are probably 
three times as high as sale in 

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China. 
By extension, it would like last

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year in Tokyo, we had the Rare 
Earth Industry Association 

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conference and I was hosting a 
panel of junior minor rare earth

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hopefuls and I just tossed the 
question also what level must 

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rare earth prices be so that you
become feasible And it was 

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Unizomo, the same prices must go
up three times. 

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That is a real problem. 
It's also related to the know 

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how say if you look at recovery 
rates of of junior as miners and

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in the West they are below 
anything that would be 

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00:07:06,120 --> 00:07:09,720
licensable even in China, they 
really squeeze the lemon dry, 

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whereas we recover anywhere 
between 40 and 80%, you know, so

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that that already is a cost 
factor the the know how. 

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Interesting. 
Would you say like putting such 

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a system in place like we've 
seen with this expert licensing 

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00:07:25,680 --> 00:07:30,800
system is also maybe to say 
Myanmar really gets messy. 

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00:07:30,800 --> 00:07:33,440
Like it's already messy, but 
there's still material flowing, 

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00:07:33,920 --> 00:07:38,040
albeit very varying per month. 
Once it's if the dries up, is 

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this something to to like? 
Are you trying to like hatching 

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them themselves here? 
Is that a possible scenario? 

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00:07:43,920 --> 00:07:48,880
You see that that one very 
common misunderstanding is that 

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rare earth products should be 
commodities. 

134
00:07:52,520 --> 00:07:55,480
It is. 
China has made great strides to 

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commoditize them to make sure 
that products are 

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00:07:59,040 --> 00:08:04,640
interchangeable and therefore 
there is more competition among 

137
00:08:04,640 --> 00:08:07,600
manufacturers. 
And of course, you can trade 

138
00:08:07,600 --> 00:08:10,800
them on exchange. 
In the West, we have no 

139
00:08:10,800 --> 00:08:14,120
industrial standards for rarest 
products. 

140
00:08:14,160 --> 00:08:18,640
I understand the international 
standards organization ISO has 

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00:08:18,640 --> 00:08:22,960
been on internationalizing 
Chinese industrial rarest 

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00:08:22,960 --> 00:08:28,240
standards for 10 years. 
And I'm not sure if that is the 

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00:08:28,240 --> 00:08:30,840
preference of the ISO, but 
they've come up with 

144
00:08:30,840 --> 00:08:35,919
sustainability standards, 
recycling standards, packaging 

145
00:08:35,919 --> 00:08:39,679
standards, you know, all the 
fringe stuff, but nothing of 

146
00:08:39,679 --> 00:08:42,880
substance. 
I asked one member of the group 

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00:08:43,320 --> 00:08:49,760
at ISO who is at it, and he 
claimed that the United States, 

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00:08:49,760 --> 00:08:56,240
part of the ISO is not so really
interesting having standards for

149
00:08:56,240 --> 00:08:59,640
rare earth products. 
So these are not commodities. 

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00:08:59,640 --> 00:09:04,400
Every user has his own purchase 
specification, you know, and 

151
00:09:04,480 --> 00:09:06,840
they're, they're all test 
processes and so on. 

152
00:09:06,840 --> 00:09:10,680
Nothing is standardized. 
So you can't in the West, these 

153
00:09:10,680 --> 00:09:14,520
are specialty chemicals. 
And also you have to must really

154
00:09:14,520 --> 00:09:17,760
look at what are we actually 
buying in China. 

155
00:09:19,160 --> 00:09:25,000
About 60 to 70% of the imports 
of the US, of Japan, of the EU 

156
00:09:25,400 --> 00:09:29,400
are the rare earth elements, 
Lansano and cereal. 

157
00:09:30,120 --> 00:09:33,240
What do we use them for? 
Well, we use them for the 

158
00:09:33,240 --> 00:09:37,080
production of fossil fuels and 
the consumption day off. 

159
00:09:37,880 --> 00:09:39,680
Yeah. 
So we are talking about fluid 

160
00:09:39,680 --> 00:09:43,000
cracking catalysts for producing
gasoline, diesel, whatever you 

161
00:09:43,000 --> 00:09:46,120
want, you know, and we're 
talking about the catalytic 

162
00:09:46,120 --> 00:09:51,640
converter in internal combustion
engine and hybrid cars that is 

163
00:09:51,640 --> 00:09:54,520
our main dependency in rare 
earths products, no. 

164
00:09:56,160 --> 00:09:59,120
One talks about that. 
Magnet dependency, that is 

165
00:09:59,120 --> 00:10:00,960
written on a different piece of 
paper. 

166
00:10:00,960 --> 00:10:05,040
In terms of rare earths, yeah, 
everybody screams, ah, heavy 

167
00:10:05,040 --> 00:10:10,040
earths in USA and terrible. 
Well, last year China exported 

168
00:10:10,040 --> 00:10:16,320
to the US 60kg of dysprosium, 
10kg of terbium metal. 

169
00:10:16,360 --> 00:10:20,680
Yeah, as metal, not as oxide. 10
tons of Lanzano metal, 12 kilos 

170
00:10:20,680 --> 00:10:25,960
of scandium and the 236 kilos of
of metal alloys. 

171
00:10:26,240 --> 00:10:29,080
These are the metrics. 
If you go into the compounds, 

172
00:10:29,080 --> 00:10:31,040
that's a slightly different 
picture. 

173
00:10:31,400 --> 00:10:34,080
Yeah. 
But you know, it's not really a 

174
00:10:34,080 --> 00:10:38,880
very relevant market. 
No, that's, that's definitely a 

175
00:10:38,880 --> 00:10:41,480
very good point. 
I think we just said the main 

176
00:10:41,480 --> 00:10:44,200
concern with the USA government 
would be more in the high 

177
00:10:44,200 --> 00:10:47,040
performance magnets now that we 
see humanoids percent 

178
00:10:47,040 --> 00:10:50,040
potentially being deployed if 
these these kind of things. 

179
00:10:51,240 --> 00:10:53,160
Yeah. 
See the the primary dependence 

180
00:10:53,160 --> 00:10:57,080
of the West is on the products 
that are made from the earth, 

181
00:10:57,600 --> 00:11:00,080
including rare earth permanent 
magnets. 

182
00:11:00,320 --> 00:11:02,120
We have no value chain behind 
it. 

183
00:11:02,840 --> 00:11:05,800
That's why it's so funny. 
You know, if there's someone who

184
00:11:06,040 --> 00:11:10,080
says we are going to produce 
4000 tons of NDPR per year, you 

185
00:11:10,080 --> 00:11:13,840
know, in Europe, right? 
So who do you sell it to? 

186
00:11:13,840 --> 00:11:19,600
There's no, but you need a metal
maker who makes metal out of 

187
00:11:19,600 --> 00:11:22,360
this, and then you need the 
magnet maker who takes the 

188
00:11:22,360 --> 00:11:24,560
metal. 
But there's another little 

189
00:11:24,560 --> 00:11:26,440
detail that everyone always 
forgets. 

190
00:11:26,440 --> 00:11:30,280
You know, you leave the two 
elements, neodenium and 

191
00:11:30,280 --> 00:11:34,040
prosodenium in the proportion 
that you found them in your 

192
00:11:34,040 --> 00:11:35,760
deposit. 
You don't separate them. 

193
00:11:36,720 --> 00:11:39,400
But these proportions are 
different from deposit to 

194
00:11:39,400 --> 00:11:43,080
deposit. 
Like Linus says, 78 to 22. 

195
00:11:43,320 --> 00:11:46,720
I don't know right now off hand 
what is MP materials. 

196
00:11:46,720 --> 00:11:53,640
You know the standard prescribe 
75 to 2585 to 1570 to 30. 

197
00:11:53,920 --> 00:11:57,560
You will not go lower than 70 to
30 because then prozodinium will

198
00:11:57,760 --> 00:12:00,240
kind of affect the coercivity of
the magnet. 

199
00:12:01,040 --> 00:12:04,800
These are not commodities. 
You get chemical compositions 

200
00:12:04,800 --> 00:12:09,200
prescribed by your customer and 
that says you have a 78 to 22 

201
00:12:09,200 --> 00:12:12,400
product and the customer wants 
75 to 25. 

202
00:12:12,680 --> 00:12:16,200
What do you do? 
Nobody is separating ND and PR. 

203
00:12:16,360 --> 00:12:20,520
So where should the balance come
from to make a metal that is 

204
00:12:20,640 --> 00:12:23,120
according to the specification 
of the customer? 

205
00:12:23,800 --> 00:12:26,800
Yeah, really. 
People don't go into the 

206
00:12:26,800 --> 00:12:28,840
details. 
So that that kind of throws into

207
00:12:28,840 --> 00:12:34,120
doubt the entire ability to have
supply chain independence, you 

208
00:12:34,120 --> 00:12:36,280
know what I mean? 
The specifications matter. 

209
00:12:36,520 --> 00:12:39,360
It's almost implausible to build
out an entirely independent 

210
00:12:39,360 --> 00:12:41,880
supply chain that can make 
unique customer demands 

211
00:12:42,640 --> 00:12:45,720
independent of China. 
Well, it sounds to me like to 

212
00:12:45,720 --> 00:12:50,720
that point, policymakers are 
pushing far too hard thinking 

213
00:12:50,720 --> 00:12:55,000
that they can build a supply 
chain out without realizing the 

214
00:12:55,000 --> 00:12:59,480
full complexity of how many 
steps there are between pit top 

215
00:13:00,040 --> 00:13:03,880
and finished product. 
The second part being how much 

216
00:13:04,400 --> 00:13:08,800
noise is thrown at the wrong end
of that argument and continually

217
00:13:08,800 --> 00:13:12,920
sort of pushed ahead without 
really thinking through the 

218
00:13:12,920 --> 00:13:15,800
complexity, the cost and the 
economics of this. 

219
00:13:16,280 --> 00:13:19,520
It's farcical to think that 
we're ever going to chase, you 

220
00:13:19,520 --> 00:13:24,040
know, supply chains that are 
this discombobulated with some 

221
00:13:24,040 --> 00:13:27,640
sort of economic return of any 
stretch, even if we were to 

222
00:13:27,640 --> 00:13:29,520
increase prices, you know, 3 to 
4 fold. 

223
00:13:31,000 --> 00:13:35,240
So in my mind, I think there's 
so many mainstream narratives 

224
00:13:35,240 --> 00:13:38,840
that have spun on the space that
just don't hold up to reality. 

225
00:13:39,320 --> 00:13:41,560
I think, Thomas, you're making 
some good points just cutting 

226
00:13:41,560 --> 00:13:44,480
them off. 
But what do you make, Thomas? 

227
00:13:44,560 --> 00:13:48,160
Is the world going mad over 
something that's largely 

228
00:13:48,160 --> 00:13:51,240
relevant? 
There are several points to 

229
00:13:51,240 --> 00:13:54,320
observe. 
First of all, I think it is 

230
00:13:54,320 --> 00:13:59,120
important to understand that the
high performance and the Feb 

231
00:13:59,200 --> 00:14:02,960
magnets, so these are the ones 
that still perform at high 

232
00:14:02,960 --> 00:14:08,200
working temperature say 180°. 
You know, they are arguably 

233
00:14:09,080 --> 00:14:13,080
maybe on behalf of the market. 
You have to visualize that China

234
00:14:13,080 --> 00:14:18,920
last year exported 58,147 tons 
of Rarer's permanent magnets to 

235
00:14:18,920 --> 00:14:24,080
130 countries. 
These are often commodity 

236
00:14:24,080 --> 00:14:29,400
magnets that can stand a working
temperature of maybe 80°C. 

237
00:14:30,160 --> 00:14:34,360
But which of our rarest hopefuls
wants to go for these magnets? 

238
00:14:34,360 --> 00:14:36,960
Nobody. 
All of them claim for themselves

239
00:14:36,960 --> 00:14:41,600
that they can manage the high 
tech composition of permanent 

240
00:14:41,600 --> 00:14:46,920
magnets that are reaching a 
working temperature of 180°C or 

241
00:14:46,920 --> 00:14:51,040
even 230°C. 
So they're trying the impossible

242
00:14:51,360 --> 00:14:55,760
rather than to go from the 
simple and 1st because you know 

243
00:14:55,800 --> 00:15:00,360
since 2009 there has been no 
NDFEB production in the United 

244
00:15:00,360 --> 00:15:03,760
States. 
You know in Germany vacuum have 

245
00:15:03,800 --> 00:15:08,480
the minority joint venture with 
Jungka Sankwan in Beijing where 

246
00:15:08,480 --> 00:15:12,400
they get the blanks and ship 
them off to their subsidiaries 

247
00:15:12,400 --> 00:15:15,240
for the final processing. 
We should have actually gone 

248
00:15:15,240 --> 00:15:19,080
from the simple stuff that we 
may be able to do. 

