00:00You're the king of Comandes. You understand copper and copper demand more than anyone.
00:04Where are we in the cycle?
00:07We need copper for everything. We need copper to keep these lights on in the studio.
00:11We need copper for the greening of the world economy.
00:14And as we balkanize the world economy, in no small part due to tariffs,
00:20we also need copper for national security.
00:22So we're going from a sort of integrated, just-in-time world to a just-in-case world.
00:28So everybody's scrambling for copper and other critical raw materials.
00:33I mean, you secure, like, Santa Cruz is one of the big projects, right, when it comes to copper.
00:38As everyone tries to get more copper because there may not be enough of the stuff,
00:42what are the plans for Ivanhoe?
00:43America is very anxious to rebuild its domestic copper mining industry.
00:49In fact, its mining industry for all critical raw materials.
00:51So Santa Cruz is in Arizona, where about 10% of the world's copper has been mined.
00:57It's on private land.
00:59It'll be a super green, ultra-modern new copper mine on private land in Arizona.
01:04Just exactly what America needs.
01:07I'm happy to say USX and Bank sent us a letter expressing support for long-term debt financing for the project.
01:15And there's a lot of hoops to jump through to get everything right,
01:19but that mine has a very bright future.
01:21Can you give us a timeline on when you're expecting it to get stuff out of the ground and then, like, peak output?
01:27Normally, to get to where we are today, it'd take about 15 years.
01:31You have to find it and drill it and study it and engineer it.
01:35So we're on private land, which shortens the permitting process.
01:39And the new administration is very friendly to the permitting process, especially on private land.
01:44So there's no federal permitting.
01:46So we should be in production in late 2028, in about three years, which is tomorrow morning by mining standards.
01:54That's quite exciting.
01:55You're in the region.
01:56Is there anything that you're looking to buy or any deals to make, either with Qatar or Saudi Arabia?
02:01Of course.
02:02Always? And they are?
02:06No, you know, we already have a partnership with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
02:10We have 50,000 square kilometers in a partnership with the Kingdom to look for copper and gold and other critical raw materials.
02:17And that work is now underway.
02:19We're very happy with our Saudi partnership.
02:22And we're talking to all of the regional governments here because most of the world's undiscovered critical raw materials are in Islamic countries.
02:30Islamic countries are quite underexplored.
02:33So the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has a great mineral endowment.
02:37And from this area, the center of the world, with all these airlines coming here, you can look at Africa.
02:44You can look at Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, all those parts of Asia that have never really been properly explored.
02:51Robert, can you give me again a sense of, like, you know, the timeline of what you're expecting to find?
02:55And what kind of capex are you putting into these projects?
02:58Billions and billions of dollars.
03:01Mining is capital intensive.
03:03We've invested over $40 billion in mining in the last 20 years in our own group.
03:09So a very big mine in Kazakhstan, a very big mine in Mongolia, a very big mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
03:17Close to $8 billion has been invested there.
03:19So these are capital intensive, long-lived assets at the bottom of the world cost curve.
03:25They'll go for generations.
03:26And, again, in terms of when you're expecting to find something?
03:31Because you need billions to explore.
03:33Only Allah knows when we're going to find something.
03:36So, you know, the exploration process is high risk, high reward, and is now very technology intensive.
03:43So we use pulse electrical power injected into the Earth to light up water or metals at a great depth.
03:50And there's a lot of software, a lot of AI.
03:52So there's a hardware system and a software system combined.
03:56So we have a huge confluence of all the world's new disruptive technologies.
04:01And that disruption has come to exploration and production.
04:05What we do is a lot like a CAT scan or an MRI if you have a problem inside your body.
04:09We're non-invasively looking at the Earth to see what's there, rather than drilling holes all over the place.
04:16And this is what?
04:16I-Pulse, right?
04:17Well, it's a division of I-Pulse.
04:19That technology was spun off on the New York Stock Exchange as Ivano Electric.
04:24And we're using that technology in Saudi Arabia in a partnership with the National Mining Company of Saudi Arabia.
04:31When will you IPO I-Pulse?
04:34If you'll IPO I-Pulse.
04:35Is that on the cards?
04:36We've been private 20 years.
04:38And we'll save that for a future announcement.
04:40But we became a unicorn more than 10 years ago.
04:44So we're a well-financed, private American company.
04:47Are you expecting, actually, your side in Arizona to benefit from the Trump administration push to give more permits quicker?
04:54Yes.
04:54Well, we don't need the permits because we're on private land.
04:57So the permitting authority is the state of Arizona.
05:00And they understand mining.
05:02Mining has been done in that part of Arizona for generations.
05:05So I'd say they're friendly and realistic about the permitting process in Arizona.
05:10Give me a sense also.
05:11I mean, Congo, you've mentioned, right?
05:13You've built one of the biggest copper mines, actually, in Congo, in the world.
05:16How big is that project going to get?
05:19It's an enormous project.
05:21There's 30,000 people working there.
05:24And it's going through several stages of expansion.
05:27So it's the largest new mine on the African continent.
05:31We're building the largest smelter on the African continent.
05:33Women are working in that mine.
05:35They're empowered there.
05:36And there's a great relationship with local communities.
05:38It's very high-grade.
05:40It's very green.
05:41It runs on hydroelectric energy.
05:43And it's grown faster than any copper mine in the world.
05:46And it's still growing.
05:47And do you think it'll grow at the same pace?
05:49It should, God willing.
05:51Yes, it should.
05:52Yeah, we've already completed the third phase of expansion.
05:57And soon we'll be announcing the numbers on the fourth phase.
05:59And we see a fifth phase of expansion as well.
06:02It's currently running today as the third largest copper complex in the world.
06:08What are you most excited about?
06:09I mean, viewers won't know this,
06:10but I sometimes bump into, you know,
06:12Robert Friedland in corridors at conferences like this.
06:14And you show me, you know, mining gadgets.
06:17I mean, you absolutely love what you do
06:19and you're excited about some of the new technologies.
06:22We need, yeah.
06:22What are you most excited about now?
06:24We need a new way to mine.
06:25We need a better way to find mines.
06:27We need a better way to crush and grind rock
06:30without using so much electrical energy.
06:32If you need a data center for big data,
06:35you need astronomic amounts of electrical energy.
06:38Bitcoin uses huge amounts of energy.
06:41These studios use a huge amount of energy,
06:44all these bright lights.
06:45And so we really look like we have a problem
06:48for certain critical raw materials
06:50over the next five to ten years.
06:52And so we have to reinvent the whole enterprise.
06:55And that we're doing with Pulse Power.
06:58It just happens to be that this show's called The Pulse.
07:00It's a good name.
07:01Yeah.
07:01It's a very good name, Robert.
07:02But how much energy are you expecting to,
07:04is it, you know, can you cut energy consumption?
07:06Yes.
07:07Looking for this by 20, 30 percent or even more?
07:09Yeah, even 80 percent.
07:1180 percent.
07:12So what we're doing is we're taking
07:13very small amounts of energy
07:15and compressing it with super capacitors
07:19to create huge amounts of power
07:21A lot of people are confused,
07:23thinking that energy and power are the same thing.
07:26They're not.
07:27So this technology was used in weaponry,
07:30strategic weaponry.
07:31It's used in electromagnetic pulse weaponry.
07:34And now we're using it for civilian application,
07:37authorized by a Western government,
07:39to find a more energy-efficient way to do things.
07:42And we really need to revolutionize the mining history
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