[REPLAY] Oliver Friesen: All Things Tungsten

We're talking critical minerals, tungsty, pretty much anything where Earth's anything that China has potential stranglehold on or anything that the DOD has invested in recently and we're doing it with none other than Oliver Friesen. Oliver is the founder and CEO of Guardian Metals and before we get any further disclosure, I do have a position in Guardian Metals. It's a small position, I wish it was bigger because the stock has done pretty well. Let me see. I remember it was funny, Oliver, because you were pitching the stock to me. When I was getting into the critical metal space and I wrote that piece on tungsten and you were like, "Hey, we're a tungsten company. We're a critical minerals company." I didn't buy it then, but you guys IPO'd in May of '23 at a. Yeah, about here. Let me adjust it for USD just to make it easier. You guys IPO'd at like 10 cents in May of '23 and now you guys are at 74 cents. Up a casual 650%, not bad. You got the market, it is the market is a good time for you guys. Let's get your background on why you just decided to even start this company. Yeah, so I'm a geologist by trade, Brandon. I come from Vancouver, Canada. I spent most of my career in, I would say, Western North America. Really boots on the ground kind of stuff. I spent the first 10 years really out in field and not really in a board room or in civilization. I really learned the industry from boots on the ground running journal programs, running geophysics, running geocamp, putting resources together, moving projects forward. That's kind of the lens that I look at the industry from. So as part of that experience, I actually worked for Barrack Gold for a period of time in Nevada. So I've done a lot of work in Nevada. And so how did we kind of get here was, you know, I wanted to bring a lot of my experience in the exploration development space, but also tying in the jurisdictional piece as well. And Nevada has always been a jurisdiction that I loved working in just because it's a place where they want you to be there, they want you to have success. And then critical metals, I mean, my kind of forte now is tungsten, but obviously there's a huge pusher across the board. And I'm not going to say it wasn't with it out of bed at a lock to get to the position we're in now, but five years ago looked at this project pilot mountain, which just so happened to host the largest tungsten deposit in the US. And truth be told, five years ago, being kind of a copper porphyry guy, it was actually some of the porphyry targets that really drew me in. And I thought, okay, I'll figure out the tungsten piece later. And the tungsten was certainly interesting back then, but no one cared about it. I mean, I tell you, you try to tell people what tungsten and they just looked the other way. But what we kind of saw, and to give ourselves a bit of credit, was, you know, China has obviously a stranglehold on a lot of different critical metal supply chains. Now that didn't happen by accident. That's been decades and decades in the making. But it looked somewhat untenable, you know, to have a superpower like the United States reliable, or be reliant on China for gallium, germanium, and antimony and tungsten and rare, I mean, the list goes on and on and on. And I figured, you know, what this tungsten deposit could actually be quite valuable alongside the copper stuff. So anyways, a bit of luck, a bit of foresight, and you know, we find ourselves in a very good position. But, you know, everything critical metals is super important in the US right now and for good reason, because the US needs to really get it together and start to mine these things on US soil to support the industrial base and as soon as possible really. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Interesting background there on on Barric. So, you know, obviously you've got the range of these critical minerals and you said, you know, you're focusing on tungsten. When you set off to kind of start your own thing, did you have any kind of bias on that metal or did you take like a top down approach and just say, you know, which, you know, kind of metal, do I see having the largest supply demand imbalance or was it bottoms up where you just said, oh, I'm interested in this metal and I want to go that way. Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, like I said, it was, it was funny enough, but I should be honest. It was actually the copper that we have on this project that originally drew me in. You know, what was interesting about tungsten was looking at the metals where there was the most supply chain risk, right? And tungsten is in the top five, certainly the top 10 of metals that globally we have the most supply chain risk associated with it. So, it was, I mean, I need to be honest, it was the copper that drew me in. The tungsten I thought was super interesting and I figured I could get smarter and that was an asset that could become very valuable one day. And lo and behold, it was I think really the Russia Ukraine war that unfortunately set this off, which was all of a sudden we realized that, oh, maybe we can't just buy these metals from Russia and North Korea and China and just so happens that those three countries are the leading global producers of tungsten. So it just so happened that the whole kind of landscape shifted and countries like the US and the Western world realized that, oh, well, we can't just buy these metals and never have, you know, there's no, it consequences associated with it. So it was a metal that we knew there was a lot of supply chain risk associated with it and it just so happened that it kind of all came together to the point where now tungsten I would argue is probably one of the most critical metals probably that the US is focused on right now and for good reason if you look at all the data points. So what do you think are the most overlooked aspects of the tungsten market from a generalist commodity investor that let's say is used to very transparent pricing, very transparent data and even just kind of overall like reports on the supply demand picture because tungsten is very opaque. Yeah, I think I think the point you made is probably the first issue that we have is that the pricing is a challenge, right? Not only can you not just pull up a price of tungsten in Google or whatever kind of standard way you'd find copper or gold, but on top of that the pricing and the unique quantity, it's in a metric ton unit. So people try to Google and try to get information on the price of tungsten and that's the first barrier they got to jump over and try to get smart on just how it's priced and how it moves. And that's certainly an issue there. I think the size of the market as well. I mean, it's, you know, antimony was a metal that I think really set things off before tungsten and that was when China announced the Outward Export ban and then all of a sudden, you know, the likes of perpetual resources started to become really interesting and also the price of that metal has gone from I think $10,000 a ton to about 60. So it was, you know, we saw this antimony move happen and antimony is a small market in tungsten. I think antimony is probably about two to three billion dollars a year and tungsten is five or six billion dollars a year now. So the pricing was a big part of it, the size and you know, when you speak to institutional investors, they want, you know, they want copper liquidity, they want a market equivalent size of copper. But you know, these are really important markets. I mean, tungsten is six billion dollars, but if you look at the, the reach of that market and all the products and all the other things that rely on tungsten, I mean, the numbers much, much bigger than that. So pricing is a challenge. And on top of that, what we, on the pricing side, what you have is really it's a China price, right? When China, Russia, North Korea, or 90% of the market, you know, it's hard for someone in the U.S. to pull up a quote and get a