S2 E58: Melissa Sanderson: A Journey Through Critical Minerals

Dustin Olsen (00:40)
Hi everyone, welcome back to the Rare Earth Exchanges podcast. Today we're joined by Melissa Sanderson, who is the director at the American Rare Earths and the co-chair of the Critical Minerals Institute. She's had a career that spans diplomacy, policy, and now frontline industry execution. She's spent years thinking about how geopolitics, national security, and critical minerals intersect. And Melissa, we are thrilled to have you here. How are you doing?

Melissa Sanderson (01:07)
Thanks so much, Dustin. I'm happy to be here. It's another good opportunity to share the wonders of the rare earth market with the world.

Dustin Olsen (01:15)
Absolutely. So Melissa, speaking of your career, which is like I was saying earlier, has spanned diplomacy, policy, and now the industry. Can you talk about the moment or the realization you had that pulled you through specifically into the critical minerals and rare earth space?

Melissa Sanderson (01:31)
Well, that's actually a really interesting question. And I would say that fundamentally a lot of my interest began in the State Department, where, among other issues, I worked on weapons of mass destruction. So became increasingly interested in uranium, uranium supply chains, thorium, thorium supply chains, cesium as a component of stabilizing reactors, et cetera. So I would say it stretches back

pretty far because while I was in the diplomatic service for 21 years total, in the intervening time, I was 16 years at Freeport-MacMoran, which at the time we were struggling to get the US government in particular to admit that copper is a critical material. They weren't convinced until as recently as last year. So yeah, I would say that it's been a good 20, 30 years that

I've been thinking about it in these terms, whether it's accessing critical materials or making sure that critical.

Dustin Olsen (02:31)
It's really fascinating. Can we talk about the two hats that you're wearing as director of the American Rare Earths and as also the co-chair of the Critical Minerals Institute and how those two perspectives, those two organizations complement each other.

Mel (02:45)
Well, being a director at American Rare Earths, which is potentially one of the largest, if not the largest, strategic asset that the United States is going to have in this space, has given me the perspective on the difficulties of being able to develop a rare earth project, particularly in the United States. While being the co-chair of the CMI has allowed me to continue to exercise my geostrategic vision and see

what that interplay is between current political relations, former political relations, and how all of that plays into trying to build a coherent supply chain to ensure U.S. national security.

Dustin Olsen (03:24)
Very fascinating. So just for context, so earlier you were saying that you've, about 30 years you've been like contemplating, you know, this shift into the industry side of things, but how long have you been a director and co-chair?

Mel (03:38)
So five years ago, actually it's almost six now, it was in 2020, I retired from Freeport-MacMoran and opened my own consultancy. That was in May. And in July, I joined the board of American Rare Earths. So that was my official entry point into the rare earth space, would have been July of 2020. And subsequently, I've had the honor of working with other companies as well and joining the Critical Minerals Institute.

Dustin Olsen (04:03)
Okay, so pretty recent with the writer's space. Yeah.

Mel (04:05)
Yes, for rare earths, yeah. The broader critical

mineral space, because we were discussing, for instance, uranium and thorium and cesium, et cetera, that's been longer. That dates back to the State Department days.

Dustin Olsen (04:19)
Gotcha.

Daniel (04:19)
And I had a question on that, ⁓ Dustin. You know, we were new to this. You we started this last year. And, you know, I've always had a fascination with mineralogy and things like that. But, you know, it sort of blows our minds how severe these problems are and how very few people know about just how severe they are.

whether it's the rare earth element supply chain problem or the broader critical mineral supply chain problem, you clearly have been trying to articulate some of these risks that this country faces. And I just had a bigger picture perspective since you've been doing this for a while. Do you feel like we've turned a corner? It seems like we have. It seems like there's more awareness and

current administration seems to be taking it very seriously. Obviously, there's a lot of it. But just some perspective for our audience to educate everybody. Was this just a topic that people forgot about? Why did this critical mineral generally category become so non-issued? Nobody talked about it We were so dependent on just one or two countries. Do you have any perspective on that? What happened?

Mel (05:29)
Absolutely. You know, here in the U S and also in the European Union, social attitudes towards the mining industry are extremely negative. You know, you've heard the phrase nimby, not in my backyard. Well, not in my backyard. When you take it individual by individual is virtually every square inch of any given country. So mines were out of favor.