249
00:15:19,960 --> 00:15:25,320
Then, of course, after 2014, 
when China lost the WTO case of 

250
00:15:25,440 --> 00:15:29,760
the EU, Japan and the US, all 
efforts in the US rested. 

251
00:15:30,080 --> 00:15:34,640
Everything just fell apart in 
the EU, they continued. 

252
00:15:34,680 --> 00:15:38,680
But it was more to prove 
activity rather than to come up 

253
00:15:38,680 --> 00:15:41,960
with something tangible. 
So it was very important to 

254
00:15:41,960 --> 00:15:47,240
support projects that are 
sustainable and environmentally 

255
00:15:47,240 --> 00:15:49,920
benign. 
It was not on getting something 

256
00:15:49,920 --> 00:15:53,320
done. 
We approached from the two 

257
00:15:53,320 --> 00:15:57,680
different ends and had nothing 
in the middle say it doesn't 

258
00:15:57,680 --> 00:16:01,720
help us if we mine a rare earth 
also concentrates if we do not 

259
00:16:01,720 --> 00:16:06,840
have the industry that uses this
and separates the rare earth 

260
00:16:07,280 --> 00:16:10,960
produces the more than 50 
different compounds of rare 

261
00:16:10,960 --> 00:16:16,240
earths that China exports to us.
And then a further downstream 

262
00:16:16,240 --> 00:16:20,520
industry which takes part of 
this, makes metals to supply 

263
00:16:20,520 --> 00:16:24,280
those users who require metals. 
Yeah, I, I think that's very 

264
00:16:24,280 --> 00:16:27,640
unique about the supply chain as
we see nowadays, especially when

265
00:16:27,640 --> 00:16:29,440
we're trying to build in the 
West is we're trying to build 

266
00:16:29,440 --> 00:16:31,160
this from upstream to 
downstream. 

267
00:16:31,480 --> 00:16:33,600
Normally you would do the other 
way around from downstream to 

268
00:16:33,600 --> 00:16:35,240
upstream. 
And like Thomas mentioned, 

269
00:16:35,240 --> 00:16:36,840
these, these aren't really 
commodities in the general 

270
00:16:36,840 --> 00:16:38,440
sense. 
So there's, there is so much 

271
00:16:38,440 --> 00:16:41,640
variety between the, the mineral
concentration treats the 

272
00:16:41,640 --> 00:16:44,640
carbonate, if it's oxide, the 
many, many things. 

273
00:16:45,320 --> 00:16:47,680
And now we're seeing a host of 
junior mining projects which are

274
00:16:47,680 --> 00:16:50,160
trying to mark their products. 
They're finding middle Western 

275
00:16:50,160 --> 00:16:52,000
buyers. 
It's all going into China 

276
00:16:52,000 --> 00:16:55,080
because China has many companies
which can take these these very 

277
00:16:55,080 --> 00:16:58,160
various products. 
So I think one of the most 

278
00:16:58,160 --> 00:17:01,040
important things to do, it is 
like Thomas said, build your 

279
00:17:01,040 --> 00:17:03,920
magnet capacity in the West, 
then go search for feedstock 

280
00:17:04,119 --> 00:17:07,280
subsequently. 
I would say like 5-6 years ago, 

281
00:17:08,160 --> 00:17:13,440
we should have simply started 
doing NDFEB magnets and we would

282
00:17:13,440 --> 00:17:17,839
have sourced the metals in China
and we would have dared them not

283
00:17:17,839 --> 00:17:21,560
to supply them. 
And at that time, China had 

284
00:17:21,560 --> 00:17:23,640
absolutely no appetite for 
confrontation. 

285
00:17:24,800 --> 00:17:26,920
So we may have actually 
succeeded. 

286
00:17:27,240 --> 00:17:30,200
Of course, what is always 
getting buried a little bit is 

287
00:17:30,200 --> 00:17:33,800
the role that our Japanese 
friends played in this whole 

288
00:17:33,800 --> 00:17:37,000
mess. 
First of all, Japan is regularly

289
00:17:37,000 --> 00:17:42,320
40 to 50% of China's total 
rarest compounds and metal 

290
00:17:42,320 --> 00:17:45,560
exports of the export value, not
of the volume. 

291
00:17:45,560 --> 00:17:50,200
The volume is smaller, and they 
were sitting on the core 

292
00:17:50,200 --> 00:17:56,040
patterns for the NDFEB magnets. 
And Hitachi Metals had the 

293
00:17:56,160 --> 00:18:01,440
arrogance to believe that they 
can influence the supply and 

294
00:18:01,440 --> 00:18:06,960
demand of NDFEB magnets if they 
control the licensing of the 

295
00:18:06,960 --> 00:18:10,960
process, that they don't give a 
license to anyone who wants one.

296
00:18:11,440 --> 00:18:15,240
But look at the whole market 
picture and see, oh, would this 

297
00:18:15,240 --> 00:18:19,040
throw the market off balance? 
You know, and that is why the 

298
00:18:19,040 --> 00:18:22,280
Chinese suit Hitachi Metals, 
they said that they're abusing 

299
00:18:22,280 --> 00:18:26,080
their market power because 
Hitachi Metals, if somebody was 

300
00:18:26,280 --> 00:18:30,720
using Hitachi's process and 
starting to produce NDF EB in 

301
00:18:30,720 --> 00:18:35,760
China, Hitachi would sue them. 
But had this manufacturer asked 

302
00:18:35,760 --> 00:18:39,200
for a license, he wouldn't have 
gotten it from Hitachi Metals. 

303
00:18:40,480 --> 00:18:45,200
Had Hitachi Metals not had this 
policy, we would have probably a

304
00:18:45,200 --> 00:18:48,560
much larger distribution of 
NDFEB magnets, left, right, 

305
00:18:48,560 --> 00:18:51,360
center. 
And do you see any joint 

306
00:18:51,360 --> 00:18:56,920
initiatives between the Japanese
and the US in Europe? 

307
00:18:56,920 --> 00:19:01,440
Now you have this project that 
involves Solvay less common 

308
00:19:01,440 --> 00:19:05,840
metals and cherister and they 
based on the assumption that 

309
00:19:05,840 --> 00:19:10,240
they can get the Namibia Nabibia
Critical Metals project 

310
00:19:10,360 --> 00:19:15,360
lifestyle going which is best 
see no time with a very 

311
00:19:15,360 --> 00:19:17,680
favourable proportional 
composition. 

312
00:19:18,800 --> 00:19:23,920
But you know, this project is 
moving at snail's speed and I do

313
00:19:23,960 --> 00:19:28,840
not think it will get going 
before 2030, maybe not even 

314
00:19:28,840 --> 00:19:32,400
beyond. 
Yeah, feed soot is definitely a 

315
00:19:32,400 --> 00:19:34,760
problem with which you see in 
many projects in the West. 

316
00:19:35,200 --> 00:19:38,960
I do think we see a changing 
Western perspective on how we 

317
00:19:39,000 --> 00:19:41,440
source especially heavy red 
concentrates. 

318
00:19:41,760 --> 00:19:46,200
We saw the recent MU it's still 
an MOMOU, but Linus entering an 

319
00:19:46,200 --> 00:19:48,640
agreement with the Malaysian 
state of I've got the state name

320
00:19:49,120 --> 00:19:52,040
but for ionic clay concentrate. 
I think it might be a watershed 

321
00:19:52,040 --> 00:19:55,480
points where Western companies 
may follow suit here in Malaysia

322
00:19:55,960 --> 00:19:59,880
and Western companies are 
opening themselves up for yeah 

323
00:20:00,440 --> 00:20:03,280
what is effectively in situ 
ionic clay leching, which is 

324
00:20:03,440 --> 00:20:06,520
environmentally questionable. 
I would say I think Thomas and 

325
00:20:06,800 --> 00:20:09,280
didn't have some more 
perspective on this, but I do 

326
00:20:09,280 --> 00:20:12,480
know that that Malaysia is 
really looking to expand their 

327
00:20:12,480 --> 00:20:13,800
industry. 
I think they want to target like

328
00:20:13,800 --> 00:20:18,960
3000 tons of trio by 20 thirty 
10,000 tons of NDPR which is I 

329
00:20:18,960 --> 00:20:21,960
think there might be western 
companies that looking to tap 

330
00:20:21,960 --> 00:20:23,960
into that I. 
Think that's an interesting, 

331
00:20:24,280 --> 00:20:26,080
interesting point. 
Who would have thought that the 

332
00:20:26,080 --> 00:20:28,480
Malaysians that actually want to
increase the amount of railroad 

333
00:20:28,480 --> 00:20:30,400
production is coming out of the 
country? 

334
00:20:30,800 --> 00:20:32,480
Does it? 
Your license still expires in a 

335
00:20:32,480 --> 00:20:35,760
couple of years, Doesn't. 
It no, don't continue to roll it

336
00:20:36,800 --> 00:20:39,120
just long as the WLP doesn't 
come anywhere near the near 

337
00:20:39,120 --> 00:20:41,800
them. 
But I think, yeah, there's well,

338
00:20:41,800 --> 00:20:44,360
one, one point I wouldn't mind 
touching on is this notion that 

339
00:20:45,520 --> 00:20:49,280
we all think about clays as 
being posted in the parts of 

340
00:20:49,280 --> 00:20:51,440
southern China branching off 
into Myanmar. 

341
00:20:52,160 --> 00:20:56,360
But as we know, clays somewhat 
abundant and there seems to be a

342
00:20:56,360 --> 00:20:59,320
whole series of discoveries 
after discoveries scattered all 

343
00:20:59,320 --> 00:21:00,960
over the place in high rainfall 
areas. 

344
00:21:01,720 --> 00:21:06,720
Minister Ice and the caldera 
with Mei and VMM come to mind, 

345
00:21:06,720 --> 00:21:11,120
but also what Sarah Berto's got.
We're talking about some of the 

346
00:21:11,120 --> 00:21:13,840
clays that are occurring up and 
down the Malaysian peninsula. 

347
00:21:14,240 --> 00:21:18,640
I mean, in my mind, it seems 
like we're discovering them 

348
00:21:19,240 --> 00:21:22,480
relatively frequently. 
But the ability to actually 

349
00:21:22,480 --> 00:21:24,960
bring these things into 
production is still another 

350
00:21:24,960 --> 00:21:27,200
question. 
Thomas, I wanted to get your 

351
00:21:27,200 --> 00:21:30,200
thoughts on that. 
In my mind, I was working the 

352
00:21:30,200 --> 00:21:36,480
thesis that if Clay's work at 
Sera Verde gets up and works and

353
00:21:36,480 --> 00:21:40,240
makes money, we probably don't 
need to build another Hard Rock,

354
00:21:40,240 --> 00:21:42,200
rare earth, vertically 
integrated mind. 

355
00:21:43,520 --> 00:21:45,480
But it sounds like there's some 
troubles there. 

356
00:21:45,480 --> 00:21:46,760
There's still some questions 
over. 

357
00:21:48,040 --> 00:21:51,800
It first of all, I would like to
challenge the notion that we 

358
00:21:51,800 --> 00:21:56,880
don't have enough feedstock. 
China imported last year as 

359
00:21:56,880 --> 00:22:03,640
direct feedstock to the rarest 
industry, 177,000 tons. 

360
00:22:04,200 --> 00:22:06,760
What is the lack of feedstock 
here? 

361
00:22:07,280 --> 00:22:11,960
Then on top of that, if you add 
to that the heavy mineral sands,

362
00:22:12,200 --> 00:22:18,200
which by and large in average 
may contain about 1% monazite, 

363
00:22:18,200 --> 00:22:22,960
some 2, some nothing, China 
imported 6.8 million tons of 

364
00:22:22,960 --> 00:22:27,360
that with the clear objective to
extract monozide from that. 

365
00:22:28,120 --> 00:22:31,000
See a totally different problem 
here. 

366
00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:34,200
That is that rare earth love 
radioactivity. 

367
00:22:34,640 --> 00:22:39,200
So inevitably for practically 
most of the feedstocks, which 

368
00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:44,760
sometimes includes ionic clay, 
there will be radioactive waste.

369
00:22:45,640 --> 00:22:49,360
In the US there is only one 
private company that is licensed

370
00:22:49,360 --> 00:22:53,160
to dispose of such radioactive 
waste, that is Energy Fuels. 

371
00:22:54,160 --> 00:22:58,760
In Europe, because of not in my 
backyard, there are only 

372
00:22:59,000 --> 00:23:04,200
temporary reception facilities 
for nuclear waste. 