real good handle as to what the market's doing in the U.S. So we need to see a bifurcation in terms of the markets. We need to see a Chinese price in a Western world or a U.S. price and we are seeing that now. We need investors to understand how it's priced. So just just for your listeners, currently it trades at just under $500 in M.T.U. And M.T.U. is a metric-tongued it. Now, I know you all know all this brand. And but I have every column on. I have to explain this piece, which converts over to tonnage, which at about $50,000 a ton. So on equivalent basis, if copper is at, call it, I don't know, the latest prices, $8,000 a ton, copper or a tungsten on equivalent basis is about five times more valuable. So it's a very high value metal. And it's not just the $5 billion that directly require tungsten. It's the much bigger industry that requires all the cutting tools, which without tungsten you can't make. So there's a lot of barriers there, but people are jumping over them now. And we're seeing, even a year ago, I'd say, branded, I would hop on a call with an institution or investor and I'd say, well, what do you know about tungsten? And almost every time the answer was, I know nothing, like let's start from scratch. But now, especially in the US, we know a lot of institutions who have gotten smart on it. I mean, they're looking for information, they're reading reports, they're understanding the market. So it's getting easier now to tell the story. And I really think it's, we're still really early, you know, baseball analogy, antimony, maybe in the sixth, seventh inning. I think tungsten's still in the second, third inning right now. I think we're really early. So it's good that people are getting smart on it. I think the US, you know, if you look at all the industries that require tungsten, it's without that metal, it's pretty devastating. So I think it's good that people are getting smart, they're investing in it. And that will ultimately need to a solution where the US is less reliant on foreign adversaries for this really important moment. So if I'm an investor and I want to look at tungsten for the first time and I've got my heuristics from whether it's precious metals or industrial metals like copper, iron ore, what's the best way to evaluate a tungsten project? Yeah, it's a good question and it's still quite tricky to evaluate them and that's one thing that we still need to deal with as an industry. And the reason for that brand is when China, Russia and North Korea are more than 90% of the mind market, what you have is you can't just Google China tungsten mind and get information that you can use to make an analysis. So the vast majority of mind tungsten comes from countries where we don't have access to the information about what's going on there. So that is a transparency issue. There are now a few kind of analogs that people can point to to try to get smart and try to understand what's out there globally. But the Western world, I mean the US has no domestic mind production. Canada has no domestic mind production. The nearest mind source to the US is in Bolivia. So there's not a ton of minds outside of China, Russia and North Korea and there's not many minds producing in significant quantity. So the long and short of it is it's kind of tough still, but I encourage investors to look at just taking the copper equivalent five times more valuable than copper looking at these assets and you can run models. Right? I mean you have the index price now. Fast markets is a great source of information. They post a price every Friday and I also post that on Twitter as well so investors have access to that. And then you can pretty quickly, I mean it's all the same. It's all either underground, it's open pay. You could run your own models and come up with an answer pretty quickly and obviously with the price of tungsten now up from call it $300 a ton before China announced an export band in February. We're up to 500 now. So we're up a good amount. But if you look at antimony, antimony's gone up six times. So maybe as we think we're very early. So plug that price in. You can try to figure out exactly what the economics look like. But there are a few projects out there in the Western world that are out there and you can pull numbers from. So what we need to see is more information out there. We need to see more Western world minds. So there's analogs that you can easily point to. And that's what we're looking to do at Guardian is bring two minds to production in the US. So talk to me about the two minds that you have just so we can kind of put an application to the theory you outlined there. Like why did you choose those? Yeah, so what we looked at brand and was multiple different things. The number one thing I think was obviously size we need projects that have scale. Jurisciation was another focus. So both of our projects are in Nevada and you know, we were looking for quality of asset first and foremost. We can deal with jurisdiction later just so happen that both of our assets are in what the we view as a top mind jurisdiction in the entire world. And then on top of that what you're looking for is is is is time to market. And the reason I say that is, you know, as your listeners probably are well aware of, you know, the mining industry is quite cyclical, right? These these things don't last for 10, 20 years. It's usually, you know, a five to eight year cycle that you really need to kind of make a while the sunshine. So I think that tungsten could be long, longer lived than that. Just given the supply chain risk that we still have associated with China, Russia, North Korea, but we still understand there's a desire to get to market as quickly as possible because the US has no domestic mind sources. The US is reliant on, you know, up until February 4th, most of the tungsten in the US came from China. So there's a huge sense of urgency and we're seeing this across the whole defense and critical metal supply chain in the US. We need these metals like yesterday, not eight, I mean, we need them eight years from now too, but that's a whole different cycle, right? That's a whole different, you know, you're looking at exploration projects that need drilling to get to a certain point where you can be mining eight to 10 years from now. We want to be mining a lot quicker. And our goal as a company was actually to get two mines in production before the current administration leaves office. And that's for good reason, right? The current administration is is made it very clear that they want to have these metals mines in America. And you never know what happens from administration to administration. So we want to make sure that we deliver a very important well, two very important projects to the US market while the current administration is in office because the tailwinds that we can tap into and you know, a key one would be the Department of Defense Award that we received a few weeks ago. That's evidence that the time is now for critical and defense metal projects in the US. So time to market was a big one, obviously size jurisdiction, but we believe that we have the two most important tungsten assets in the US. And we're looking to move as quickly as we can and get those mines up and running and product into the market more importantly. It's fascinating to see this play out in real time because if you look at kind of rare earths as an as a analog, you're trying to create a domestic supply chain really from scratch. And the US used to do this back in, gosh, I want to say like maybe even 30s through kind of the 1950s, they used to produce a lot of tungsten and it actually happened to make production. But ever since then we outsourced all that to lower cost places like China. But how do you envision just like a country creating a domestic supply chain from scratch? And like what are the bottlenecks that could impede timelines for someone like you at the raw material input end where you're the one grabbing the stuff and yet there's all this other stuff that