S1 E32 – Magnet Independence Is Years Away

Dustin Olsen (00:40)
Welcome back to the Rare Earth Exchanges podcast. You've got me, Dustin and Daniel, and we're excited to have you guys here. Daniel and I are just talking about the news today, but before we do, let's talk about some of the guests that we had the last couple of weeks. Daniel, we had some really great information. First, we talked with Mark Jensen, who's the CEO of Free Element and the American Rare Earth Resources. And also we had Nitin Gupta.

who's the CEO of a rare earth recycling company. He's a terror. So great conversations from both of them, honestly. And I'll start with Mark Jensen. is honestly, he's a firecracker. He is just, he's ready to go. And he's not messing around either. He's very competitive and I love that spirit, that energy that he brings.

And I think it's exactly what we need here in America as we're trying to onshore a lot of these capabilities and he's ready for it. But one thing he did say in terms of just what are some of the hurdles that we're going to have is workforce. We can have the best ideas, but we need the labor, the skilled labor to actually kind of bring it to fruition. so.

As we're seeing a lot of things change, which are great changes, I think the next big thing that we're going to see happen is a big push for these kinds of careers. So what did you think of that conversation?

Daniel O'Connor (02:05)
Well, I would agree with you, Dustin, that you need people like Mark Jensen. He's a fireball and he is on fire. He's on a mission. He has his company, Reelement Technologies. It's part of American Resources Corp, which is like a holding company that owns a lot of the shares. so it is accessible. There's a publicly traded entity. You know, he is building, recycling,

processing and ultimately magnet production with partners. He's got partners in Africa, Pinsana for example. He's motivated, I like it. He's still, some of the experts that we have share with us that Mark still has to prove that he can scale out. That's a big, big deal. It's one thing to do a little bitty stuff, but it's another thing to produce at scale.

We're bullish about Mark Jensen. He's going to keep going. He's going to solve problems. He's going to work with local communities to develop talent and help build that workforce. So I'm excited about him.

Dustin Olsen (03:05)
Yeah, likewise. think honestly, with a lot of people we've talked to that are based here in the United States, scaling is something they all need to prove. The idea is there, they're getting the infrastructure in place, and now it's time to of scale. So I'll be excited to see not only him, Mark Jensen, but also these other companies here in the United States kind of get their feet underneath them and start running with it. Now let's talk about NIT and Gupta.

He said something that shocked both of us. We asked him, like, in the next five years, where do you see, or how much recycling do you think will contribute back to the supply chain? Because currently, from the estimates that we've seen and we've reported on many times, it 1 to 2 % is what it contributes right now. In the next five years, he said, do you remember, 70%.

Daniel O'Connor (03:46)
Right now, yeah.

or 50, I thought it was 50, 50 or so, either way, it's way up there. Crazy, way up there.

Dustin Olsen (03:52)
It was way up there.

Yeah, we were shocked. honestly, were like, if even he was half correct in that estimation, it would still be a massive jump over the next five years.

Daniel O'Connor (04:05)
It would be a

massive leap.

Dustin Olsen (04:08)
Yes. Anything else to add to that conversation with them?

Daniel O'Connor (04:11)
Look,

I was impressed with Nitten and Attero. It's an Indian based company. They're coming over here. Remember our mission Dustin is Ex China. So it's not just America. We're Americans. We're patriotic and we want to see that supply chain get built here, but we also need partners. I like Attero and what they are doing. They are sophisticated. You know, they started in batteries and other

green energy recycling, they're moving into rare earths. They also own, don't forget, nationwide e-commerce platforms that you can trade in your goods, your recycled goods. They're thinking this all the way through. They're going to expand to United States, Europe. We should keep an eye out on a tarot.

Dustin Olsen (04:56)
Definitely, and definitely when they come to America, incredible potential. And he, as shocked as we were, he was incredibly confident with the path that they're on. Incredibly confident. So yeah, I couldn't say it better. Keep an eye on a tarot, for sure. They're gonna be up and coming. So with that,

Daniel O'Connor (05:00)
Certainly.