And anything associated with mines, like smelters or processing, was also out of favor, regarded as, you know, destructive to the earth, bad for people, and therefore, that it happened someplace else, but not here. So around 25 years ago, more or less, a pretty conscious decision was made in the United States that we weren't going to be doing that stuff.

We weren't going to be in mining and we weren't going to be in the ugly kinds of manufacturing either. We wanted to do high tech, nice, clean facilities. China saw an opportunity. They understood the downsides. You know, people seem to think that China was somehow ignorant of the consequences of its own decisions. That's not true. Because particularly in the critical mineral space, you do get

knock-on effects that are bad for the planet and bad for people. If you take rare earths very specifically, because of where they are chemically in that wonderful periodic table that they all studied in high school, they come embedded with uranium and thorium. So you have highly radioactive byproducts that are going to occur as you mine and process rare earths. Now that will happen to a

varying degrees, each deposit is unique, some have less of these destructive elements than others do, but they're going to come along. China knew that, but they were willing to deal with those consequences and or ignore them. No one's ever really too sure what went on inside China in the early days when they were setting up their rare earth industry. So over that ensuing 25 years,

China became the supplier, the supplier, not just the supplier of choice, but basically the supplier for our technologies as they evolved. Because when you also think about it, go back 25 years, everybody didn't have a miniature computer in their pocket calling itself an iPhone or an Android or whatever. We didn't have laptops, we didn't have electric vehicles, we didn't have big wind turbines. We didn't have a lot of the technology.

that relies so heavily on these critical materials. Then technology evolved, circumstances changed, China was supplying very reliably, prices were acceptable, products were competitive, everybody was happy. Then along came COVID. COVID, showing how fragile global supply chains can really be, put people in a really bad spot.

Suddenly, even though China's intentions were still good, it couldn't ship the materials. And suddenly, the end users were in a panic. my God, there's not enough in the pipeline. We're going to run dry. How will we make this up? That was when people first pivoted and began saying, you know what? We need to secure our own resources and our own supply chain so that

If something terrible happens or China makes up its mind to not service us any longer, our economies and our countries won't collapse. That's what happened.

Daniel (08:48)
And that makes a lot of sense at a high level. And in that process, as you were in mining, you were in the State Department, you had different vantages. Were there people… Because we saw a report, for example, I think it's Melissa, 2013 to Congress or 2012 saying, hey, we got a problem. We're putting all of our eggs in one basket over here with China. So there clearly were warning…

calls along the way. from your perspective, have we as a country internalized the extent and depth of the problem? And are we really ready? Yeah, this is a good one. Let's hear this. Let's hear this.

Mel (09:24)
Absolutely not. No, no, absolutely not.

And we also have not internalized that it's not a problem that's going to be solvable overnight or in one year or in two years or in three years. We gave essentially China a 25 year head start and

not in any way decrying capabilities in the US or the West in general, but 25 years is a heck of a long time. And even when you are willing to, as we are seeing with the Trump administration, go to great lengths to reduce the regulatory time required to build a mine, to reduce the legal hurdles to building a mine, to take a pragmatic approach to building a mine,

It's still anywhere from a three to five year process to build a mine. And that's if you can finance it. Which is why what is going on out of Washington and out of Ottawa and out of Canberra and out of Brussels is so important. Because the mining industry has never been attractive to investors. There's some fundamental issues. The return on investment in mining is long.

This isn't the oil industry. Even after you get your mine built and you begin to get the rocks out of the ground and you begin to process them and you begin to sell them, these are massive investments, billion dollars and up. And it can take anywhere from 10 to 25 years to get to that horizon point where you are actually seeing a return on your investment. So the industry has never been that popular with private sector investors. And now what we're looking at

According to a United Nations estimate, globally in the West, we're looking at a bill of over a trillion dollars to be able to stand up these functioning and reliable supply chains from mine to magnet. There's no one country that's going to put a trillion dollars on the table. There's no one investment house that's going to put a trillion dollars on the table. So this public private sector financing that Washington has led the way of

is absolutely vital. And for that matter, the U.S. government taking equity positions in companies likewise is very vital because it goes to this concept of national security. And for the government to have a direct voice counseling companies on how decisions economically affect the national security. But one last point I would make here is that what we're really struggling with

is putting the pieces of the puzzle together cohesively, from minds to magnets. You hear lot of talk, for instance, right now about processing. processing, processing, we need more processing facilities. Any one element in the chain does not stand alone. That's why it's a chain. So you may rush and build eight or nine processing facilities.