373
00:23:04,640 --> 00:23:08,800
It is almost impossible to to 
get some permanent facility 

374
00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:10,320
going. 
I understand they are 

375
00:23:10,320 --> 00:23:14,920
commissioning now something for 
nuclear fuel rods in Finland, 

376
00:23:15,360 --> 00:23:18,400
but for this type of waste 
mostly thorium. 

377
00:23:18,640 --> 00:23:22,080
But then if you, you have 
uranium, you have actinium, you 

378
00:23:22,080 --> 00:23:25,520
have radium, you know, nobody 
wants to have it. 

379
00:23:25,640 --> 00:23:29,440
I mean, Solvay, they still have 
thousands of tons lying around 

380
00:23:29,440 --> 00:23:32,960
in the Lavrochet factory since 
1992. 

381
00:23:33,280 --> 00:23:37,680
You know, the total quantity got
distributed this about 6000 tons

382
00:23:37,680 --> 00:23:40,680
plus the rest of the quantity 
somewhat distributed in 

383
00:23:40,680 --> 00:23:43,560
temporary shelters across 
France. 

384
00:23:43,640 --> 00:23:48,760
You know, So the real point here
is the, the particularly the EU,

385
00:23:48,760 --> 00:23:52,920
but also the Americans, they 
actually can't handle it because

386
00:23:52,920 --> 00:23:55,440
they don't know where to put 
this waste. 

387
00:23:56,040 --> 00:23:59,240
And frankly, they don't want to 
incur it because what the, the, 

388
00:23:59,400 --> 00:24:03,720
the products say like electric 
vehicles shall appeal to to 

389
00:24:03,720 --> 00:24:08,360
environmentalists also, you 
know, so how is that if, if at 

390
00:24:08,360 --> 00:24:11,680
the front door, you know, there 
are fights over permanent 

391
00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:15,360
disposal facility for the 
radioactive waste that incurs 

392
00:24:15,520 --> 00:24:18,160
when you want to produce the 
magnets for this electric 

393
00:24:18,160 --> 00:24:21,640
vehicle, you know, then suddenly
it doesn't feel so green 

394
00:24:21,640 --> 00:24:25,080
anymore. 
And that is actually behind EU 

395
00:24:25,080 --> 00:24:28,040
policy. 
They are looking for strategic 

396
00:24:28,040 --> 00:24:31,880
partners, you know, as far as 
possible away. 

397
00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:36,760
So all this mess from mining and
the radioactive waste subject is

398
00:24:36,760 --> 00:24:39,000
totally out of mind and out of 
sight. 

399
00:24:39,520 --> 00:24:44,720
You know, they selected a 
project in Malawi as a strategic

400
00:24:44,720 --> 00:24:49,560
project for rare earth. 
At the very front door at the EU

401
00:24:49,560 --> 00:24:55,200
affiliate in Norway, there is a 
gigantic deposit that is really 

402
00:24:55,200 --> 00:24:59,640
high in trio and that is very, 
very prospective. 

403
00:25:00,160 --> 00:25:03,440
It beats anything else anywhere 
near the EU. 

404
00:25:04,200 --> 00:25:07,800
But it has not become a 
strategic project because it 

405
00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:10,760
comes with ample portion of 
radioactive waste. 

406
00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:16,040
Yeah, that is the fact. 
On on top of that, they are also

407
00:25:16,040 --> 00:25:21,480
victims of the foghorns of 
junior rare earth miners who try

408
00:25:21,480 --> 00:25:26,280
to make people believe that You 
Delight can be a rare earth 

409
00:25:26,280 --> 00:25:28,680
resource. 
You know, the research into 

410
00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:32,800
separating rare earths out of 
You Delight has been going on in

411
00:25:32,800 --> 00:25:36,920
Russia since 1930. 
So far we don't have anything. 

412
00:25:36,920 --> 00:25:40,880
And now one of the miners in 
Sweden with the You Delight 

413
00:25:40,880 --> 00:25:45,040
deposit, he now says, oh, we're 
looking for financing to 1st dig

414
00:25:45,040 --> 00:25:48,440
the UD light out and then leave 
it there and wait until the 

415
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:51,800
process is far. 
How to express from that? 

416
00:25:54,680 --> 00:25:58,960
The Russians have waited for 95 
years, you know, so maybe made 

417
00:25:58,960 --> 00:26:02,120
another 95. 
And it's the same in Greenland. 

418
00:26:02,120 --> 00:26:06,280
The pain was tested in the Euro 
rate program and I got very 

419
00:26:06,280 --> 00:26:08,960
interested, so I looked up all 
the documentation and 

420
00:26:08,960 --> 00:26:13,000
everything, but it was not clear
if they ever managed to extract 

421
00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:17,120
anywhere else from that. 
So I wrote to the company who 

422
00:26:17,120 --> 00:26:20,200
did the separation, you know, 2 
times. 

423
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:25,240
They didn't reply because they 
knew that I knew that they had 

424
00:26:25,240 --> 00:26:28,080
failed. 
You know, this is of course a 

425
00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:34,120
side, say Warzine, but the real 
issue here is the environmental 

426
00:26:34,120 --> 00:26:39,360
problems that the politicians in
the US and also in the EU do not

427
00:26:39,480 --> 00:26:42,800
want to have these discussions 
about permanent disposal 

428
00:26:42,800 --> 00:26:45,480
facilities of radioactive waste 
and things like that. 

429
00:26:46,120 --> 00:26:47,800
Isn't the permanent disposal 
facility? 

430
00:26:47,800 --> 00:26:50,080
Isn't that a sticking point for 
Linus in Malaysia? 

431
00:26:50,080 --> 00:26:52,600
Like aren't they? 
Aren't they supposed to be 

432
00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:58,760
building APDF in country there? 
Yes they do, at great expense. 

433
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:03,360
They also built a facility to 
produce rare as carbonate and 

434
00:27:03,920 --> 00:27:07,120
Australia and extract the sodium
content there. 

435
00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:11,400
The composition of what is mined
at Mount Wade has changed a 

436
00:27:11,400 --> 00:27:13,440
little bit. 
Based on the previous 

437
00:27:13,440 --> 00:27:20,280
composition, Linus output of 
sodium per year was 

438
00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:25,480
approximately 150 tons in a huge
stack of phosphogypsin. 

439
00:27:26,200 --> 00:27:30,080
I I think the company had a 
point when saying this is really

440
00:27:30,080 --> 00:27:34,120
almost irrelevant, but Malaysia 
has been through the bucket 

441
00:27:34,120 --> 00:27:37,560
mirror disaster of Asia rare 
earth, a Mitsubishi company 

442
00:27:37,960 --> 00:27:42,760
where the contractor who had 
been hired to dispose of the 

443
00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:47,960
sodium waste properly had duty 
fully discharged it wherever he 

444
00:27:47,960 --> 00:27:51,280
deemed fit by the roadside. 
Basically, you know, and that 

445
00:27:51,280 --> 00:27:55,760
created higher cancer rates, 
miscarriages, deformations at 

446
00:27:55,760 --> 00:27:57,640
birth and things like that. 
The whole line. 

447
00:27:57,920 --> 00:28:02,160
So in Malaysia, the rare earth 
mining that is now being 

448
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:07,240
supported from the ionic clays 
is called non radioactive rare 

449
00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:09,880
earth mining. 
So back to liners. 

450
00:28:09,880 --> 00:28:13,440
They had to build a facility, 
but it's, I mean, what is the 

451
00:28:13,440 --> 00:28:17,200
facility? 
They dig a big hole and then 

452
00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:22,280
they line it out with two liners
of polyethylene plastic and then

453
00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:24,200
they pile the phosphogistin on 
it. 

454
00:28:24,440 --> 00:28:27,080
Versus what we're doing and what
Kalgoorlie throwing it on the 

455
00:28:27,080 --> 00:28:31,920
back of a truck and just putting
it back in pit, no need carefree

456
00:28:32,600 --> 00:28:33,960
what the contrast. 
It is. 

457
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:38,160
It is seriously a problem and I 
think it would be much better if

458
00:28:38,160 --> 00:28:43,640
this was discussed openly and a 
solution would be offered rather

459
00:28:43,640 --> 00:28:46,160
than everybody keeps it under 
the carpet. 

460
00:28:46,560 --> 00:28:50,720
Every junior miner who sends 
samples for analysis, for every 

461
00:28:50,720 --> 00:28:53,800
drill hole, he gets the full 
composition of everything that 

462
00:28:53,800 --> 00:28:55,960
is inside. 
And if you read the drug 

463
00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:59,440
reports, you also see that 
sodium and uranium was tested, 

464
00:28:59,800 --> 00:29:01,440
but they never published the 
results. 

465
00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:05,240
You have to dig that out, you 
know, and calculate back and 

466
00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:09,000
then you come to a value that is
the probably likely content of 

467
00:29:09,000 --> 00:29:12,880
radioactive material, you know, 
like this pansana thing in 

468
00:29:12,880 --> 00:29:15,720
Angola. 
The whole area was peddled by 

469
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:19,360
the Angolan government for 
uranium and thorium, you know, 

470
00:29:20,120 --> 00:29:24,960
and then early, early Pansana in
the previous incarnation as Rift

471
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:29,600
Valley where careless enough to 
publish the results of thorium 

472
00:29:29,600 --> 00:29:32,640
and uranium as well. 
You know, maybe they will have 

473
00:29:32,680 --> 00:29:36,800
10 times the output of liners 
and no one looks at the 

474
00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:40,960
consequences. 
I think one point I'd add to 

475
00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:46,720
there, it's almost when it comes
to the radioactive elements 

476
00:29:46,720 --> 00:29:49,240
around the clays. 
I managed to go out and visit 

477
00:29:49,240 --> 00:29:53,520
Ansto not so long ago, and I 
know I'm going to butcher some 

478
00:29:53,520 --> 00:29:55,680
of the quotes there, but one of 
the elements that I came away 

479
00:29:55,680 --> 00:30:02,000
from was the existence of low 
grade in a concentrate or low 

480
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:04,840
grade in situ is almost a side 
issue. 

481
00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:08,040
It's what happens when you treat
it in any sort of way. 

482
00:30:08,560 --> 00:30:13,040
You get this activation of 
isotopes of those elements into 

483
00:30:13,040 --> 00:30:16,960
some far nastier things that 
perhaps, well, I couldn't 

484
00:30:16,960 --> 00:30:19,160
actually name some of the 
elements that were getting 

485
00:30:19,160 --> 00:30:21,680
thrown off, but they sounded 
particularly bad. 

486
00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:25,400
And perhaps I just simplified 
that whole sector as being 

487
00:30:26,240 --> 00:30:28,680
simple. 
OK, there's, it's all the bad 

488
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:30,440
stuff has been washed away in 
situ. 

489
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:34,120
It's all clean and green. 
But it turns out, hang on, you 

490
00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:36,640
add a little bit of, add a 
little bit of heat, add some 

491
00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:40,360
chemicals in one way. 
Yeah, it can dramatically 

492
00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:43,000
accelerate the concentration of 
those nasties and make it a a 

493
00:30:43,640 --> 00:30:46,000
transport handling issue and 
ultimately a disposal issue. 

494
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:50,120
Yep. 
And and I I see hopeful and 

495
00:30:50,120 --> 00:30:53,240
Brazil had the experience of 
that. 

496
00:30:53,440 --> 00:30:57,760
I look at it very primitively. 
Generally, sorium will drop out 

497
00:30:57,760 --> 00:31:02,120
during flotation, but the 
uranium content is water 

498
00:31:02,120 --> 00:31:04,320
soluble. 
You know, this goes, this can go

499
00:31:04,320 --> 00:31:08,720
all the way to the final 
product, which also an American 

500
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:11,200
rare earth hopeful has 
experienced. 

501
00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:14,560
And this is really something 
that needs to be dragged out 

502
00:31:14,560 --> 00:31:16,840
into the open. 
I do not believe that we will 

503
00:31:16,840 --> 00:31:20,640
get to any rare earth solution 
if we do not address these 

504
00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:23,600
issues. 
See, the Chinese monazite is a 

505
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:28,640
typical usual suspect monazite. 
The classic monazite has about 5

506
00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:34,920
to 6% of thorium and about 0.5 
to 0.6% of uranium inside, plus 

507
00:31:34,920 --> 00:31:37,280
other nasties. 
But that is basically it, you 

508
00:31:37,280 --> 00:31:42,920
know, so monazite is actually a 
fantastic or to use for, you 

509
00:31:42,920 --> 00:31:45,560
know, for a rare separation. 
It's not bad. 

510
00:31:46,080 --> 00:31:51,360
China banned the mining in 2012 
because they had absolutely no 

511
00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:54,760
control over where this waste is
going. 

