Can Greatland pull off the great comeback?

And mate, they're drilling, they've listened to me because I said there's gold everywhere up there, get the bloody rigs spinning. But they've got this eastern stock work corridor which 14 half metres and 11 half grams, 18 metres and 6g. So it looks like there's some pretty big potential. Righto money miners dilly back. Mate, that voice is is miles better than it was yesterday and I imagine miles better than it was the day before. I'd give you 95% back. Yeah, mate, I'll tell you what.

On the 23rd of May, it's going to be back to what it was because on the 20 to 22nd of May, I'm going to be at the JRX conference. You've got another. Conference, it's going to be another voice destroyer, mate, the industry LED conference that is the centre for tech innovation. The future mine is going to be on display from 150 exhibitors, mate, tell you what. And we're talking mining companies, OEMs, mining tech companies, but and the exclusive discount code buy money of mine

'cause we're just exclusive. 190 bucks off for members MOM, 160 bucks off MOMNM for non member. And mate, the links are in the show notes. It's on LinkedIn, mate. You're mad if you don't take the free cash and you're mad if you don't go. You're going to be there again 'cause. I'm gone, and apparently that holds some weight these days. So whatever the world we live in, go GRX partnered with between Osman and Oz, IMM can't can't wait, boys. What do we got today?

We've got. We've got a line up that's going to be as good as the GRX conference, Manny, but not quite as good, you know? Yeah. Your love for First Quantum continues. They're having a punt. Yeah, they are. They're they've, they've put $15 million into a company called Prospect Resources. I'm going to go into that, what it means, why they need it, and if there's going to be competitive tension in the long run. JD is going into rare earths and we're talking about in.

Honor of the great Stuart Hines. Telfa. While he's chilling on in. Spain, I think he's in Spain. He's. Got a yacht, doesn't he? Yeah, I think he. Could have got mate. I'll show you the stock price chart. If it keeps going back up, he can buy a bigger one. Let's go. Let's go to Zambia to start Trev Prospect Resources and 1st Quantum.

I'm, I'm, I'm going down the value chain for a change and I do want to talk about, yeah, Zambian copper developer Prospect Resources today they they revealed that First Quantum is tipping in $15 million at $0.15. And and to end up with a 15% shareholding in the company, that's that's a lot of fifteens gents. Do you know that discovered that project in 2015? I did not know that. Because it's not true I.

Was about. To say that importantly the the share price that that first quantum is paying for for that 15% stake is reflects A36 premium to prospects last traded price and the share price today is trading at 13.5 cents. So not quite what what first quantums paying. All right. Remind us about Prospect, how the the assets sort of came into the company and what sold happened because there's a little interesting history in

this one, isn't it? We've, we've touched on them in the past and prospect they acquired the Mumbaisy project in early 2024. Before that it was, it was a fascinating company because two years earlier they sold their Arcadia lithium project in Zimbabwe to a Chinese company for US, $378 million in cash. What did they do with the money? They distributed the overwhelming majority of it to shareholders, 95% of the cash they they distributed via

dividend and a capital return. They only serve of the in Aussie dollar terms, there was like net proceeds of 466 million. The company only kept 34 million of that in prospect, but that was enough for the team to get their hands on the Mombasi copper project in due course, while staying funded enough to for, for exploration work once they kind of got hold of it. And the project is interesting because it's, it's in the Central African Cup about kind of straddling the border of, of

Zambia and the DRC. But on the Zambian side, as you can see on on this map, just look at the vicinity of, of what is, is neighboring this, this project, right? First Quantum's Sentinel operation is just 25 kilometres away to the West. There now Sentinel has processing capacity for 62,000,000 tonnes per annum material and it produces 225,000 tonnes of copper per annum. It is a monster. Six, that that's phenomenal thinking of that amount of tonnes for that amount of

copper. It's, it's low grade, right. But yeah, I mean, I mean, everything's 2,000,000 tonnes. Yeah, it's, it's a big, it's a, it's a big, big, big operation. I think. I do think when we interviewed, yeah, Mike Christie, he, he referred to 1st Quantum's acquisition of the project in 2010 for US $230 million. I think he, I think he referred to that as Deal of the Century. Do you remember that quote? I feel like he did anyway. No it doesn't. Let's.