If you don't have the mines to feed the processors, they're going to sit idle. If you don't have the fabricators making the magnets and making the metals, the processors will sit idle and the mines will sit idle. It has to be addressed in a coherent and cohesive way so that each of these elements falls into place along that chain.

Dustin Olsen (12:38)
I couldn't agree more, Melissa. ⁓

Mel (12:40)
Thank you.

Daniel (12:40)
We write about this and we agree with you. you know, for example, let's just bring some real world dynamism into this conversation. The Wall Street Journal just issued a pretty scathing critique of the Trump administration's approach. Well, should you be taking equity? you know, and you know, we don't agree with everything, but we do agree that the administration

We have empathy and we understand the situation is far more dire than much of the media lets on. Much of the media, Melissa, they just, yeah, we'll be around the corner. We're gonna be up with the, it's so shallow. It's almost like warm milk going down. And so, we're trying to, much like what you all do, and I'd like to segue into your institute, like how can,

the institute and then we'll get into the company as a different, you know, another line of discussion. How can it better educate media so that our business executives, financial executives, policy people can start better understanding, you know, what the real situation is?

Mel (13:48)
I actually do a lot of media interviews for that very reason, because it starts with the media, but it obviously goes well beyond them. The inherent problem is that, particularly here in America, people don't, they're not conditioned, they're not educated, they're not trained to think in terms of where did this come from? So the analogy that I usually use is,

The average person goes to the store and they buy a pound of ground beef. It seems almost as though people believe that ground beef grows on styrofoam trays. No cows had to die. They didn't have to be transported anywhere. The butcher didn't have to grind them up. It just is there. It's just there. And it's the same thing with technology.

Daniel (14:23)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Right.

Mel (14:35)
People go to the Apple store and it's stuffed full of Apple products and they're like, yep, there they are. They're just there. So it's, it's a complex equation to get people thinking about where do things come from and then getting them to take the next step of why is it bad that it comes from there? So in that sense, China has done a great educational job for us because by

Daniel (14:41)
Yeah.

Mel (14:59)
making the decisions that they've made starting back in 2011 when they cut Japan off and that was sort of the first use of the export control mechanisms. They, to demonstrate their hegemonistic power and then as recently as you know late late in 24 and going into 25 as they began pulling different switches right so no more germanium for you.

Daniel O'Connor (14:59)
Right.

Yeah.

Mel (15:23)
no more gallium for you. know, cherry picking elements that have very specific utilizations. And of course, the headlines were the military, right? This is defense materials. Well, guess what? It's also materials for next generation supercomputing and all those wonderful AI data centers, because there's another whole war, quote unquote, going on.

Daniel O'Connor (15:31)
Yes.

Mel (15:47)
about who's going to control the global AI architecture. So people tend to forget really important statements that they read in the press or they hear on the television. There was one last year, President Trump and President Xi reached a detente in which China agreed to a one year reprieve.

to the export control closure that it had implemented. That clock is ticking. We're getting into seven months already of that one year. How many more new mines have we got coming online in the US in that time? Or in Europe, or even in Australia, and Australia certainly is the leader of the Western world in these terms. So this is people in a sense don't want to know because it's scary.

Daniel O'Connor (16:15)
yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mel (16:34)
If you tell

Daniel O'Connor (16:34)
Yeah.

Mel (16:35)
people, you know, hey, guess what? The GPS might not work because we couldn't get the materials to support it. People will be like, wait a minute, how will I find my way around? It's already a tough world. And in a sense, people are just rejecting knowledge. Like, don't tell me any more bad news. I can't take it. I don't want to know.

Daniel O'Connor (16:54)
Really good point. That's a really good point you're making. There's an art and science to even delivering this kind of technical, comprehensive knowledge in a way that people can at least iteratively embrace and consume.

