00:00On the ground, we're going 100 miles an hour doing what we can control.
00:03We can't control the politics of the situation, but it certainly does affect us.
00:07I mean, local people are very, very concerned,
00:11and we've been operating in Greenland for 22 years.
00:14We've never seen a protest before.
00:16So they are very, very concerned.
00:18It does affect our staff in Greenland.
00:20It does affect the mentality or the uncertainty for them.
00:24But for us as a company, we're going, like I said, 100 miles an hour.
00:28We're building pre-construction.
00:30We're doing our pilot plant, our office, and obviously the labs,
00:36which is going to be very crucial in analyzing all the materials.
00:40Can you tell us what kind of agreements you've struck for the rights to do this mining?
00:46I mean, for how long have you got the rights?
00:50How do you split it up in terms of what you get out of the ground with the local economy?
00:56How does that look, Tony?
00:59Yeah, look, at the moment we've got a 30-year, 500,000 tonne per annum license to exploit the natural rare earths.
01:08The rare earths that we're going to concentrate on is not the lights, for example, MP materials.
01:14We're going to go for the heavies.
01:16And we've got 4.7 billion tonne ore body, which in effect would last 1,000 years.
01:23But we're only going to do a fraction of that, obviously, at the beginning.
01:27So we're going to concentrate on the heavies, which are the terbiums, the hathmiums, the galliums, and the dispersimium, the tantalum.
01:36So those are the ones that the U.S. government are particularly interested in because it obviously fuels national defense.
01:44You cannot build an F-35 fighter.
01:46You can't build a destroyer.
01:48nuclear power plants, et cetera, et cetera.
01:52So they're the ones that we're going to particularly concentrate on in Greenland.
01:55Tony, this has been an American government that's increasingly getting involved in corporate America, in corporations, especially when it comes to metals and taking stakes.
02:04For your more recent projects, have you had conversations with this government about doing just that, any financial commitments that they're hoping to achieve?
02:13Yeah, look, we've had a very, very good discussion with Ex-Im Bank.
02:18We've signed an LOI with the Ex-Im Bank.
02:20It's a fantastic deal for us.
02:21It's $120 million over 14 years and only 1.9 percent, really.
02:27If you take into account inflation, it's a negative interest rate.
02:30So that's been fantastic for us.
02:32We've applied for it under the old act, DPA funding.
02:36So under the new terminology, it's CHIPS funding.
02:40We've applied for that.
02:41Hopefully we'll get a fair hearing on that.
02:45But we've done some very, very good financial maneuvering.
02:48We've decided to do 50 percent of the product to the U.S. and 50 percent to the EU.
02:54So 100 percent of our offtake is now being taken up, which completely de-risks the project.
03:00So it's fantastic for us, but fantastic for the EU.
03:04The Romanian government is heavily involved.
03:07Fifty percent is going to go to them.
03:09And we've signed deals with Ucor in the States, re-alloys.
03:12And we followed MP Materials to Saudi.
03:18They've signed a deal with Trump and MBS a few months ago.
03:23We followed that lead and we're building a processing plant in Saudi.
03:28But all of the product from the Saudi processing plant will go to the U.S.
03:31So I was just going to ask where these minerals that you mine are going to be refined.
03:39Are you saying that half will be refined in the U.S.
03:43or sort of at the behest of U.S. companies?
03:46You know, because the refining question is one that sticks in my mind.
03:50It's a really difficult process, so I hear, to refine these things.
03:53Maybe dirty and dangerous.
03:55Yeah, it's very difficult.
03:56So who does the refining of the stuff that you get?
04:01OK, so we partnered with the Romanian government, with their nuclear department.
04:06They're reprocessing nuclear rods already in the plant.
04:10We're going to build that plant next door.
04:12The technology is there for us to do that.
04:14We're using the same technology in Saudi Arabia.
04:18So that will be set.
04:20The 25 percent of the product that's coming directly to the United States,
04:25we're using the U-Corp technology.
04:27They've got a plant in Louisiana.
04:29And we're using the re-alloys technology, which is based in Ohio.
04:35So that's 25 percent pure product going to the U.S., for U.S.
04:39But the Saudi 25 percent that we're going to refine there is going to go to the U.S.,
04:44the end product, which are the terbiums, the athmiums, the niogiums, the galliums, et cetera.
04:49And, Tony, just to kind of reiterate what we've been saying this whole time,
04:53and you've been saying that these minerals are highly important to the U.S.,
04:57and Trump has emphasized that with not just Arctic security as being part of the framework he says
05:02exists for a Greenland deal, but also mineral rights included in that framework.
05:07Tony, can you give us kind of the sober view of what wealth there is in Greenland
05:11when it comes to minerals, but not just that, but how difficult it is to get it out of the ground?
05:17Look, in a lot of areas of Greenland, as President Trump said, is under ice, under a lot of ice.
05:24We're very lucky with our deposits.
05:27We're in the southern part of Greenland.
05:29It's quite temperate.
05:30It only gets to minus five Celsius.
05:32It's colder in New York and Chicago at some points and 15 degrees in summer.
05:38So a very temperate climate.
05:40But there are trillions, literally trillions of dollars of material in Greenland,
05:45other than rare earths, you've got one of the biggest iron ore deposits, you've got uranium.
05:51The oil and gas potential is absolutely massive.
05:54So Greenland is a treasure trove.
05:57Unfortunately, a lot of those minerals and oil and gas aren't allowed to be exploited
06:02under the ruling of the Denmark control over Greenland.
06:07So you cannot draw for oil and gas.
06:08You cannot mine uranium, for example.
06:11So the potential for Greenland is fantastic.
06:16Unfortunately, the current laws don't let you exploit a lot of the material that they do have.
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