Run with you. He's he's clearly biased, but undoubtedly like Sentinel has been a tremendous asset that has transformed kind of first quantum and and then to the to the east, you can see on this map a bit more than 30 kilometers away, you've got barracks Lumwana copper operation. Now Lumwana is currently 27,000,000 tons per annum and that produces 120,000 tons of copper per year. But Barrick is planning to turn

Lumwana into a super pit. They want to, you know, make it a tier one asset, which it currently isn't. And that means scale. So they're planning on on doubling the processing capacity to 64,000,000 tonnes per annum and they hope to also double copper production to 240,000 tonnes per annum. Just to think back, the gross was 1.6 million tonne for 65,000 tonne in copper. Different scale, is it it? Is it is It is absolutely is. So how does prospect fit into this then with the with the

majors around it mate? This this year prospect they dropped their their maiden resource plus they secured 2 large scale mining license from the Zambian government. The the maiden mineral resource estimate 107 million tonnes at 0.5% copper for 514,000 tonnes of contained copper. And in the latest trend that's just everywhere you look.

There was also an expiration target another, another 420 million to to, you know, 1050 million extra tons of of material at at a similarish grade is in the exploration target. So there's, there's line of sight to a fair bit of all there at at modest grade. You know, that's 0.5%, right? The question is that you have to figure out, does first Quantum or Barrack need that feed? And if they do, when do they need it on Barrack, their

Lumwana super pit ambitions? I think it's they say the expansion's going to be about $2 billion, but doing what they're what they're gonna gonna embark on at Lumuana, we'll kind of establish my life there out until 2060 by super, super pitting it perhaps yeah prospects or could displace some of some of the mine plant earlier or provide blending benefits. I'm not not entirely sure, but let's let's move on from now to to 1st Quantum.

First Quantum Sentinel is a massive 62 million tons per annum and the current feed grade is around that 0.5% copper mark right now too, maybe kind of slightly lower than that. But there's also this technical report on Sentinel that came out in 2020 and what it showed was the mill could be fed at 60, you know, 62 million tons per annum up until 2032.

However, the grade really falls off substantially between 2029 and 2033. Look at this, this chart and you can just see like that, you know, between 2028 and 2029 there, it just falls from 0.49% to 0.34% where it where it unfortunately stays for quite a quite a number of years. And and that's a very substantial drop off in grade, which of course would mean no much lower production.

So you can you can pretty easily see now why first quantum is, is going to be interested in, you know, putting its claim on prospect resources right now. There's there's feed that could clearly displace the low grade ore there and, and have a have a substantial impact on, on the incremental value that that first quantum get out of Sentinel.

Yeah, wow. Once you convince yourself that first quantum need this and that they they, they need it before 2029, then you just have to do the math on like what the incremental value to 1st quantum is. The, the market cap of, of, of prospect resources is under $100 million Australian at the moment. I read Hoffy's analysis sort of suggesting incremental value to 1st quantum could be between US 450 million and US 600 million.

If you know, if if that were that were feeding us through through Sentinel in time, but I don't think like a a deal gets done at full MPV here. You a deal like if if a deal happens, there's gotta be something on the table for first quantum to to to still get benefit out of it as well, you know, so. Yeah, they've got their foot on

them. They've got their foot on them and that's important because you've got you've got barrack in the region who like the, you know, the all could, could have reasonably also gone towards if, if it, if it suited the mind plan too. But you know, first quantum's there, they've got their foot on that. There's rights that come with the the investment too, including board representation and and the like.

So yeah, it's, it is, it's, it's an interesting one, but I'll watch it. You know, I'd expect in due course, no, no, no sense of urgency now because I've got the foot on them. But in due course, like I wouldn't be surprised to see this kind of wrapped up by first quarter. Yeah, right. So what? Anything else interesting about this? In addition to 1st Quantum's investment here prospect, they have this existing 15% shareholder called Eagle Eye Asset Holdings.

They are also tipping in $3,000,000 at $0.15 to retain their own 15% shareholding in the company. Equal eye is interesting. I, I had to look into them because I was like, I think I got another strategic, but it's not a strategic investor on the, on the register. It's, it's the mining investment division of a family office called Fortuna Holdings SFO. And if you're trying to figure out a family office, which family, good luck finding kind of public disclosure of which family it is.

