#231 Gerard Barron - CIA Project Azorian & Deep Sea Mining That Could Change the World

34:19They didn't like that. So they banned coal and fresh livestock. Didn't impact it. They just bought it somewhere else. And so we supplied them. I think the current prime minister is laying out a red carpet. He is. Yeah. How so? Sees them as a great trade partner. Sees them as a great trade partner. Not spending enough money on defense, just thinking everything's going to work out beautifully. It's a trap to fall into. What is the sentiment in Australia about that?

35:03Australia's lost its way a little bit in my personal opinion. I think that

35:14people want to follow

35:19voters want to follow someone a leader and

35:28there is not a good viable alternative in Australia at the moment, so it's a left-leaning government. The net result of that is, you know, you've got eight out of every ten new jobs created in the last four years are in the government. Are you serious? Mm-hmm. Eight out of ten? Mm-hmm. Holy shit. Yeah. Wow. And you can see a theme repeating. And I think that one of the challenges is these economies go on until they bust, right? I see it in the UK now as well. I mean, eventually, whether it's immigration or whether it's government spending, eventually the books don't balance, you know. And eventually, you know, the press coming out of the UK at the moment is horrible, you know.

36:34Free speech, you can't say things. You end up being locked up for saying stuff compared to some of the other crimes that some of the not-so-welcome visitors are committing. But the world went a little bit crazy. And I think it's kind of coming back a little bit. At least people feel safer, partly because of platforms like your own. You know, being cancelled by the media now doesn't matter, you know. It's like, whatever. there are better avenues to express views safely you know yeah i think mainstream media is going to the wayside like we were talking earlier i mean the average the average viewer of mainstream media right now is about 69 years old yeah yeah it will die yeah with the baby boomer generation unless they make some miraculous change which i don't see that happening at all just as divisive as they've ever been.

37:32Yeah. Maybe more now, but. Yeah, look, I think not before time. I mean, and I've lived that firsthand. I've lived it with China, where I've seen what people like Eric talk about. I've had firsthand experience of them intimidating me and what we're doing and our aligning with the USA. They don't like it because they thought they had it all going to plan. and we broke the plan good for you yeah that's honorable yeah so where where all does the metals company operate is it is it strictly off the coast of North America there's only one deposit that we're focused on at the moment it's this area known as the Clarion Clipperton zone and it was discovered way back in the 1870s by the British who sailed around the world on HMS Challenger with a basket off the back.

38:32And thankfully, the steam piston had been invented so they could haul up this basket. It was at sea for four years. And they came across this big field of nodules about 1 ,000 miles southwest of San Diego. And I mentioned before, they precipitate, right? They grow a little bit like pearls grow in the ocean. And so there are nodules found in other oceans, but they're just not as interesting as these because these contain a very high grade of nickel and copper. And the reason for that is if you look to our east, you've got the Rockies and the Andes, and over millennia they eroded into the Pacific Ocean.

39:14And so you had these currents that came from the north and south, met, headed west, and that's where you had this belt of nodules. It's amazing. It's about 1 ,000 miles high. about 4 ,000 miles wide, where it's like a carpet of nodules. I mean, it's the most beautiful Mother Nature gift, you know, far away from human settlement, no alternative use for this part of the ocean floor, just sat there looking proud saying, come and get me. Man. So how does it work? I mean, well, actually, how much of the ocean floor have you explored for other deposits of nodules? We haven't, to be honest. But, you know, there are other people exploring, including NOAA, the U.S.

40:10agency. They go out and BOEM, who explore their own territorial waters. And, of course, other explorers. The Chinese, I think, have explored a lot of the ocean floor, a lot more than they probably admit. and but this is so big like it's multi-generational deposit you know as i said 70 percent of the known reserves of nickel cobalt and manganese are in this one deposit and so that's where we've had our focus since 2011 purely there so you don't even you don't even have a need to explore anymore Do you think that there are other metals under there that we don't know about yet? Yeah, probably. Yeah, probably.