Dustin Olsen (05:15)
We encourage everyone to go back and listen to those episodes with ⁓ Mark Jensen and Nintendo. Great conversations, lots of great information. So like the channel, subscribe so you don't miss a future episode. Daniel, a few days ago, you posted an article about magnets. And the question really was, will America be rare earth magnet independent anytime soon? Right. ⁓

Daniel O'Connor (05:39)
Yes.

Dustin Olsen (05:39)
in the next five years. So let's dive into that really quick and then we've got a series of other more recent news that came out. But let's talk about this really quick. Let's answer this question.

Daniel O'Connor (05:49)
Well, this article that you're referring to came from a statement President Trump made the other day. A couple days ago, he was on a Fox News interview and he acknowledged the Chinese magnet monopoly. He said, they're smart. The Chinese are smart. They monopolize these magnets, but we're making magnets now. We're going to make lots of magnets and we're going to make more. We'll have more magnets than we need in a year.

And that was, that's a paraphrase, but that really stood out for me about how the president's thinking or what advisors are telling him or what he's telling the world. I don't know, but our article, which is titled, Will America be Rare Earth Magnet Independent Anytime Soon? The answer is no. And in this article, what we do is we look at the deal that

Where that's coming from, President Trump's statement is the deal the Department of Defense did with MP materials and Apple, know, half a billion, up to half a billion, they're going to invest in magnet recycling. So yes, there's a lot of exciting activity that President Trump has initiated. And yes, he should be excited. But we need to be sober in our assessment here, especially when we're talking to investors and we're

trying to help them gauge, articulate risk, right? If we look at, you know, the magnet situation, both the demand for direct magnets, know, corporations buying these magnets, and magnets embedded in other products, you know, maybe if MP materials scaled out, you know, everything that they're supposed to do with that

$400, $600 million they got plus the billion dollars in credit from Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. If they executed perfectly within a couple years, they might be able to supply a good deal of the magnet demand in the United States for direct magnets. And I'm making a bunch of assumptions here.

But that's assuming there isn't more demand, but there is more demand. Demand is growing, okay? So that's the first issue. The second issue are the magnets that are embedded in other products that will be purchased by companies in this country. So when you add all that up, based on the assessment we did, we're probably looking at 2030 to where we might, if MP materials executes flawlessly,

Dustin Olsen (08:10)
you

Daniel O'Connor (08:17)
And that's a challenge. Magnets are very, very difficult.

We haven't developed them in a long time. Each one is custom. This is the thing, Dustin. It's not like there's a catalog of magnets and there's like bolts. There's version 2.32 and yep, just order that and 1.22 and it's the same. There is no specifications. It's all custom.

Dustin Olsen (08:38)
Nope,

it's all custom. Yeah, it's like their own recipe, right? It's like food, right? You can make the same thing, but how you make it is entirely unique. And that's the challenge.

Daniel O'Connor (08:42)
You got it.

⁓ 100%.

100%. So look, things can happen. There might be disruption with recycling. There could be right now, maybe in the defense companies, they're working on building systems that don't need rare earth magnets. You who knows what can happen. But based on our assessment today and being very conservative, but also upbeat, assuming MP materials

execute flawlessly and everything else in that plan goes according to plan, maybe in a couple years we'll be generating maybe 10, 20 percent of what we need, maybe. That's a big if. Every analysis we did leaves us to believe we're at least five years, if not seven years away and maybe even longer. It just depends.

But definitely next year, will we have enough magnets to meet our demand in this country? Absolutely not. Look, I would love to be wrong. And if I am wrong, you know, I'll come up and I'll tell the world I was wrong. But we don't see it and we speak with experts that are a lot smarter, at least than I am, about these things. And they absolutely validate what we say. It's just…

Now, the one issue that we need to address, and we think that President Trump is doing some amazing things, okay, he is stirring the pot in a way that needed to be stirred. And when it comes to critical minerals and rare earths, he's doing more than any other president. So we have to give him some props for that, right? On the other hand, on the other hand though, he's not doing things the right way.

Dustin Olsen (10:17)
Absolutely.