needs to happen after that for you guys to kind of really succeed. Yeah, I mean, you are right in that. It's almost being created from scratch, right? Because what we've seen in the Western world is we've just made it so hard to mine, right? And like I said, the position that we're in now, it didn't happen by accident. I mean, China has very, very willingly been mining a lot of tungsten, critical metals, you name it across the board for many, many decades. And also they over time and over certain periods employed, you know, anti-competitive tendencies to make it hard to mine in the Western world and in the US. And for as an example, our project Tempai Yut was actually the largest tungsten mine in the US in the 1980s. And the reason it shut down was China flooded the market with cheap tungsten, right? The government is willing to subsidize industries in the US, including mining. Or they can produce at a price lower than market, even if it's un-economic, to maintain market share. So we've seen that in the tungsten space many, many times. Well, actually not many times, but I think three or four times historically. And that has led to the position now where China controls the market on tungsten. So how do we fix this? I think we need to see, well, we need to see continuity, right? The current administration is doing a fantastic job. It's very clear that the mandate from the White House is that, you know, the US needs the mind these metals, right? The MP Materials deal was a landmark deal. You can debate its merits, but obviously what they've done there has made it abundantly clear that the US is serious about mining and processing rare earth metals in the US for US industry. So just to see the MP Materials deal alone really signals to the market that this is serious, right? And we need to see that continue from administration to administration because as you know, it takes multiple years to get these projects up and running. And if in three and a half years from now, all the Senate government comes in and isn't a support of this, well, imagine where will be six years from now, probably back at the same spot we are in now, which is the US does not mind really any of these metals. So we need continuity. We need to see a lot more of what the current administration is doing. It's fantastic to see the awards that they're handing out through the Department of Defense and other organizations. The permitting side is massive part of this, right? You can have all the awards you want, but if you can't get your permits and your licensed operate, there's going to be no mine production in the US. We're seeing tremendous amount of talons on the permitting side, which is super important part of this. And then the tariffs, I mean, obviously like the tariffs or hate the tariffs and you can debate that either way. At the end of the day, what the tariffs are doing is supporting American competitiveness, right? It's really saying to the market, hey, mind us in America, because if you don't, if you're going to import it from somewhere else, we're going to tariff it. So the tariffs go a long way to support companies like mine, Guardian and our projects in the US because we provide a tariff resource. So we're seeing all the right things happen. We need to see this continue. And then on the process inside, now that's an important part of this because as I'm sure your listeners are aware, like you said, if you just have a mind supply but no ability to process, well, what's the point, right? Is that that that constraints going to have to go to the U.S. or sorry to China or elsewhere to actually turn that into usable, you know, intermediate and downstream products. So we need to see a huge amount of support for the processing side of things as well. We're seeing almost all the executive orders I've noticed, Brandon, is you talk about the upstream supporting mine in America, but then also the processing capacity as well. Now just a quick note on the processing that's specific to tungsten, what's really unique about this metal and one of the other reasons why we focused on it and like the metal is the fact that the processing capacity actually exists in the US. Now most investors wouldn't be aware of this and the reason that this exists because, and I'm sure when many of your listeners hear tungsten and potentially your older listeners, they think tungsten filaments, they think light bulbs, right? And that's what tungsten was a large component of tungsten we use was used for back in the in the 40s, 50s and 60s. before that got phased out, you needed tungsten for the filament and light bulbs. Now, the US had a thriving tungsten filament and light bulb industry in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, and 70s to service this surge in demand. When everyone was liking their homes with these light bulbs. So what that meant was the processing capacity actually got overbuilt in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. So in fact, we have a letter of intent off take agreement with a company called Global Tungsten Empower, who have a tungsten processing facility into on the Pennsylvania. And it's not fully utilized right now, because it was overbuilt for the tungsten filament industry back in the 50s. So all of the gears there, it's all modernized now. It can process a lot of concentrate and scrap, and turn it into usable tungsten products. However, the missing part of the tungsten supply chain in the US remains the mine supply. So the problem that the rare gallium, germanium, antimony, the list goes on, the problem that those industries and metals have is they still need the processing to be built out. But for tungsten, we're very lucky that the processing capacity actually exists. So we need to invest in everything across the supply chain. And I think continuity, and we'll find ourselves in a much better position for eight, 12 years from now. - Yeah, no, that makes sense. It's just a, it's always difficult when there's so many moving pieces to then like assess risk and then assess return requirements for some of these projects, right? Because I think what keeps a lot of investors away from come out of these like tungsten, antimony, even rareers, which I know have become a little bit more popular is, you know, A, I've already mentioned the opaqueness of the market pricing, the opaqueness of the supply demand. But B, you don't have like existing infrastructure that makes it very easy to, you know, bring a mind into production, right? It's like there's, if there's a gold mine, chances are, there's some sort of mill out there that can service that or you've got, you know, third party, like the infrastructure is already built, whereas with tungsten or antimony, again, you're starting from scratch. And so when you've talked to investors or other people about, you know, kind of guardian metals and the projects you're doing, what are their return requirements for something like this where it's, you know, exploration development, but it's also one step further where it's like, not only is it on that, you know, part of the LaSonker, but it's also in these markets where I would, you know, I don't want to classify them as more risky, but let's just say like very much less well known. So that's sort of requirement for higher return, I would think. - Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I'm just on the kind of the issue with infrastructure, just another kind of data point on tungsten. And once again, one of the reasons we acquired Tempai Yut was it was the largest tungsten mine in the US in the 1980. So it produced a significant amount of tungsten for the US industrial base and defense industries in the 80s. So it's, it was an operating mine, very successful, very profitable. It would probably still be operating today if it wasn't for China flooding the market in the late 80s. So the benefit of that project is that, you know, a lot of the infrastructure is still in place. And we own all that as part of the package to purchase that. So on top of