 Well hello everyone thank you for being here this is Byron King with Investor Intel from Toronto where we are at the PDAC conference the prospectors and developers Association of Canada the world's largest mining conference in it's it's chilly and snowy outside which is fitting for Canada today we're going to speak with two people Terry Lynch of power nickel a nickel development junior company with it's working in Canada and Mel Sanderson a former executive of Freeport Mac Moran also a former foreign service officer of the State Department faculty member at the University of Arizona Thunderbird School of Management and the president of a company called American Rare Earth say Rare Earth Company as you might say having said all of that I'm now going to say real quickly Mel nice to see you Terry nice to see you very quickly just Mel why don't you tell the viewers you know what is American Rare Earth what do they do well thanks so much Byron and good to see you again Terry American Rare Earths is currently working to develop two of the largest rare earth deposits in North America one of which is located in Arizona and one of which is located in Wyoming coincidentally my two states of residence okay and we're very excited particularly with the Wyoming project which is our new flagship operation we call it Halleck Creek and watch this space for some big news towards the end of March and early April this is a real transition year for ARR and we're really hitting our stride thank you Terry just tell everybody real quick tell us about power nickel so power nickel is in nickel as you would expect and go back so we're developing the NISC deposit there it's a high-grade nickel sulfide mine it's about 3.1 main tons of historic resource we're updating our 43-101 expect to report so we're sort of 8 to 10 intense sort of to end of June early July and that should be enough to make us commercial so setting times for power nickel okay so everybody who's watching we have rare earths and we have nickel both of which are essential to the green economy they're essential to the current economy oh by the way but this green economy that we're that we're going to have they need that stuff too so now what I wanted to talk about today in the next few minutes is this ESG stuff it's environmental sustainability governance stuff Mel you are a well-known expert on this you consulted with people you you've worked in Africa for the US government and you've been a consultant to Freeport and tell the people out there who don't know what ESG is or who may have an idea but they're not quite what is this ESG thing that everybody's talking about what is it ESG essentially is working to make sure that as we miners develop the resources needed to transform our economy and build a greener way of doing things that we're also doing it as respectfully for the planet and for the people among whom we live as we possibly can so that means deploying the best technologies and respectfully including communities indigenous or otherwise in our efforts as we build our minds and develop the future okay well Terry you work in Quebec Quebec has been around for a couple of billion years but in terms of human habitation you know 10,000 since the glaciers went away you work with Quebecois of the French side and then all the first nations of of Quebec as well is ESG a thing up there ESG is a thing for sure in Quebec I think it's it's always been a thing in mining because it was always part of our permitting process and obviously now we're more focused on it than ever but Quebec government has done an amazing job of reaching out to the local indigenous groups and local communities and educating them on the benefits of mining and at the same time they've done a good job of providing a framework for mining companies to be more proactive and to do a better job of creating environmentally sustainable plans so I think collectively they've done an amazing job of creating an environment for progress so we can move as it's as Mel says to the the new green economy well I think well if you look back at history in the olden days there were a lot of examples of somebody would find a deposit they would mine the heck out of it as soon as the grade went away or as soon as the mine played out they would walk away and leave a mess in the ground big hole with you know acid drainage and you know ripped up streams and salmon fisheries and all gone and things like that that doesn't really happen anymore in a proper world does it Terry? It doesn't happen in our country or in any country any Canadian company operates in because we have to operate with Canadian laws wherever we go so that doesn't happen with Canadian companies you know there I think it still happens in some jurisdictions with some companies but not not once thankfully from here. Now Mel you have worked in Africa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo if I am correct what is what's going on in in in Africa I mean it you hear stories about the Chinese are doing this and that I mean there's legacy mining from the colonial days but what's going on in Africa today what what what should people know about about mining in Africa? Well I mean I think that people should know that the continent is rich in resources but also rich in complications unfortunately very many of the governments have serious issues with corruption they do not necessarily as you were saying Terry respect the rights of their own people to be safeguarded and to be treated correctly so it can be very complicated infrastructure is also an issue in several countries the Congo is a good example the national infrastructure was destroyed during what was called Africa's World War and essentially it's never been rebuilt and the Chinese as you mentioned Byron are perfectly willing to swoop in take advantage of the disorganization do de minimis work especially in infrastructure and cartway all the materials that they don't plan to share with anybody else. Well now the people out there who are watching this they may have seen an article or they may have seen videos or whatever of what's called artisanal mining where you have just people littered by the hundreds or even thousands just working in these horrible conditions in pits like that is that real or is that is that CGI by some propagandist or is that a real thing these days and where where does it happen? Unfortunately it is still a very real thing and it takes place in rural areas across the African