Daniel O'Connor (10:21)
For example, and some of the top experts tell us this, for example, we need an industrial policy that has policy around international alliance. So much like in the Cold War where we had NATO and blocks of countries that we could just collaborate with, we didn't have to worry about deal after deal or one-off scenarios or relationships. We knew we could just go and execute programs based on

Accords that were legal and that were enduring and that nobody questioned. Those days are gone. We're in like the age of mercantilism in 1850 or something where, you you've got these different kingdoms trying to pick off countries and it's just, it's a very different world. And Trump, I think, believes that he can generate leverage out of this and maybe he can, but…

When it comes to critical minerals and rare earth elements, this industrial policy that we need, we're kind of in a little bit, we've dipped our toes in industrial policy, but we have to go to the next level. Thoughts on that, Dustin?

Dustin Olsen (11:25)
Yeah, the aggressiveness of his claim of, you know, in a year we'll have more than we need. Already on the show today, we've highlighted probably two or three different hurdles that would prevent that from even happening. And I'll just call them out one more time, right? We've already talked about scale. Like a lot of American businesses have the solution, they just can't scale it yet for whatever reasons they have individually, right?

their scale. And then we talked about the uniqueness of every magnet that's out there. And you said we haven't made magnets in a long time. we have a huge major deficit in not only just the knowledge, but the skills to bring this together. So in less than a year to have more magnets than we need means that people are just waiting for a job offer. And I just, that's not true. Right. So

Daniel O'Connor (12:16)
Yeah, yeah.

Dustin Olsen (12:18)
I think it's going to take a year just to even get the awareness out there. And then we can start seeing this sort of movement. So which would align with our estimates of five years, not a year. so it's, it'd be interesting to know who's feeding president Trump is information. Is it even accurate? Probably not, but he is doing something, even if it isn't the best way to do it. He's doing something and.

Daniel O'Connor (12:38)
Yes.

Dustin Olsen (12:42)
that deserves credit. So.

Daniel O'Connor (12:43)
That

deserves credit. We give him credit for that. And that's a good start. We just now need to do more.

Dustin Olsen (12:49)
Let's do more, let's take it to the next level so that we can actually make the real progress that has to be made.

Daniel O'Connor (12:51)
Yep.

Dustin, we started this company and this show to accelerate the ex-China rare earth supply chain with a hub or a nexus in the United States. And we're not resting until we get it. mean, that's the reality. There's no breaks here. We just have to keep going. you know, it's easy for people around President Trump to say, you got it, Mr. President. You're incredible. We're almost there.

You know, midterms right around the corner. And that's the problem. This is a systemic problem. You know, just a quick digression. When Reagan really accumulated investment in tech and military and Cold War stuff, it was part of industrial policy. You know, it created huge economic booms in California where I'm from. And it actually worked. It actually helped.

the Soviet Union empire sort of collapse. you know, I think we sort of need to follow some model like that. I think we have to go back in time a little bit, back to the future and just study some of the policies that have worked at certain points in our history.

Dustin Olsen (14:00)
Absolutely. No better teacher than the past. Hindsight's 2020.

Daniel O'Connor (14:07)
100 % yep Monday Monday Monday morning quarterback

Dustin Olsen (14:17)
Yeah. All right, Daniel, let's talk about some of the recent news that we pulled out. ⁓ One of them was titled, Trump, NP materials and Apple, facts fiction and the fight for rare earth independence. What stands out to you with that?

Daniel O'Connor (14:31)
Yeah.

So yeah, this is again, one of the things that we're doing is, you know, we're analyzing other news. Some of the top experts told us when we started this company that 90 % plus of the news that we're going to read about this space, rare earth element supply chain will be either incorrect, mostly incorrect, all incorrect or

somehow diluted from the truth and lo and behold, that's what we're finding. So we try to help investors. we aggregate, probably 70 % of our news is aggregation where we aggregate and then our analysts, analyze, you know, what are they saying and what's missing so that we can provide a more holistic, truthful picture about what that particular piece of news is. So in this case, you know, this was coming in real clear defense.

And a lot of different groups are starting to report on this topic. So what rings true from that article? Well, MP Materials done this incredible deal. They've got capital. They've got the backing of the Department of Defense. All the stuff that we know and that we've reported on. ⁓ So let's talk about where they sort of jumped the tracks a little bit.

and they start to deviate from the truth. Well, they mentioned, for example, that the Trump administration, quote, becomes a majority shareholder. No, they don't. They have 15%. That's not a majority shareholder position. So again, it's like basic things, right? And I don't want to be nitpicky. We make a mistake here and there too.

