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00:01You were both back with us in February. It was the day that you two announced this plan to construct
00:05and operate a hydromet processing facility in Idaho.
00:08I know this stuff doesn't move at the speed of software. Can you give us an update on how that
00:14plan is going?
00:16Since then, we've done a lot of work. We're doing a lot of the engineering work.
00:19Gary and I actually traveled to Bolivia together to go look at one completely operational plant, which was extremely useful
00:26for our team, his team as well.
00:28We're able to look at the best practices they're doing, and we're going to be deploying a lot of those
00:33best practices in the engineering work we're submitting for our own plan.
00:37So our intent is still follow through with this JV, have a fully domesticated line of antimony production here in
00:45the very near future that will last decades to come.
00:48And this isn't a flash in a pan where you go, you know, this is going to be around for
00:52a couple quarters.
00:52Our intent is to have this new facility, state-of-the-art facility, that will be there for four or
00:58five decades, at least, minimum.
01:00So this is a big change here for the U.S., and we absolutely need this antimony.
01:05It's so desperately needed and required.
01:07Gary, you know about this, right?
01:08You guys have the only North America antimony processing facilities, right?
01:14It's out in Montana.
01:15Tell us about what's going on here.
01:16And I am curious that since we've had President Trump really focus on critical minerals, rare earths, and so on
01:23and so forth, I mean, is the momentum continuing?
01:27Is the demand – like, tell us what's happening, because it feels like we talked about this nonstop for a
01:32long time, and now it feels like we've moved on to AI and some different things.
01:36Where are we?
01:37Well, obviously, with watching the Iranian situation, we're using up our military goods quite quickly.
01:45Is that tapping supplies?
01:47That's happening.
01:47So as the only antimony supplier to the U.S. government, we're a sole source contract, a $240 million contract.
01:55We see the purchase orders, and we're delivering now to the government, just started in May.
02:02And, you know, our year revenues will be a hockey stick because we just announced two days ago our new
02:09smelter in Thompson Falls,
02:11which the government helped fund $27 million worth.
02:15There's about a $40 million facility.
02:18We started firing up furnaces in May.
02:20We have five running now.
02:21We'll go to have full capacity by the end of the month.
02:24Which will be nine furnaces?
02:25Nine furnaces, correct.
02:26And so we have an existing plant already, and now we have the new plant.
02:30We decided to not refurbish the old plant because we want to get as much production as possible.
02:35So we know, we see the demand from the government, and we're trying to ramp up as quickly as possible.
02:40Have you gotten that $27 million fully?
02:42Of that $27 million, we've received 12.
02:44There's milestones.
02:45Okay.
02:45Like every time these furnaces, that's a milestone.
02:48So we'll get the rest of it by the end of the year.
02:50Why is it so hard to get a furnace fired up?
02:53These are not off-the-shelf furnaces.
02:55We had to custom make them.
02:56And so there's parts, you know, everything.
02:59There's a little, this didn't work, this valve didn't work.
03:01So you're testing them over about a three-day period.
03:04I guess what I'm wondering, though, in general, and Paul, I want you to come back in here.
03:08I mean, like I said, there has been so much focus.
03:11We had, we were often taking, going to the White House, the Oval Office, for the president to talk about
03:15how important it was.
03:16He went to China, talked to President Xi.
03:19Like, is there anything that has come out and changed since we last talked that has showed, yep, still a
03:24priority?
03:25There's a lot going on behind the scenes that maybe we're not daily reporting on like we used to, but
03:30it's happening.
03:30Yeah, there's certainly, even I can see the difference in reporting, no doubt about it.
03:35However, behind the scenes, it's kind of, it feels like a duck on water, right?
03:38The duck is real calm, but the feet are going 100 miles underneath the water.
03:42Think about our own JV.
03:44We have been working nonstop since the day we announced it.
03:47We announced that, that was that week we announced it, the day we were here on live.
03:52Right.
03:52So since that day, we've had a crew of around eight people working nonstop, making sure we get this engineering.
03:58So there's certainly no lack of aggressiveness on our part, without doubt.
04:03There's, there's like, you hear Gary, the purchase orders are coming in.