Mel (17:11)
Absolutely. I because I've had people say, not so much very recently, but three, four years ago, I've had people say to me, why is it a bad thing if China makes all this stuff? It's never been a problem before. Well, that overlooks the geopolitical realities, right? It overlooks the ambitions of China and China's own national security concerns that, you know, from our perspective may not be legitimate. Well, you know what?

the Chinese perspective, some of our concerns may not be legitimate either. That's the way that geopolitics works. It's always that famous, trust me, I would never invade your sphere of influence. okay, I trust you. Sure, right. So, geopolitics also has changed. China watched what happened to its ally Russia in the Cold War, right? It's learned a lot of lessons, including on how you use

Dustin Olsen (17:47)
you

Mel (18:02)
export controls to decimate your enemy's economy and bring your enemy to its knees. They understand perfectly well, as does Mr. Putin, economics killed the Soviet Union, not nuclear weapons. And China began to see that it was at risk of essentially being encircled, fenced out of the global economy,

Daniel O'Connor (18:16)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mel (18:26)
That's why in previous administrations, Washington held out that olive branch and said, well, listen, join the WTO, join this, join that. You you'll feel better about yourself. You'll realize that we're not out to get you. But again, China looks at history, which most Americans don't. And it says, well, wait a minute, Russia has been a member of all this stuff too, and you still crushed Russia. So why should we trust you?

Daniel O'Connor (18:49)
Yeah.

Mel (18:50)
We need

to ensure our own survival. And if we need to crush you to do that, we will crush you.

Daniel O'Connor (18:58)
And you know, on that note, we studied some of their planning when we started this venture and we found very explicit language of rare earths are really just, it's part of a multi-phased process to accumulate money, power, and influence around the world without ever firing a shot, by the way.

Mel (19:22)
100%.

Daniel O'Connor (19:23)
So now on that note.

Just to finish up on the Institute, let us, know, how is the Institute engaging with governments or companies? Just share with us the value proposition so others can hear about it. And then Dustin, we'd love to hear more about the company and how do you get a rare earth project off the ground? That's fascinating.

Mel (19:41)
Absolutely. Well, you know, the CMI were very honored to have been approached by several different governments. Uzbekistan, Zambia, there's several others that would like guidance and advice on how effectively to enter this discussion and bring their resources most productively into play. So concretely, you know, a lot of countries come and they say, we have a very rich resource base.

we need to attract investors and we can advise them on the kind of framework that they need to have in place in order to be attractive to investors. And we also have investors who are members of the CMI. So if the timing and the circumstances are right, CMI can act as a bridge to bring countries and investors together to have that dialogue on what is it that we as investors could consider

concretely in your country that would contribute to the global supply chain. So that's one aspect of it. We also encourage cooperation between companies because it's one of these scenarios where the need is urgent and time is short. So if we're all going to spend time cutting each other's throats in the race to be first to the market, none of us may find a market when we get there. So we also try to encourage cooperation.

Daniel O'Connor (20:37)
Right.

Right.

Mel (20:58)
We have companies, for instance, in CMI that specialize in processing. And then we have companies that are trying to build mines. So, you know, we're like, listen, everybody doesn't have to have their own demonstration plan. Everybody doesn't have to build their own processing facility. Let's look more cohesively at off-tick agreements and joint ventures and magnifying our resources by pooling our resources.

So that's another one of the key messages that CMI tries to put forth in this case to the private sector. And then a third function that we work on is trying to help governments identify viable opportunities. Because the thing about particularly the rare earth space right now is it's still in size, a niche market in the broader mining industry. It's characterized predominantly

by small junior startup type companies who are transitioning from a history of successful exploration to being developers. And that requires a lot of fast talking. And that's great if your fast talking is based on realities, but unfortunately around the world, it's not always based on realities. It's another thing that has in the past given the mining industry a bad name. So it's imperative

that particularly governments who are the custodians of the taxpayer dollars are able to correctly analyze and identify which companies have genuine resources and genuine capabilities and are therefore most likely to succeed in this market rush. So those are the three key factors from CMI.

Daniel O'Connor (22:34)
And those are very incredibly valuable services. So you're helping to bring together projects and financing. You're helping to facilitate, nurture cooperation among industry players. And you're helping governments identify the right projects. So these are very valuable services that the Institute is offering the world.

Dustin Olsen (22:57)
Yeah, absolutely. So with that, Melissa, is there anything that you're currently working on that you'd like to share that you're able to share with us?

Mel (23:06)
absolutely. I would love to talk a little bit about American Rare Earths. We have a couple of prospective deposits in the United States, but we are actively working to develop one in the state of Wyoming. So the overall concessionary is called Halleke Creek, and it composes private land, federal land and state of Wyoming land. And what we're currently working on is our Cowboy State Mine.

project, which is located exclusively on state of Wyoming land. We made that decision for a couple of reasons. It gives us a, you might say, a small enough fight to take as a first step. Because again, we're one of those junior mining companies. Successful track record on exploration. We found this 2.6 billion total rare earth oxide deposit sitting there in Wyoming. Yeah, it raises eyebrows. Right.