But it's still, that's that kind of basic mistake I don't think we would make. Also, again, ⁓ Apple, they mentioned Apple is gonna put $100 billion. $100 billion, no, it was 500 million. Not 100 billion. mean, that's what we think we need to spend, right? 100 billion, remember, weigh the…

Dustin Olsen (16:24)
Okay. Okay.

Daniel O'Connor (16:31)
a in Thailand, his analysis says we need 100 billion US if we want to overtake the Chinese in this whole space from a defense standpoint. Right? Is that true? I don't know. But that's what his analysis says. Other, you know, if you look at this piece, you know, it's very much he's positioning the author

the effort that Donald Trump is doing right now as like Operation Warp Speed, where we developed the vaccines. Not really. There's no comparison. mean, Operation Warp Speed, do you know how much money we spent? $4 trillion, the US government. $4 trillion in just a few years. I want you to think about that for a minute, Dustin. We spent trillions of dollars on COVID.

Dustin Olsen (17:12)
Thanks. ⁓

Daniel O'Connor (17:20)
In total, I think there was a four or five trillion dollar transfer from taxpayers to government or companies or whatever. We've spent on rare earths, the government spent a couple billion at the most and they've sprinkled it around different groups. That's nothing.

Dustin Olsen (17:40)
In comparison, it's a drop in the bucket.

Daniel O'Connor (17:42)
It's nothing. this is what I'm trying to,

so we have a verdict. You know, we're going to be a little bit hard. The piece we say mixes hard truths about NMP and the government with political polish. Political polish. For investors, the takeaway is not that Washington owns NMP materials or that Apple is underwriting

a magnet boom, they're not. The real signal, there is a real signal, that's bipartisan urgency. So there is an urgency. We do see the gears moving. You've said that, you see it since we started this. I like to think it's because of us, but I think that's probably a little bit hubris. But you see what I mean. It's just, so we're trying to bring clarity to investors.

Dustin Olsen (18:19)
Mm-hmm.

Daniel O'Connor (18:31)
We have a lot of investors coming to rare earth exchanges right now, a lot. I track some of the names on our LinkedIn groups too, from all over the world. So, you we have a duty to make sure that we try to provide as much clarity as we can. And if we do that, we add value, I think then we're doing something valuable.

Dustin Olsen (18:49)
100%. And, but to your, yeah, no, I think, to maybe summarize what you're, you're expressing, what the article, article is trying to get out is if you want to be involved in this space, you have to do some form of due diligence and you just can't take it for face value because it is likely over exaggerated or a lie.

Daniel O'Connor (18:51)
Any comments on that, on what I said?

Dustin Olsen (19:12)
Um, and, and here at Rarith exchanges, we are trying to, you know, pull the covers off, take the wool off of our eyes and, and really talk about what's happening and, and why we should pay attention. um, so I think those are some great call-outs for sure.

Daniel O'Connor (19:28)
It's

about transparency, Dustin. And this has been an opaque industry, cloudy, nebulous. And we're bringing sunlight, sunshine, spotlight.

Dustin Olsen (19:41)
Optimism.

Yeah.

Daniel O'Connor (19:43)
I mean, everybody's

gonna go skinny dipping pretty soon. You know, that's how transparent it's gonna be. Just a joke. Trying to enjoy our hump. It's hump day, is it not? Okay. Wednesday. What's next, Dustin?

Dustin Olsen (19:48)
You

Wow, that we could probably wait for, but.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, speaking of investors, let's talk about the NDPR's stock rally. We talked about how we saw prices spiked 13 % in one week with oxide values up 40 % year to date.

Daniel O'Connor (20:21)
Yeah, yes. That's right. Some of these prices are going up. Remember, traditionally, there's only been one quote unquote market. It's not really a market. It's the Chinese Communist Party. They dictated through their state agencies and ownership over the conglomerates that they merged together to control this whole space. The pricing was established by

the Communist Party, that apparatus. And there was no transparency. It was based on not market forces, but what is convenient for Chinese development. That's why this whole thing wasn't fair. Shame on us for… It's not their fault. We're the dummies that gave it all away. So we have to just look in the mirror and make changes.

