00:00Joining us now is Tony Sage the CEO of Critical Metals. Tony great to have you back on the program.
00:05Let me ask first about Barbara's statement there which I think is is is key. Right. She says the processing
00:14part is the trickiest link. You're getting it out of the ground. What do you do once you've got it
00:21Tony in order to make it useful for us.
00:25Yeah 100 percent correct. So we've got our own technology that we're going to use to process. So we're taking
00:33it out of the ground in Greenland. We cannot process it in Greenland. Not enough people not enough power. So
00:39we're shipping 25 percent of the material to the U.S. through two processing plants that already exist one with
00:46you core and the other one with realloys. They've got two plants one in Canada and one in Ohio.
00:52The other 50 percent is going to the EU through the through to Romania. Romania is one of two places
01:01in Europe that reprocess nuclear reprocessing of nuclear rods. So that site is absolutely perfect for us.
01:11It's it's no oversight that we can build straight away. Biggest problem that you do have in the United States
01:18is getting the permits to actually build the plants in certain locations.
01:22That's why we did the deals with existing plants realloys. So that is the tricky part. Now it's up to
01:29us. We've got the funding now. It's up to us now to to get the rare earth concentrate out of
01:35Greenland and into those three locations.
01:37So are you able to work with. I understand that the the permits are the biggest problem here. U.S.
01:45regulation, something that Donald Trump pledged to change when he came into office.
01:50He's he's he's been fulfilling that promise in a number of ways. Are you in talks with the administration and
01:55how the United States can boost its processing potential for these critical metals.
02:04Yes. Yes. We've been in discussions for over a year now. That's why we invested in two of the companies
02:10that the Department of War are already investing in that being realloys and that being Ucor.
02:15So we've we've we've had talks. Ours is a particular or that no one else in the States has. It's
02:23the heavies. Now, the heavies are the most important for military use, aerospace, et cetera, et cetera.
02:30Companies like MP materials are producing the light rare earths. And they're fantastic, obviously, for batteries, for EVs, phones, et
02:39cetera, et cetera.
02:40But if you really want the high end national security military stuff, you need the heavies. And China really got
02:46more of those.
02:47They've got ninety eight point two percent. There's one mineral in particular, Hathnium, that they almost control 100 percent of
02:53the supply for the world.
02:55And Hathnium is very, very important for nuclear powered submarines, nuclear powered warships and just obviously nuclear power stations themselves.
03:05And that's going to be a very, very important mineral in the next 20 years with the amount of nuclear
03:10power plants being commissioned.
03:12How big is the deficit, Tony, of or how big is the need that we have here in the U
03:20.S., especially on the military side for these heavy rare earth minerals?
03:23I mean, can you can you give us some color in terms of what more needs to be done?
03:30Well, for example, we met with Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin, I've got 18 months of supply left of gallium, for
03:36example.
03:37That's one of the minerals that we're going to be producing now.
03:41Eighteen months isn't much given how much is being expended, not only in Ukraine, but now in the Middle East
03:47with Iran.
03:49And how many of those basically missiles? It's used for guidance systems.
03:52It's used for the new F-47 fighters as coating.
03:57So all those things, there is an absolute deficit of those materials in the United States at the moment.
04:04And at the moment, all of those materials have been banned from China.
04:08Only a few have. And one of them is the Hathnium that they're not going to be able to export.
04:14They're building 40 nuclear power stations themselves over the next 30 years.
04:18So they need that Hathnium. So it is getting to be extremely serious.
04:23The Trump administration knows that.
04:25And that's why they've convinced not only Australia, but Europe, Japan to put money into companies like ours so we
04:33can we can dig it out of the ground, if you like, and then send it to these processing plants.
04:39And I think more processing plants will be needed in the United States in the future.
04:44So you've got three or four now being commissioned, two already being built.
04:49You need a lot more to fulfill the needs of the military, aerospace, AI going forward for the next 15
04:58to 20 years.
04:59Tony, what kind of financing needs do you have and how do you meet those in order to get these
05:06holes in the ground,
05:08in order to get your product to the processing plants and to get it finally to Lockheed Martin?
05:14Because if I look at your stock chart, there are huge spikes, but then they then they recover back to
05:22sort of where they were before.
05:26And I just wonder if you have this kind of issue with your shares.
05:30What else? What are your other options in terms of financing?
05:34Look, we've we've solved that problem today.
05:36There was a big announcement this morning that we're merging with our parent company here in Australia.
05:41That parent company has over three hundred million dollars in cash in the bank.
05:45That will extraordinarily help our case.
05:49We've got one hundred million dollars in the bank of critical metals itself.
05:53That'll boost us to four hundred million.
05:55We've got one hundred and twenty million Exum loan, LOI already in place.
05:59So that's about five hundred and twenty million.
06:01And we think that'll take us right through to production over the next two and a half years.
06:07The biggest problem that you've got is really the rare earth push has only started in the last two years.
06:13So a lot of companies that were in this space have really only never had money in the bank.
06:21So that was the biggest problem.
06:22Now, the Trump administration has really put the focus on getting these rare earths out of the ground and into
06:30not only the states,
06:31but into jurisdictions that are friendly, like Romania, for example, is very friendly to the United States.
06:37A lot of the processed material from our site will be sent back to the United States for the for
06:45the likes of Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Ratheon, et cetera, et cetera.
06:50I want to ask about your acquisition of European lithium.
06:53It's a eight hundred thirty five million dollar move.
06:58This is what we were talking about really at the top, allowing you to have a key sort of ex
07:03-China asset in Greenland.
07:05How did that deal come about?
07:07I see that Kander Fitzgerald is advising you on it.
07:10And how do you expect it to to pay off?
07:14Yeah, look, it'll pay off because mainly the cash reserves it's got in in the bank in Australia.
07:20So that's a number one priority to get that cash utilized.
07:25European lithium had a big link with critical metals anyway.
07:29We were the largest shareholder in critical metals.
07:31I'm the chairman of both companies.
07:33So the synergies are going to be fantastic.
07:36But not only that, it brings three or four other assets into critical metals that haven't been
07:43utilized by European lithium, mainly because it's in the critical metal space.
07:48It's lithium.
07:49It's the largest lithium deposit in Europe.
07:52We've got the largest titanium mine in Europe also in that company.
07:57So we'll bring it all together into critical metals.
08:00So it's going to really help us.
08:01As you see, the market likes the deal.
08:04The market we only announced at 8.20 this morning.
08:07So the market does like the deal.
08:09But the biggest plus straightaway is we do not have to raise any more cash in critical
08:14metals to get us to the production stage.
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