that, tungsten is typically process or mind and turn into concentrate via the very standard either gravity or flotation. So it's not like there's anything kind of unique or too weird about turning tungsten or into actual tungsten concentrate. It's actually pretty straightforward process. But you are right in that. How do we get investors to start caring about this? And even in the last, I would say five months, six months, granted since the Trump administration came into power, it's shifted a lot. We have a long way to go for sure. But I would say that sophisticated investors and institutions that we speak to in the US, they look at it the same way they look at any project, right? They don't care about the metal as much. They have their own models. They look at, you know, your mining costs, your processing costs, they look at what your payability is gonna be, they look at it the same way they look at any project, right? They have their own IRR hurdles. They have their own MPV hurdles. So they run models on our projects and they come to their own decisions about those projects based sort of not thinking about the fact that it's tungsten. They want to make sure it carries, it makes sense in any market. Like is it a project that can be economic at previous historic norms? There's obviously there's a bit of a bonus for being tungsten, but I would say most investors, especially in the US, they look at it the same way they look at any project. But obviously there is sort of that added bonus where this is a metal that US does not mine any of and it needs, you know, for the industrial base quite dramatically obviously. - What's been the hardest part about building a resource company so far that you didn't really expect? - The hardest part was definitely getting people to care about tungsten. So we started this journey and I first acquired this project five years ago. And you know, you mentioned the metrics on our IPO. I remember going around trying to raise two million, well, two and a half million US dollars for the IPO. That's what we needed to get in the IPO, to get it away or we couldn't list, right? And I remember so it would have been, we listed May 2023. So for the probably six months before I was marketing for this project. And truthfully, no one cared. I needed two million US dollars. I just raised two weeks ago, 21 million US have got a $6.2 million award from the US. So effectively, fast forward two years, I've been able to raise more than 10X what I did previously with poor investors in the United States Department of Defense. So anyways, going back three years ago, no one cared. Literally no one cared. I was running around anyone who would speak to me, trying to scrounge up orders, 10,000, 25,000, get us to that total. And actually, it was a US investor who is now, I won't name names, but anyways, it was a US investor who really understood the power of critical metals and they really had a lot of force. It has to wear this was going to come in and provided a sizable cornerstone order that eventually got us away. But the process took four months longer than it should have. We almost didn't get it away. We almost didn't get IPO'd. And now, it was like I said, it was really the new administration came in and all of a sudden things have really shifted. We have a long way to go, but now it's really positive to see now the issue we have now Brandon is, everyone's talking about rares. They want rares, right? That's the buzzword. If you go to Bloomberg, you go to CNN or Fox, it's rares, that's the buzzword that they want. Okay, well, we want rares. Well, if you look at the rares, I mean, it's relatively small industry in terms of quantum, right? And obviously, there's a lot of metals that are involved in that. And we do need every single one of them for defense and you name it. But tungsten is, as not, if not more important, than a lot of those rares metals. I mean, the reality is, Brandon, without one of those metals, you can shut down supply chains. So you can't just say, although we need rares and the rest is fine. Well, you need antimony, you need gallium, you need germanium tungsten. So the issue that we have now, fun enough, is people care about it. But you need to educate them about, it's a lot more than just rares. You need tungsten because if you don't have tungsten, it has the most unique physical properties on the planet. And you can't replace it. You can't just go, okay, there's no tungsten. We're going to change it with this metal. Because you need a metal with that density and melting point for the applications it has. So five years ago, three years ago, two years ago, no one cared about tungsten. People are caring now. But now it's about educating them about the importance of this specific metal in the broader scheme of, we need rares. How much education do you have to do at almost the federal level? Because I know with where Earth's, from companies, whether it was Idaho Strategic, which I own shares in as well, that has where Earth exposure. There was a lot of education that John Swal, the CEO, had to do at the federal level, whether it was the state governor or the senator to help them understand, this is why you should care about this. And it seems like the DOD gets it, right? They're investing in these projects right now. So how much of that uplift is already done? And then in kind of a tangential question, how much of this is a bipartisan effort, right? Looking past Trump the next four years, looking past, you know, JD Vance looks like he could probably win right now if you held the election. So looking past just kind of the Republican leaning side, is there bipartisan support for this? Yes. So on the first piece, the education, yes, we have a long way to go. Like I said, I think I put it somewhere in the, probably the top of the second inning in the tungsten space right now. So people, the baseline was literally zero two years ago. Now certain investors and certain people with speed are getting up the curve, but we have a long, long way to go. So a big part of what we need to do is do a better job, right? You know, we need to get our story across the US. Institutional base, government, capital hill, Pentagon, you name it, we need to do a better job. And obviously getting an award from the DOD is a huge step forward and really puts it on the map. But the thing is, Brandon, if you look at the defense supply chain and industrial base specifically, one of the reasons that tungsten is so important right now is the use within munitions. Now it's just, it's a reality of the metal. You need it to produce munitions. And I'm sure a lot of your listeners are aware of the fact that [BLANK_AUDIO] Unition stockpiles in the US are critically low. And when you're reliant on a country like China for the input metals to then go and produce munitions and tanks, tank armors, you name it, that there's a sense of urgency there. 