And we know that as a junior, we have to build our credibility. So we've got this great opportunity on State of Wyoming land. The State of Wyoming gave us a $7 million grant to help defray the costs of some of the permitting procedures. We've been in that permitting process for, this will be two and a half years. And we expect to be hopefully, knock on wood,

⁓ through that process, if not by the end of this year, then the middle of next year and be an actual entry for construction phase. So the state has been very, very supportive, not just monetarily, but also in helping us partner with the University of Wyoming, which has significant resource capabilities, and also in the fact that we're right there, right next to the permitting authorities.

So if there's ever a question about a document or a visit or whatever, right there, they're right there, we just get together and fix it, unlike being so far away from Washington. So that Cowboys State mine still faces that financial hurdle. Now we did receive a letter of intent from the Export-Import Bank a couple of years ago for $456 million.

which more or less would build the cowboy state mine. But nobody wants to start off their financing with a huge debt burden. You'd like to have a few other sources. So we would like to be able to attract additional US government funding from the usual suspects, Department of Energy, Department of Defense, Department of Commerce. You rarely hear that one talked about.

But commerce also has a pot of money to help out with this. IFC, etc. And the key message there is that this is a strategic resource. We are looking at a 100-year-plus mine life. And that output will satisfy our national security and economic development needs.

because of the volume that we're able to generate off of 2.64 billion tons. So if we say to ourselves, if we say to ourselves, what is the definition of national security? To me, it's easy. There's no shorter or more secure supply chain than mined and made in America. Right next door to Wyoming and Utah is a company called Energy Fuels.

Daniel O'Connor (26:05)
Amazing.

Mel (26:24)
that has a functional rare earth processing line. Louisiana, there's another company, Texas is building one. So if we had even just one enormous mine up and operating to feed the processing capability, we're then ready to move on to that next step of making metals and making magnets. And that's where we need to see some additional investment. But the problem is, as I said, mining is not popular.

Number one, takes a long time to get your money back. Number two, that's inescapable. Takes a long time to build a mind. Number three, and that's why that government money is essential because it's an anchor that substantiates to the private sector. Yeah, we, United States government believe in this. We recognize its strategic worth. Therefore, your investors will be comfortable with this and will make money from this. So.

That's the biggest hurdle at the moment is the monetary one because as we said earlier, Washington has done a lot on the processing side to knock down the time required to get permits and all that other stuff.

Daniel O'Connor (27:26)
Can we, on that note, if we look at the geology of the Wyoming mine, and we've written about it before, and we had the Congresswoman for the state of Wyoming who is supportive of, know, ⁓ Harriet Hagman. ⁓ Yeah, yeah, yeah, she's been on this show. So she's great. ⁓

Mel (27:39)
Cynthia Lummis.

Dustin Olsen (27:41)
Harriet Higman.

Mel (27:44)
Harriet, yeah.

Yes, she is.

Daniel O'Connor (27:52)
What is the geology like compared to know, NP mountain pass? Like what is the geology of this mine in Wyoming?

Mel (27:59)
You know, it's a blessing because what our drilling has demonstrated to us is a couple of very important things. This deposit, aside from being vast, is also deep and it runs true to depth. What that means is that when we pull the core out, the grades and quality that we see at the top are the same at the bottom. That's huge because there's no wasted

grade and quality in between. And that's only as far down as we've gone. We believe that that continues possibly even twice as deep as we've currently gone. So we're going to be soon engaging in an additional exploration round to substantiate that. Now overall, as is the case everywhere in the Western United States, the inherent grade itself is not that high. That's been true of copper for decades. So what is important is that

in the processing methodology that works for that mineral, can you enhance the grade? And if you can enhance the grade, how much can you do that by? And in enhancing and concentrating the grade, can you avoid over-concentrating uranium and thorium? That's where this deposit is a blessing again. We've discovered

Daniel O'Connor (29:11)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mel (29:13)
very recently that we can do a 40-time upgrade without triggering the uranium thorium threshold.

So that's another point in its favor. Very crucially, because you asked about, for instance, how does it compare to NAP materials, we have in Wyoming what I like to call Core IV. And I call them the Core IV because they are the four rare earths that right now are essential for almost everything. Two light rare earths, two heavy rare earths. The lights are the ones everybody hears about, neodymium presiodymium.

