00:00I had not heard of this company before. Is it a big player in the rare earth space?
00:04No, this is a pretty...
00:05It's a small company. There are lots of small mining companies around the U.S. that explore for rare earth space.
00:10Earths or other critical minerals. They've all been getting a boost over the past year because of President Donald Trump's...
00:15...push to onshore these metals. USA rare earths is really one of the latest and so they're among...
00:20...quite a number of companies that have received either funding or promises of potential funds.
00:25Okay, and in terms of non-binding, what does it actually mean? Like what kind of benchmark...
00:30...need to be achieved?
00:31Yeah, so non-binding means this is quite a conditional offer. So, you know, one...
00:35...that's $1.6 billion in potential funding. So, we need to see this company advance several key...
00:40...projects in order for them to get this money. This is a company that has a sprawling number.
00:45...of projects across different states. They have a deposit in West Texas.
00:50...about 95 miles from El Paso that is supposed to produce rare earths. If they can get that up in...
00:55...running, they get part of this funding. Okay. And they also have to advance a magnet-making facility.
01:00...in Oklahoma, which would be taking the material from the mineral deposit in West Texas.
01:05...and ramp that up, too. And that also gets them funding. So, along the way...
01:10...as they progress certain elements of this whole plan, they would, in theory...
01:15...get parts of this funding. What have they done so far?
01:18So far, it's in early...
01:20...stages. So, they have this big mineral deposit. And what they've been working towards is a...
01:25...study for this mineral deposit to determine just what concentration of rare earths...
01:30...minerals are in the ground there. What they say is that they have access to so-called heavy rare earths.
01:35These are important elements called, you know, terbium and dysprosium. And they're incredibly important.
01:40...for consumer electronics and heavy magnets. And what they have to do is investigate...
01:45...basically just how dense this deposit is with those metals. And that tells investors...
01:50...if they should be investing in this, how much it's going to cost to build. And so that's what they're working towards.
01:55So, this is still a far cry from being able to replace China as a supplier for rare earths minerals for...
02:00...U.S. companies. That's right. A far cry may be even an understatement. It's a long way away. And we need...
02:05...a lot more projects like these to come anywhere close to touching China's dominance in this area.
02:10So, USA Rare Earth CEO Barbara Humpton spoke in an investor...
02:15...in this call today. What did you learn from that call?
02:17So, what they say is that, you know, this, what this proposal...
02:20...does is it gets the company on investors' radar. Okay. That's the idea. And...
02:25...we've seen the Trump administration do this with quite a number of companies...
02:28...where they've proposed, you know, the possibility...
02:30...of investing in them. And what that does is it sort of circulates the company and their...
02:35...projects around to investors in the critical minerals space...
02:38...who now look at it and they say the...
02:40...the U.S. is interested in it. This is clearly a key project for the Trump administration. Maybe we want to be...
02:45...part of it too. We've seen that with a number of companies. There...
02:47...there are some companies where the U.S. has decided that...
02:50...they're worth investing in already. So, we've seen with MP Materials, for example, which has an...
02:55...operating rare earth mine in California that the U.S. is willing to...
03:00...put money right away in the company. With USA rare earths, it's not quite there.
03:05What this does is it's almost like advertising for the company.
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