Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News. But in terms of cooperation with our resources, we know we have huge potential. And we have said from the beginning, let's have respectful conversations and talk about how we can strengthen the partnership also in terms of our mineral resources.
That was Greenland's prime minister on partnering with the U.S. Denmark's prime minister is now flying to meet with him today to discuss the territory's future, which the U.S. has a large interest in mining there.
Joining us now, Tony Sage, CEO and executive chairman of Critical Metals, the company just greenlit the start of construction for a storage and pilot facility in Greenland for its rare earth and critical minerals project. Tony, thank you so much for joining. What a week it's been for everybody, but I think it's fair to say that especially you have been attuned
Chapter 2: What potential do rare earth minerals hold for Greenland?
to the news, just the back and forth in Greenland, whether the US would take it by force now, more of an agreement with military bases and a keen interest in minerals. Does this change anything for critical metals?
Oh, not really. On the ground, we're going 100 miles an hour doing what we can control. We can't control the politics of the situation, but it certainly does affect us. I mean, local people are very, very concerned, and I've never ā we've been operating in Greenland for 22 years. I've never seen a protest before. So they are very, very concerned. It does affect our staff in Greenland.
It does affect the mentality ā For the uncertainty for them. But for us as a company, we're going, like I said, 100 miles an hour. We're building pre-construction. We're doing our pilot plant, our office and obviously the labs, which is going to be very crucial. in analyzing all the materials.
Can you tell us what kind of agreements you've struck for the rights to do this mining? I mean, for how long have you got the rights? How do you split it up in terms of what you get out of the ground with the local economy? How does that look, Tony?
Yeah, look, at the moment, we've got a 30-year, 500,000 tonne per annum licence to exploit the natural rare earths. The rare earths that we're going to concentrate on is not the lights, for example, MP materials. We're going to go for the heavies. And we've got 4.7 billion tonne ore body, which in effect would last 1,000 years.
But we're only going to do a fraction of that, obviously, at the beginning. So we're going to concentrate on the heavies, which are the terbiums, the hathemiums, the galliums. and the spurs in the tantalum. So those are the ones that the U.S. government can particularly interested in because it obviously fuels national defense. You cannot build an F-35 fighter.
You can't build a destroyer, nuclear power plants, et cetera, et cetera. So they're the ones that we're going to particularly concentrate on in Greenland.
Tony, this has been an American government that's increasingly getting involved in corporate America, in corporations, especially when it comes to metals and taking stakes. For your more recent projects, have you had conversations with this government about doing just that? Any financial commitments that they're hoping to achieve?
Yeah, look, we've had a very, very good discussion with Ex-Im Bank. We've signed an LOI with the Ex-Im Bank. It's a fantastic deal for us. It's $120 million over 14 years and only 1.9%. Really, if you take into account inflation, it's a negative interest rate. So that's been fantastic for us. We've applied for it under the old DPA funding. So under the new terminology, it's CHIPS funding.
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Chapter 3: How is Critical Metals navigating the political landscape in Greenland?
The Romanian government is heavily involved. 50% is going to go to them. And we've signed deals with UCOR in the States, re-alloys. And we followed MP materials to Saudi. They signed a deal with Trump and MBS a few months ago. We followed that lead, and we're building a processing plant in Saudi. But all of the product from the Saudi processing plant will go to the U.S.
I was just going to ask, where are these minerals that you mine are going to be refined? Are you saying that half will be refined in the U.S. or sort of at the behest of U.S. companies? Because the refining question is one that sticks in my mind. It's a really difficult process, so I hear, to refine these things. Maybe dirty and dangerous. Yeah, it's very difficult.
So who does the refining of the stuff that you get?
Okay, so we partnered with the Romanian government with their nuclear department. They're reprocessing nuclear rods already in the plant. We're going to build our plant next door. The technology is there for us to do that. We're using the same technology in Saudi Arabia, so that will be set. The 25% of the product that's coming directly to the United States, we're using the U-Core technology.
They've got a plant in Louisiana. And we're using the realloys technology, which is based in Ohio. So that's 25% pure product going to the U.S. for U.S. But the Saudi 25% we're going to refine there is going to go to the U.S., the end product, which are the terbiums, the hasmiums, the niobiums, the galliums, et cetera.
And Tony, just to kind of reiterate what we've been saying this whole time, and you've been saying that these minerals are highly important to the US, and Trump has emphasized that with not just Arctic security as being part of the framework he says exists for a Greenland deal, but also mineral rights included in that framework.
Tony, can you give us kind of the sober view of what wealth there is in Greenland when it comes to minerals, but not just that, but how difficult it is to get it out of the ground?
Look, in a lot of areas of Greenland, as President Trump said, is under ice, under a lot of ice. We're very lucky with our deposits. We're in the southern part of Greenland. It's quite temperate. It only gets to minus five Celsius. It's colder in New York and Chicago at some points and 15 degrees in summer. So very temperate climate.
But there are trillions, literally trillions of dollars of material in Greenland other than rare earths. You've got one of the biggest iron ore deposits. You've got uranium. The oil and gas potential is absolutely massive. So Greenland is a treasure trove. Unfortunately, a lot of those minerals and oil and gas aren't allowed to be exploited under the ruling of the Denmark control over Greenland.
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