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00:00Lippy, good to have you on the program. You last joined us back in mid-May. How has your world
00:05changed since then? So far, so good. Thanks for having me on again. Last week, as you know,
00:11we announced that we partnered with the Army, which is very exciting. We raised $100 million
00:16in equity, also exciting. You mentioned the new CEO, but it's actually a CFO. Craig Cunningham
00:22just joined us with a very good background in this business, and he joins us now. And as we
00:28shuffle around and get ready for the next push in what we're doing in the rare earths.
00:32You mentioned the Army, and you asked a question about how long. I mentioned to you guys last
00:37time, it's not an overnight, you know, business to get 40 years of Chinese dependency off the
00:43table, but we're working really hard to make the 2027, January 1st, deforest deadline and
00:51help revitalize the government organic industrial base by partnering with them and building our
00:56facilities on Army bases. Are there certain Army bases that you've already identified where you
01:00will be building your facilities? So right now, we're talking about Tool Utah, which is us and
01:07another company, I believe they're in the Boron business that the Army is putting in that Army
01:13base. But there's a few Army bases, and it's continuous talks of which is the best locations.
01:18For the manpower, the power, one of the big issues, as you mentioned, is environmental
01:24when it comes to these things. So wherever it's most best and most convenient to do so,
01:29the Army is looking for a big push to get this to the finish line and to make America in
01:34its
01:34strategic rare earths and its stockpiles and all of that in-house and on the shore.
01:39How does all this work? The funding, the ownership rights, the time to build?
01:43Like, who's in charge if you're building an Army bases?
01:49So obviously, it's a lease with the Army. It's a new, it's public-private partnership,
01:55which this is new to have it on the Army bases, but it tells you about how strategically important
01:59it is for the government and the Army and the military to actually have the supply under their
02:03purview in their hands. As we go along here, I think in the next few weeks, in the next few
02:07months,
02:08we'll give updates, obviously, exactly specifics and things like that. Right now,
02:12it's about where their best capabilities are and where their best buildings are.
02:15And in kind, they get to access for them and all their defense industrial-based customers,
02:21the final products.
02:22But who owns it?
02:24Like, do you, you're going to, yeah, you're, are you going to spend money to build it all?
02:29Yes, we will. Like I said, that's why we did a fresh, we have a hundred million funding.
02:33We're pretty well funded for this. It's, it's, it's, it's a public-private partnership
02:37with the Army's benefits or the land, uh, like I said, environmental, uh, as to mention, it's,
02:42it's not, it's not that you can just shoot through because it's the Army bases. You still
02:46have to go through things, but you're dealing with the Army and you're dealing with government
02:48sites. It's obviously a lot more efficient and easier and the people behind it want it done. So
02:52hopefully that'll help. Well, especially in our case, as you know, we're doing it in a way
02:57that's helpful and better for the, uh, you know, environment in the first place,
03:00as I mentioned last time I was on. But, but contrast, contrast that with how long it typically
03:05would take if you weren't doing this on an Army base. And you, you did have to work with,
03:09uh, different stakeholders within a municipality or within a local government.
03:15It would take much longer. Nobody in the government moves at the speed of light. The
03:19Army, on the other hand, is its own, I would, I would guess it's its own entity in some way,
03:23shape or form, and they can move things and they move fast. Army is the, uh, you know, the best
03:28we have.
03:29You talked about the environment and, you know, we were talking with our own Joe Doe who like
03:33follows all this space. And, and one of the questions that came to mind is if you guys plan
03:37to metallize yourself, and this is, um, where you strip away the oxygen, you convert the raw,
03:42rare earths, right? And the mind earths into, you know, metallic elements. Um, but you guys have
03:48been working, I think on a process that is better for the environment. So what can you share with us
03:52on
03:53that? So we've come up with a way of hydrofluoric acids, free processing. As you know,
03:58I mentioned last time on the show, the processing currently that we do is in the, uh, in Saskatchewan,
04:03as I mentioned, rare earth, we're mainly focused on heavy rare earths. I believe with this,
04:08one of the, the only one that's specifically focused on the military defense industrial base,
04:12which is what they need. It's the heavy rare earths. And most of those have uranium and thorium
04:15radioactive materials. Saskatchewan is permanent for that. That's where it's easy to do the
04:20metallization that you mentioned, which is taking it once it's in powder form to turn it into metals.
04:25And then from there into magnets, that's definite that it's on, you know, going to be here in the
04:29U S the processing for the moment, there's still in, in the, uh, North America, but still in Canada
04:34at the moment. And we'll see how that goes. And as far as bringing it here, but you will be
04:38doing
04:38it. And I'm just curious if you do, how do you work alongside in conjunction with companies like
04:42Vulcan, um, USA rare earth and energy fuels? So some of the companies you mentioned on their
04:49magnet business, some of them in the mining business, we work with some of the ones you mentioned,
04:52and we, some of the ones are just irrelevant to us, but for the most part, this is not,
04:57I've always said that realloys was not a company, you know, with a mine and trying to make a business
05:01at the end. We're more of a consortium of all the right partners. And now with the army, the best
05:06partner of all, and that brings the government as well and all their capabilities, et cetera, to make
05:11this a mind to magnet story. So all of the above with all of the companies that can help us
05:19or be,
05:19you know, like I said, some of them are magnet makers. We're in touch with them, uh, qualifying
05:23materials with them and things like that. So it's not, it's not a, you know, a non-competitive thing
05:27where you have your own thing and you can't talk to anybody else.