continent but also you know in India also in several Asian countries it's a byproduct of poverty because the locals know what's in the ground their grandfathers and great-grandfathers knew it and now they have these companies running around they're eager to get what's in the ground so the purpose of the artisanal miners is to get out there with their picks and shovels and their bare hands if necessary and dig it out themselves in order to be able to capture some of the value of their rocks well Terry you you're working in the nickel space how does how does a modern well-run mining company move into an area that perhaps has artisanal miners there and how do you somehow work it out that you know we're gonna we're gonna use big machines and we're gonna do it in an environmentally correct way but but you don't have a job anymore yeah you know I mean we're not doing that obviously with power nickel but I've been an investor in some companies that that are taking some approaches and the approach is you basically work with the local community organization and you make them a part owner in the deal so so maybe they might own 10% or something where the and that is going theoretically to the artisanal miners and I've seen this in Brazil and other spots in South America and the idea is to create a environment where they actually make more money in the long run and and it's then you can actually do things sustainably you can actually do the right take the right approach in terms of developing a mineral resource that's ecologically friendly that replaces the thing back to original condition when it's done but you have to and this is where the SG starts part comes in is you have to be proactive and include the local community groups and get to be partners I believe and that's the right approach let me just build on that if I may because the artisanal miners and the cooperation by professional companies is often a flashpoint because there are there are deep human rights issues that are embedded in that structure as you mentioned Byron a lot of what those folks do is literally go out and dig holes they have no training they did not know how to make a tunnel safe they did not know how to reinforce they don't know any of that and at least in the US I won't speak for every country because I don't know the law of every country but in the US the law is clear the professional company assumes the obligation of providing safety training safety equipment necessary mining materials and supervising that process so for mining companies that are interested as Terry was just discussing in that junction which is very beneficial potentially to our tees and miners also be aware of the risk well now a lot of people criticize ESG in general they just say oh it's it's inefficient it's going to reduce returns and things like that but what I'm hearing you say is that in in so many ways doing it properly is actually increases the efficiency because artisanal mining is very inefficient you leave a lot of you leave a lot of the good material in the ground or it never gets processed or what have you washes down the stream but but you're so you're saying that somehow there's a balance or a better balance when you do ESG right you're actually doing mining right and in a better way is that is that your present I mean ESG can be your ball work against unjustified accusations because there are organizations NGOs and laws and as long as you are cooperating with some of these NGOs as long as you are transparent with what you're doing as long as you're following the laws it protects you from corrupt attacks it protects you from rumor mongering it can help protect you from all kinds of legal suits but I want to emphasize what you said doing it right because unfortunately we also have what is being referred to as greenwashing where companies make a lot of bold statements but they don't take the actions to support the statements so you got to be ready to walk the talk if you're going to do ESG right yeah I think you know a very key point there in this world you can't really hide if you're a public company they're gonna if you're if you're not actually walking the walk they're gonna call you out so you better you know know what your core principles are and stick to them and and apply them along the way the I think that the neat part about being a Canadian company and I think the Americans have the same sort of rules set is that we have to take our principles that are active here and export them to anywhere we go around the world and obviously it's put us sometimes at a competitive disadvantage to others that don't have the same rules but in the long run we're in the right spot and maybe the markets coming back to that now I think we're going to start to see you know there's going to be some value propositions where people will be going say you know Canadian nickel versus not throwing rocks at them but you know dirty Indonesian you know I mean and I mean obviously you know the world needs so much nickel that we need to figure out a better way for Indonesian to harvest that nickel in an environmentally friendly way but I think those things are going to be coming and that's why I think they're going to start to see some localized pricing you know where you're going to get a price point for North American nickel and a price point for for other nickels and other commodities as well same thing for rare earth I know I've just really read some research on rare earth you know I think they were talking about mountain paths versus one of the big Chinese sites and how you know it's like a third less at carbon impact well that's got to be factored in some way somehow to make it more economic for us to get investment for rare earths in America and nickels in Canada etc. 100% the market needs to reward good ESG exactly and actually there's a political reward for good ESG as well because you take Africa specifically take the Congo as an example there's there's a large Chinese presence there has been for years but America and Canada remained a preferred partners in the mining industry and it's because we treat people right great yep let's do point okay well thank you both everybody out there who's watching thank you for watching again Mel Sanderson from American Wear Earth Terry Lynch from Power Nickel we were talking about ESG and we hope that this has been informative again thank you for watching thank you both good luck to both of you for what you're doing great thanks a bunch of