'Cause all of a sudden, China shuts the taps off and the metals just actually potentially aren't there. Now, I can't say too much, but we are hearing whispering that major manufacturers in the US are now at the position now where they're unable to procure the tungsten they need. So we could see major manufacturers, and I'm talking major manufacturers in the US, potentially start to shut down because they can't get the metal. Now, that's a really scary position to be in because the US industrial base requires these metals and without even one of them, and in particular, tungsten, which is irreplaceable, you could see some serious repercussions through the system. So the educational piece, we're trying to do a better job. It's got a long way to go. And on the bipartisan thing, it's a good point you brought up. Now, what's an interesting sort of data point for me that I point to on that fact is, if you look at perpetua resources. So perpetua, I think, is a really good example. Perpetua is, like I said, it's a metal that China and else in export ban on well in advance of when they did tungsten. So, antimony is at a longer time to kind of play out. That story's been playing out a lot longer. Perpetua is sort of the poster child or the champion of US antimony. So we look at them and sort of say, okay, that's the blueprint. How do we look at all that? So to kind of give you some data points on the bipartisan piece, perpetua, they received their first EPA award during the Biden administration. They then received a subsequent award from the DPA during the Biden administration. And actually, the last thing that, or one of the last things that happened before Biden left office was perpetua received their full federal permits. And that project is on United States Forest Service Land with a bit of a tricky mining history that are with the previous operator. So what we saw was the Democrats actually go, wait a second, we actually, we need this metal antimony and funny enough, antimony and tungsten are the two metals you need to produce munitions. So another kind of parallel between tungsten and antimony. But you saw all of that support happened during the Biden administration, including the full federal permit. So what that really tells me, Brandon, is that it is exactly what you said. It is bipartisan. Now you might see one administration push harder than the other as probably we're gonna see with the current Republicans in power. But even if it switches over, as we saw with the Biden administration, there's a huge bipartisan piece here now because anyone with any common sense in the US can go, wait a second, if we don't have these metals, that's a really big issue. How do we fix that? - Exactly, exactly. And going back to kind of your project's exploration development, there's obviously so much money to be made right going from that development to first-poor production. And most notably, and I totally missed this company, but Rio too limited with their gold mine has been an absolute just home run trade. And I've missed it the whole way and it's been super frustrating. But it makes me think when you think of your company over the next three, five and 10 years, are you planning on staying on through that whole time? Like do you have the capabilities, do you have the experience to lead this into production? And then if not, like what are your thoughts on transitioning yourself? Because I know, like one of the nuance parts of junior mining is you have a lot of CEOs and founders that are really great for one part of a company's history. And if they're great operators and they know that they don't wanna do production, then they actually make the smart decision and bringing on someone that knows how to bring a mine into production. And so, you know, I'm always interested in hearing kind of how operators think about that process over time. - Yeah, so just on the first piece, I mean, you're absolutely right that there's so much value that can be created in a company as they go from developer to miner, right? So investors look at the story, they go, okay, you guys have done well in the last two years. Well, you look at our market cap and we're a tiny company. I mean, we're just at the point now where institutions start to care. So, you know, the real value, if you can deliver two mines to the market that are producing a material amount of tungsten in the US industrial base, well, that's where we think the real value creation is gonna happen, right? So that's what we're pushing towards is delivering those projects. And that's why I tell investors, hey, we just got our DOD award, we just raised 21 million, we're just getting started. Like before that, before two weeks ago, we had raised no more than $2.5 million. It was the early stage stuff, but now we're into the exciting part, which is the development, but also we're exploring looking for new deposit scenarios that can help feed the mill. So anyways, just on that and that kind of two really piece and Rio too as well. I mean, you mentioned kind of how great that trade has been as they've moved into actual production. So, and then the second piece is where do I fit in? So I think this is probably audio, so your listeners probably don't, can't see me right now, but I'm on the younger side of things. So I'm 35. So this is, I'm not a kind of a seasoned white beard CEO who's done this eight times in his career. I'm not gonna lie about that. The benefit of the younger CEO is, you know, I'm hungry, right? And I put everything I have into this company and it will continue that way. Now what we've done is we put people around us, right? The key thing is to build a mind in the US, it requires a very, very specialized team of people who have done this before. So what I'll say to that, Brandon, is we've put in people on the board and operationally in the US who have built minds in Nevada and can build minds in Nevada. So the PFS that we're working on, now there's sort of, on the inside of the industry, there's sort of two types of PFS. Number one is a sales document, which is, hey, we're just trying to put this out to get this company sold. The other one is, oh, here's the PFS, we're actually gonna build a mind from. And we are working on the ladder. We are working on the drawings and all the things you need to actually construct and build a mind. So we've put a team of people in place who can go and build these projects, right? So that, I hopefully, gives listeners a bit of steers to what our intentions are. Where do I fit in? It's a good question. I've never run a mining company before. I've put some really good people around me who are helping guide this process and are mentoring me. So it's not like it's just me trying to figure this piece out. I mean, I have very experienced people around me who, like I said, have built multiple minds in Nevada in the last 10 years. So where do I fit in? I don't know at this stage. Where I see this going over the next kind of three, three and a half years, which is the time we need to develop, and we believe deliver these projects, are this has become so much bigger than just, you know, the money that I could make if we sold this for X. You know, really seeing how this critical metal story and narrative has played out, this isn't just the gold project that we can go in and make some money and investors are happy. This is so much more strategic in that. And I've really bought into the idea that what we're trying to do is actually deliver something that's very meaningful for US national security. And like it almost like gives me kind of chills to talk about that because the implications of what we're doing is so much broader and more important than just the money that I could make by selling this company for X. And so with that in mind, that's what really drives me now is the fact that, you know, the amount of pride that I'm sure it would bring me if I can deliver one and I think two projects to the US market delivering a very material amount of tungsten to the US industrial base. Now the likes of Boeing needed to produce commercial airliners, Tlomber, Jay and Baker Hughes needed to build drilling base. The opposite of the defense industrial base needs it for tanks and ammunition. And the other, on the flip side, you need it for chip technology and you need it to make, you know, electric vehicles. You need it for nuclear fusion. Without tungsten, nuclear fusion does not happen. So there's all these really important kind of larger than life use cases at tungsten. And really it's driving me now to deliver these projects because that amount of it's real to the US market is so much bigger and more important and broader reaching across the industrial base, across national security, economic security, US prosperity, you name it. And that's what's driving me now. So I really wanted to deliver these projects. And then at that point, if someone says, hey, good job kid, you know, bring it up and bring it up and someone is going to run this mining company, I could happily probably step away at that point. Got it. I appreciate the transparency there just because it's, you know, like the industry complex where there's