00:00It is time now for our Metal Spotlight, and the U.S. is putting $3 billion behind its push for
00:05critical minerals as it looks to rely less on China.
00:08N-Cycle is focused on a key part of that supply chain, domestic refining, and is planning to go public
00:14through a SPAC merger.
00:16Joining us now is co-founder and CEO Megan O'Connor, who met with the White House last week.
00:21Megan, let's start with the de-SPACing, the SPAC merger. Why go public at this moment, and why do it
00:28via a SPAC?
00:30Yes, thanks so much for having me on today.
00:33First, before I answer that question of why we decided to go public via de-SPAC, I just want to
00:37take a few minutes to talk about who we are at N-Cycle.
00:40So I think everyone is really familiar with critical minerals, right?
00:43Things like cobalt, nickel, lithium, copper, rare earths, right?
00:46They power our everyday lives.
00:48Our smartphones, our laptops, our EVs, they power strategic industries like AI and our defense space.
00:54And because of that, there's this massive push to onshore these critical mineral supply chains.
00:59And so you've seen a tremendous amount of investment going into the critical mineral mining space, as well, historically, the
01:04recycling space.
01:06But still today, over 85% of the world's critical minerals are actually refined over in China.
01:10And this is a tighter grip than OPEC ever had on oil for just this particular step in the refining.
01:15And so we still have this massive bottleneck that we have to fill to actually be turning these feedstocks that
01:20we have in the mining and recycling space into something usable again.
01:23And that's really where N-Cycle comes in, right?
01:26And similar to how you see, I like to use the analogy for crude oil, right?
01:29Crude oil is unusable without the refining step into the products that we know really well.
01:33N-Cycle is filling that gap, working with both mining companies and recycling companies to turn both those feedstocks into
01:39something usable again.
01:39We developed a technology to be able to do this in a faster, cheaper, and cleaner way to do this
01:44as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible.
01:47And so the reason that we decided to go public via D-SPAC is to partner with a fantastic partner
01:52like Kensington,
01:53who has a tremendous amount of experience both in taking companies public as well as in the automotive space.
02:00And so it's a way for us to be able to raise the amount of capital that we need to
02:03go and deploy the refining capacity that is needed, again, to truly onshore these supply chains.
02:08Well, as I mentioned, Megan, you were also in D.C. on Friday with a meeting with the White House
02:13over critical minerals.
02:15Part of what they had announced was that 100 percent of U.S. black mass remained domestic starting August 27th.
02:21Again, this is one of the things that you're refining.
02:24Why is that necessary or is that a necessary step that the White House make this intervention to make sure
02:29that that which needs refining stays in the United States?
02:34Absolutely.
02:34So I think this is a tremendous signal from the administration that both mining feedstocks and recycling feedstocks are needed
02:41to truly, again,
02:42onshore these supply chains and get as many of these minerals as we possibly can.
02:45And part of that policy framework is keeping those recycled feedstocks like black mass, which just is a shredded form
02:51of lithium-ion batteries here domestically.
02:53And that is one of the key areas that N-Cycle is building capacity for.
02:57The administration, it is also committing over $2 billion in battery grants and $3 billion in loan programs.
03:03How important is it that this industry gets backing from the United States, considering to some degree you are taking
03:11on the behemoth of China,
03:12which heavily subsidizes their supply of critical minerals and refining?
03:18I think it's tremendously important.
03:19And I think we're starting to see, again, over the past 18 to 24 months, right, the push from the
03:25government to really do this.
03:26And we're seeing that both the policy framework, like you said, is part of the domestic sewer requirement or export
03:31controls, as some people call them,
03:32for the things like the black mass to help fight against the Chinese market manipulation.
03:36But then the investment as well to try and get this capacity online and not just the refined capacity, but
03:42also in the mining space, the recycling space, right?
03:43We need all these minerals to be pulled out of the ground and turn it into something usable again, again,
03:48to really onshore these supply chains.
03:49And so we're very excited to see just the sheer amount of support that the U.S. government is giving
03:53this space.
03:54Megan, I only got a minute here, but I would be interested to know, you talk about how your process
03:58is more efficient.
03:59I know you have a modular machine called the Oyster.
04:01Again, if you can, just in a minute, describe how exactly that works and why that is maybe more efficient
04:07or better than what currently exists.
04:09Absolutely.
04:10So the way that refining works overseas for these minerals, right, is they use lots of chemicals like acids and
04:15bases.
04:15That generates a lot of waste and can be very, very expensive, which is why it's been so difficult to
04:19translate here in the West historically.
04:21And Cycle's oyster system produces those same chemicals, but using electricity.
04:25So we're producing them when we need them, where we need it, and only as much as we need, which
04:29gives us all the advantages I talked about before in terms of reducing the overall capital intensity by up to
04:3470%, deploying this in as little as two years, where typically you would see refining capacity take somewhere five to
04:4010 years to come online.
04:41And then in a much cleaner fashion, which, again, helps us to get through the permitting process much faster.
04:45And so, again, trying to build not just across battery minerals, but rare earths and copper as fast as we
04:50possibly can.
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