It's not it's not available in the kind of the public domain of, of Fortuna. All all it refers to in in all of their docs is the the promoter family. However, one of the other companies that that Eagle Eye is a substantial shareholder of on the ASX is Canyon Resources and you can see the signatory on the recent change in substantial notice for them on Canyon is is Gaurav Gupta now. Aussie fella. Aussie fella, Yeah, you won't find any kind of public details that link Gaurav Gupta.

I'm probably saying his first name wrong to the Gupta that is very controversial in South Australia right now. Sanjeev Gupta Gaurav is the CEO of Adani Capital. Adani of course is you know, there's lots of links to different sort of set of Guptas, but they all there is a lot of connection. There's connection between Guptas. But anyway. It's simply not the same Adani that was doing the. Coal Board and. Well, it's land. Or a different Adani? That's Adani Group.

And then there was these financial divisions and then you had kind of, you know, because the whole Greensill drama, it kind of got chopped up. And anyway, this is just like one of the the financial bits that was chopped up. It's the way I read it. Yeah, right. Anyway, but but eagle eye isn't isn't Adani. That's just somehow Grave is signatory and Grave is also CEO of Adani Capital. For simplicity, it appears to be Gupta money. I'm just not sure which Gupta's.

But anyway, I found I found all that fascinating. Yeah, cool. Right. Looking at that region, you know what I'm thinking. What are you thinking, Maddie? What would be the most out there thing that you think could pop into my head after your discussion? It's it's you've, you've known me for two years. Could you imagine a mega merger between Barrick and 1st? Quantum. It's it's. It's I was about to say that they've tried and it makes perfect sense. Quite literally 2 years ago they Barrick.

Bid for First Quantum. Yeah, no, no joy. But but yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's certainly, I mean, there's massive synergies there, right? And I think LA Minor has been a fair bit harder for Barrack than Barrack envisaged. And yeah, Sentinel was, was, was maybe kind of would would help unlock it in a way that that was more straightforward. And yeah, First Quantum had, you know, I think they've got a big shareholder on the register which helped them knock it back,

but I can't remember. Best quantum of a very big Chinese shareholder. Yeah. Do you see Barrick also dropped gold from or they're trying to drop gold from their name right now because they want to become a copper miner. Too bad that ticker is GOLD. Like to work on that one. That's a bit. Yeah. But yeah, with Rico Dick and everything, they are moving more and more toward being a copper

miner. And I, I, I don't think First Quantum would ever want that, by the way, even even though maybe they could get a premium all that sort of stuff. But the, the, the culture, the culture of, of First Quantum, like we've talked about is, is nothing like the culture in a place like barrack and that place would, you know, the, the, the thing that really drives it and, and why it's efficient and why it's lean and why they can do so much, yada, yada.

That would be, that would be completely eroded if it was, you know, engulfed by a barrack. Yeah, because Barrack can't lean. Not they're not lean, they're not entrepreneurial, they don't kind of take bold risks in a nimble and fast way in the same way that that First Quantum is empowered to do. I think it would be a lot harder for Barrack to deploy capital to get a lot of lot of change to go through to get that happening. For sure, yeah.

Right, buddy, sit back Stewie Hines most famous great 1 gold

shareholder. And if anyone can become a more famous one, I'll buy you a cart and a piece. Most famous retail shareholder. Yeah, most definitely. So at least we've got a free up a free link coming up on Twitter because he always gives us a share. Have a look at Greatland up she was he's up what 120% in the past year up to 14 lbs. And I think they like after the rise and stuff they'll back down at six.

So it's had a good, good bloody rise since they've it's all gone through after the after the capital rise. If you look at the long term chart here. It's a pounds or Pence, Pence, Pence, Pence. Sorry. Yeah. What's What's the difference between a pound and a pence? So pence, Pence is like 0.60 cents. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cents in dollars. Oh yeah, that's why bloody Glencoe is like fucking 284. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's like 2 bucks, 80 or 280 pence. It is confusing with that.

I put the decimal though and yeah and it says GBP but it's fucking. Got it, Got it now. Yeah, Lord saved the coin. Yeah, bloody now. God saved the coin. God save the queen, the king, right? Oh yeah, true. Go, Charles. He's the king. Yeah. Lose track of all these, right. Great. Look at the bloody long term. It's like Stewie, you might get the bloody. It's it's coming back. It is coming back. Look at the ultimate high. I think what was the high about 38. So right it is.

