 Well, hello everyone, this is Byron King coming to you from PDAC in Toronto, the 2022 version with Investor Intel. This is our rare earth panel and we have four terrific gentlemen who truly know the industry from the inside out. They work and they operate in mineral deposits and in the rare earth space and they are just gems of companies and really really have what they really know what they're doing. We're going to start off just to introduce all the people. We have Jeff Adkins with vital metals. Jeff just flew in from Australia and boy are his arms tired. No, that's a terrible joke, but no He really did just fly it. It took the red eye or whatever you call it to get halfway around the world to be here And we are grateful to that. We have Don Gubar a long-time player in the rare earth space. Avalon advanced materials to my right to have Greg Andrews of Search Minerals in Newfoundland Labrador, a very fascinating deposit up there and Fred Kozak to my far, right? Apia rare earths in uranium lay up in the top of sass catch one with one of the most intriguing deposits Thank you guys for being here. It's really a pleasure to have it's not just I've spoken with all of you on and other Investor Intel's it's terrific to have everybody together And and so here we are One of the questions that that I've had from a lot of readers and just people out there, you know, just out not They're not miners. They're not mineral economists. They're not industrial engineers, but this is a very basic question They people write into me. They email and say bar, you know The president says we're gonna have electric cars by 2030 or 35 and General Motors says we're gonna be all electric by this and You know, that's a lot of cars. That's a lot of millions of cars Do we have enough metal out there to meet that demand? Since you came all the way from Australia, what what do the what do you think from your perch way down in Australia? Look, it's an interesting one I think the big the big thing which I think has happened with the electric vehicle Industry is we're actually moving away from I believe a government driven and legislative driven Demand where we're really moving now is actually consumer demand and I think I've recently was up in up in Norway and through Scandinavia And it's pretty obvious that that's the future of Motoring where up there, you know, 90% of the vehicles are either electrified or plug-in hybrids or something like that and Whilst there is a government drive for it. That's largely actually driven by consumers. So That's the reality is we are moving far more towards that electrification of the vehicles The interesting thing is though as you say about availability of the metals Things like rare earths are used in many many parts of the vehicle So what you actually see and you're already seeing it in cars at the moment You're seeing it in super in superconductors and all of those sort of industries where there are shortages in the supply chains where The vehicle manufacturers are actually just prioritizing that the elements of the vehicle which are using those materials So you're seeing from the superconductor side of things car manufacturers Removing certain options from their from their vehicles like autonomous driving things like that And one of the things I found really interesting when I was in Norway was the vehicle we had there was an electric vehicle But seats were all manual steering column manual Mirrors all of those sort of things. So That's where I think with if there's a shortage It may not necessarily be from a drive perspective But what you might then see is car manufacturers actually prioritizing the use of those of those elements Well, I agree with what Jeff is saying and I've been more focused on the battery materials Lately and it's all about creating the capacity on the processing to make the derivative products to meet the needs of the market It's the same thing with rare earths Let's let's let's let's pick that up because in terms of mineral deposits in the ground Move to my right here in the audience's left We're looking at two with between the two of you both have extremely Fascinating geologically important rare earth deposits and The question would be, you know, what what's the mine ability and what's the what's the flow chart look like from? You know rocks in the ground to something that the people can start installing in a battery or the traction motor The great thing about the apia deposit is what we have found so far is all on surface We've talked initially about the very high-grade rare earths that we found we found literally Not just nuggets but massive intrusions of monazite which are highly concentrated for rare earths on surface And so our initial thinking is we may be able to just worry it as opposed to having to build a large open pit mine That sort of thing. We're just drilling right now a second Discovery on surface looks to be well wait for the assays But it is on surface. It's 300 meters in strike length 175 meters wide We've drilled down depth to 100 meters and we're still finding it. So from our perspective It's a phenomenal discovery at Alsace Lake where it's mostly on surface and then 27 square kilometers of high-grade mineralization also on surface so Mother nature is being very kind to us so far so high-grade or now Greg with your deposit at search You have a different geology, but you also have a Downstream play in terms of you know what you're gonna do with the rocks and minerals once you pull them out Tell us about that. Yeah, well so yeah We're blessed also having our deposit on surface, but we have a 63 kilometer district And we just published our PA that did the economics under two of our resources the fox rod and deep Fox Which give us a 26 year mine life at 2,000 tons per day So we're we're excited about that and further on what we've done with our with our deposit is we are looking at doing Primary processing in Labrador that would