05:30Let me, one thing I want to ask you, and if you go back six, eight months, I feel like
05:33Tim and I were
05:33nonstop talking about this, um, in terms of rare earths and the government just so in talking about it a
05:40lot too. Is the U S government for this area and beefing up production here in the United States,
05:46um, is the support the same? Is it more, or is it a little bit less?
05:53The support from the government is from all different size and all different factions of
05:58the government. It's all there. They're happy to help. They're eager to help. And this, uh, again,
06:03with this deal with the army, it's them helping behind the scenes and anything that can help us
06:07with the partnership is things that they're offering. Again, it'll take time, but I think
06:11you'll see more from us on that later, but the U S government under this administration has done,
06:16has created this business where it's a viable business. You know, the, the, the, the G7 and
06:21the caps that they put on with the 60% that helps the, uh, you know, the China dumping, which
06:26I was
06:27asked about that previously. Um, it helps them on the light side. Definitely. In our case, there's a
06:31law of default on January 1st, anything and everything that the government can do to make sure that in the
06:36next few years, this is a North American business. This is an alloy, Western alloy business they're
06:41doing. There's no question. This administration has done more for this sector than anybody else.
06:46I couldn't imagine anybody doing more. I that's, so that's, that's what I wanted to talk about.
06:51And I want to try to get specifics about your expectations from how the U S government is,
06:54is going to help. And certainly we have the, the army basis element of this, but I mean,
06:58does it get to the point where, uh, members of the U S armed forces are, are, are, are actually
07:04doing work for you? I think that's still to be ironed out. So don't want to speak ahead of myself,
07:11but the answer I think is yes. Um, they will be involved. They want to know the processes they
07:15can follow. I mean, it's on their base, uh, ultimately, so they can see how, what, when,
07:20and where it works. I think it's in the best hands when it's there, but it's still a private
07:23company, private operation as a partnership. It's a people, you know, public private partnership.
07:26What are you waiting to hear still from the government about commitments at the moment?
07:32We're just seeing all that it's going to take. And as I said, first step, step one is figure out
07:36where the best places, what's there, what the capabilities are, what they can help with on
07:41whether it's the environmental side or other sides. And then we're always talking to them about
07:44funding to scale up in a bigger and bigger way. You know, they are, they, they want as much as
07:49possible in the, in, in, in their purview. And they want as much as possible in America, obviously.
07:54So anything they can do, and it comes down to funding as well from various departments,
07:59they're eager to help. And we're in talks to try to get done on, on the scale that we want
08:03to get
08:04done in the timeframe that we want to get done. You know, the production that we'll do this year
08:08and the production we'll be doing in the beginning of next year is a start, but there is still quite
08:13a,
08:13there's quite a defense space with all the wars going on with everything that's going on. You
08:16know, every missile that goes out a little more rare earth was depleted. Every AI system,
08:20every GPU, all of that needs heavy rare earths. Every GPU has 13 grams of dysprosium in it.
08:25So all of these things need rare earth. And there's a bit, there's a, there's a lot of it. So
08:29yeah. Every time, every time I ask how to help, how to cook something for dinner, Carol, I'm using a
08:34rare earth, I guess. Sorry. Sorry about that. Every time you pick up your phone.
08:40Literally the vibrator in your phone is made from that, that, that, that vibration, that the shutter on
08:45the cell phone, all of that is rare earth. Everything in our way of life. And this is why it's
08:49so
08:49important for the country. Everything in our way of life, not just militarily to fight wars,
08:54but everything you touch, the humanoid robots of the future, the computers, the AI, the GPU,
08:57everything. It's all rare earth. This is the new, this is the new oil. I said it to you last
09:01time.
09:02Libby, just about a minute left here. The US ban on Chinese sourced rare earths.
09:08We kicked off this segment talking about kind of the G7 and what they are looking to do to limit,
09:14you know, the reliance, if you will, on China. Without these, would your business be viable?
09:22So again, in our business, we're mostly focused on heavies. So the law in January 1st is you can't
09:28buy with a Chinese nexus. And we have a non-Chinese nexus. I think we're the only ones today that
09:32have
09:33a non-Chinese nexus completely. That's already in operation. So it's, it's, but there's, there's the,
09:39the other companies, as you mentioned, some of them that are in the light business,
09:42the G7 is helping that with their, you know, caps and curbs and other things that they're doing.
09:47I think ultimately what you'll see is in the next, let's call it three years,
09:50I think you'll see that this, this, this is not a Chinese American thing anymore. It's
09:54Western allies have their business and China can help themselves to all that they want,
09:58but they're doing everything in their power and they continuously meet and try to figure out
10:02new ways to do this. But we're, we're in reality's case, we're good. The law is in our favor.
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