the chicken and the egg trying to build the tungsten for someone like yourself that's a young mining CEO, there's that chicken and the egg problem as well, where it's, you know, how do you become a seasoned mining CEO? Well, you start by being a young inexperienced mining CEO. But, you know, it's, I think, I think, I think what you're doing is, is, is a great effort. And, you know, again, if it's also cool that you know, you're kind of passionate about, about the US national defense, which I, it led me to another question. I think right now, and I could be wrong, are you only listed in the UK? No, we are listed in the US. So we have no OTC QX listing. GMT LF. Yeah. Okay. Do you what is the what is the thought probably? behind a potential uplifting to get a little bit more exposure because I know that kind of goes hand in hand. But I also know that there's costs and there's processes there which for a young small company is not immaterial. Yeah, so on the uplifting side, for anyone who's been through the process knows you can't really say too much about it. What I can say is, yes, obviously with the money we've raised, we want to make sure we can raise our profile in the US. So, yes, a part of a big part of that and a big part of our current ambitions are to secure a listing that is more suitable for the offer that we have. So I'll kind of leave it at that, keep it high level. But we see the valuations, we see the liquidity, we see the recognition that the likes of MP get being on a major US exchange. And obviously we understand that's the place that we need to go to derive the most value. So we are OTC right now, we do see volumes picking up there right now, which is great. But to take us to that next level, we understand that that's what we need to do. And as you can probably read between the lines, it's something that we are we're pushing forward. If you could own any other mining stock, whether it's within tungsten, which is a small collection, there's not many publicly traded tungsten plays there. Within the commodities complex, that you would, you know, let's say you had to own it and you couldn't be the CEO, but you had to entrust your capital to somebody else. What company would that be? I'm very interested. Oh, that's a good question. So I have to invest in another tungsten company. Yeah, you can't or no, it could be any company could be. Oh, yeah, it could be anything. And yeah, assuming you can't buy your own stock and your own company, you had to put it somewhere else. That's a great question. I got to be careful what I say here. I mean, there's so many. There's so many metals across the critical metals spectrum right now that the US is just so reliance on on friendly adversaries for I think any of those is probably a good bet. Honestly, I'd host strategic one that I know you like. I like it too. I think they're doing the right things. And I like the jurisdiction as well. So I think I think what investors will start to realize over time is, is there's a lot of companies waving the critical metals flag. And as they as you'd expect them to right there trying to say, hey guys, we're critical metals. We're going to deliver a very important metal to the US market. But and I don't want to this sparse and say and you know, cause anyone to not invest your look at these companies properly. But as with any mining project, there's a lot of them that just won't work right. And that could be processing related. It could be metallurgy related. All the goodwill and all the money from the US government. Some of these projects just won't make sense. And they just can't produce a concentrate that actually will will be turned into products that the US military needs are vice versa. Right. So I don't think it's one of those companies. I think it's actually it won't fall into that kind of same fate. And just to plug my own company again, because that's obviously where I'm the most invested, you know, once again, we have two, two projects that have actually been mines before right our pilot mountain is actually was a mine in the 1940s and produced tungsten for the US war efforts overseas to fight Nazi Germany. So these are both projects that I've actually been mines they produce tungsten concentrate that's been turned into usable products. So that's one of the benefits tungsten has and a lot of these other kind of niche metals, I would say. I think they're going to struggle to actually find a way to process that stuff pull it out and then turn it into usable products all on us. So I hope they can figure it out. But being a technical person, I know how challenging some of those flow sheets and some of those downstream bits can be. Yeah, and I feel like that was one of the first areas I looked at when I started this commodities journey about 18 months ago, looking at the developer space was less so. What are what are the brand new discoveries? What are the brand new starting from scratch, but looking at historic mines or properties that used to be mines that for whatever reason usually it's just the commodity cycle right they go they go bankrupt and they have to close and they don't care and maintenance, but. It's as a way to kind of get acclimated to an industry, I think it's a great spot for investors to look and even for someone like yourself right a young CEO who's trying to get his feet into the into the space it's like what better way to do it than to find an asset that used to be a producing asset versus starting all of that from scratch. Exactly and and tempo you I encourage anyone who's interested go to our website pull up our presentation and look at photos of tempo you. That was it that was a very I mean we have all the production records back to the 1980s it was a very profitable very important mine for the US investor base the only reason it shut down and literally you walk into the office building that is part of the package. And they they stood up and left because the price of tungsten went through the floor China flood of the market and they said, Kate it made a lot of sense that whatever price of this was at this price it doesn't it doesn't make sense right so that's the only reason it shut down there wasn't a processing issue there wasn't an infrastructure issue it was a profitable fantastic mine. Just because of the price dropping because of anti competitive tendencies from China that's why we think it's such a such a no brainer for restart all the infrastructure is there the power infrastructures there the the the mine the geology is still there so going after projects like that gives us the confidence that hey it's been a profitable mine before and we think it can happen again where is if you start a new project in the middle of nowhere that you know nothing about there's all these kind of stripping points that can that can. Come up where oh wait a second the metallurgy doesn't actually work or we need a power line that's going to cost us a billion dollars so none of that is a problem at temp I you it's more about how quickly can we move it forward and get this back in production so you're totally right finding projects that produce before because it just makes that process of going from developer to minor that much easier. And it's still not it's not easy but easier I should say especially still still extremely difficult exactly every every way you go yeah the I want to end on the DOD and how their role will you know will kind of form over the next call three to five years as they invest in this industry because we got a glimpse of it with MP materials where they gave them you know kind of the price floors on on products and. The investments you know directly into the company how do you see those types of products like we'll call them the investment products from the DOD how will that play out and what will they look like for developers right so MP had a bit of a head start being you know it's it's an incumbent has all the production assets there it's got the mind it's got the material but for someone like a developer that's