produce a boat four to four and a half percent concentrate that could be shipped to the Island of Newfoundland for the further processing of our proven technology or technology of direct extraction and move it on to solve an extraction So you you have In the sense that you're running not just a mines and minerals play you have a downstream Business approach as well. Well, it's we're looking at that But and you know what we're looking at with the primary being able to produce that concentrate on site And that just reduces the volume so it can be shipped to the island And so we'll be looking at that and then creating the continuing with our pilot plant work and demonstration plant That's our next field for our demo direct extraction so that we can produce that high Value carbonate for further separation Well, let's let's let's pick that ball up and run with a chiff. I'm gonna turn it back with you here You know, we've talked about ore deposits and grade We've talked about mine and mine ability or get rid of the point of concentrating it But can you give us and you give the viewers out there? What is the current status of let's call it the non-Chinese? Ability to do those intermediate steps in the downstream so that we can get to where the battery makers have what they Need and the motor makers new what's what's the what's the state of that art right now? Very short is is the is the short answer So the challenge you have and this is where Rare earth motors is very different to the batteries. So from a battery perspective you have your lithium Produce either a petal either a spod germane goes straight into a lithium hydroxide which goes into the battery So it's a relatively short step Challenge you've got for rare earth's is you have the mine concentration extraction separation metallization alloying Magnet manufacturing motor manufacturing before it goes into the car. So there's a lot more steps there and the problem for the what you might call the non-China supply chain is Metal manufacturing really doesn't make a lot of money if anything and you also need volume for that From a magnet perspective you need to have a license and you either have a license with Hitachi or a license with Neomaterials and that's basically the bottom. So they are the key bottlenecks there So there is a long process which needs to be taken The final thing I'll add is it all comes down to qualification So it's not just about resources in the ground It's actually proving the ability to be able to produce the product at the specifications because unfortunately you You know the specifications are very tight Rare earth's a they're not a it's not a mining product It's a chemical product and you need to treat it that way. So what that means is it's not like a iron ore project Where you just build a massive project and you know you can sell it what you need to do is you need to actually match the what the customers are able to accept and Unfortunately, they won't accept the product regardless of demand unless it's qualified And that will take two to three years. So that that's where the real challenge Comes in and that's one reason why you end up with these very this very long time to market to actually build up these Supply chains because you do have to take it one step at a time Yeah, I mean that's something that I think a lot of people who followed the space Have heard the story, you know China controls everything, you know China at 95 percent or 92 percent You know whatever the number is and what have you but but but all those it China has an entire Industrial space devoted to this. They have universities that turn out engine. It's a full ecosystem. Yeah, it's a full ecosystem Yeah, and and it also that the industry is so well established over over there as well But it also has the economies of scale so what you're saying in Europe North America is Actually trying to build that ecosystem up from first principles and that will always take time We'll get there, but it will take it will take time Don adds adds some word to this you've been you've been doing this for many years You're an absolute scholar in this subject, you know, tell give the viewers some of your perspective on them Well, the main reason that China got control of rare earths and other critical mineral supply chains was because they saw Before anyone the West did on how you have to create the downstream Manufacturing and processing capacity in order to justify creating the primary supply And that's a foreign concept to the traditional mining industry here in Canada and in the US And so we've got to basically start to encourage more of the R&D on innovative ways to use rare earths especially the heavy rare earths our resource of Mechilacho was had a high proportion of heavy rare earths and at the time there was no real potential supply of heavy rare earths But there's still a lot more work to be done on the R&D to see how they can take advantage of those unique Properties of the heavy rare earths in more and more new technologies and then create more and more supply But you got to create the demand before you can create much of the supply Okay, thank you don't know in terms of supply and demand. Let's get back to some of the basics Fred let's go with you and you're in the monazite deposit that you have with apia rare earths and uranium As a as a standalone deposit. I mean, where where do you go? Where do you go with that in terms of you know? Feeding it into an ecosystem that isn't fully developed. How does that how does that work? Well, one of the attractions of being in Saskatchewan and Jeff knows this from what vital is doing Is the Saskatchewan Research Council is building a rare earths processing facility in Saskatoon? It's meant to be up and operating first quarter of 2023 partial and then remainder operating in 2024 so The attraction for us as opposed to having to ship it to China for example for processing We're going to ship our