POSCO Holdings Inc.

So this one is an element zero.

It's the one backed by POSCO called Port Hedland Iron.

Probably the biggest known one we have at the moment or the one we have the most robust figures around.

So they're looking at 2.7 million tonne per annum, not green, clean iron or low carbon iron plants.

that like taking ore from Roy Hill or we don't know?

Yeah, so Hancock, Roy Hill had some early involvement in it.

Interestingly, BHP is also doing some trials with POSCO over in Korea as well and using Pilbara iron ore.

I think they're not actually doing trials, but they've talked about doing some trials.

I mean, I think one, one thing that did stand out for me in the last quarter is that even though the equity markets were quite choppy, um, there were a number of quite significant deals.

So we had the Viridis, um, deal in rare earths with the Posco Argentina deal in lithium, and then we had the, uh, money for Falcon Energy Minerals' anode plant in Morocco.

So, you know, if, if you've got a good project, there is still private capital available in the market.

But obviously, um, in terms of the sort of earlier stage projects, we need to maintain the ability to, to raise capital, uh, for the stock market all the way along, uh, the supply chain and not just at the, you know, FID end of the supply chain.

He, he was recently with, um, David Copley, um, I think, uh, at, at the, um, uh, in the White House.

Um, you know, he, he's the supply chain czar.

He, he's also-- You mentioned Posco and Verdis.

He's partnered with Posco, but he is also progressing with, um, you know, some other alternatives there.

And here are just some of those big South Korean names which got crunched today.

The computer chip makers, along with LG Electronics, steel maker Posco, the car manufacturer Hyundai, all down sharply.

SK Hynix, the worst of the bunch there.

So naturally, tech stocks got hit hard by investors on the ASX.

For example, I'm a South Korean steel producer.

And because South Korea has an emissions trading system, if I'm POSCO or one of the big steel guys, if I pay for a cost of carbon, let's say for my ton of carbon emitted, then from the steel I produce is then exported to Europe, the initial cost I have paid can be deducted.

So we're not double taxing.

And so that's a core principle of CBAM, But as we just heard, this Implementing Act, this clarification, still has not been officially adopted.

And they went and sourced iron ore.

And, you know, they mandated former army officers to run POSCO, the South Korean steel company.

And they made it into a huge success to the point where even the World Bank, which doesn't admit failure often, it has said, yeah, we really, we totally missed the trick on POSCO.

on the South Korean steel industry, and then everything that flowed from that, the steel industry, the car industry, was possible, and the South Koreans knew it.

But they were very high on the discipline, and when they got the gilt money from Japan, from the Comfort Women episodes during the Second World War, they got a lot of investment from Japan specifically into the steel industry.

Maybe we'll add the computer layer in after that.

That sort of gives a sense of how disciplined they were.

Now, the equivalent to, I guess, POSCO, the South Korean steel industry in Ethiopia, is METEC.

No, I'd say we're quite fortunate because the two provinces did combine, uh, and put out a cooperation agreement where they've agreed to split the royalty 50/50, split the economics 50/50 here, and we're fortunate because we're not the first ones.

So one of our neighbors, Posco, is a large lithium, uh, operator now.

Uh, they're in the same situation where they're straddling the border between Salta and Catamarca, and there was a cooperation agreement, so we had a precedent.

And so yeah, that, that was passed through legislation, uh, provincial legislation, uh, and it's greatly simplified things.

But then, you know, the rapid rise after that.

You know, the funny thing is that Japan basically came in to help korea develop and what ended up happening is the student became better than the teacher and the student surpassed the teacher so on a number of fronts like if you look at posco posco originally got its start from nippon steel nippon steel was the one which helped them but posco surpassed nippon steel it became more advanced and the same with hyundai and so many other you know Samsung and and all of that so every time I go to Korea I feel when I come back I've come back to like a step down you know it's because everything is so well done and so efficient like you know even if you go to fine dining in Seoul you pay at the counter, right? It's just efficient.

I know, I know.

You know what I'm saying? It's efficient.