building all of that what do you think those products and investments structures will look like. Yeah I mean it's I mean first and foremost obviously I don't want to put words in the DOD's mouth so this is just sort of my thoughts as to where this could go but you know what what we've seen historically so I take like perpetual MP is sort of good poster children for this movement now what you typically see is what we've seen with perpetua and MP was a small award to kick things off so I think MP got their first awards from the DPA which is the program that we received our award. From I can't remember the time I want to say three years ago or two and a half years ago and they got a book I think it was 9.2 million dollars for the first initial award and then fast forward what what you what we've seen with some of these companies is is the the DOD and the government becomes a really important partner because at the end of the day I think what they ultimately want to see is just metal come out of the ground right that's what they're therefore is this hey how can we make this a bit easier and helps to put it in the DOD. It's a bit easier and helps support you guys to ensure that we actually have the metal we need to build all the things we need to build so that's really I think is what is what's driving the decisions is we just want to get to the point where we're not so reliant on China for all these metals right so where does this go from here I think MP obviously opens up a whole new list of opportunities will those be applicable to the other defense metals I don't know I don't know the details. I don't know I don't know the answer to that there has been discussions and I've heard whether this is a you know going to happen or not you know they want to potentially do price floors across some key defense metals and that would make sense to me right because at the same time you know at $500 an M.T.U. for tungsten you know we believe both of our projects are you know we think obviously subject to the engineering studies we're working on we think they're going to be very attractive projects at 300 the previous base that we're going to be able to do that. And in this base they also those are attractive projects at 200 they probably don't work anymore right and China has potentially the power to bring it down I shouldn't say I don't think they have the power anymore because they're actually losing some of their market share right now some of the minds because they've been minds to high throughput their underground their cost of production is going way up so actually I think their ability to do that is is diminished quite a bit now from where it was previously but either way a price floor Guarantees, effectively, that that mind. as long as there's material and an ore in the ground can operate and can produce metal, right? So I think that is important what they're doing 'cause I need to be careful how I word this, but effectively China has deployed anti-competitive things in the past to get to the position there and now. So you almost need to in a way not mimic those things, but you need to obviously be cognizant of the fact that China has subsidized the tungsten mining space many times before to flood the market to maintain market share. So you need to be just fully eyes wide open that they have done it before. Now their ability to do it is probably less than now, but still you need to be looking at ways to make sure that that can't happen again. And price flooring is a really good way to do that. So you know, we're seeing now investments directly into these mining companies. So MPs in example, the price floor, the direct awards, the investment into the process inside of things. So these are all things that I suppose now are available, not for everyone, but the US government has now said, hey, here's a ray of things we're gonna do for MP and it's a really important thing that they've done there because the signal that the US is serious about mining in America is could not be stronger and that allows companies like ours to really put our hand up and say, hey guys, we're doing the same thing. Let's find ways to to work together. So where do I see it going? I just see a lot more of what we're already seeing. I mean, the Trump administration has done a fantastic job. They're only probably seven months in now of a four year term. So we seek more of these tailwinds. We see not reform, but we see, you know, some of these cobwebs kind of taken away from the permitting process and just streamline. You're gonna see the country in such a different spot, even four years from now. In my view, if you continue with the same policies and the same sort of tailwinds, then you are in right now. So the things they're doing, it's fantastic. We're obviously very grateful to the DOD and the, sorry, the Trump administration for the award that we've received. We're working obviously to deliver a PFAS for that project. But the more of this we see the better and I think in four years from now, and like we said, bipartisan and if it's JD Vance or someone else that gets in four years from now, we see a continuation of this movement. Eight years from now, I guarantee you look at at the US import reliance on all these metals. It will look a lot different than it does right now, which is obviously super important for a country like the United States of America. - Yeah, and I think the other thing too, and this is what was so exciting about the MP announcement with the price floor. And my buddy Matt Pearson, who runs Merritt Oak, who had massive position in MP and is fun. Basically, it turns this highly cyclical, highly volatile business that is mining into an annuity stream that you can underwrite with, quote unquote, I hate using the word guarantee, but quote unquote, guaranteed, right? We'll call them price floor cash flows. - Yeah. - You know, like obviously there's upside, but let's just say base case, we've got this price floor that we know we're gonna get. And instantly that changes the risk profile of these investments, which in theory would reduce the discount rate that you would need, which would raise the MPV, which I know like in mining, MPV models are somewhat of a hot debate topic. I know Robert Friedland hates MPVs and it kind of gets at the same place. Like he, you know, Friedland would always say, "You know, China doesn't use MPVs "because they just see the strategic value in it." And I almost wonder if these sort of price floors are the US DOD's way of saying like, yeah, like maybe this is our version of quote unquote, we don't use MPVs, where it's like, we're gonna be this price floor. So that way there's contractual cash flow and it completely changes the net present value calculation of that investment overnight. And that's why you saw MP do what it did. And then that's, you know, it's like, if man, and then you start playing that out, and obviously this is very optimistic. And the DOD could do whatever they want. But if that becomes an option for a project, it's hard not to get excited about what that could look like 'cause it's, I mean, it's a complete game changer. - I'm gonna present. And then as you nailed, the whole narrative gets flipped. - Yeah, and all of a sudden you have these generous funds, you have these hedge funds in New York who two years ago never even looked at mining. And they go, wait a second, actually, the risk profile here actually makes a lot of sense. And you're seeing deals now, you know, equity deals being done, very attractive, you're getting, I'm sure a whole list of new institutions involved because that profile is changing. And just that shift of sort of perspective about the space is so massive in terms of where this can go and getting support being able to invest. I mean, like I said, three years ago, trying to raise two million, good luck. I mean, I had to flip over every sofa cushion to make it happen. And now I just raised 21 million. And there's a lot of other companies able to raise money. And as long as they're taking that