Now what's happening is there are certain prices with certain rare earth elements because of increase in price, because of a combination of things. But one is demand, know, also security. So with this ex-China market that's emerging, and I wouldn't say it's there yet, it's just starting, the US government established a price floor, 110.

and for NDPR. So it's and that could be almost double the Chinese price. But remember the Chinese prices, we don't know what the real price is because there's so many costs that are insulated from the world, right? So certain prices are up and scarcity seems to be an issue or a sentiment. So for example, none of us know

and especially with the trade war that kicked off, we don't know if China might shut down access again, for example. Right? Remember how they tightened up the export controls of those magnets? And so all of sudden, it was harder to get. know, claims about Chinese export quotas ⁓

Dustin Olsen (22:08)
Hmm.

Daniel O'Connor (22:18)
and tightening controls, will that impact pricing? Because China, right now we're in a framework with the Chinese, the Trump administration and the Chinese are still in negotiations. We don't have any deal yet. We have a reprieve. We have an agreement that they will do certain things and we will do certain things while we work our way towards a deal.

There's a lot of, I think, subtle uncertainty and concern about access. And so that sort of that scarcity, that perception of scarcity can push up the price. That's one of the things that we've seen, Dustin. Our take on this is, you know, it's real, the price surge. It's meaningful, at least for some of the elements.

It's likely reflecting structural shortages that we've been talking about.

I can say that in the article that we analyzed, they were trying to look at winners and losers, like which companies in the US or ex-China are going to win from increased prices and which ones are going to lose. And we basically delineate that that's not a good idea. We don't know. There's so many moving parts that…

It's tricky and that was an article from Crux Investor. So there is some increase in pricing. It went up 13 % in a single week, know, NDPR did. And it's up 40 % year to date. So the price is 40 % year to date. So remember, just for the audience,

We have a Chinese market where certain prices are announced and you can pick up those prices at Asian metal or Shanghai metals market. And I think there's one or two other sites that track those prices. China does have an exchange. We translate a bunch of news from over there and they tout their exchange and how many countries are on it. Yet when I talk to experts over here, they say, exchange?

So, and by the way, I've reached out to the owners of that Shanghai or the Baotao exchange for us to go over there, Dustin, and interview and view the place, but they haven't responded yet. ⁓ and yeah, and ⁓ then there's the ex-China market that's emerging. And that's what we're putting in rare earth exchanges, right? We're tracking.

Dustin Olsen (24:33)
No surprise.

Daniel O'Connor (24:43)
The pricing, we're collecting data behind the scenes. We haven't put it up yet. It's not going to be so much like Asia metal where we have a price every day. We're going to have a index of terms, contractual terms and pricing parameters. So it's not like this commodities market where we can check on the price of gold or silver or what have you. This is too thinly traded for that.

What are good deals? What are bad deals? We'll start to index them that way. Make sense?

Dustin Olsen (25:12)
Yeah, it does make sense and it's coming. It's something that we need that kind of exposure. Because if you've been following the show, listen to the podcasts. We've said it many times of how China's tactics are self-serving, probably to put it lightly.

Daniel O'Connor (25:29)
Yeah.

Dustin Olsen (25:30)
Um, and, and it's difficult to overcome that, especially when they, they hold all the leverage, you know, they have 90 % of the market when it comes to magnet production. Um, that's a lot of leverage. it. Yep. So it's, mean, we, we keep an eye on China. We're watching what they're doing, what they're saying. And, uh, cause it is impactful, uh, for better or worse.

Daniel O'Connor (25:43)
It's a lot of leverage.

Dustin Olsen (25:54)
what they're doing over there. So, Daniel, let's talk about just maybe a couple more bits of news. Speaking of China, we got some updates from Myanmar. What's going on over there?