It is on the rise again. Plenty of happening at Telfa. Plenty happening at bloody have her on. With that much going on they definitely need to bloody call KCI. That is like just pretty mate. They probably need 38 I TS on site up there, probably more Oh mate and no one else in Australia has 38 I TS other than KCI. And if they need more KCI got more coming in the next 6 months mate. That road between Telford and Haveron needs to be maintained.

AKCA grader arrived this month. Perfect bloody home for that. And they'll probably need people too. Maddie. Mate and KCA can deliver them in all shapes and forms on a variety of arrangements and I'll tell you like we're talking ITSITSITS, machinery, machinery, people, people, people, people. And you just have to pick up the phone and call KCA. It's a. Pretty simple message. Oh bloody hell, what a bloody oh and oh. Cheers guys. Yeah. Alrighty, tell us about the.

Cording so the the the highlights 250 these are in Aussie dollars 253 mil of free cash flow debt free closing cash balance of nearly 400 Aussie. So there's about been three and a bit months, three, nearly four months of great land production because they released their those partial December numbers. Now this is their first you'd say full quarter side, 90,000 ounces of gold produced all in sustaining costs 2100 Aussie.

Remember they've got copper associated well, so 3 1/2 thousand tonne of copper as well. I assume they'd have a little bit of like impet, what would you call it rehandling under the all in sustaining 'cause there's some stockpiles they produced as well. So gold recoveries, there was a big, big improvement, 86.7%. So previously I think they were modelling 78%. So recovery was really good. And they've just approved and commenced mining in the stage 7 cutback for the new West Ham

open pit. So they've released a guidance which they hadn't previously. So gold production for FY25 S essentially 6 and a bit months, 196 to 210,000 ounces and looking to pump about 100 mil of growth capital in it. So that's gonna be around seven months of great land ownership. So, and mate, they're drilling. They've listened to me 'cause I said there's gold everywhere up there.

Get the bloody rig spinning and they are they're I think they're gonna well they say they're gonna have 6 by by June quarter they're adding another two and they're gonna have 6 drill rigs up there, which is the most they've had up there since 2020. I'll go over some of the results later.

So, so you can see here the the beauty of the gold price, their average realised price for the quarter four and a half 4585 and just look at how much bloody better this is environment is compared to new Crest. So the new Crest days and that's so 4585 and then you can imagine this quarter. So it is. It's pretty awesome that that the yeah, that gold price dynamic is also just let them I completely clean up the balance sheet to you know, there's no

yada yada. And the reinvested into the growth of, of Telfer as well at the same time as they bring in everyone online because that, that can, that can, you know, buy you more, more time as well in terms of replenishing your stockpiles and, and the locks. Yeah, yeah. And and like in terms so for you know, 250 free cash this quarter, so up the gold price and I think there's going to be a bit less lower recovery in the coming quarter.

But like that's, you know, what was Havron's, I think the latest CapEx was 480 US predicted in the 2021 numbers. So like it's gonna be, it's gonna be a billion plus. But they they've got a good opportunity here to generate a lot of free cash to take the pressure off that that CapEx and not have to tap the market or the debt facility maybe maybe. But the IPO on ASX is, I think scheduled for June.

Scheduled for June, Yeah. I think they're just going through the process of the the admission from the AIM that all the votes that go, the scheme votes and all that to go with it, so scheduled for June. And look at this, an AIM company and everything's reported in Aussie dollars. Yeah, yeah, it's 'cause they're looking after Oh no, Stewie Ions is over there. I think it's probably Stewie might have asked that can we have it all in Aussie dollars?

So good on you. So all milled so for nearly 4.6 million tonne milled .68g gold. So from that there was 4.2 point 6 of actual ore mine from open pits, 278,000 tonne from underground. So it looks like they they went through about 1.9 million tonne of stockpiles for so remember they got and the 2/3 of that stockpile you got 20 million tonne at very low grade at .33 and they got 9.2 million tonne at .64 which is around what they're doing.