04:06Like I hear him and I speak to him every week.
04:08It's like, oh, Paul, we're, we've got to get this thing up and going.
04:10You know, we need, we need the supply.
04:12We've got to be able to feed into this thing.
04:14There's a lot.
04:15And, and it's, it's, the antimony is obviously critical, but you think about the silver.
04:19You, you, you talk about these, we were talking earlier about these IPOs that are coming.
04:23My God, some of the biggest trillion dollar IPOs we've ever seen in our lifetime since the railroads began at
04:29the turn of the century here.
04:31These are massive IPOs.
04:32What do you think is going to power these things?
04:35The steel was the industrial revolution.
04:37Silver is going to be this new power revolution.
04:41There's no doubt silver is going to be required for the transformation we're going to need for all these AIs.
04:46Well, Paul, then why is silver down 45% from January?
04:49That's a good question.
04:50If I knew that one, man, I'd, I'd be a lot richer than, than I am today.
04:54No doubt.
04:55I can't answer that, but I can say this.
04:57Silver has, in my opinion, there's no doubt.
04:59Everybody I've spoken to, every expert, every technical analyst, silver's found its bottom for sure.
05:04Right.
05:05We've seen some silver price above a hundred.
05:08Silver's in its first innings here.
05:10Silver's still at a massive price, Tim.
05:12You know, you think about it.
05:13We're still very, very short on demand year after year after year, five years in a row, short on demand.
05:18Would you say the same for gold?
05:20Down 25% from those highs at the end of January?
05:23Yeah, gold, very different.
05:23When you were on with us in February, gold was a different.
05:26Right.
05:26It was, it was 20% higher than it is now.
05:28It was, it was.
05:29Yeah, look, I've been a gold miner my whole life.
05:32I'm currently a silver, I know we're called America's Gold and Silver, but we're predominantly silver.
05:35And you were talking about all the gold that you were sitting on.
05:37Yeah, when we, we don't, for America's Gold and Silver doesn't have a lot of gold, just to, just to
05:42impress you.
05:42It's more silver.
05:43Right.
05:43We have silver, copper, antimony, and lead.
05:47All critical elements, the critical metals that we need in the industry.
05:52Gold is, look, gold's far from done shining.
05:55People are trying to reposition.
05:57Everybody is trying to get into these new IPOs.
06:00You hear of funds.
06:01I've got funds that have been long-term shareholders for more than 10 years into us that are saying,
06:07we're repositioning, we're trying to get into these new AI into this stuff.
06:11So it's not uncommon to see people having redemptions, going in, and then buying something into this AI world.
06:19Carol, you brought a great point about the government and where the government kind of stands on funding.
06:25Our company has today $245 million of government grant requests in, from antimony to hydromet to tungsten.
06:35And our joint venture has a $75 million government grant request in.
06:40Request.
06:41These are requests.
06:42And these are grant requests where they basically, just like we got the $27 million, they're grant requests.
06:48We're still dealing with a bureaucracy.
06:50It moves slow.
06:53Deadlines were given to us in January by the Department of Energy were missed in April, in May, in June.
06:59Why is that happening?
07:00Good question.
07:01If it's such a priority.
07:03Can you pick up the phone and talk to the president or his team?
07:07Well, we have on our board General Jack Keene, who you know, and he has definitely helped us in the
07:12past.
07:13I tried to not use that a lot.
07:16To me, it's kind of the last resort.
07:18But we're getting ready to have to shake the trees.
07:21And what he does, he goes and sees the Secretary of War.
07:26He goes and sees the head of the Pentagon.
07:27And they go, well, why hasn't this been approved?
07:30And the trees get shaken.
07:31So the government has a lot of third-party contractors that are slow.
07:36Well, I guess what I would just to follow is it's still a national priority.
07:39We've heard from the administration that it was about national security, right?
07:43You know, we've been talking a lot about energy security.
07:45And the U.S. is in a much better place than it was decades ago.
07:49But we see other countries struggling with that.
07:50But, again, going back to national security, whatever you need, whether it's oil, whether it's critical minerals, supply chains, drugs,
07:58whatever it is, is it still, though, when it comes to rare earths or critical minerals?
