 Hi, this is Jack Lyfton and today I have the pleasure of speaking with Rowena Smith, who is the Managing Director of ASM, Australian Strategic Materials. And Rowena, I have an immediate question for you and I'm not expecting you to really answer what I'm hoping. You have an arrangement or a joint venture or you have some corporate relationship with the Korean company Kairon, is that correct? No, no, I'm not familiar with Kairon. What's the name of the Korean company you're involved with in the metal making business? Our metal making business is actually 100% equity ourselves, it's not a joint venture. Yeah, it is. What I think perhaps you're referring to is that we've got a research and development team in Korea as well that is co-located there with our metals facility and we're developing our own innovative technology to do metallization in a very low carbon way. And that did originate as a joint venture with one of the professors at one of the universities there in Korea. So we started that as a joint venture about 10 years ago but three years ago we actually purchased that joint venture and that's now a fully owned entity. We have all the IP, we have all of the personnel and as I say they're co-located with the metals plant but then off the back of that technology innovation we committed to doing the metals plant ourselves. So yep, that's a fully owned entity ourselves. Having said that, Jake, we did get significant support from the Korean government both at the local level, the Cheungbukdo Province gave us a lot of support with identifying property and helping us with permits and we got assistance from the Korean Development Bank with a loan to help us get started. So we've certainly had support from Korea but yep, that business is ours. So is there a metallizing plant in Korea at this point? There is. We're up and going, not only is it there but it's producing and it's delivering to customers. We've got neodymium-presidentium metal that is being supplied to a Korean magnet producer. First delivery started in September of last year and then more recently we've commissioned the stripcaster that makes that specialist alloy, the ND FEB that goes into the permanent magnets that are used for the wind turbines and the electric vehicles and we've got two customers now both in the States for those alloys which is really exciting but we're very focused at the moment there on building that customer base so we can ramp that production up. I would call reading and correctly if I'm wrong that Novion in Texas is going to be a customer of yours for alloy. Yes, Novion Magnetics was our first alloy customer. We've we signed an initial agreement to produce 100 ton of product for them between now and March but we've been in discussions with them for some time. We're certainly intending for that to be a long-term partnership and we're working with them at the moment on that long-term agreement but then the second customer that we announced is USA Rare Earths and that one we have already announced the long-term arrangement which is a five-year deal that we did with them to be able to provide them with 60% of the feedstock that they need for their still water facility in Oklahoma. As far as I know I don't know of any other company outside of China that's doing this. Let's eliminate Japan for the moment and when I do that ASM is the only company I'm aware of in the rare earth sector that's already shipping metal and alloy I assume. The interesting thing is very few people know about this here you realize that and we talk endlessly about we've got to vertically integrate blah blah blah and that's all nonsense here because we have no idea how to do it okay. So here's my question out of the blue are you do you have any interest in licensing your metal making technology outside of yes. Lots of opportunities for how we can create value from the IP that we have both the technologies that we have and the know-how that we've established and because you're right we are in a very unique position it's not just that we are metallizing and alloying which as you say is very unusual but also that we've actually established an end-to-end supply chain that doesn't at any point in that supply chain go through China. We've got the raw materials set up to be able to come from Vietnam going into Korean metals plant and then going on into domestic customers there in the States. So I'm certainly not aware of anybody who has either by themselves or through partnership created that end-to-end alternate supply chain. I am the repository of such information there isn't anyone else take my word for it. Now I would ask you a question which you will not answer but I'm hoping always hoping. Can you describe the metal making technology to me if it's not electrolysis of molten salts or if it's not metal thermal reduction? Yeah I think you know just at a high level what we're doing with the light rare earth the neodymium prasadenium is an enhancement of established technologies. So that's not where the focus for our innovation is and similarly for the stripcaster you know that's technology that we've purchased. The area that we're really focused on that you know that innovation work is currently in process development using titanium. We're focusing on titanium first just because it's a more commercially ready material rather than commissioning it on the heavy rare earths that are a lot more expensive and a lot harder to get hold of but that technology is the technology we're intending to use to metalize the dysprosium and the terbium and also some of the other critical minerals that we have in the double resource the zirconia the hafnia etc. So yeah that's what we're doing the technology. You said that you were getting seromaterials from Vietnam are you also planning to bring your Australian properties into production of these raw materials? Exactly so in the short term we're looking to purchase materials again through a strategic partnership in Vietnam which we're building that so that it can provide materials between now and our double resource coming online but you know one of the big projects that we're working on the primary project for ASM is getting our double resource in New South Wales Australia into production. We've been working on this for many years so it's very advanced. We have all of the engineering work done we've got all the environmental approvals in place we've got Hyundai engineering doing the final EPC definition work for us at the moment and we're really at the point now where we're talking to off-take partners and we're aiming to secure those key off takes for the materials between now and the end of this calendar year so that we can go into the final round of funding discussions aiming for final investment decision at the end of next year. Do you have any feeling for where you'll be competitively in pricing with the let's say Chinese suppliers? Look I think this is one of the challenges for the industry is to establish what the pricing is for that alternate supply chain and not just you know relative to China per se but also where the margin actually sits across that supply chain because you know when you're in the position as they are in China where you know that supply chain is pretty much owned by the one entity you can move the margin around along that supply chain but when each piece is owned by a discrete business you've got to have a lot more maturity in the way that you share that margin through each of the different processes so I think you know their conversations that we're having at the moment with our partners and it's why I speak about partners rather than customers because I think as we are in this early phase of setting up this alternative supply chain you know we are actually standing up a new industry and if we don't do that in a in a collaborative manner if we don't do it in a way that sensibly thinks about how we ensure that there is margin at each step in that supply chain you know there's no point in having one business without the rest of the supply chain around it so you know that they are live conversations that are happening at the moment thank thank you very much this has been very enlightening and I have to think about this now well I've been very pleased to chat with you and you're right it's a super exciting time and you know what we're we're doing is is groundbreaking so yep I'd be more than happy to chat with you again thanks Jack thank you Rowena thank you very much