What's gonna happen?

Uh, well, there's, um...

Everyone is expecting the ECB to, to hike interest rates, uh, this week.

There's no real surprise i- in that at all.

Um, I think what's more interesting is the fact that last week we updated our forecast.

We think the ECB is likely to go, uh, a step further, so we now have an expectation that they will hike to 275 at the December meeting.

Um, so I mean, for me, the, the reason is why, why that is now looking more likely, I'll mention three things.

Is that something, um, that investors should be keeping an eye on over the next, uh, several months?

I mean, they, they, they run it all of what you're looking for at Halleck Creek.

Right.

I mean, we will be using their expertise and advice.

So the pilot plant, we have a, a very good person in Jay Pickart running the, our pilot plant process at the moment, and we've started crushing the material for that.

So that's pretty exciting for us as well.

We've already mined it.

We're now into, into the crushing phase.

[laughs]

And that really sort of sits nicely with what you're doing at Halle Creek.

It certainly does, Steve.

It also brings into play the vertical integration that we've been talking about for a little while now, the importance.

We know we can mine and produce that separated rare earth oxide.

We know the midstream is important, the metallization, and we've announced previously the work we're doing around metallization and we continue that work.

And we're also having discussions about what the downstream integration might look like.

into eventual magnets.

The company really is moving at a breakneck speed and trying to get to a point where you can start getting to where you want to go, which is obviously having this all available for the U.S.

Is that correct?

Well, from a US government perspective, I can't speak for them.

What I can say is that the government in Wyoming are extremely supportive.

They really understand resource development.

very mature state from a resource development perspective.

So it's incredibly helpful dealing with a government in Wyoming who understands the resource sector.

In DC, we know that this particular industry, rare earths, magnets, which are really a technology industry, the US is the tip of the spear.

Well, so what should we as shareholders look forward to in the next quarter? Obviously, the feasibility study is number one on the menu, I'm guessing.

That's where this conversation goes next.

A very common starting point, and a lot of clients say like, you know, the data exists or it exists in silos or silos of excellence was sort of a term I've heard before where it's all great, but I have multiple sources of truth.

So the challenge is maybe what you think you have in your CMDB is different from what your vendors are saying, is different from what you have in your financial tracking systems, is different from what you have in your security and monitoring systems.

And the challenge is when you have different sort of versions of the truth, it's very difficult to sort of make those informed decisions.

And a lot of times our clients and a lot of the folks that we work with are saying, I don't have time to manage that.

I'm just going to kick the can and just pay the renewal or just, you know, make it somebody else's problem.

So really, the idea is to start this journey.

Yeah, so if the margin for error for managing these IT assets is shrinking, Let's think about a client or an organization out there that you see is doing it

Can you tell us a little bit more about what's happening right now?

Sure.

What we're doing, we've really dragged that forward by three to four years, and the way we're doing that is we're using some existing partners.

So, um, Western Research Institute in Laramie are doing our, [coughs] excuse me, crushing and grinding.

Then, uh, DISA in Casper will be working with us around our magnetic and gravity separation process.

And then we'll be sending that concentrate up to a preexisting rare earths plant at the Saskatchewan Research Council, uh, to produce through to our oxide.

So all happening in a very compressed timeframe, and also in a way that really deploys capital well.

So what should shareholders be looking forward to? For those of you out there that are going, "Okay, American Rare Earths, we need to be watching you," um, your website is the place to follow and track everything that's going on?

And this is really about getting to a certain point, an inflection point, you might say, for the project.

That's right, Steve.

I mean, there are a lot of things going on in this company and with this project.

We're busy optimizing the PFS.

The permitting is going full steam ahead.

The pilot plant that we've accelerated significantly by the way we're doing it, using different companies in Wyoming to put together a pilot plant rather than spend a bunch of money building one and knocking one down.

The NASDAQ listing steams ahead.

So there's a lot of things happening within the drilling as well on the ground and sort of that sort of desktop work that you need to do.

How do we protect people who are really struggling, Mark, with a cost of living crisis already? I mean, if costs go

up.

One of the biggest issues that we've is a targeted tax credit of 400 euros for those earning under 80,000 euros.

And that could be paid by a windfall tax on energy companies' profits.

And we've proposed that, Cormac, for a while now.

And that's what needs to be done.

I've already mentioned using the Apple tax and retrofitting homes, 2.5 billion.

Well, it'll be

interesting to see what the agencies who said that it could be up to 26 billion have to say about Dara O'Brien's permutations and hypotheticals that he's talking about.

They said minimum 8 billion to 26 billion.

Exactly, yeah.

But what we need is energy that is affordable.

We need energy security and the country needs to be energy independent, north and south.

And unfortunately, there's 640 gigawatt potential and none of it has been delivered.

And that, Paul Daly, in part, is what's hampering progress, environmental laws being weaponised.

I'll come back to you, James, I promise, when we hear the comments, the nimbyism and where would the waste go and distraction from what we should be doing.

Mark, what do you think? Well, first of all, I just want to welcome the debate like you did yourself.

I think it's very important that we look at every avenue because we have to talk.

about the future security of this country.

But I too and my party believe that this is somewhat of a distraction to where we are at the moment.

There is a cost of living crisis.

We have energy insecurity in the country at the moment and we need to concentrate, as has been said, on offshore wind.

Their generation will work it out.

As a corporate leader in the industry, what's your view on this sort of unorthodox approach to building a US supply chain?

I think, Danielle, there's a number of ways to come at that question.

So one is, it's not that unorthodox, uh, in some ways.

If you look, for example, at Project Vault, Project Vault is about forming a reserve of critical minerals.

We know in 1975, the US created a strategic oil reserve.

They already did that, and at the time, a lot of folks found that a little bit odd.

But why did they do that? Uh, fundamentally, they did that with a national security rationale for the United States.

I mean, how do you see-... projects like this helping local economies that might be in need of investment?

we going to fix it, Mark?

Well, we've offered a number of solutions to government today.

Unfortunately, government are opposing our motion or have opposed our motion.

And these solutions are not something that we came up with.

They're actually solutions that we've got from commuters who've said that they've seen them working elsewhere and they're asking for them to actually be implemented, Andrea.

So that's what we proposed today.

What are they, though? There was at least seven days.

That seems like a simple solution.

What kind of a reaction did you get?

Yeah, getting a positive reaction so far.

So the bill has been drafted and it's currently with the Bill's office.

And as I was saying to Maria yesterday, we're hoping to see this bill come back to us for introduction into the Dáil in the next week or so.

So after that, then I'll be bringing that forward to the Dáil.

And then it's really up to government to support this bill and try and get it through as quickly.

One of the big issues on it is obviously the whole idea of insurance.

It's not ideal at the moment, is it?

You've had a lot of people, Mark, reporting this very situation to you.

Yeah, good afternoon, Andrea.

And Jessica is right.

I've been inundated.

I raised this in the Dáil last Wednesday.

And since then, I've been inundated with people with stories like what Jessica has said.

Basically, the M7 and particularly the N7 has become a car park.

that work, Mark?