 Today, we're at PDAC, and I have the pleasure of interviewing Raheem Suleiman, the CEO of Neopreformance Materials. Good afternoon, Raheem. Good afternoon, Jack. It's great to see you today. Thank you. And I think we saw each other at the conference in San Antonio also, the wearer conference. What I'd like to know is what is Neopreformance Materials doing right now, because as far as I can tell, it's the only vertically integrated, rare earth product producer in the West. And so, what are you up to to enhance your position? Wow, Jack. Well, we're doing a lot of things. It's pretty busy times at Neo. I think you're right. The opportunity is absolutely immense. We have a great focus on rare earth magnetics, and I think that demand for rare earth magnetics, the critical nature of that strategic material, what it means for the energy transition, can't be understated. And I think there's going to be explosive growth. So we are very well positioned in that universe as you've talked about. We are the most vertically integrated rare earth magnetics company in the world. We also offer a dual supply chain to our customers to have the ability to do things inside of China and outside of China. And by all means, we don't get into political issues, but we do get into concentration issues. There's concentration risk. When China today makes, they extract 60% of the world's rare earths. They process and separate 80% of the world's rare earths. And when you come to magnet making, which is rare earth magnet making, the critical thing that goes in traction motors, critical to electric vehicles, critical to our energy transition, China makes 90% of the world's rare earth magnets. We desperately need more rare earth magnet makers outside of China. No question. You know, I think most people are surprised to find out that every EV made, for example, in the United States, contains a Chinese electric motor as a principle drive motor. And that means it has a Chinese rare earth permanent magnet, Chinese copper rotor, Chinese steel housing, and the United States seems to me to have right now no rare earth industry to speak of. And you are now, as I understand it, building in Europe a substantial operation for supplying centered rare earth permanent magnets to the European automotive industry. So can you tell us about that? Because that will be the first installation of its type that I can remember, and I'm pretty old. Obviously, we're very excited about investing more in Estonia. We have a separation facility and a rare metal facility there today. We are investing in making a centered magnet facility you've talked about. We're part way through our phase one. We're on track. We're on budget. We'd expect to be able to make product in 2025 and ramp up. We would expect to be able to supply both North America and Europe from our facility there. But we think it's just the beginning. We're in the process of investing in phase one, which is about $150 million revenue facility, but we would immediately follow it with phase two and then immediately follow that, and probably even concurrent to that, do a large phase in North America as well. And even with those three phases, we're talking about a sliver of solving the problem that you talked about, which is China has continued to move downstream and capture more and more of the value chain and create more and more of a dependency. So we're trying to create optionality for that dependency on China. The public doesn't seem to understand that Europe makes a lot more cars than North America does because it's got a bigger population. Between the two areas, North America and Europe, there's about 40 million cars a year manufactured. If they were all electric, they'd need 100,000 tons of Earth Permanent Magnets. The current production in Europe and in North America of Earth Permanent Magnets is exactly zero. So you have basically, in my opinion, a seller's market. Can you tell us if you have any plans to build such a facility in North America? We absolutely have plans to build a facility in North America. Tied to the demand curve that you talked about. And even whatever facility that we build, phase one or two in Estonia and our facility in North America, will be just a sliver of filling the entire market need for it. We will announce the specifics of that plan in North America later in 2024. But we are currently under construction. We are talking OEMs. We have samples in front of OEMs. We have very good confidence level in our ability to execute the project from a technical perspective, from a commercial perspective, and from an operational perspective. Because we already make rarers. We already make rarer magnets and we already do so outside of China. I believe you are the only company like that, that I know of in the western world. So what's interesting to me is that your operation in Estonia is, I believe, the only commercially operating wearer separation plan in the western world, as far as I know. And so that brings you a lot of credibility in, for example, the OEM automotive industry. Because they like to deal with people who actually are doing something, rather than people who just have ideas. Now you're being supported by the EU, are you not, in your European venture? We are. We've had excellent support from the EU in all aspects of our business. With respect to building our centered facility under the Just Transition Fund, the EU will be contributing 20% of the capital necessary to build that facility. But the level of support, either from financing arrangements, from further capital arrangements, and even from a legislative perspective, has been exceptionally strong in the EU. We think they are kind of leading the thought process on industrial policy of how to create this balance, this geopolitical balance in the world, rather than such dependency. You know, what dawns on me is that you really are important to the chip industry in North America, because they use an awful lot of gallium arsenide for optoelectronics, and you are really the only supplier, okay? And it's intriguing to me that NEO is not better known, because you're an actual operating wearer company. You don't have a mine, I understand that. But you have everything downstream of the mine, basically two magnets. Jack, I think you're absolutely right. I think it's a matter of timing. The battery industry got the vast majority of the media, because of the content value that goes into electric vehicle that was very salient for folks to see and an issue that needed to be solved. But the rarest magnet is the equivalent requirement to make an EV vehicle run. But the EV magnet has two other dynamics to it. One is its content is much smaller, which means the cost premium to solve the problem of domestic supply is much smaller. We believe that it would cost an OEM somewhere between $20 to $30 a vehicle to solve their rare earth magnet needs to have the dual supply chain outside of China. To do that on the lithium or battery side is a much bigger premium. We believe rare earth, 90% of rare earth magnetics are done in China today. Battery making is at least a little bit more globally distributed. The rare earth magnetic side is a high risk and low cost area for the world to solve. So NEO has been investing in all elements of the supply chain from making the magnet to making the metals, to separating the rare earths, and then our opportunities are to work with a number of different raw material suppliers, op-seam suppliers. We're happy and proud of the progress that MP is making with more volume, with lioness it's making with more investment, Sarah Verde is going to be coming on board. Energy fuels has been making some progress with respect to processing more monazite and separating materials. And we work with a number of other op-stream providers using our facilities, our laboratory in Singapore, our laboratory in Estonia, to be able to give meaningful feedback to other op-stream processors in order to create the greatest amount of op-stream capability outside of China, while then also investing further in the downstream businesses. I think you're the only company in the West that actually is operating the rare earth magnet, permanent magnet supply chain, okay? And of course, since, you know, you're actively been buying raw material for many, many years, that's understandable. But the fact is there isn't anyone else, okay? And the market is huge and you're standing there, I suppose, being romanced, I would guess by a great many ultimate customers. So anyway, thank you, I don't think I've interviewed you before and I'm looking forward to interviewing you again, especially I want to hear about how Europe proceeds and then when you're going to do something in the United States, because we have people saying they're going to make magnets and we're wondering, where are they going to get the raw materials to make the metals and alloys to make the magnets? Unknown. It is unknown. I think we are at the cusp of an inflection point. And as you said, NIO has spent years building the elements of the supply chain to be the most vertically integrated, to be independent from China, both paralleled in and outside of China. So we're in the right spot. The industry is at an inflection point with respect to electric vehicles and most particularly the requirement to have this material outside of China. So we're proud of the position we're in. The team before me has done a fantastic job building the right infrastructure for us to take advantage and to supply customers and consumers in the markets that we live in and that are important for all of our economies and lives. Well, thank you for all of this and please keep in touch. This is interesting. You're a titan in the industry and we always appreciate an opportunity to have a dialogue. Thank you.