Daniel O'Connor (26:04)
Yeah, so remember, this has sort of been mind blowing. And by the way, I spoke with one of our contacts over there today. So it's really bad. One of our contacts, life is at risk. Remember, that is on the rare earth exchanges, heavy rare earth rankings, Myanmar rebels are number one. All that land that they're holding and mining is the richest.

heavy rare earth materials right now on the planet, okay, from our standpoint, from the algorithm that we use. And so another article came out talking about just the horrific pollution there. So basically now Shan State, we've talked about Kachin State, rare earth mining in Shan State is causing severe environmental contamination in the Thai rivers, arsenic at high levels, it's impacting fishing.

Dustin Olsen (26:38)
Okay.

Daniel O'Connor (26:52)
It's impacting agriculture. It's poisoning people. know, rare earth groups like Catch an Independent Army, who we've communicated with, ⁓ control key mining territories, but Chinese

are everywhere. The Chinese traders, Chinese mining companies, and the toxic mining operations threaten local ecosystems and agriculture, as I mentioned. And it's just a horrific situation. And

speaking with them today, it's spreading, it's getting worse.

The problem here is that the rebels in some of these ethnic areas, they want to talk with America. They're open to doing that. But it doesn't feel like there's any way because first of all, you have to understand these are oppressed groups. They're Christian. So we're talking about Christians that are being persecuted. They're mostly all Christian like our contacts in Ketchum.

they all got converted with English colonialism. And most of them are Baptists, Protestant Baptists, some of them are Catholic. And the junta, which is the military government who's dropping bombs on them and committing atrocities, are Buddhist. The junta, remember, is getting their support

from China and Russia.

that the rebels don't have anybody supporting them, other than some nonprofits. We were starting to try to help them where we can. Now, so the environmental degradation is horrific. China, you would think China could invest. It's right there, it's their neighbor, but they don't for whatever reason. If we could find a pathway to get the catch in state,

to get some of these rebel groups to communicate with US groups and trying to find a common bridge, that would be something. That would be really, really something. But right now, they're not a state, see, Dustin. it's hard for them. They can't get the attention, I mean, because they're not a state. They're just ⁓ a group of rebels. or, you know, many different groups of rebels that are sort of aligned.

So it's a really ⁓ difficult situation. We're trying to help. We're reaching out to different people. We have good contacts inside of those ethnic groups. They know who we are. They've joined our forum. They're appreciative that we put them number one on the list because it gives attention to the area. What I don't understand Dustin, why, you know, China always talks about green sustainability.

ESG

And this is their neighbor. This, why aren't they just, and they have tons of money. It's not like China doesn't have money today. Why aren't they just investing to help this situation?

I don't get it.

Dustin Olsen (29:30)
Oh,

wow. That's, that's a, that's a deep question. Like why wouldn't they do that? Why don't they invest in proper infrastructure and, be a good neighbor? I have no idea. Unfortunately. So it is honestly, it's, it's truly, it's a very sad story. Um, every time that we connect with our friends over at Myanmar and, and hear what's going on, it.

It is, it's like tug of the heartstrings almost because you're just like, I can't even imagine what you're living through and all that you're trying to do to correct or reverse the situation.

Daniel O'Connor (30:11)
You know, Dustin,

sorry, go ahead.

Dustin Olsen (30:13)
I was thinking like for some of our new listeners who are maybe just like, how is mining so detrimental to like the rivers and the ecosystem there? To just point out how some of this mining works is they pump the ground full of chemicals and then they try to suck it back out, pulling through with it the different rare earth elements.

but they leave the chemicals in the ground, which affects the groundwater, affects the rivers, affects all the vegetation that the animals and people need. And it's just, it's a vicious, vicious cycle that is just destroying everything around it. Which is why in our rankings, we take into ESG, which is the environmental and social aspects of the operation, because it is hugely impactful. And if you're not responsible,

it will destroy the world around it. ⁓

Daniel O'Connor (31:08)
Well, and just

I was going to say Dustin, that's for much of the heavy rare earth elements today. Our estimates are that anywhere from 40 to 60 % of all the feedstock, the stuff that you need to process, refine, and ultimately make these heavy rare earth metals that for military use are coming from this zone.

Dustin Olsen (31:11)
Thanks

Daniel O'Connor (31:33)
mean, literally, we're all dependent on this exploitation. we have China over here, wherever. You always hear all these politicians talk about how much they care about planet Earth. But this is, it's ridiculous. And, you know, we're gonna help do what we can to shine light on this problem.

