 Today I have the pleasure speaking with Jeff Atkins from Vital Metals. How are you today, Jeff? I'm very well. Thanks Tracy. Thanks for having me on. You know, I want to start with my favorite question that I've written in some time, which is is it Australia to the rescue for critical materials? I've been receiving all kinds of stories from different media sources telling me that Australians have got the answer. What do you think about that? Well, being Australian, I'd love to think that at least some Australians have have the answer. But seriously, I think one of the big things is in Australia, there are a lot of rare earth companies and there are a lot of companies trying to develop rare earth projects, not only in Australia, but also around the world. And I think from that naturally, there are Australian companies do have a big part to play in the supply of rare earths into the global supply chain. The reason we have you on today is I want to talk to someone who really knows what's going on in the critical materials sector. We're getting such a buzz on our site and I see you, your volumes every day are substantial. So why don't we just start by asking you what's happening out there right now? Is is there finally the right kind of attention being placed on critical materials from investors? Well, I think there is. And I think the reasoning for that is I think we're in a bit of a perfect storm with regards to critical materials. We have a situation where there's a large consumer driven demand for energy efficiency, electrification, miniaturization, those types of things, which all require critical minerals. At the same time, you've got statutory and regulatory pushes for reduced emissions. And lastly, you've got a geopolitical situation, which is which is also driving the need for diversified supply chains in these minerals. So you had all of those three things together and you're left with a significant increase in not only demand, but more importantly, perhaps interest in the critical mineral space. Well, of course, from our perspective, here's what I'm seeing. A lot of day traders and board people at home trying their hands at getting in the markets and they're looking up some of these key terms, permanent magnets. They're looking up magnet materials, they're looking up electric vehicles and they're also looking up critical materials. So I think it's important that they start looking at companies that actually know what they're talking about and with you being one of the few executives with real experience outside of China getting aware of the project to production. Can you tell me what you think it really means with Biden's win? There's so much misinformation and propaganda out there. Do you have any commentary you'd like to make on that because we would love to hear it rather than going to the specific comparisons of one party's policies versus another. I'll just comment on, I think, what impact Biden's victory will have on the critical mineral space. And I think rather it's not so much going to be on the specific demand for rare earths. But I think what will happen is that the policy is more around a global cooperation. And I think that's where it might have a bit more of an impact. With slightly less focus purely on US production and rather looking at alternate supply chains around the world amongst a number of countries. So I think it will potentially provide more opportunities for those companies who are allies of the US, but not actually located there. I think that's that's one thing. The second thing I think which will have a have an impact on the rare earth market and not only rare earths, but other critical minerals is a move to actually include energy efficiency and environmental measures in a broader range of conversations between countries and by the US taking more of a lead in things like the Paris Agreement and general and a general reduction in emissions. That will have a much bigger impact on other countries also moving down that path. And I'll use Australia as a perfect example of that, where. Historically, Australia has resisted making a lot of these commitments, whereas with a lead from the US, there will be a lot more pressure on the Australian government to to follow suit. And that will also occur with other countries as well, where if you have environmentally measures becoming part of those general conversations, it puts a lot more pressure on developing countries. So and to actually take these steps. So I think that there may be an acceleration in the demand and uptake of things like electric vehicles, battery storage and all of those types of things. So, yeah, I think the. President-elect Biden's stated policies can only be a good thing for the critical critical minerals industry. I'm now going to attempt to ask you an even more complicated question. OK, we had a jack looked and just did a piece on the state of the global supply of rare earths. And he really attacked the fact that most people don't understand the rare supply chain in general, how education is going to be needed, how we really don't have the architecture or the talented individuals that we need to supply these for our own demands in North America, for instance, and undoubtedly Australia. I thought it was particularly interesting. He says right now the Chinese are on track to import 40 percent of all of their needs for rare earths. OK, well, that's always very interesting. I don't think most people understand that China can't just give, give and give at some point they're going to need to take for their own infrastructure. What did you think about his column? And do you agree with that? Or did you have a different angle, Jack, because I know you you've done it. So what's your comments to Jack? Look, I think Jack's obviously has a lot of knowledge in this area and I can't comment on the specifics around the numbers of 40 percent or is it higher? Or is it lower? But I think, in principle, he is he is correct in that China has a massive rare earth industry and they supply the vast majority of the world's magnets. And the more that that demand grows, they will need rare earths from other sources. And I think that's that's something that one of the things that people forget is that the rare earth supply chain isn't just about mining and processing of rare earths. There's actually a number of other steps which are needed before those rare earths are placed inside an electric vehicle or a wind turbine. So I think he is very correct in that people don't understand the complexity of the rare earth supply chain and it is something which a lot of different countries and companies are going to have to work together. If we are going to develop a diversified supply chain. My goodness, a managing director in the rare earth sector that's into collaboration. That is very exciting indeed, Jeff. Thank you very much. So on that note, critical materials in general. I just want to ask if there's any piece of advice you'd like to give investors out there right now that are searching online. They're new to rare earths. For instance, what would you what would you recommend that they do? Is there a pet peeve that you'd like to share with them at this time? To me, the biggest thing with the with the critical with critical minerals is that people need to understand that the development of critical minerals is more a critical minerals are more their industrial products. They're they're highly specialized products. And so when you are comparing one project to another, it's not like an iron or mine or something like that, which is very simple to compare one one deposit to another. And it's not just about scale as well. It's actually about the quality of the product. It's about the and the mineralogy and it's about the the strategy being used to develop that project. So it's very difficult to compare oranges with oranges. So and that's really the, I guess, the the challenge for investors in the rare earth space. There are a lot of companies out there who are just talking about, OK, how big our deposit is and how big our resources. Well, that's it actually doesn't matter how big your your project is, because the market's so small, it's actually more about the quality. And that's where it's very different to something like I know, which is which is all about size. And in terms of the abilities to supply and just going back to your previous point about the ability of their countries to supply into the rare earth space, there's plenty of resource out there. And it's not about the size of the reason was it's the difficulty is that. Actually, how we're finding out the best way to actually extract the minerals from those resources. And that is the challenge which if investors are looking at critical minerals companies, that's the challenge which which they need to try to understand is do these companies actually understand how they're going to extract the minerals? You have no idea how time of that answer is, Jeff. I'd like to thank you so much for giving us an update. No problem at all. Thanks for having me.