Daniel O'Connor (29:27)
Yeah, yes.

core 4.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Mel (29:45)
The heavies are terbium and dysprosium. We have the core four. MP does not have the heavies.

Daniel O'Connor (29:51)
No, they don't have the heavies. Well, let me… They have a certain amount. Let's just be technical here. In the SEG, they have some that they have said to us they will be able to pull out and we'll give them the benefit of the doubt, but it's still going to be a chore. Let's put it to that one.

Mel (29:52)
Exactly.

Dustin Olsen (29:59)
Ha

Mel (30:11)
Right, exactly. Exactly. And so from our perspective, American Rare Earths, we see where we could be great partners for MP materials because MP is working to build a heavy rare earth refinery that's very specialized. So since they don't have vast quantities of heavies, they're going to want to partner with somebody. And hey, Wyoming isn't that far away from California. We would love to be partners talking about cooperation, right? But

That's another blessing of the Wyoming deposit is its composition, because it also cares amounts of some of those other elements that we mentioned, like Galileo, like gadolinium. So as we begin developing that project, we'll be able to pull those out as another revenue stream as well, crucial to national security. So the more that we began to discern and discriminate inside of our composition, the more

good opportunities we're finding. And I have to say, it's also nice to be located in Wyoming, where uranium is increasingly important. And there are a couple of companies operating now in Wyoming as uranium processors. And again, just thinking ahead, it would be strategically interesting to partner with one or both of those in order to sell and monetize our uranium byproduct.

which they in turn can sell on to the mini-nuke that's now been commissioned in Kemmerer, Wyoming. And if those began to flourish, as everyone seems to expect they will, then that's an onward steady market for a company like ours.

Daniel O'Connor (31:42)
It sounds very exciting. So if we look at the financial package.

Mel (31:46)
Daniel,

say it with more excitement. It sounds very exciting. It's not exciting me.

Daniel O'Connor (31:49)
It's very exciting.

It's extremely exciting. Let's talk about how we excite people into action in terms of investors. What is the trance that you're looking for and what is it going to accomplish and how is it coming along?

Mel (31:56)
There we go.

You know, when you, when you look at the prospect of building a mine in a course and associated processing facility, which is what we currently are looking at, you're talking anywhere between 700 to 800 million in all likelihood. but what that gives you then is that nice, rich concentrate that's ready for the further transformation into the magnets and the metals. Now our aspirational goal is to be in that magnet space, but.

We're realistic. Again, you know, there's, there's stages that you come to as you grow. You know, when you're six, you don't drive the car, you ride a bike. And when you're 16, you drive the car. So we have an integrated vision for ourselves that we want to achieve. And that by itself should be exciting to investors because we have a pragmatic vision. We have a genuine resource, which we have been approaching

Daniel O'Connor (33:00)
Yes.

Mel (33:05)
with all due diligence to ensure that we have the processing methodology that will work for our material. Because one of the things, Daniel, that I didn't mention and I should have is that we are a hard rock rare earth asset. So there's three types. You've got your monosite sands, you've got your ionic clays, and you've got hard rock. And on that scale, we're going up in terms of how hard it is to deal with.

and hard rock's the worst. It's more costly, and also the chemical set has not been known. I had a friend who said to me four years ago, you know Mel, I love you, so I will never say anything bad about American Rare Earths, but you're never gonna crack the alanite nut. Well, we finally have cracked the alanite nut, but it's because we did all that hard plotting work.

Daniel O'Connor (33:32)
Yeah, it's more costly. Yeah, it's more costly. Yeah.

Ha

Mel (33:56)
you know, with experts in Australia and Canada to get that right composition, that right mix of magnetics and spirals and spins and crushing, et cetera, et cetera. And now we know we've got it. So that should also be very reassuring to investors because you get that purity. Yeah.

Daniel O'Connor (34:10)
and

That's

extremely reassuring because you need to be able to show, you know, forecast, this is what it takes to pull this out, you know, purify it, separate it, you know, and this is what we can get on the market. And if you can show that with clarity, you can get a lot of investors. You know, USA Rare Earth, here's some upbeat for you. I'm not going to say anything about that deal today, okay?

We're writing about it today and we're going to, we're to be honest. We're upbeat. We want everyone to be successful, but we also have to be objective. I've heard through the grapevine that that financing was 5 billion oversubscribed. Meaning, you know, they were initially going for a billion that private follow on financing. They got an extra one and a half billion and there was another 5 billion interested.