512
00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:58,680
And it was going into rivers and
lakes, you know, and landfills 

513
00:31:58,680 --> 00:32:03,680
and so on. 
You know, 2014 they closed all 

514
00:32:03,760 --> 00:32:08,720
known IIC deposits in South 
China also for environmental 

515
00:32:08,720 --> 00:32:12,040
reasons. 
This, this, this leaching with, 

516
00:32:12,120 --> 00:32:16,600
with ammonium sulfate is, is a 
disaster for the water 

517
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:19,240
resources, be it groundwater or 
surface water. 

518
00:32:19,560 --> 00:32:23,800
And if you, I mean, I'm sorry to
say, but in, in, in Malaysia, 

519
00:32:24,600 --> 00:32:28,640
I've, I've seen two 
environmental risk assessments 

520
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:33,040
fired on ministry websites and 
the assessments were very open 

521
00:32:33,040 --> 00:32:36,280
about it and they disappeared 
from the website. 

522
00:32:36,280 --> 00:32:39,200
Strangely. 
You know, this, there's this, 

523
00:32:39,880 --> 00:32:42,320
you know, on the Internet, 
things evaporate, you know, you 

524
00:32:42,640 --> 00:32:45,440
can't control it. 
So this is something that they 

525
00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:48,200
completely ignore in Malaysia, 
this. 

526
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:51,200
And that is not good because 
what, you know, what is the 

527
00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:55,200
alternative to in situ leaching?
In situ leaching, you can leave 

528
00:32:55,200 --> 00:32:58,800
the trees where they are. 
If you go for strip mining and 

529
00:32:58,800 --> 00:33:01,960
tank leaching, you know, what do
you do to the rainforest? 

530
00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:05,160
Yeah. 
Absolutely. 

531
00:33:05,920 --> 00:33:07,440
In tank leaching might be even 
more. 

532
00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:11,360
Environmentally, actually, I 
think iron absorption claims 

533
00:33:11,520 --> 00:33:15,360
place on aberration. 
It's not on top of that, you 

534
00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:16,880
know, since we are not good at 
it. 

535
00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:20,360
We've seen that with junior 
miners with the trial leaching, 

536
00:33:20,800 --> 00:33:25,880
they managed to leach the 
physically bonded ions, but the 

537
00:33:25,880 --> 00:33:29,800
chemically bonded ones not. 
So our recovery rates are 

538
00:33:29,800 --> 00:33:35,440
anywhere between 40 and 60% on 
an already low trio resource. 

539
00:33:36,240 --> 00:33:39,440
Yeah, this is all not very good.
So I think it's an aberration. 

540
00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:43,520
I really think we should go for 
the traditional ORS that are 

541
00:33:43,640 --> 00:33:46,920
provenly working. 
I'll happily take the other side

542
00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:50,600
of that trade just a bit, the 
arbiter of companies doing 

543
00:33:50,600 --> 00:33:53,680
things better than what they've 
been done in the past. 

544
00:33:54,240 --> 00:33:57,000
Is your view there DK that in 
situ will return and will be 

545
00:33:57,000 --> 00:33:59,440
done responsibly or do you think
it'll be done, you know, tank 

546
00:33:59,440 --> 00:34:02,320
leaching? 
If it's going to be in Western 

547
00:34:02,320 --> 00:34:06,880
hands through North American, 
Australian listed group, you're 

548
00:34:06,880 --> 00:34:09,040
not going to get away with full 
stop. 

549
00:34:09,159 --> 00:34:10,719
It's just never going to get off
the ground. 

550
00:34:10,719 --> 00:34:12,400
Investors won't back it, we 
won't back it. 

551
00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:15,639
These guys need to bend over 
backwards to ensure that 

552
00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:19,239
whatever they're doing, the 
footprint and the externalities 

553
00:34:19,239 --> 00:34:23,840
environmentally are rock solid. 
I mean, I think every side visit

554
00:34:23,840 --> 00:34:27,679
that we went to in Brazil always
went through the process about 

555
00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:32,159
looking at what nearby mining 
operations from bauxite had done

556
00:34:32,159 --> 00:34:35,400
on the rehab front. 
And there seems to be a pretty 

557
00:34:35,400 --> 00:34:39,040
simple case about the fact that 
it's so low strip, it's 

558
00:34:39,159 --> 00:34:43,159
relatively like thick and 
therefore the footprint isn't 

559
00:34:43,159 --> 00:34:45,760
actually that big. 
And then such a high rainfall 

560
00:34:45,760 --> 00:34:49,239
area, the ability to regenerate 
was pretty high. 

561
00:34:49,239 --> 00:34:53,480
But it was all about the 
chemistry set about what you're 

562
00:34:53,480 --> 00:34:55,920
putting back into the ground. 
I mean, get rid of the ammonium 

563
00:34:55,920 --> 00:34:59,280
sulfide, which of course, but 
what was being put back in. 

564
00:34:59,280 --> 00:35:04,280
And I think that's what I 
observed to be probably spending

565
00:35:04,280 --> 00:35:07,800
a lot more time in terms of the 
test work, trying to understand 

566
00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:12,400
how can they put something back 
that's Inuit and the cost 

567
00:35:12,400 --> 00:35:15,080
associated with that. 
There's always seem to be lots 

568
00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:18,080
of different tanks and lots of 
different complex parts. 

569
00:35:18,080 --> 00:35:19,560
The flow sheet, trying to get 
that right. 

570
00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:24,040
Can it be done well? 
I'm not sure. 

571
00:35:24,040 --> 00:35:28,400
I haven't seen it yet. 
But to do what was like a 

572
00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:31,280
cottage industry function in 
certain parts of southern China.

573
00:35:31,280 --> 00:35:35,400
Now Myanmar, they can't do it 
like they've done. 

574
00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:37,520
It's not going to happen 
anywhere else. 

575
00:35:37,720 --> 00:35:43,360
That's the Western oversight. 
So I kind of think we could do 

576
00:35:43,360 --> 00:35:46,760
it, but at what cost? 
And could they ever raise 

577
00:35:46,760 --> 00:35:47,760
capital? 
I doubt it. 

578
00:35:48,160 --> 00:35:49,960
What's going on with Sierra 
Verde at the moment? 

579
00:35:50,120 --> 00:35:52,880
I know that they needed more 
capital recently, some ramp up 

580
00:35:52,880 --> 00:35:55,760
challenges, but we're more 
capital fixed their issues and 

581
00:35:55,760 --> 00:35:56,920
they'll find a way to be 
profitable. 

582
00:35:57,160 --> 00:35:58,840
Yeah, that's really hard. 
So sorry. 

583
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:00,600
Go ahead, Thomas. 
No, please, Please go ahead. 

584
00:36:00,640 --> 00:36:02,720
No, as I only have a few words 
to say about this. 

585
00:36:02,720 --> 00:36:05,360
I mean they're private. 
We don't hear really much about 

586
00:36:05,360 --> 00:36:07,560
them or they're not really 
putting any information out 

587
00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:09,320
there. 
There are some voices in the 

588
00:36:09,320 --> 00:36:11,560
industry that say like they have
problem with their filter 

589
00:36:11,560 --> 00:36:14,200
systems which are kind of 
ruining recoveries there. 

590
00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:16,800
That's all I know. 
So from what I've heard, the 

591
00:36:16,800 --> 00:36:20,480
ramp up is not going as planned.
Maybe Thomas can give more 

592
00:36:20,520 --> 00:36:23,320
respect on this, but this 
certainly has like with 

593
00:36:23,360 --> 00:36:25,760
influence on what what what 
we'll see happening in Meteoric 

594
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:28,000
and for it is. 
The mining doesn't only happen 

595
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:31,520
in Myanmar, it also happens in 
Laos at ever increasing rates 

596
00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:35,200
and also in Malaysia. 
We are seeing more and more 

597
00:36:35,200 --> 00:36:38,800
coming out of Malaysia. 
I know some couple, a couple of 

598
00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:42,160
guys there. 
That's of course Chinese capital

599
00:36:42,160 --> 00:36:45,560
and Chinese labour involved in 
Malaysia. 

600
00:36:46,640 --> 00:36:50,840
Anyway, it is done the cheapest 
possible way. 

601
00:36:51,240 --> 00:36:57,080
And if you pump ammonium sulfate
solution into the ground, 10 

602
00:36:57,080 --> 00:37:00,600
millions of litres. 
You know, it's naive to assume 

603
00:37:00,760 --> 00:37:02,680
that you could clean this up in 
any way. 

604
00:37:02,680 --> 00:37:06,040
This simply doesn't have so tank
leaching. 

605
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:11,720
But we know that these type of 
clays, they are found in areas 

606
00:37:11,720 --> 00:37:17,080
of heat and a lot of rain. 
So that's basically tropical 

607
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:22,040
rainforest. 
So if we say, OK, this deposit 

608
00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:26,080
is very wide and it's only 40 
meters deep, or let it be 50 

609
00:37:26,080 --> 00:37:29,680
meters early strip mined, you 
have to remove all the greenery 

610
00:37:30,240 --> 00:37:36,080
and you will not restore a 
forest within a few years. 

611
00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:39,880
It simply doesn't happen. 
There are also cases where strip

612
00:37:39,880 --> 00:37:44,600
mining is removing a layer of 
clay that used to be holding the

613
00:37:44,600 --> 00:37:49,120
water, you know, so that the 
soil remains humid and suddenly 

614
00:37:49,120 --> 00:37:52,760
of desertification. 
Some satellite photos from 

615
00:37:52,760 --> 00:37:58,240
Myanmar suggests that happening.
You know, so I really do not 

616
00:37:58,760 --> 00:38:03,680
believe in iron absorption clays
being a solution of the problem.

617
00:38:04,120 --> 00:38:05,680
So that raises an interesting 
question. 

618
00:38:05,720 --> 00:38:09,600
Say we don't want to source 
heavy from ionic class, where do

619
00:38:09,600 --> 00:38:12,520
we source them I mean? 
Very small deposits. 

620
00:38:12,760 --> 00:38:15,760
It's also sometimes part of 
monozide deposits. 

621
00:38:15,760 --> 00:38:20,320
Monozide itself tends to have a 
favorable composition. 

622
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:23,960
And don't forget we are 
engineering for example, for the

623
00:38:23,960 --> 00:38:27,200
magnet rare earths, whether in 
the West or in the east, 

624
00:38:27,200 --> 00:38:30,320
particularly in China, we are 
engineering the heavy rare 

625
00:38:30,320 --> 00:38:34,320
earths out because this is 
something that most union rare 

626
00:38:34,320 --> 00:38:37,720
earths miners simply don't 
understand, the rare earths 

627
00:38:37,720 --> 00:38:42,240
inherent imbalance. 
Every deposit has a different 

628
00:38:42,240 --> 00:38:47,760
proportional composition, but 
none of them has a composition 

629
00:38:48,040 --> 00:38:51,520
that is exactly according to the
market demand. 

630
00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:57,680
So that means we, if we want to 
produce enough neodymium for the

631
00:38:57,680 --> 00:39:02,200
market demand, we over produce 
lansanum, cerium and samarium 

632
00:39:02,720 --> 00:39:08,800
and we under produce dysprosium,
terbium and probably hernium. 

633
00:39:09,840 --> 00:39:12,400
So if we then say ah no, no, no,
we changed that. 

634
00:39:12,520 --> 00:39:16,040
We make this prosium the target 
and we produce this prosium 

635
00:39:16,080 --> 00:39:19,320
according to market demand, then
we will over produce also 

636
00:39:19,320 --> 00:39:22,840
neodymium and prosium, not 
everything else for that matter.

637
00:39:23,200 --> 00:39:28,160
And God save us if Thulium one 
day should take off. 

638
00:39:28,400 --> 00:39:31,520
The whole balance will be 
screwed if you have to. 

639
00:39:31,600 --> 00:39:34,960
There's a reason why Lancelon 
costs only $0.60. 

640
00:39:35,120 --> 00:39:38,360
There's a reason why Cerium only
costs $1.60. 

641
00:39:38,360 --> 00:39:41,440
There's a reason why Terbium 
costs $1000. 

642
00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:45,880
You throw the whole thing out of
balance, whatever you do. 

643
00:39:46,040 --> 00:39:48,320
And this is something the 
Chinese have been wrestling with

644
00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:50,840
for decades. 
And people from the outside who 

645
00:39:50,840 --> 00:39:54,120
look at it, they think, oh, they
are manipulating the prices. 

646
00:39:54,120 --> 00:39:56,720
They keep it cheap in order to 
keep us out of the market. 

647
00:39:57,200 --> 00:39:58,920
Nothing could be further from 
the truth. 