So they've they're not just running that whole stockpile through the dual trains. They've buddy just chipping away as they need it courtesy of the Newmont folk that left him there. So that's giving him a good runway. But so they're, yeah, not, not just sitting there 'cause that, that that's what would have killed him because they just bloody sat there and processed stockpiles. But they're, they're hammering the underground, it's bloody and the open pits, it's good.

And you see the recovery 86.7% compared to historically ranging from 78 to 82. But they've actually they've flagged at the June 2025 quarters, probably gonna be back around 82 saying the Stage 7 area of the West Dome was historically. A lot lower recovery due to the oxidation state. So they I don't think you'd get used to the 86%. So you can see in this picture here they've got the stage 7 and the stage 2 five and eight. I think it is they're mining in the West time.

Then they're down the bottom of the mine in the A reef, the rye and then doing some mining up in the M reefer, which is a bit higher up. So that's where all the ores coming from at the moment. So, and you look at the, the drilling they're doing. So this looks like pretty close to the bottom, the a reef and you know, 5 metres at 6 grams, 8.3 at 4.6. So as I said, there's bloody gold and it's look like it's only from like 16 metres from 85

metres. So they've like must be just these parallel structures they've punching off an existing or drive or a drill drive to find those new lights. So based on those distances, it's not that far to develop out to those areas. Then they got this, this looked bloody pretty cool. The up in the MRF. So the MRF is higher up sort of halfway down effectively like the caves at bottom of The Cave was about thousand 1100 MRF was sort of top bitten down to halfway.

So they've got this eastern stock work corridor, which 14 half metres at 11 half grams, 18 metres at 6g. So it looks like there's some pretty big potential and that's a looks like 1000 metre strike target, 100 metres wide, 40 metres high. So that's like that's, that's what I said. Just got to get those friggin drills pumping. So there's looks like and as you mentioned before, ASX listening in June 2025. I think what they're so they market cap I think is I think it

works out at the moment. Aussie 3.8 billion. So it's actually a couple 100 million less than Genesis. But how you compare that look at what they're producing, look at the infrastructure they've got Haveron is that's the the best thing about the this Haveron job is for them. It's going to be a freaking big job and it and it will have challenges with the water, but they've got Telford ticking

along. So not like, it's not like it's all going to have this bloody primary focus like a single asset company on what Haveron's doing because you've got Telford ticking away and you're still going to be producing and you're hopefully going to be making money. So because it's, I think the last one was, I think what are they talking about 2.8 million tonne? I think that was their last study. No doubt they're probably going to want to get more out of it.

That was for US 46476 CapEx. So, but I would imagine probably going to need at least a billion like because they're going to have to Chuck. Aussie, yeah. Oh yeah, because that number's 7/7/58 hundred. Oz They're they're going to like the haulage system or because they won't be just hauling it up a bloody single decline. So there'd be either a haulage shaft or a another decline going in which will be a conveyor system. Could be well over a billion. Oh well, over.

Yeah, yeah, it's going to be a big job. And then that's Primary Crusher underground, you've got all the ventilation shafts And remember, every piece of shaft decline, everything has to go through that water table. And I don't think they're actually at the big water yet. So there's a lot of and I know they've probably done it, done it before. They know what's coming up. So they'll, they'll know how to get through it, but it doesn't still make it quicker to get through.

It's gonna it's gonna be a big a big job. It's not just gonna be a let's RIP in and get 3,000,000 tonne out of the joint. So size the price a lot of and a lot of infrastructure to deal with that water. I assume you gotta you gotta put it somewhere. I just Gerard James needs to run his eye over that joint mate that the team at WA water balls have seen more water than the Titanic. They've like mate, and you know how long the Titanic's been dealing with water, mate.

It's a 3 hour long movie. It's a long time mate. Just. Titanic looks at it all day, just like Gerard James and the WI. And they're not just the best drillers in the best mud Rotary drillers in the world. They're just the best water people in the world. They know how to find it. They know the methods, how to get rid of it, to store it, to put the ball fields in, to put the dewatering balls. Like mate, you just need him up there as an expert water consultant to run his eye over this.

I'll get one further Not just the best water people in the world, the best, one of the best people in the world. Just best, definitely the best people in Jarrah, yeah. Yeah. That's it I heard, probably got good people probably in Australia. So right, just get him up there. He's the only man in Australia that can do it. I reckon if it's the aquifers, tricky water board then, then Jerry James will help you. Hey, to get him up there. So yeah, no exciting done.