08:03I have no doubt it's still a high priority.
08:06It's just we're dealing with government bureaucracy.
08:09That's the only thing that I can see.
08:11I thought we got rid of bureaucracy.
08:12I thought Elon took care of that.
08:13Yeah, well, not exactly.
08:15Not exactly.
08:16It's not moving as quickly as people would want.
08:18There's no doubt about it.
08:19It prevents you guys from doing things, right?
08:21Absolutely.
08:22It slows us down.
08:22It slows us down.
08:23The whole purpose of these grants are to speed things up.
08:26Right.
08:26And so we're waiting six months to a year for a grant that we've applied for that makes perfect sense.
08:31And still, it's going through the wheels of motion.
08:35The biggest one is that you think about Project Vault.
08:38We were both so excited about when you hear this reserve for critical metals.
08:42Your Project Vault's $12 billion.
08:44That's got to get deployed.
08:45Similar to we have oil and gas reserves.
08:47We're going to have this new Project Vault.
08:49That seems to be moving at a pace that's a little different than when it first came out.
08:53Right.
08:54We were all excited.
08:54We're like, okay, well, how do we tap into this thing?
08:57You can feel it a little bit.
08:58Well, I mean, the government, federal government side of things is one part of this.
09:03But when you're actually in these communities and in different areas, there's also local challenges when it comes to the
09:11way people think environmentally about mining.
09:13No question.
09:13It's about extraction.
09:14Yeah, no doubt.
09:15We ran into that in Alaska.
09:17We've had environmental groups with opposition.
09:19We've done a media campaign.
09:21We do meetings.
09:23We've hired lobbyists.
09:24We've hired PR firms.
09:25We do television commercials to try to educate.
09:28Because the problem is the people that are negative on mining are looking at the old school, the old miners
09:34from 20, 30 years ago.
09:36So what are they getting wrong?
09:37What are they getting wrong is we're completely a new animal today.
09:40We take environment very, very seriously.
09:43We do things that other miners never would do.
09:46And we reclaim land sometimes the same month that we dig it up.
09:51I mean, it's not like five years from now.
09:52We do it in the same month.
09:53Which means what?
09:54It means that we leave that footprint where you can't tell we were there.
09:59We reclaim things many times today that are even better than what we started with.
10:03That's right.
10:03But I do want to talk about state level because you're not wrong.
10:06But it's not the same in every state.
10:09You go to Nevada.
10:10You go to Idaho.
10:10I'm in Idaho.
10:12We're welcomed in Idaho.
10:13It's very, very different.
10:14There's NGOs in that, but we have such a community.
10:17I've got 300 miners who work in day in, day out.
10:20I've got another 100.
10:21Since we've been on this show, I hired another 100 miners at Crescent.
10:25That's another 100 from the time I was here.
10:28And there is such an overwhelming amount of support from that industry.
10:33I've got hotel owners.
10:34I've got people who run car rentals business.
10:37Thank God the mine is back on.
10:39This mine has been dead for 20 years.
10:42Thank God you guys are spending money.
10:43My hotels fill.
10:44My restaurants fill.
10:45I had somebody walk up to me because I'm CEO, was so happy to buy me dinner.
10:50I said, look, I don't want you to buy me dinner.
10:52I want to buy it, actually.
10:53And we're glad we're here.
10:55And thank you for supporting the mine.
10:57So Alaska is different.
11:00Idaho, I can say, look, you're not going to find a better state.
11:03It's a good place to be mining.
11:05And we're fully permitted at U.S.A.S.
11:08America's Gold and Silver.
11:09That was one of the big advantages me and Gary had.
11:12When him and I met, we had one tremendous advantage.
11:15We can move fast.
11:16We're both aggressive.
11:17We can get this thing done in this term limit of time frame.
11:22And I'm fully permitted.
11:23We're fully, fully permitted.
11:25Go ahead.
11:25When we're done with this facility and with what we produce today, our combined companies will represent 50% of
11:34the U.S. demand for antimony.
11:35That's big.
11:36And this country was only getting it from China two years ago.
11:39Only.