648
00:39:59,200 --> 00:40:04,000
It is supply and demand, and 
it's the living hell of the rare

649
00:40:04,000 --> 00:40:06,840
earth inherent imbalance that 
you see at work. 

650
00:40:07,320 --> 00:40:09,960
That's all very good points. 
I totally agree with you there, 

651
00:40:10,240 --> 00:40:12,240
which does raise an interesting 
question. 

652
00:40:12,560 --> 00:40:15,680
You talked about natural ratios.
We've seen the carbon tides in 

653
00:40:15,680 --> 00:40:17,560
monoxide sometimes very 
different. 

654
00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:21,520
But since I only know of one 
pureplay, seen a time deposit 

655
00:40:21,520 --> 00:40:23,720
which has like a small chance of
making it bronze range. 

656
00:40:23,960 --> 00:40:27,000
Think you know it very well. 
So what could be if we don't 

657
00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:29,640
want to do in situ leaching? 
What could possibly fill this 

658
00:40:29,640 --> 00:40:32,160
gap? 
Are there more pure casino time 

659
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:34,360
deposit? 
Do price need to rise in order 

660
00:40:34,360 --> 00:40:36,840
for bronze range to be 
economical? 

661
00:40:37,400 --> 00:40:38,960
Yeah. 
First of all, there are two 

662
00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:42,720
projects under development. 
One is another, minerals and the

663
00:40:42,720 --> 00:40:45,800
other one is Namibia critical 
metals. 

664
00:40:46,520 --> 00:40:48,760
These are the famous ones under 
development. 

665
00:40:49,120 --> 00:40:52,240
The other thing is, and that is 
also where China is the 

666
00:40:52,240 --> 00:40:57,600
trailblazer. 
They engineer dysprosium and 

667
00:40:57,600 --> 00:41:01,560
turbium out of the magnet. 
For example. 

668
00:41:01,560 --> 00:41:04,720
They have a technology and it's 
patent and it's grain boundary 

669
00:41:04,720 --> 00:41:08,560
diffusion. 
The idea is OK, we need to alloy

670
00:41:08,640 --> 00:41:12,400
the NDFEB magnet so it becomes 
more heat resistant. 

671
00:41:12,880 --> 00:41:15,880
But where does the heat impact 
the magnet? 

672
00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:18,400
On the surface? 
Not inside. 

673
00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:21,840
So inside you don't need that 
much dysprosium. 

674
00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:23,920
You actually don't need any at 
all. 

675
00:41:23,920 --> 00:41:27,960
You need it at the outside. 
This grain boundary diffusion 

676
00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:32,560
technology allows them to reduce
the dysprosium content while 

677
00:41:32,600 --> 00:41:35,400
maintaining the temperature 
resistance. 

678
00:41:35,760 --> 00:41:39,720
You know so. 
So there are two ways to address

679
00:41:39,720 --> 00:41:41,080
this. 
One is of course produce a 

680
00:41:41,080 --> 00:41:44,360
little bit more, but the other 
one is to engineer them out of 

681
00:41:44,360 --> 00:41:46,240
the applications as far as 
possible. 

682
00:41:47,480 --> 00:41:49,840
To what degree do you think like
the easy gains have been made on

683
00:41:49,840 --> 00:41:55,160
that front, like has been around
for a couple years, like yes, we

684
00:41:55,160 --> 00:41:58,920
see man plateau here or will we 
see further reduction? 

685
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:03,880
Well, there's there's another 
trend that was discussed last 

686
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:07,440
year at the Rare Earth Industry 
Association conference. 

687
00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:11,560
I do not know what has become of
this, but it's simply cooling. 

688
00:42:13,760 --> 00:42:16,280
You have a cooling system, you 
have batteries that get hot, and

689
00:42:16,280 --> 00:42:18,640
when they get hot they don't 
perform that well. 

690
00:42:18,640 --> 00:42:22,480
So there are automotive 
developers who work on an 

691
00:42:22,480 --> 00:42:25,960
electric vehicle cooling system,
in which case you don't need a 

692
00:42:25,960 --> 00:42:30,800
working temperature for the 
magnet of say, 180°C, but you 

693
00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:33,400
could maybe live with 150 or 
even lower. 

694
00:42:34,320 --> 00:42:37,640
That's the application research.
We must not forget that the 

695
00:42:37,640 --> 00:42:41,400
Western automotive manufacturers
likes things cheap. 

696
00:42:41,880 --> 00:42:46,320
The neodymium magnet is the most
energy efficient and powerful 

697
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:48,880
and lightweight magnet that we 
know. 

698
00:42:48,880 --> 00:42:52,440
And but you know, do we? 
Do we need passenger vehicles 

699
00:42:52,440 --> 00:42:57,200
with 400 horsepowers that 
accelerate from zero to 100 

700
00:42:57,200 --> 00:43:02,000
kilometers an hour and 3 seconds
in on our highways and in our 

701
00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:05,480
congested cities. 
I mean, I had a car in Toronto, 

702
00:43:05,480 --> 00:43:08,600
you know, jogging was faster, so
to say. 

703
00:43:08,760 --> 00:43:13,720
There are alternative motors, 
say magnet based ones, or you 

704
00:43:13,720 --> 00:43:17,080
look at BMW, they who build a 
complete powertrain. 

705
00:43:17,400 --> 00:43:20,760
All this is possible. 
Of course, then defenders of 

706
00:43:20,760 --> 00:43:25,200
NDFEB and of top performance 
will say, oh, but then the 

707
00:43:25,200 --> 00:43:28,920
battery, then you don't get a 
range of 800 kilometers, you 

708
00:43:28,920 --> 00:43:32,480
only get 600 kilometers. 
Who cares? 

709
00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:36,160
Seriously, battery technology is
moving on. 

710
00:43:36,160 --> 00:43:38,960
We are going to see the 
solid-state battery with a range

711
00:43:38,960 --> 00:43:42,880
of 1100 kilometers given an NDF 
EB motor. 

712
00:43:43,120 --> 00:43:47,680
If it then with ferrite motor 
only delivers 700 kilometers, 

713
00:43:47,800 --> 00:43:50,400
who cares? 
Yeah, OK. 

714
00:43:51,640 --> 00:43:54,440
You've had a long time view on 
backing the incumbent. 

715
00:43:54,440 --> 00:43:57,560
I'm curious to hear you're 
somewhat in enthusiasm from an 

716
00:43:57,560 --> 00:44:00,360
equity perspective on the ION, 
except have your rules changed? 

717
00:44:00,840 --> 00:44:03,960
So let's get back over the rules
quickly. 

718
00:44:04,600 --> 00:44:08,800
So back the incumbents, barriers
to entry far too high capital 

719
00:44:08,800 --> 00:44:14,640
cost, operating cost, economic 
returns or no go #2 never go 

720
00:44:14,640 --> 00:44:16,760
full retard. 
Stay upstream. 

721
00:44:17,800 --> 00:44:21,960
You go from a mine to a 
concentrate, maybe a carbonite. 

722
00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:26,080
And that way you're probably 
going to just do a Forrest Gump 

723
00:44:26,080 --> 00:44:29,840
or arraignment like to go any 
further downstream into 

724
00:44:29,840 --> 00:44:35,040
separated oxides through through
corn, mixed carbonite, crack it,

725
00:44:35,440 --> 00:44:37,440
separate it. 
That's to go full retard. 

726
00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:41,960
That's like I am Sam, simple 
Jack, simple Jack. 

727
00:44:43,240 --> 00:44:49,880
So very, very sort of precise 
focus on the strategy, low shape

728
00:44:49,880 --> 00:44:52,200
and the test work. 
Final element. 

729
00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:58,040
If we do start straying into 
large scale separation tech, you

730
00:44:58,040 --> 00:45:00,440
need the explicit backing of a 
state. 

731
00:45:01,320 --> 00:45:06,600
So what we've seen with Iluka 
coming in being backed by 

732
00:45:06,600 --> 00:45:12,640
Australia was I by the US What 
Linus did had with the Japanese,

733
00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:14,640
that sort of equivalent sort of 
backing. 

734
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:21,760
So the strategies I thought were
appealing around Clay's remained

735
00:45:22,200 --> 00:45:25,800
relatively positive. 
I think everything was hinging 

736
00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:27,120
on this. 
Sarah Verde getting up. 

737
00:45:27,520 --> 00:45:30,120
And the trouble that we just 
discussed briefly before 

738
00:45:30,760 --> 00:45:35,120
indicates that, well, the 
problems are perhaps more than 

739
00:45:35,120 --> 00:45:39,120
we thought. 
And if it's a black box and no 

740
00:45:39,120 --> 00:45:42,360
news is getting out, and I think
Thomas has put out a couple of 

741
00:45:42,360 --> 00:45:46,080
posts citing the fact that 
they've had some straggly export

742
00:45:46,680 --> 00:45:49,880
trade data come out that 
indicates that it's perhaps not 

743
00:45:49,880 --> 00:45:53,960
working well. 
Maybe the test work wasn't done 

744
00:45:53,960 --> 00:45:56,160
enough. 
Maybe it was forced at the wrong

745
00:45:56,160 --> 00:45:59,240
time and by a private equity 
group that perhaps wasn't 

746
00:45:59,240 --> 00:46:02,040
necessarily focused on the 
problems on the ground with 

747
00:46:02,040 --> 00:46:04,120
solving that need to happen on 
the flow sheet. 

748
00:46:05,040 --> 00:46:10,800
In my mind, I find it very hard 
to get constructive on other 

749
00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:13,080
types of development plays in 
the equity space. 

750
00:46:14,000 --> 00:46:17,320
I think Brazilian rare earths 
and what they're doing or 

751
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:23,840
perhaps what they've got with 
this high grade high radium, you

752
00:46:23,840 --> 00:46:29,800
know, high grade cool was a treo
values of over 10 percent 4000 

753
00:46:30,360 --> 00:46:32,560
PPM uranium. 
That's something different. 

754
00:46:33,120 --> 00:46:34,360
That's interesting. 
That's high in assigned 

755
00:46:34,360 --> 00:46:37,800
material, but obviously there's 
the problems of the flow sheet. 

756
00:46:39,040 --> 00:46:48,200
So in my mind, Mei VMM, they 
still have a strategic appeal in

757
00:46:48,200 --> 00:46:51,920
terms of that potential sort of 
disruption concept. 

758
00:46:52,840 --> 00:46:55,840
But I think Thomas is making 
some good points there around 

759
00:46:57,000 --> 00:47:01,440
rehab treatment properly. 
And I think some of our recent 

760
00:47:01,440 --> 00:47:05,080
technical discussions or deeper 
dives there have indicated that 

761
00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:11,600
we've perhaps simplified the 
radionuclide issues to a point 

762
00:47:11,600 --> 00:47:13,520
where we're overlooking 5 mega 
problems. 

763
00:47:14,480 --> 00:47:16,880
Like the chemistry set in these 
things is unbelievably 

764
00:47:16,880 --> 00:47:19,360
complicated no matter which set 
you look at. 

765
00:47:20,040 --> 00:47:22,560
Clays are something different. 
Only a couple of stages, basic 

766
00:47:23,480 --> 00:47:28,080
bleaching, but every time I've 
looked at project, the closer 

767
00:47:28,080 --> 00:47:30,360
you dig, the more convoluted and
complex it becomes. 

768
00:47:30,760 --> 00:47:35,200
So I think in my mind you're 
still backing the incumbents. 

769
00:47:35,480 --> 00:47:39,360
And I say smaller, isolated 
exposure to those that can 

770
00:47:39,360 --> 00:47:43,080
disrupt the market through 
conventional simple means 

771
00:47:43,120 --> 00:47:46,280
finally going upstream, focusing
on those names. 

772
00:47:46,720 --> 00:47:48,600
I found that point on Sierra 
Verde interesting. 

773
00:47:48,600 --> 00:47:50,400
JD Like what? 
What? 

774
00:47:50,760 --> 00:47:53,680
Maybe some work wasn't done 
properly to understand things 

775
00:47:53,680 --> 00:47:55,600
when you were doing the work to 
put it all together. 

776
00:47:55,600 --> 00:47:58,560
Maybe things were you know what,
what is that a function of the 

777
00:47:58,560 --> 00:47:59,760
amount of drilling that was 
done? 

778
00:47:59,760 --> 00:48:01,600
Is that a function of the sample
management? 

779
00:48:01,720 --> 00:48:04,280
Because you know what sorts out 
both of those things? 

780
00:48:05,760 --> 00:48:08,000
Poking a few holes in mate. 
Really drilling. 

781
00:48:08,920 --> 00:48:11,120
And if you are going to drill, 
mate, there's only one team to 

782
00:48:11,120 --> 00:48:13,280
go with the mighty K Drill. 
K drill mate. 