Bloody good job. Good, good numbers, good cash under the transition crew on site. So I look forward to seeing more of it. Yeah, I think they're on the RSX then. The presentations are just easier to get to I think. I think the last comment on that one would be it's very interesting. It'd be interesting to see how they go about their their Aussie raising. They're not. They're not raising money. Well, they, they said that in in the past, obviously. So I don't think they're raising.

I mean they, they, they. Shouldn't need to. It's it's a compliance list, Yeah, I think. Yeah. It was just interesting that that had three brokers for it. Sort of thought that was a bit curious, yeah. They say they're not raising money, but the. Companies have said that before. Yeah, that's true. I I. It's just, it's just a way to get like an invest like funds as well. Love buying in a in a whack like

that. Not that it's great for existing shareholders and that's kind of why they did the previous raise. It might be, it might be a big shareholder that can like sell kind of like when Capstone came over, they didn't didn't raise money, but that the Ryan sold down and then obviously brokers placed that stock and yeah, depend on that. There we go. Right, let's get on to rarest

JD. The bloody bit going on, the rarest bit against today. Yeah, quite, quite a bit going on. And I'll start up with Santa feel pretty, pretty unqualified to speak about this because it's, you know, it's. Been doing this for two years, you are quite fine. There are big forces at play here in in the rarest market and I think what we're seeing right now is one of the most influential stories in the commodities market and it will be for for the year and for

quite some time to come. So let's give it a bit of a go and and chat about it. I think the the eye-catching part of this story is what we've seen in stocks like MP materials. So they jumped over 20% last night. Obviously MP materials is America's golden child when it comes to rare earths. They are the owner of the sole operating rare earth mine in in

the USA. It's in California Mountain Pass. Wasn't always the golden child, but it was Molly Corp. It certainly wasn't it had a it had a tough time, but the the new owners have done a bit better out of it than previous owners have. Now that positivity is being seen on the ASX as well. Not so much in Linus, although they've gone sort of from strength to strength. But you've seen big jumps at the the smaller end of town from the likes of Meteoric and others,

and. Great data release of mineral resource upgrade. A good a good day indeed. Yeah, we're seeing sort of plus 20% moves. And I just want to make a quick comment. I think with how mainstream this kind of debate about rare earths and and critical minerals has gone, I think you need to kind of be careful. There's pretty kind of liberal use of the words critical minerals, rare earths and everything. And you know, it's, it's a bit confusing at times because I think people use it very

interchangeably. You know, rare earths, critical minerals, they're all getting tied in. And I think the perspective we all kind of have is like, if you need it, if you can't produce it, it is critical. You know, rarest is something completely different, obviously, but the US is learning pretty quickly that a lot of these minerals are quite critical for them because they don't have the

capacity to produce them. That's why they're at the crux of this trade war, and that's why we've seen these pretty dramatic moves. There's been an evolution in the trade war and to be honest, I think people were kind of actually sleeping on it a little bit like what we saw with how China reacted to the tariffs coming on was over a week ago

now. And yeah, the US has started to do bits and pieces, but people didn't quite perhaps acknowledge, and I put myself in that camp as well, how kind of positive this would be for national champions being MP materials, being lioness here in Australia and the other kind of

main players. And yeah, I mean, it's no surprise to ask like China refines 85% of, of rare earths, even the operation in in the States, like the US is actually the second biggest producer of, of rare earths, but 2/3 of their stuff gets sent to China for processing. So these are all challenges that the West needs to tackle. And rare earths are one of, you know, the best, maybe the the kind of perfect market for China to put the squeeze on, right?

Because if you're Chinese and you look at the railroads market, it's really not a massive part of your economy, but it's crucial to a whole heap of things downstream in the US. So it's it's something they can really pinch and really hurt their, you know, enemies overseas. And yeah, I think this is nothing new to to most of the people who listen to to the party.

So we can kind of get in, get into get into it in a bit more detail, but I think the wider world outside the very small audience that that knows about commodities is learning about this very quickly. So what was the actual news that made the stocks soar overnight? So Trump came out and, and spoke about creating sort of a critical metals stockpile. And it was kind of interesting how it all came about.