Dustin Olsen (31:51)
Absolutely. Well, let's talk about one more article, Daniel, and then ⁓ we'll sign off.

Daniel O'Connor (31:55)
Yes,

I appreciate it. have one I wanted to pick that's a little bit below because it's important. The power of Siberia, two ⁓ memorandums of understanding, and Beijing's bargain gas, it's a bigger grip for Beijing. So what's happening is, and this is ⁓ relevant for rare earths, I'll get into it, you know that there was just a meeting in China where China's head,

Putin as well as the head of India, Modi, showed up. were video of them holding hands, laughing. Not good. Then the head of North Korea came. I mean, you can't make this stuff up. Now, what happened? We got this from Chinese news. Russia and China, during these meetings, signed a legally-binded memorandum for the power of Siberia to a gas pipeline.

Dustin Olsen (32:38)
Okay.

Daniel O'Connor (32:48)
The pipeline targets a capacity of 50 BCM per year through Mongolia.

So it's going from Russia through Mongolia into China. It represents a very strategic move that could anchor Russia's pivot east. So Russia was really dependent on Europe for gas sales. Now they're moving to China. And I'll get to rare earth in a minute. So this pipeline could provide China with a steadier, cheaper energy. That's very important.

We didn't get into the details, but when it comes to rare earths, they're very power hungry, especially in Inner Mongolia, the rare earth complex, Baotau.

China, this securing of cheap Russian gas is a boon for China, right? They're now in business at a whole other level. Because remember, a lot of China hawks think, ⁓ well, we'll stop their oil imports through the ocean routes. Well, guess what? If China and Russia tighten up their relationship, we got a problem.

We got a problem. And it's back to that policy issue I was talking about. You can't make everybody pissed off at you. If you do that, you you got Russia and China getting closer. All of a sudden, what about Canada, Australia, Germany, you know, Denmark? Well, Denmark's mad at us because of Greenland. Canada is not even talking to us. You know, Europe, I mean, so there's, we need,

to remember Ronald Reagan and that Cold War buildup he did where he reached out and said, we are with you. We are the world. The world is us. And that was a very different paradigm driving President Trump today. get, you know, I think President Trump means well. He thinks this is what should be done because we need leverage.

And he probably knows a lot. I mean, I know he knows a lot more than I do, right? He's privy to lots of information that you and I don't have. know, Dustin, I speak with a lot of people and they're concerned. A lot of very conservative people that, you know, tend to vote Republican. And so I think, you know, this, we covered this today, this Russian pipeline thing, because again, if we look at…

processing of rare earths mining process and you need lots of cheap energy and ⁓ the Chinese have a plan, you know, and we can call it out, you know, as we get more more traffic to the website and as this YouTube channel gets more traction, you know, hopefully we'll have some influence somewhere.

Dustin Olsen (35:15)
Hopefully. But let's talk about the fact that President Trump looked on social media, saw some of his friends get together, and realized he wasn't invited to the party. Poor guy.

Daniel O'Connor (35:23)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, he

and he lashed out at them. You know that he threatened with China was something or I don't know, was China or Modi or something. But, you know, on this topic again, this is Chinese news. We have to validate it. We have to see what unfolds. I have concerns, you know, I love America. You know, I think we've been a beacon.

We've been a role model. We're not perfect. We've made lots of mistakes, but we're also the place that traditionally a lot of people want to immigrate to for a reason. And I just, want us and our next generations to be in a good place. So I hope that we can figure all this stuff out.

Dustin Olsen (36:06)
Absolutely. So with that, Daniel, thanks for joining me here on the show today to talk about what's going on in the industry. I think a lot of great little tidbits and information here, definitely for our retail investor audience who's coming, looking to better understand what's going on and where to focus their energy. So with that, please like and subscribe to channel. Don't miss a future episode. Speaking of a future episode next week.

We have Emily Dominick, who is the director of the permitting council for the federal government. She's going to join us and we're going to talk about all the effort and work that she's doing to help accelerate the process of just getting projects off the ground and into production. join us then and we will see you guys next week.