783
00:48:13,280 --> 00:48:15,480
Doesn't matter if there's a few 
exploration holes or a multi 

784
00:48:15,640 --> 00:48:18,480
year program to prove it up, 
they'll look after you. 

785
00:48:19,200 --> 00:48:22,320
And like you were saying, mate, 
not just a matter of punching in

786
00:48:22,360 --> 00:48:24,640
the meters, right? 
You want to get it done safely 

787
00:48:24,720 --> 00:48:26,800
and you want to get it done 
productively. 

788
00:48:26,840 --> 00:48:29,040
No downtime, no dramas, no 
hassle. 

789
00:48:29,560 --> 00:48:31,920
A drill. 
You want productive drilling, 

790
00:48:31,920 --> 00:48:34,040
You want sampling. 
Sample matters, mate. 

791
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:37,240
It's got to be reliable, clean, 
accurate, no contamination. 

792
00:48:37,240 --> 00:48:39,240
You've got to be able to trust 
the numbers. 

793
00:48:39,640 --> 00:48:43,040
And last but not least, mate, 
the team has got decades of 

794
00:48:43,040 --> 00:48:45,120
years of experience. 
They'll mobilize quickly and 

795
00:48:45,120 --> 00:48:47,320
they'll just get the job done. 
Doesn't matter where in the 

796
00:48:47,320 --> 00:48:48,960
state they are, they get the job
done. 

797
00:48:48,960 --> 00:48:51,200
Yeah, it doesn't matter the type
of drilling, they find a way. 

798
00:48:51,200 --> 00:48:54,280
It's just simple as that. 
Go K drill. 

799
00:48:54,920 --> 00:49:00,080
Look at the market caps of Linus
and MP and what like the Linus 

800
00:49:00,080 --> 00:49:03,640
is like a $9 billion Australian 
company now and doesn't make 

801
00:49:03,640 --> 00:49:06,200
money. 
Like top line revenue in the 

802
00:49:06,200 --> 00:49:10,520
entire like between MP and Linus
is like 550 million last 

803
00:49:10,520 --> 00:49:12,200
quarter. 
And look at the collective 

804
00:49:12,200 --> 00:49:14,400
market cap of those two 
companies, it's enormous. 

805
00:49:14,400 --> 00:49:17,800
So the equity valuations are 
biking in much, much, much 

806
00:49:17,800 --> 00:49:20,600
higher prices. 
Is it realistic to think that 

807
00:49:20,600 --> 00:49:22,600
way about the future? 
I suppose it's more of a 

808
00:49:22,600 --> 00:49:25,960
discussion for the team here. 
Look, in my mind, businesses 

809
00:49:25,960 --> 00:49:29,520
like this, it's not a producing 
A commodity, it's producing 

810
00:49:29,760 --> 00:49:34,840
specialty chemical product. 
They can do so at high margin to

811
00:49:34,920 --> 00:49:38,640
a very grateful customer base 
that's got some sort of 

812
00:49:38,640 --> 00:49:40,800
certainty for an external supply
chain. 

813
00:49:41,640 --> 00:49:44,280
It's hard to do berries the most
enormous. 

814
00:49:45,720 --> 00:49:49,360
They probably should be trading 
at something like uranium, 

815
00:49:49,560 --> 00:49:53,600
chemical kind of multiple. 
I don't necessarily think about 

816
00:49:53,600 --> 00:49:57,800
this in terms of like an NNDPR 
function, but you've got to 

817
00:49:57,800 --> 00:50:01,080
value these guys somehow on a 
commodity price in the future. 

818
00:50:02,680 --> 00:50:05,280
But this is a very complicated 
product. 

819
00:50:05,920 --> 00:50:08,560
It's a wrap your head around in 
terms of the supply and demand 

820
00:50:08,560 --> 00:50:10,800
function and what's going on in 
China. 

821
00:50:11,720 --> 00:50:16,080
So all I'll say and I'll lead 
into what's the colleagues here 

822
00:50:17,240 --> 00:50:20,560
in my mind. 
Yes, prices need to rise what 

823
00:50:21,480 --> 00:50:24,360
threefold in order to get to 
incentive levels for Western 

824
00:50:24,360 --> 00:50:27,000
developers. 
But what's missing from that 

825
00:50:27,000 --> 00:50:32,400
discussion is what cost of 
production is for an upstart in 

826
00:50:32,880 --> 00:50:36,680
the developing world, and their 
cost of production and their 

827
00:50:36,680 --> 00:50:40,640
cost of capital. 
In my mind, there's a lot of 

828
00:50:40,640 --> 00:50:44,360
supply that can come on. 
As we know it's pretty abundant 

829
00:50:44,360 --> 00:50:47,160
in the Earth's crust. 
If there's a simple processing 

830
00:50:47,160 --> 00:50:50,160
mechanism that can be tapped, 
we've got to be thinking about 

831
00:50:50,160 --> 00:50:55,040
this alongside an existing cost 
of production competition. 

832
00:50:55,520 --> 00:50:57,000
Yeah, those are very interesting
points. 

833
00:50:57,000 --> 00:51:00,000
You make that and I totally 
agree also to your point of 

834
00:51:00,200 --> 00:51:02,160
investing upstream to the 
concentrated carbonate level, I 

835
00:51:02,160 --> 00:51:04,360
totally agree there, especially 
when you're producing 

836
00:51:04,360 --> 00:51:06,480
concentrate. 
We see so many miners who just 

837
00:51:06,480 --> 00:51:08,720
feel at the PA studies for the 
concentrate. 

838
00:51:08,720 --> 00:51:10,480
So did it decide to go to 
carbonate? 

839
00:51:10,480 --> 00:51:14,120
But the funny fact is carbonate,
it's a 0% margin value add 

840
00:51:14,120 --> 00:51:15,200
there. 
It's not making any money. 

841
00:51:15,200 --> 00:51:18,760
It's even just inflating your 
CapEx and your ability to get 

842
00:51:18,760 --> 00:51:21,120
this mine online. 
I actually do take the 

843
00:51:21,120 --> 00:51:22,920
counterpoint there. 
I think there's a lot of supply 

844
00:51:22,920 --> 00:51:24,680
that might come online in the 
next few years. 

845
00:51:24,680 --> 00:51:27,400
In the short term, three to five
years, I have quite some 

846
00:51:27,400 --> 00:51:31,920
confidence in Energy Fuels. 
The main costs the structure in 

847
00:51:32,080 --> 00:51:34,120
producing oxide is to 
concentrate itself. 

848
00:51:34,120 --> 00:51:37,040
What Energy Fuels are doing very
smartly is they're sourcing 

849
00:51:37,040 --> 00:51:40,360
their monocyte byproducts from 
their heavy mineral sense. 

850
00:51:40,760 --> 00:51:44,920
So they can probably source it 
like have to concentrate cost of

851
00:51:44,920 --> 00:51:47,520
other producers, which gives 
them some flexibility for their 

852
00:51:47,520 --> 00:51:51,760
extraction circuits and oxide 
production there to do it at low

853
00:51:51,760 --> 00:51:53,800
cost. 
Also on Brazilian records, I'm 

854
00:51:53,800 --> 00:51:55,080
finding these guys pretty 
interesting. 

855
00:51:55,080 --> 00:51:58,480
I do agree that the flow sheet, 
it's probably more complex than 

856
00:51:58,480 --> 00:52:00,720
what we've seen to date. 
In many miners they find this 

857
00:52:00,720 --> 00:52:03,320
new mineral face, it's called 
Chefkinites. 

858
00:52:03,400 --> 00:52:05,800
We haven't seen this on a 
commercial scale to date in the 

859
00:52:05,800 --> 00:52:08,720
industry, but actually published
today some pretty interesting 

860
00:52:08,760 --> 00:52:10,400
metallurgy results in their 
AMREC. 

861
00:52:10,480 --> 00:52:13,360
So they're producing a clean 
AMREC just with direct leaching 

862
00:52:13,360 --> 00:52:15,400
of their ore, which is 
interesting. 

863
00:52:15,880 --> 00:52:20,120
I do agree, like from a capital 
term perspective, almost none of

864
00:52:20,120 --> 00:52:21,520
these miners are going to make 
it. 

865
00:52:21,520 --> 00:52:25,320
Like let's look back at the last
20 years, we've seen an MP 

866
00:52:25,320 --> 00:52:27,680
resort, we've seen Mount Wealth 
come into production and 0 

867
00:52:27,680 --> 00:52:29,560
further. 
That's three mines in 20 years. 

868
00:52:30,040 --> 00:52:31,200
How many juniors are there out 
there? 

869
00:52:31,200 --> 00:52:33,720
Probably 100. 
So you're really looking for 

870
00:52:33,720 --> 00:52:35,680
these juniors. 
If you're looking at hard work, 

871
00:52:35,680 --> 00:52:39,400
you're looking at like a high 
startup PF high grades, probably

872
00:52:39,720 --> 00:52:43,320
15% trio, somewhere, somewhere 
around that range if you want to

873
00:52:43,320 --> 00:52:45,160
have capital payback and then 
you can go lower. 

874
00:52:45,160 --> 00:52:49,040
But let's realize that MP, it's 
like 6% trio, which is already 

875
00:52:49,040 --> 00:52:51,800
loss making. 
So that's probably your lower 

876
00:52:51,800 --> 00:52:55,280
boundary there. 
I think, if I may say, why did 

877
00:52:55,280 --> 00:52:58,440
Linus work? 
Because of course they have a 

878
00:52:58,440 --> 00:53:03,800
very, very patient financier who
also had to rescue them in 

879
00:53:03,800 --> 00:53:07,360
between. 
And the more important thing, 

880
00:53:08,440 --> 00:53:12,920
they had a ready market, Japan. 
Japan is the only functioning 

881
00:53:13,200 --> 00:53:18,280
rare earth market outside China.
The rest of us are only extras 

882
00:53:18,280 --> 00:53:21,840
basically. 
So Linus had the support from 

883
00:53:21,840 --> 00:53:26,440
Japan, from the Japan non 
government entity that is very 

884
00:53:26,440 --> 00:53:30,640
governmental and the Japanese 
market that is very, very 

885
00:53:30,640 --> 00:53:34,320
important. 
This is how they could grow MP 

886
00:53:34,320 --> 00:53:39,280
materials and my opinion they 
could reopen the mind because 

887
00:53:40,280 --> 00:53:43,600
the Chinese shareholder offered 
them the market to sell the 

888
00:53:43,600 --> 00:53:48,280
concentrate. 
MP were making money until they 

889
00:53:48,280 --> 00:53:52,080
started fiddling around with 
things trying to reduce a 

890
00:53:52,080 --> 00:53:58,520
separation process and separate 
NDPR and probably also some guns

891
00:53:58,520 --> 00:54:02,560
on cerium. 
And that that I think is where 

892
00:54:02,560 --> 00:54:08,000
the misery started because see, 
liners now want to increase 

893
00:54:08,000 --> 00:54:14,080
product capacity and but already
now where does the NDPR go? 

894
00:54:14,320 --> 00:54:20,200
Japan has a market of 5200 tons 
of neodymium and NDPR per year. 

895
00:54:20,400 --> 00:54:25,520
So where does the rest go? 
China and then they conveniently

896
00:54:25,520 --> 00:54:28,160
stop separating at the 
promethium gap. 

897
00:54:29,400 --> 00:54:35,720
So they have the so-called SEGH,
which is some arium, erbium, 

898
00:54:35,720 --> 00:54:39,760
gadolinium and holmium which the
concentrate of which they sent 

899
00:54:39,760 --> 00:54:44,840
to China. 
And they they can be so grateful

900
00:54:44,920 --> 00:54:48,840
that China is taking it. 
And, you know, then then this me

901
00:54:48,840 --> 00:54:51,640
too company called Brazilian 
Rare Earths. 

902
00:54:51,640 --> 00:54:54,760
Yeah. 
They go and say, oh, produce a 

903
00:54:54,800 --> 00:54:57,920
carbonate that is marketable. 
Marketable to whom? 

904
00:54:57,920 --> 00:55:00,760
Please, who will buy this? 
Yeah. 

905
00:55:01,000 --> 00:55:06,440
And then we will also have an 
seg that will find a ready 

906
00:55:06,440 --> 00:55:11,600
market where please, you know, 
assuming that China will forever

907
00:55:11,600 --> 00:55:14,840
be the trash can for junior rare
earth minor concepts. 

908
00:55:14,840 --> 00:55:19,600
You know, I would not be so sure
where what we are looking at in 

909
00:55:19,600 --> 00:55:25,600
the current politics may well be
China getting selective on what 

910
00:55:25,600 --> 00:55:28,920
it buys from whom. 
Previously China was not 

911
00:55:28,920 --> 00:55:33,800
interested in what rare earths 
was produced from imported rare 

912
00:55:33,800 --> 00:55:36,880
earths raw materials. 
Since this year it is. 