He it was reports that he would sign an executive order that will allow the US to create this stockpile from minerals that would be mined from the floor of the Pacific Ocean, but kind of ignore that that last bit about mining from the the bottom of the ocean. And I think that's what most investors did, piling into MP materials because the US does have projects and deposits in its country.

It just hasn't been interested in developing them because the Chinese have flooded the market for the last 20 or 30 years. We spoke about Trevor and I last week what the Chinese had done and they were very specific. They hand picked a certain number of, of elements, particularly the heavy rare earth elements. And what they did was more or less put export controls on without kind of saying that. And we've seen it in the numbers already.

Shipments and exports of these minerals have slowed right down. So people are feeling the the pinch already. And you can see that there's sort of quotes in some articles going around from chemical supplies in places like Los Angeles saying that it's going to take 45 days for them to get an export license. And, you know, in that interim, they're not getting anything shipped over from China. So if they don't have the inventory, they're caught pretty

short at the moment. And as well as that, you've got the Chinese adding a lot of American companies, specifically military related companies to their kind of naughty list, which means Chinese companies can't deal with them whatsoever, can't do any sort of business with them. So it's getting pretty, pretty sort of cagey in in that realm.

And if you look around the world, go to say, Japan, for instance, they felt the brunt of rare earths specifically, you know, it's a trade war when they send some of their ships into Chinese water. And they, because of that lesson, some of them keep over a year's worth of inventory on hand. Now, American companies don't do that. That is, that is dead capital.

That's a drag on your returns. They're holding maybe a few months at most in inventory of these these magnets and other bits and pieces that you might need. Exactly. It's it's the world we live in. Just in time manufacturing and the Japanese who went through that painful experience and at the back of that we saw lioness and everything sort of emerged. They they learnt their lesson and they, they keep a lot of inventory on hand.

So, yeah, I mean, if we if we go around and and look back in the states at a company like MP Materials, they still have Chinese ties, right? Like Shanghai, the the Chinese rare earth player was a big backer of them getting their feet off the ground from being a spec in the late twenty 10s to

to where we are today. And they still send 2/3 of their concentrate to China. So it's really the implicit backing that the the US government would be behind them that is sent a fair bit of capital, you know, chasing them. They're up I think 40% on the year now in, in the face of a pretty tough broader market as we all know. And yeah, closer to home, Linus is trading very strongly, pretty far away from any kind of basic valuations that we we kind of

like to employ. I could say why you were talking to your computer today, JD. You've gone deep and philosophical on rare earths today, like a real global understanding of this. Trying to. I'm trying to because. You're trying, you're trying to make sense of like, what does the politics actually mean to that the, the free cash flow of these of these companies? Because if you have a hefty valuation, it's got to be kind of substantiated by some, some free cash flow at the end of the

day. And just trying to piece all that together is the the question mark, is it, are they trading? When it changes every night. Yeah. Are they, are they, is it thematic? Is it just like a thematic move and then kind of that will fall off and nothing really changes or is there actually a meaningful difference into free cash flow? Yeah, I mean, we spoke about it maybe two months ago now and thought like, when's Linus going to do a capital raising? And I I don't feel that

differently about that. You know, their, their cash pile is kind of dwindling. We haven't seen rare earth prices tick up massively. It's obviously a very kind of opaque market. So take that with a pinch of salt. But you're not getting there on on valuation grounds right now. But with the the backing of Western governments around the world, maybe you do kind of get there. It's a, it's a different way of kind of looking at it. Because you don't know. You don't know if the price ticks up.

You don't know what the payability is doing in China. Like, who knows? Yeah, yeah, absolutely to to add a few more comments to US and Western policy because there there has been some more comments made to to what we heard about Trump just before. I actually don't think what we're seeing right now is a massive change in the states from the previous administration. The the previous Biden administration, they spoke about

this a fair bit. They, they allocated money to sort of certain similar buckets, rare earths and these types of projects being one of them. There are certainly varying opinions and how effective they were with spraying that cash around. That's that's fair enough. But you can't accuse them of sort of not putting the capital up. We saw it with a lot of ASX listed companies. They were recipients of of this

sort of money. There was still a lot of delays, regulatory, environmental, all these sort of hold UPS. They were an impediment even if the money was dealt out. And I think Lioness is the perfect example of this. They were awarded nearly US $260 million in 2023 to build a processing facility at Sea Drift in Texas. And as of today, construction hasn't started. We're two years later and that comes down to environmental and wastewater management delays, so.