11:40And that's for a long time.
11:42Remember, not a flash in the pan.
11:43This isn't a hundred meter down.
11:44Every time you guys say something, there's a million questions that come to mind.
11:46Well, and what's China doing right now?
11:48They're still moving.
11:49China is now an importer.
11:50China used to be an exporter.
11:51They had the largest mine in the world called the Twinkle Star.
11:54Been around 120 years, depleted in June of 24, when they put their embargo in in September of 24.
12:00We compete with them every day when we buy antimony from the countries like Chad and Bolivia and Australia and
12:06Peru.
12:07And they're out there paying more money than we're willing to pay.
12:10And they import it to China and nothing comes back.
12:13They're using it themselves.
12:14Look, we're in a unique position to actually really take advantage of that American-made brand.
12:20We really are.
12:21From anything, your cell phones, solar stuff, electric vehicles, we could be domestically producing silver, copper, antimony right in Idaho
12:31together as a group and providing it to Americans.
12:35That's a big change.
12:37That hasn't happened in that area for a very, very long time.
12:40So I don't know if you guys have noticed, but we have some midterms coming up in November.
12:43So, you know, without being political, but it's kind of how we kicked off our show at 2 o'clock
12:48Wall Street time.
12:50And we talked a little bit about some of the primary races.
12:53Is the clock ticking to some extent to if you say that you're not getting you've got these requests out
12:59there, but it's not happening.
13:00Is there a little bit of a clock ticking for you guys?
13:02Well, I mean, there's no question we saw a change within the administration from the Biden to the Trump.
13:07But I'll tell you, during the presidential Biden era, he implemented some things that help our industry.
13:14So I truly think it's more of a bipartisan situation.
13:18No question, though, that Trump has lit a fire.
13:21Trump has gone overboard in trying to get as much capital as possible to rejuvenate this industry.
13:27I think that will continue.
13:29I don't think it'll just all of a sudden when you have a if you have a Democratic president, it's
13:33going to change.
13:34Gary, I would imagine that the reporting around the U.S. magazine depth has also gotten people on board with
13:41the idea of making sure that, you know,
13:43weapons here in the U.S. are back to levels that they were before the war, at least sometime soon.
13:49Well, in the Department of War has represented to me that they have the lowest amount of inventory of antimony
13:55since World War Two.
13:56And you can see what we've been doing with Venezuela and now Iran and we got Ukraine.
14:01We got Israel.
14:02I mean, it's a big deal.
14:03And it's not just the United States.
14:05It's the NATO countries.
14:07It's Australia.
14:08I mean, it's it's a worldwide problem.
14:11Look, it's fixable.
14:12We can fix it.
14:13Right.
14:13And that's what we're trying to do.
14:14There's no doubt we can't rely on everyone else to meet our needs.
14:18We have to be self-sufficient in the U.S.
14:20And we're in the right process of getting that done.
14:24Even when the moment I went to the White House and Gary's got a lot more experience in the White
14:27House than I do.
14:28I am a true blue miner.
14:30But the one thing I heard very resonating was not only do we need 53 million pounds of antimony per
14:35year as a country, the U.S. alone,
14:38but we have to think about our allies.
14:40We can't ignore our allies.
14:41So when you think about munitions, ammunition, fire retardant, you know, one of the biggest things for antimony is fire
14:47retardant.
14:47Do you think the fires in some of the states, like let's use California, are going to reduce next year?
14:52How often do we report those fires?
14:54Do we report them getting smaller or do we report them getting bigger?
14:57Well, by God, we need antimony for that.
14:59You don't have antimony for it.
15:00It's the biggest use is fire retardant.
15:02I'm producing it with him right now, today.
15:05Listen, we took climate just before you guys and what's, you know, possibly coming our way in terms of extreme
15:11flooding and also dry patches, like in a big way, and fires.
15:16The antimony is so critical to this stuff.
15:19We talk about the war stuff and everything.
15:21And it's real.
15:21It's real depleting that.
15:22But when I think about fires, I'm in Nevada and they come so close every year, year after year.
15:28I'm like, my God, we need to make sure we have the supply of antimony on hand.
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