913
00:55:36,880 --> 00:55:39,120
So everything falls on the 
quota. 

914
00:55:39,760 --> 00:55:43,360
And then they've clearly shown 
that they may become selective 

915
00:55:43,920 --> 00:55:47,760
because the Malaysian government
has been asking China for rare 

916
00:55:47,760 --> 00:55:50,200
earth technology for years for 
licensing. 

917
00:55:50,720 --> 00:55:55,800
So ahead of XI Jinping's recent 
visit, licenses were prepared 

918
00:55:57,360 --> 00:56:02,040
for the in situ leaching and the
carbonate production from IAC 

919
00:56:02,040 --> 00:56:06,920
deposits. 
A week before Xi Jinping went to

920
00:56:06,920 --> 00:56:09,920
Malaysia, these licenses were 
ready to be sent. 

921
00:56:11,160 --> 00:56:14,520
But this is something that the 
miners of Malaysia already have.

922
00:56:15,040 --> 00:56:17,040
They have the Chinese workers 
there. 

923
00:56:17,040 --> 00:56:20,320
They have the experts, They have
the geologists, the geochemists.

924
00:56:20,320 --> 00:56:22,960
Everything is there. 
They didn't need this. 

925
00:56:23,440 --> 00:56:25,560
But the Malaysian government, of
course, didn't know. 

926
00:56:25,560 --> 00:56:28,480
So they were really, really 
grateful about these licenses. 

927
00:56:28,480 --> 00:56:32,640
Yeah, but China has absolutely 
no intention to go beyond that. 

928
00:56:33,160 --> 00:56:36,680
One thing I'd like to remark 
with regard to carbonate also 

929
00:56:36,960 --> 00:56:42,120
there's a very clearly visible 
trend that instead of shipping a

930
00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:48,840
comparatively low price 
carbonate Myanmar laws and also 

931
00:56:48,840 --> 00:56:53,360
recently Malaysia actually 
shipped mixtures oxides. 

932
00:56:53,800 --> 00:56:59,200
So after calcination, basically 
the the difference is you do not

933
00:56:59,320 --> 00:57:02,160
the end user does not need to 
calcinate anymore and can 

934
00:57:02,160 --> 00:57:05,880
probably go directly into the 
solvent extract. 

935
00:57:06,120 --> 00:57:08,880
So this increases also the 
number of customers. 

936
00:57:10,400 --> 00:57:13,880
So anyway, but you know, I think
we we have to slowly get used to

937
00:57:13,880 --> 00:57:18,960
a situation where China is not 
available anymore to take junior

938
00:57:18,960 --> 00:57:26,720
minor raw materials and that we 
are stuck with do it And then we

939
00:57:26,720 --> 00:57:30,800
also have to look at, you know, 
producing market etiquette 

940
00:57:30,800 --> 00:57:33,600
quantities. 
It doesn't help you if you have 

941
00:57:33,600 --> 00:57:38,720
a gigantic separation facility, 
if only for a fraction. 

942
00:57:38,720 --> 00:57:42,120
You have a market domestically 
and need to export the rest 

943
00:57:42,240 --> 00:57:45,600
against China. 
You know, So I think we need a 

944
00:57:45,680 --> 00:57:48,800
complete rethink. 
Isn't that kind of perplexing 

945
00:57:49,640 --> 00:57:52,240
then? 
If we all kind of agree that the

946
00:57:52,440 --> 00:57:58,320
equity case for almost every 
opportunity is dismal, isn't 

947
00:57:58,320 --> 00:58:01,320
perplexing how much brainpower 
we all put into this specialty 

948
00:58:01,320 --> 00:58:04,360
commodity? 
Matt I mean, ever spend any time

949
00:58:04,360 --> 00:58:06,720
looking at some of the detailed 
financials about how much mining

950
00:58:06,720 --> 00:58:08,720
companies actually make? 
That's a very good point. 

951
00:58:08,920 --> 00:58:11,400
And I mean, what's also 
interesting is when we look at 

952
00:58:11,600 --> 00:58:14,600
all these juniors, they're all 
bodies, they're MP studies, you,

953
00:58:14,800 --> 00:58:16,920
you name it. 
Like you say, it's dismissal, 

954
00:58:16,920 --> 00:58:19,120
like almost none of these can 
ever make money. 

955
00:58:19,560 --> 00:58:23,880
But I think something we have to
accept is look at MP, look at 

956
00:58:23,880 --> 00:58:26,600
Linus, they traded like 5 times 
their MPP. 

957
00:58:26,600 --> 00:58:31,200
Like that's just marked reality.
So it's very risky to invest in 

958
00:58:31,200 --> 00:58:34,000
a junior based on the perception
that after once you start 

959
00:58:34,000 --> 00:58:37,360
producing, it's going to rewrite
to such an level. 

960
00:58:37,600 --> 00:58:39,040
But it's something we have to 
keep in mind. 

961
00:58:39,040 --> 00:58:42,120
But basically, if you're still a
junior, you know it on an NFV 

962
00:58:42,120 --> 00:58:45,760
basis, it's very risky. 
And none of these juniors are, 

963
00:58:46,040 --> 00:58:48,800
except a couple in my mind are 
interesting to look at. 

964
00:58:50,280 --> 00:58:52,640
We are. 
Also a little bit unfair. 

965
00:58:53,680 --> 00:58:57,600
And our western civilized 
nations completely lack the 

966
00:58:58,040 --> 00:59:03,120
value chain of rare earths. 
So for junior miners to show 

967
00:59:03,120 --> 00:59:08,000
something that is interesting, 
they have to get into something 

968
00:59:08,240 --> 00:59:11,880
that they are actually not 
experts in and can never be. 

969
00:59:12,240 --> 00:59:16,200
For a miner, he's turning out a 
concentrate. 

970
00:59:16,560 --> 00:59:20,000
That's it. 
He's not supposed to produce in 

971
00:59:20,000 --> 00:59:22,840
the Feb magnet. 
The networking capital will 

972
00:59:22,840 --> 00:59:24,640
crush him. 
Forget it. 

973
00:59:24,840 --> 00:59:27,560
It just doesn't work. 
Or have you ever heard of an 

974
00:59:27,560 --> 00:59:30,920
iron ore miner who's producing 
precision steel tubes? 

975
00:59:31,480 --> 00:59:33,720
Yeah. 
So this would be the equivalent.

976
00:59:33,880 --> 00:59:37,560
So it's maybe the expectation 
level is too high. 

977
00:59:38,120 --> 00:59:42,800
What I would recommend is having
a really, really close look how 

978
00:59:42,800 --> 00:59:47,360
the value chain is structured in
China, which is everyone is a 

979
00:59:47,360 --> 00:59:50,400
specialist in his particular 
part of the value chain. 

980
00:59:50,680 --> 00:59:53,760
And these are companies that are
independent, that they have 

981
00:59:53,760 --> 00:59:57,120
their own profit loss and 
balance sheet to make sure that 

982
00:59:57,120 --> 01:00:01,840
at every step of the chain 
there's at least break even. 

983
01:00:02,680 --> 01:00:06,400
And at every step of the chain 
you have your own imbalances in 

984
01:00:06,400 --> 01:00:08,960
rare earth. 
So if you try to bring that 

985
01:00:08,960 --> 01:00:11,560
under one roof, you will create 
one big mess. 

986
01:00:12,120 --> 01:00:14,880
Keep it separate. 
One specialist, one specialist, 

987
01:00:14,880 --> 01:00:20,800
11 specialist do not force you 
junior miners to to produce 

988
01:00:20,800 --> 01:00:22,800
something they have no clue 
about. 

989
01:00:23,440 --> 01:00:25,440
It's not fair. 
Mine to magnet. 

990
01:00:26,120 --> 01:00:27,680
The. 
Admission of the junior miner 

991
01:00:27,760 --> 01:00:31,760
isn't even a miner yet. 
But that's that's super special 

992
01:00:31,760 --> 01:00:34,640
retard. 
In that case, that's like, yeah,

993
01:00:34,760 --> 01:00:37,040
oxides is one thing, metal, then
the magnets. 

994
01:00:37,040 --> 01:00:41,680
No, that's that's Brian dead. 
So this this is like a 

995
01:00:42,200 --> 01:00:47,200
pregnancy, you know, at the 
beginning, in months 1 you, you 

996
01:00:47,200 --> 01:00:52,720
produce some ore and probably 
nine months later, you know, you

997
01:00:52,720 --> 01:00:56,080
will finally produce some 
marketable product in form of a 

998
01:00:56,080 --> 01:00:58,680
separated material. 
Not good. 

999
01:00:58,760 --> 01:01:00,960
And I think that's unfair 
because it also drives the 

1000
01:01:00,960 --> 01:01:03,360
capital requirements through the
roof and all that. 

1001
01:01:03,400 --> 01:01:06,080
The approach of U core is 
actually quite OK. 

1002
01:01:06,520 --> 01:01:09,400
Unfortunately, they have a 
process there which probably 

1003
01:01:09,400 --> 01:01:12,960
doesn't work because, I mean, 
the masters of grand, the grand 

1004
01:01:12,960 --> 01:01:15,800
masters of rare earths and China
have given up on a similar 

1005
01:01:15,800 --> 01:01:19,880
process already in 2011. 
But this is actually the correct

1006
01:01:19,880 --> 01:01:22,800
approach. 
And some private companies, 

1007
01:01:22,880 --> 01:01:27,160
particularly in the US and 
Europe, who also say, no, no, 

1008
01:01:27,160 --> 01:01:30,520
no, we don't do any mining. 
We do the separation. 

1009
01:01:30,520 --> 01:01:34,680
That's our job. 
And then LCM come in, metal 

1010
01:01:34,680 --> 01:01:39,040
maker, metal expert, nobody will
challenge them because they are 

1011
01:01:39,040 --> 01:01:40,640
the guys who know how to do 
this. 

1012
01:01:40,920 --> 01:01:43,480
Yeah. 
And the same goes further 

1013
01:01:43,480 --> 01:01:46,640
downstream than, for example, 
for the magnet makers. 

1014
01:01:47,200 --> 01:01:48,640
Thomas, what are we, what are we
to make of? 

1015
01:01:48,640 --> 01:01:50,600
I mean, you talked about like 
why was Lana successful? 

1016
01:01:50,600 --> 01:01:53,120
They had the market before the 
selling. 

1017
01:01:53,640 --> 01:01:56,520
We live in a time now where, you
know, a project like any other 

1018
01:01:56,520 --> 01:01:59,400
is, is, is getting financed. 
There's no market for that 

1019
01:01:59,400 --> 01:02:01,040
product. 
So now the government's coming 

1020
01:02:01,040 --> 01:02:03,840
in and that will be the market. 
They'll buy the product. 

1021
01:02:04,160 --> 01:02:05,720
Like what? 
What are we going to make of 

1022
01:02:05,720 --> 01:02:06,320
that? 
Like which? 

1023
01:02:06,800 --> 01:02:08,840
Project. 
I look as any other. 

1024
01:02:08,840 --> 01:02:11,640
Oh. 
Yeah. 

1025
01:02:11,640 --> 01:02:14,400
OK. 
Australia, my primitive view is 

1026
01:02:14,760 --> 01:02:19,560
you can already not profitably 
mine nickel in Australia. 

1027
01:02:20,480 --> 01:02:23,520
What makes you think that will 
be any better? 

1028
01:02:23,880 --> 01:02:27,720
So I really think that the 
capital expenditure amounts that

1029
01:02:27,920 --> 01:02:32,640
are put out there for these 
projects in general are way too 

1030
01:02:32,640 --> 01:02:35,560
high. 
I mean even heavy mineral sense,

1031
01:02:35,560 --> 01:02:38,760
you know, the amounts are just 
flabbergasting this, this 

1032
01:02:38,760 --> 01:02:41,320
doesn't fly. 
I think that it's more of a 

1033
01:02:41,360 --> 01:02:44,200
general problem in Australia. 
Yeah. 

1034
01:02:44,440 --> 01:02:49,000
And $2 billion for the 
separation of Monazite is? 

1035
01:02:49,800 --> 01:02:52,320
If we're lucky. 
Brilliant dollars, of course, 

1036
01:02:52,320 --> 01:02:55,800
but this is It's too much. 
It cannot. 

1037
01:02:55,800 --> 01:03:01,400
It cannot be cannot work. 
What do you make of the current 

1038
01:03:01,400 --> 01:03:05,520
status of geopolitical dynamics?
With rare earth being this real 

1039
01:03:06,520 --> 01:03:09,320
point of leverage? 
Do we expect any change here? 