our monazite straight down to Saskatoon You know, it's a very very short distance and They'll capture some of the some of the economics I suppose in terms of having a lesser, you know an inexpensive or what looks to be an inexpensive project to extract and then Processing facility that's in our home province and just down the road And Greg would tell us about the search approach to that as well Yeah Well, I agree with what Jeff's saying is you know we all of us here We're trying to create a rare earth industry in Canada that doesn't exist and from that we need, you know The resources we when Don talks about education is we don't The universities and there we're not doing R&D because we don't have access product and and so we'll be able to you know As we create our industry we should be able to grow and learn what other minerals and Uses of rare earths can come from that. That's what we're excited about and you know So from moving moving and being able to create something in Canada that doesn't exist is I think a fantastic opportunity that We can capture in this moment so Jeff again using see what you're You're Australian perspective, but you're also you deal in north with North America and you deal with the European Union When all you have to do is read a little bit of the newspaper an old-fashioned concept of newspapers But I mean real little bit of the news online or whatever to realize that that the world trade system is breaking down You know that China as the supplier of everything is not going to work Can you discuss a little more about you know, how is the sick ecosystem going to evolve? How do we how do we nurture it for what has to happen? Look, I think it basically the key drivers have to be the end users so the end users have to be the ones who want to diversify their supply chain and I think One of the big triggers at the moment when you look at a global supply chain is what's happening in the in the Ukraine and Russia Where you're looking at the impact there on things like fertilize fertiliser prices and the disruptions to supply chains through that and Think fertilizer. I think Ukraine supplies something like 20% and that's having a massive impact on global markets You then have a look at issues in the general shipping supply chains and minor upsets To the supply chains having big impacts all around the world And I think that's where the the key drivers come for the need to diversify supply chain and mitigate your risk and that's got to come from the end users so To me the key drivers going to be when the end users decide that it's actually worth their while to diversify their their risk secure sources from other parts and are actually willing to pay for that and pay for that reduce When you say end users, you know, do you mean the general motors? I mean the car manufacturers the car makers the aerospace people use the materials Yeah, because the other thing you have to remember as well is Car manufacturers in general have been dealing in commodities So all the products which they put into a car are generally commodities So from an engine perspective their supply that you know, they're buying ingots Which they're casting when you start looking at an electric motor or a battery It's a completely different beast and you're looking at something which might have a lead time of nine months versus something which when they're used to dealing in just in time So it's a complete change in the in inventory management supply chain management And that's not something which can happen overnight So I think we are starting to see some of those changes and but it will take time Well don you have been doing this? I I met you I don't I think 12 or 13 years ago and in the rare earth context and we've been and We had a big rare earth run up, you know 10 12 years ago and a big rare earth run a big rare earth run down Have have investors as the industry have people learned anything in the last 10 years And again, you mentioned that you deal with the battery space I mean talk about talk about talk about if people learn anything and you know What's what's the impact going to be to the battery side of powering a car? Well, they're starting to learn a little bit more about it, but It's taken a while to get general public, especially government educated on what it takes to create these supply chains and these non-traditional commodities and as jeff said it's all about Having the end users create the demand and start to Support creating that supply of the materials that they need in the various new technologies like electric vehicles And they're starting to think about that I know some of the major EV manufacturers that North America are talking about investing in the upstream on the battery material side So that could well happen with rare earths as well Well, we are about out of time and I want to thank everyone for participating I want to thank the audience out there who watches this for watching What I think we're hearing and you know, this is just sort of inferring from around that that this is still quite a niche of You know market sector But when the wheel turns it's going to turn rapidly in the sense that if something bad happens with china Something bad happens with just globalization in general People a lot of people a lot of these so-called end users are going to be looking around in a hurry saying, hey Where's my non-chinese sources of supply? Where's my non-chinese? Supply chain, you know, where are the universities that turn out the chemical engineers in the metallurgical Engine and we're going to see a lot of things happen in a real real hurry including A real you might say rush to investing in companies that have been let's say under invested in and Some of these some of the rare earth plays we have some right here are terrific companies beautiful management beautiful deposits In terrific futures. Thank you everyone. Thank you for watching. Appreciate it. Thanks. Thank you