money and doing really good things, which is driving the operations forward, if companies go and raise 20 and then spend it on expensive dinners and flights around the world, we're not gonna get any further ahead. But if you're taking that money and investing in engineers, geologists, technical people on the ground, drill rigs, the profile has changed. That price floor, I think, did a massive thing for the industry as you pointed out. And now just the momentum, keep that going because it will keep this momentum. Like I said, this is gonna look a lot different in five, 10 years, which is really exciting. Yeah, and you mentioned bringing generalist investors to the party. I wonder, like if you see more of these price floor deals, how many generalists come into the market and say, I can underwrite and a nudist stream. Like, this is very easy. Like, 'cause then, you know, it just becomes basic math where someone like an MP, they have X number of years of reserve life. Yeah. Their operating costs are, you know, X dollars, you're getting a guaranteed floor of this. And so there you go. Assume, assume costs rise, five, seven percent a year. You can very easily get the, you know, present value of all those future cash flows and all of a sudden that asset becomes something that's very attractive. And the other thing it does too for a company like MP is, it allows them to have a little bit more direction, obviously, and kind of foresight into future cash, which could potentially transform how they view capital returns, whether it be of buybacks or dividends. I know for a lot of companies, right, like the best investment is actually to go back into development and just to expand your resource. And obviously if you're getting a price floor, like that's where your dollars are. But if you now have this clarity that you didn't once have, maybe you do look at dividends. And then all of a sudden, all these dividend investors that only buy dividend-pain stocks for these dividend ETFs, they're gonna get potential flows too. So the optimist in me sees a lot of potential fund flow in coming from this MP deal. And, you know, I don't wanna extrapolate too much, but it is, you know, again, it's hard not to get excited about something like that. - I'm the most optimist. I mean, I've been in the industry for 15 years now. So it's been a pretty tough 15 years. I am, you know, by far and away, the most optimistic now. And I should say specifically about U.S. mining. I think a lot of other jurisdictions that I come from Canada originally. There's other jurisdictions I'm less excited about, but U.S. right now, and I think that's why we're seeing a lot of money flow into these companies. The generalist investors are picking them up. So like you said, these things become so much easier to underwrite when they know, okay, there's the base case and we go out from here, right? And even if we can capture, I don't know the spread between investments into the tech industry and the U.S. and mining, but even if we could capture a few percent into the mining space. And really, it should be that way because without the actual raw materials, you know, the data centers that AI need, all these chip technologies for quantum computing and nuclear fusion. We can't scale up and we're seeing that now, which is the amount of power generation we need alone to, for AI and all these industries that require it, we're not even close in the U.S. I mean, it's a huge looming crisis. So we take a bit of that money and we reinvest it into the mining space. Just watch what we can do. Watch the copper production in the U.S., watch the tungsten production in the U.S., watch the antimony, and that is going to completely shift the whole landscape where the U.S. mines these metals, they turn them into usable intermediate downstream products and then they plug them into the fantastic technology industries that are being developed in the U.S., what a position the U.S. could be in and I think that's where they're trending right now. - Yeah, I mean, what a way to end the podcast too. A little call to action. I mean, I can go. It's cool, man. I can sense your passion just even kind of through this space and through this screen, which is cool to see. And it's one of the reasons, you know, again, why I'm a shareholder, very small position. I think it's one to two percent. Wish it were more because obviously this next tunnel, but you know, it is what it is. So I really appreciate you coming on, sharing your story, not only just talking about your company, but the industry itself and, you know, like yes, obviously you're bullish on your own business, but you're bullish on the industry and you're bullish on the direction that the U.S. government seems to be taking as well. So I want to end with two final questions. The first one is where people go to find out more about you. you if they want to get in contact. Yeah, so first place should be our website, subgardianmetalresources.com. But I would say probably the best place to go if you are on Twitter, Guardian Metal Res is our handle. So we're very active on there. And then through that you'll find my personal Twitter, very active on Twitter as well. So there's a lot of, anything tungsten, I'm tweeting about it every day because there's just so much great news, lately, which is fantastic. If you want to reach out to me, go to [email protected]. So you'll find that URL on our website. I respond to everyone. So I'm a CEO. Once again, the benefit I think of being a younger CEO is the fact that, you know, I'm still hungry. I'm making a name for myself. So anyone who's reached out to me will know that I do get in touch. So send an email info at. I will get it. I will respond. We can set up in-person meetings, phone calls, Zoom calls. There's many investors who I speak to on a regular basis. So that would be the best place to go and reach out. Last question I have for you, Oliver. If you could have a dinner with one person from the past or the present, who would it be and why? Oh, man. That's not going to come off the card. We've had such a good podcast, Bren. I think I'm going to deliver a really glad cluster answer for you right now. So we've had answers. All across the spectrum. So I feel bad. Give me just one second to think about this. Oh, man, that's a great question. I think someone like Nikla Tesla, just someone who was such an innovative mind and made so many scientific breakthroughs in their time. And many that are so important for what we're doing today. So I think someone like that, like an inventor, like an Albert Einstein, someone like that, I think we really interested to talk to you. Just to see how they view the world. And especially where we're at now, where are we going? What are the things that we're going to need to really continue to level up at the pace we're leveling up? So I probably would have a different answer if I had time to just think about it. But I think someone like Nikla Tesla will be really interesting and be quite successful. You didn't know Tesla's been an answer for-- Oh, yeah. Okay. The fantastic. Yeah, I mean, who would it want to? Right? That's just to be able to pick that guy's brain. Yeah. On the sports side, Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods, obviously those are the lame ones. But now would be fun, dude, I have dinner with those guys if I could. So there you go. Yeah, that'd be awesome. Oliver, thanks so much, man. I know you're super busy, but appreciate you taking the time to do this. Again, best of luck the rest of the year. I think you're doing good work and continue your efforts. And I'm a happy shareholder as of now. So keep doing what you're doing. And maybe we'll check in in a year or two's time to see how the development's going. Let's do it, man. And I appreciate you. I appreciate what you're doing to help raise the profile. Because as I said, a big part of this is education. And you're doing a great job. So we really appreciate what you're doing for the industry. So let's catch up again soon.