1040
01:03:09,320 --> 01:03:11,640
Do we think things will ease on 
any of the fronts in that 

1041
01:03:11,640 --> 01:03:13,600
respect, or do you think this is
the new status quo? 

1042
01:03:14,040 --> 01:03:16,400
The capacities in China are 
gigantic. 

1043
01:03:17,200 --> 01:03:21,360
You have basically 3 dominant 
rare earth compound 

1044
01:03:21,360 --> 01:03:27,400
manufacturers plus about several
dozens of independents and the 

1045
01:03:28,320 --> 01:03:31,360
I, I don't want to be too 
specific, but I think the, the 

1046
01:03:31,360 --> 01:03:36,160
base capacity for separation in 
China is 510,000 tons and then 

1047
01:03:36,160 --> 01:03:41,720
you have a as permanent magnet 
capacity that is above 600,000 

1048
01:03:41,720 --> 01:03:45,240
tons already. 
Last year the utilization rate 

1049
01:03:45,280 --> 01:03:49,080
in as permanent magnets in China
was barely 60%. 

1050
01:03:49,120 --> 01:03:53,080
I've done metal business for 
about 20 years and in my 

1051
01:03:53,080 --> 01:03:58,160
opinion, any utilization rate 
below 70% and you start writing 

1052
01:03:58,160 --> 01:04:00,520
losses. 
You know, with this in the 

1053
01:04:00,520 --> 01:04:05,560
background, I completely fail in
understanding how China wants to

1054
01:04:05,560 --> 01:04:09,360
hamper exports. 
As I mentioned, last year they 

1055
01:04:09,360 --> 01:04:16,480
exported 58,147 tons of rare 
earths, permanent magnets to 130

1056
01:04:16,480 --> 01:04:20,640
countries. 
This is an enormously dominant 

1057
01:04:20,640 --> 01:04:27,080
position and now they force 
practically the main players to 

1058
01:04:27,120 --> 01:04:30,680
have their own supply. 
Where does this leave China's 

1059
01:04:30,680 --> 01:04:32,600
monopoly? 
Where does this leave the 

1060
01:04:32,600 --> 01:04:35,320
advances that they made? 
It will all come to nothing. 

1061
01:04:35,840 --> 01:04:39,160
We must hear the explosions and 
we must do something. 

1062
01:04:39,160 --> 01:04:43,960
So and I think in, in terms of 
of EU, the idea with Solvay and 

1063
01:04:43,960 --> 01:04:47,680
Carrister is nice, but we have 
to address the issue of 

1064
01:04:47,680 --> 01:04:52,400
processing primary raw materials
in the EU with the resulting 

1065
01:04:52,400 --> 01:04:56,080
radioactive waste. 
This must come onto the table. 

1066
01:04:56,120 --> 01:04:58,360
This is the problem of the 
origin countries. 

1067
01:04:58,560 --> 01:05:00,560
You cannot do that. 
This is not OK. 

1068
01:05:00,840 --> 01:05:05,360
If you want to benefit from the 
added value, you also have to 

1069
01:05:05,360 --> 01:05:09,640
deal with the problems. 
And don't forget all of them 

1070
01:05:09,880 --> 01:05:15,080
signed on to the Treaty of 
Nuclear Non Proliferation, the 

1071
01:05:15,080 --> 01:05:17,440
NPT. 
There are accession protocols 

1072
01:05:17,440 --> 01:05:20,640
where there are quantities 
inside which define how much 

1073
01:05:20,720 --> 01:05:24,120
radioactive material you can 
produce a year, and all of them 

1074
01:05:24,120 --> 01:05:27,200
will exceed them. 
So the IAEA would need to be 

1075
01:05:27,200 --> 01:05:31,000
involved if you want to leave it
in the countries of origin. 

1076
01:05:31,560 --> 01:05:36,960
So I think there we should be 
more forthcoming and honest. 

1077
01:05:37,640 --> 01:05:40,440
No, I totally agree there. 
And I think that's a very big 

1078
01:05:40,440 --> 01:05:43,880
advantage to China as China is a
country lead by engineers, by 

1079
01:05:44,200 --> 01:05:47,000
smart people who see this as it 
is. 

1080
01:05:47,000 --> 01:05:49,120
We also tend to be very 
emotional in that sense. 

1081
01:05:49,120 --> 01:05:51,040
I guess radioactive is bad 
stuff. 

1082
01:05:51,320 --> 01:05:55,720
It is bad, but if you handle it 
in a proper way, it's effects 

1083
01:05:55,720 --> 01:05:57,600
can be mitigated very 
efficiently. 

1084
01:05:57,960 --> 01:06:00,800
And if you want to produce 
anything of volume in the in the

1085
01:06:00,800 --> 01:06:02,320
West, we need to deal with this 
stuff. 

1086
01:06:02,320 --> 01:06:05,560
We need to deal with thorium a 
place or relatively low on 

1087
01:06:05,560 --> 01:06:08,240
dorium, but any hard projects 
that's the best inside will be 

1088
01:06:08,240 --> 01:06:10,720
high in dorium. 
You can produce a relatively 

1089
01:06:10,720 --> 01:06:13,120
clean dorium concentrate. 
You can put it back back in the 

1090
01:06:13,120 --> 01:06:14,520
pit. 
There are multiple solutions 

1091
01:06:14,520 --> 01:06:16,520
there. 
We need to address this if you 

1092
01:06:16,520 --> 01:06:18,920
want to make have a chance as a 
Western supply chain. 

1093
01:06:19,800 --> 01:06:24,160
I think for me Axel's being a 
bit dismissive of the sector in 

1094
01:06:24,160 --> 01:06:25,760
terms of its ability to generate
cash. 

1095
01:06:25,760 --> 01:06:31,320
In my mind it's very simple for 
us to over simplify what's going

1096
01:06:31,320 --> 01:06:33,640
on here. 
If we've learned anything from 

1097
01:06:33,640 --> 01:06:40,640
the last 30 years of BHP in Rio 
eliminating the downstream, it's

1098
01:06:40,640 --> 01:06:44,400
always to focus on what we can 
do best, focus on the upstream. 

1099
01:06:46,160 --> 01:06:49,040
We're a country or in this part 
of the world or probably 

1100
01:06:49,040 --> 01:06:50,720
markets. 
We're a digging ship economy. 

1101
01:06:50,880 --> 01:06:52,880
We're still pushing product 
offshore. 

1102
01:06:53,720 --> 01:06:58,640
So I think to do the advanced 
chemical engineering takes a 

1103
01:06:58,800 --> 01:07:03,560
different set of skills and a 
different set of knowledge to be

1104
01:07:03,560 --> 01:07:06,640
able to navigate how to do this 
in an economic way. 

1105
01:07:07,680 --> 01:07:10,480
In my mind, I'm still still find
it fascinating. 

1106
01:07:10,920 --> 01:07:13,760
I still think there's a lot of 
alpha to be found. 

1107
01:07:14,160 --> 01:07:17,800
But understanding the chemistry 
and the complexity of these flow

1108
01:07:17,800 --> 01:07:21,920
sheets and the permitting, I 
think there's a lot more work 

1109
01:07:21,920 --> 01:07:25,640
still to be done. 
But I'm still enjoying it, and 

1110
01:07:25,800 --> 01:07:28,280
particularly enjoying talking 
about it with these two gents. 

1111
01:07:28,760 --> 01:07:31,400
Is there any like market 
activity we can anticipate just 

1112
01:07:31,520 --> 01:07:36,000
like you guys have any theories 
about deals in the space that 

1113
01:07:36,000 --> 01:07:39,360
makes sense or likely? 
Can we go back to that? 

1114
01:07:40,680 --> 01:07:44,480
It was only very small news 
blip, but Linus and MP possibly 

1115
01:07:44,480 --> 01:07:48,000
coming together. 
It's old news, but I always 

1116
01:07:48,000 --> 01:07:56,320
liked the notion that if we're 
going to compete with China in 

1117
01:07:56,320 --> 01:08:00,640
any way, shape or form you're 
doing, you're better off doing 

1118
01:08:00,640 --> 01:08:05,680
this together. 
Consolidating rest of world 

1119
01:08:05,680 --> 01:08:10,200
supply. 
I think strategically and from a

1120
01:08:10,200 --> 01:08:13,200
marketing perspective makes a 
lot of sense. 

1121
01:08:13,840 --> 01:08:15,920
Not that I know anything in 
particular, but that's something

1122
01:08:15,920 --> 01:08:19,479
that's rattling around in the 
back of my head and the ability 

1123
01:08:19,479 --> 01:08:26,120
to grow in with manufacturing, 
reassuring, reassuring going on.

1124
01:08:27,200 --> 01:08:30,279
I think that opens up several 
possibilities. 

1125
01:08:31,920 --> 01:08:35,240
So in my mind, that's something 
I'm keeping a close eye on. 

1126
01:08:36,160 --> 01:08:41,120
I'm also keeping an eye on 
what's happening with Ilooka in 

1127
01:08:41,120 --> 01:08:45,520
terms of third party feedstock. 
That's something that continues 

1128
01:08:45,520 --> 01:08:49,080
to burn in the back of my mind 
and what opportunities that may 

1129
01:08:49,080 --> 01:08:54,120
open up, whether it's for an 
NTU, there's some development 

1130
01:08:54,120 --> 01:08:57,399
company or development projects 
that look pretty good on face 

1131
01:08:57,399 --> 01:09:00,040
value that might be coming in 
into the space. 

1132
01:09:01,760 --> 01:09:04,359
We still need to see how they're
going to get a price that's 

1133
01:09:04,399 --> 01:09:08,920
going to justify the investment.
So coming back to that point 

1134
01:09:08,920 --> 01:09:11,640
around price bifurcation, which 
I think is a bit of a fantasy, 

1135
01:09:12,479 --> 01:09:15,560
maybe we do not need to start 
seeing what we what happened in 

1136
01:09:15,560 --> 01:09:19,720
the US, whereby correct me if 
I'm wrong here, Thomas, but 

1137
01:09:19,720 --> 01:09:23,560
there was some sort of domestic 
incentive price or floor price 

1138
01:09:23,560 --> 01:09:27,920
given to US producers of a 
domestically manufactured magnet

1139
01:09:28,600 --> 01:09:33,040
was a $25 or $30.00 US relative 
to the Chinese price at the 

1140
01:09:33,040 --> 01:09:36,840
time, which was something around
20. 

1141
01:09:38,000 --> 01:09:42,560
If you produce it in the US, 
there's a $5, there's a $5 head 

1142
01:09:42,560 --> 01:09:45,720
start. 
That type of mechanism I thought

1143
01:09:45,720 --> 01:09:50,840
was really interesting and might
lead the way in terms of getting

1144
01:09:50,840 --> 01:09:53,279
us to figure this out on the 
downstream economic side of 

1145
01:09:53,279 --> 01:09:57,040
things, how this should work and
also free open checkbook from 

1146
01:09:57,440 --> 01:09:59,320
the Australian government or the
US also helps. 

1147
01:09:59,840 --> 01:10:01,600
Excellent guys. 
Thank you so much for sharing 

1148
01:10:01,600 --> 01:10:04,680
your insights. 
This has been just awesome. 

1149
01:10:04,960 --> 01:10:08,520
Truly grateful for the shared 
expertise of the three of you. 

1150
01:10:08,560 --> 01:10:11,280
It's been an absolute delight. 
So thanks so much guys. 

1151
01:10:11,280 --> 01:10:13,400
Cheers. 
Yes, thank. 

1152
01:10:15,560 --> 01:10:17,040
You thanks. 
How good was that? 

1153
01:10:17,040 --> 01:10:19,400
I think we've got some partners 
to thank after that absolutely 

1154
01:10:19,520 --> 01:10:21,880
ripping conversation, JD. 
Hi, after that ripping 

1155
01:10:21,880 --> 01:10:23,920
conversation, we've got some 
ripping partners to thank. 

1156
01:10:24,000 --> 01:10:26,000
A big thank you to Mineral 
Mining Services. 

1157
01:10:26,000 --> 01:10:29,240
Grounded Sandy Ground Support 
Cage drill cross Boundary Energy

1158
01:10:29,240 --> 01:10:30,440
Go. 
To Roke, go to Roke. 

1159
01:10:31,720 --> 01:10:34,560
Now remember, I'm an idiot. 
JD is an idiot. 

1160
01:10:34,880 --> 01:10:36,960
If you thought any of this was 
anything other than 

1161
01:10:36,960 --> 01:10:39,680
entertainment, you're an idiot 
and you need to read out a 

1162
01:10:39,680 --> 01:10:40,160
disclaimer.