On those delays, it's part of the new administration is like a promise to fast track. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the same goes for for resolution copper mine or all these, you know, there is Trilogy Metals is another one. Those stock ticked up massively because of the the understanding that these the sort of red tape around projects is going to get pulled back. So we'll we'll wait and see what

kind of happens on that. I was also listening to an interview at lunch today when I was just eating before an interview with Treasure. What you do at lunch? It's true. This is an interview with Treasury Secretary Scott Besson, who I'm sure most listeners will

be pretty familiar with now. And something he said in this interview, I wasn't listening to this for any sort of take on on minerals or anything mining related, but he said something that really sort of stood out to me, so I'll play it now. There's been an early focus on Latin America writ large from the Trump administration in the 1st 100 days. Is Latin America policy also in a sense China policy for this

administration? Well, I, I think that might be a good description because what we are trying to keep from happening is what has happened on the African continent where China has signed a number of these kind of rapacious deals marked as aid where they are really, they take, they've taken mineral rights, they've added huge amounts of debt on to these countries balance sheets. It's undisclosed to any of the other international organizations. They've got tolling arrangements.

So they're they're guaranteeing that future generations are going to be, they are poor and without resources and we don't want that to happen any more than already has in Latin America. I, I find that super fascinating. And that is much wider than rare earths, obviously. But for one, I think Latin America is going to be a winner in the, in the years ahead. We saw with all these tariffs that came out, Latin America to an extent was carved out of a lot of them.

They didn't cop the, the brunt of it because America is realizing how important that is. So I, I think, you know, maybe we see some Aussie juniors be winners, you know, the ones maybe with Brazilian rare earth projects and these sorts of things be winners. I think first and foremost, you're a winner if you're in America. But that is a, that is a notable different tone from, from the US than it has been for the last 20 or 30 years. I'm not sure if you guys had a different take on that.

Yeah, I agree. I agree. I am, I am curious. I mean, this is, this is talk of a of a stockpile or strategic reserve. You've been, you've been thinking a bit more about the rationale for stockpiles versus versus downstream. Yeah. I mean, we, we heard about this, we spoke about it when we were in Africa.

And you have the kind of debate of should a country that doesn't know how to do this, say in rare earths in Australia, just build the downstream processing or should they build up a strategic reserve? And then if a particularly prickly moment happens in future, then you have to kind of hit the ground running and build your downstream capability.

Are those stockpiles going to be like just mixed rare earth concentrate stockpiles or finished rare earth stockpiles I. Would be stockpiling if I was going to build a stockpile, the product that your manufacturing needs or you need because there's no point having a yeah, there's no point having a stockpile, right.

If if there's a gap between that what that stockpile is and what you actually need it for, you know, IE if you're in America and you've got car makers, there's no point having stockpiles of rare earth concentrate. You know, you want stockpile of magnets or something like that much further downstream. And this is very kind of early discussion. Madeleine King, our resource minister, was actually speaking about this yesterday. There was a few articles circling about.

I'm not sure how far Australia gets along in the process because we don't have the manufacturing and there isn't a massive interest around Australia to build that manufacturing capacity. So what what exactly what we be stockpiling it for send it back to China so they can build the stuff for us. I don't quite know.

But I think it is something with America's kind of made in America policy that they're going to be considering pretty heavily over the over the coming decades and particularly over the next year or two. So certainly sort of 1 to watch. I don't think there's any kind of.

Easy, easy answers out there, but I think, but what's most relevant to to listeners of this podcast, I think there are projects like in in America specifically that are maybe going to get favourable treatment and going to do quite well. And MP Materials is the best example of that. But there's other players that I think might have a good run of it too. Very good, good buddy. I'm going to, I'm going to really listen to that. Very good. Hopefully it made sense, yeah. No, it didn't.

That's why I'm going. To many peaks, Trev. Yeah, I just, I just thought it was funny. I've got nothing to say about this other than the fact that the many Peaks share price now looks like it's logo. There you go, many. Peaks. I love to plug. Oh beautiful good work boys. Alright, thanks to the partners GRX tickets as talked about at the start of the show going to the show nights.

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