So there's enormous amounts of capital out there.

Mel (35:06)
Yes. Yeah.

Daniel O'Connor (35:07)
So,

but I think having some government tie in helps to your point. It helps validate and it should happen and we need to do that. I'm fine as a taxpayer supporting this because I want this back here. That's the role of our platform here, right, is to accelerate this process. So, it's imperative that, you know, we support as many of these different mines as possible. So we have the sustainable feedstock, which will then lead to the

refining and then the industries that we can develop here. Now our position is the downstream what the Chinese are doing and we track it every day in rare earth exchanges is the downstream R &D. They're very active patenting everything. So this is very important. So I hear there is an imminent need to support this effort in Wyoming and

It sounds like we're well on the pathway to showing success. It's right there. It's right within our reach.

Mel (36:06)
Absolutely, yes. Because now after all those years of work we have that flow sheet and we are ready to rock and roll. Absolutely.

Daniel O'Connor (36:13)
That's exciting. And I'm very excited about it, believe me. This is why we're here. So we want to be reporting on your fundraise so that you can now go to the next level and start execution. That's critical. ⁓

Mel (36:27)
Much appreciated. Yes, to

all the listeners out there, please send checks.

Daniel O'Connor (36:33)
That's right.

And one of the things that we're talking with other groups about this is it might be that at some point we go up there and do another follow-on episode up there to just bring more probability to the whole thing, right? And look at the flow sheet. So we'll work with you guys to help you guys, anything you need. Dustin, as we sort of, yes.

Mel (36:53)
That'll be great. That'll be great,

Daniel. Our newly appointed CEO, Mark Wall, I know would be thrilled to have the chance to discuss in much better technical detail than myself how this project is coming forward. He's got a great vision for us and he's getting us a big leap forward.

Daniel O'Connor (36:59)
Mm-hmm.

I will say this though, they're lucky that they have you because from what I've read about you and then how you've articulated these very complicated, nuanced matters very eloquently and it just flows right out. You understand this market. to have someone like you on the company side is a blessing because again, you can see things. Yeah, you've been in government.

Mel (37:31)
Thank you.

Daniel O'Connor (37:34)
You've been in industry, you've been in sort of an association, so you have a holistic view of what needs to happen. Dustin, any as we, this has been a really great episode. Any thoughts, Dustin? Questions?

Dustin Olsen (37:47)
I just, I want to agree with you, Daniel, and to say that Melissa, you've been incredibly articulate and on point with your thoughts here. And I think a lot of our listeners, especially those of the investor caliber and on the different levels that they all come in, we'll find this very helpful and very encouraging as they also try to discern

where their investment should go. I think it's been a bit murky for them to figure out who to invest in and why it's a good investment. So on behalf of all of them, thanks for sharing your thoughts and providing the assurance of the reality that exists. So one final question to wrap up the show.

Well, everything sounds great. Everything that you're doing with the company, it sounds really promising. But what keeps you up at night? What stresses you out still with what you're working on?

Mel (38:38)
That ticking clock.

with China. Because no matter how hard we work this, whether it's ourselves at American Rare Earths or it's USA Rare or it's MP Materials, no matter how hard we work this, that clock is ticking. That's a very real deadline. And that sense of urgency needs to drive us all to continue to do our very, best and to

get things going as quickly as we can. That's what keeps me awake at night, that ticking clock.

Dustin Olsen (39:08)
as it should most, you would think. But we appreciate the urgency that you're, the respect you're giving that urgency for sure. For those who are listening to this show, if you found this episode helpful, please give it a thumbs up to wherever you're watching or listening to it. That will help this show become more visible to others who might be interested in the same topic. If you don't want miss a future episode, please subscribe to wherever you listen to this podcast. Melissa, thank you again.

so much for coming on the show, sharing your experience, your knowledge with us. It was great.

Mel (39:38)
Well, thank you so much, Dustin, Daniel, for the opportunity. I really appreciate it. And I gotta say, I enjoyed it.

Dustin Olsen (39:44)
Awesome. And hopefully we'll get you on the show again to give us an update as things move forward.

Mel (39:48)
Love it. I would be very happy to do that.

Dustin Olsen (39:50)
Great, thanks Melissa.

Daniel O'Connor (39:52)
Thank you.

Mel (39:52)
Thanks guys.