40:58I mean, you know, before I mentioned where these tectonic plates meet, you know, if you get a map out of the world, you can see how the globe, how planet Earth all sticks together. So you get a lot of pressure coming out from the core of the Earth. And, you know, that's where a lot of these deposits have formed. and the systems die, so they're very hard. Some of the systems are still active. They're still emitting gases, so they're easier to find. They're like chimneys underwater. They're fascinating. But some of them have been dead for, I don't know, a million years or 100 ,000 years, and so they're covered.

41:36So you've got to go really exploring. So, yeah, there are other deposits out there for sure. And Tonga is an interesting example there because they have a lot of volcanogenic activity around where they are. You saw that massive underwater volcano exploded some years ago. So, look, some of these Pacific Island countries in particular have a lot of metals in their, potential metals in their economic zones. so there will be opportunities there as well. And I think what the world is waiting to see is, you know, us to get started and then, you know, I think there'll be a massive rush. You know, now we know we have the best ground in the best area.

42:28But once people see firsthand the low impact of what we're doing, the fact that the area recovers fast. I mean, in the last, since 2011, we've spent, I don't know, now approaching three quarters of a billion dollars, a lot of it on environmental research. Even though, you know, I always use this first principle analogy to say we should be carrying out extractive industries in parts of the planet with the least life, not the most life. At the moment, we're pushing into our rainforests, which is the area with the most biodiversity, the most cute and cuddly animals. When down here on the other end of that table is the abyssal zone.

43:14And the abyssal plains and the abyssal hills cover 50 % of the planet. Okay? 50 % of the planet. Almost approaching 70 % of the oceans are considered abyssal. characterized by deep, low amount of biomass there because all the food gets eaten on the way down the water column. And, you know, if you look on our website at metals.co, you'll see lots of video of us doing trials down there. And, you know, there are no plants down there, of course, because we're talking, you know, more than 4 ,000 meters deep. and the amount of life living down there is grams per square meter. Most of it bacterial, single-cell organisms living in the sediment.

44:04So if you ever had to have a big resource somewhere, this would be the perfect place. You can't go and grow crops there or live there. It's the perfect thing. Yet we also have people who wish we wouldn't do it. you know there's pushback i mean first of all i love what you're doing i mean you're doing it cheaper and you're you are i mean it's a it's it's net positive for the earth right because the mining is is hopefully going into the ocean where there's not much life but you know when it comes to the rainforests and you know some of the stuff that we see i mean i've seen documentary documentary after documentary about what we're doing there and it goes through my head when i see those things are we destroying more resources than we're even gaining and you know i mean all the undiscovered life organisms microorganisms i mean timber trees clean the air i mean it's just it's it's it's you did it didn't bother me early on in life because i didn't realize you know but now when i see it i'm like man if you look at all the landfills and i just watched one about amazon yeah and all the destruction that that company is doing to the earth and they you know they try to put this facade on that that that yeah you know oh we're saving the earth and it's like no you're not man you've created more waste you know through amazon than than arguably anything that that's ever existed and and so i love i love that about your company was that was that is that a early on ethos or is that a byproduct that came out of it yeah i mean i've i've always deemed myself an environmentalist and you know and i i often get criticized for the fact that by the ngo community or you know activists who don't want to see any progress saying, you've just switched from talking about environment to now talking about geopolitics and critical supply chains.

46:17It's like, well, if you go back to my presentation decks a decade ago, you'll find security of supply was always highlighted as one of the critical issues. But at the end of the day, geopolitics are pretty important because we've got trading partners who've said they'll turn off supply if they choose to. and that tells you you've got to make some changes in that supply chain. But if we just maybe take a journey down that path because circularity is something we should aspire to and at the metals company we do aspire to it. And if you go, we just had a big strategy day on August 4 actually. where we talked about step one is where can we find the lowest impact supply of these critical minerals?

47:13And when I say lowest impact, I mean less destruction of biomass ecosystem, less impact on biodiversity, less CO2 emissions, less impact on freshwater ecosystems, and the list goes on. And we've spent so much money, like hundreds of millions of dollars on that whole basket of studies. And they all point to one thing, and that is that we can massively reduce the impact when we create metals from these rocks compared to land-based alternatives, no matter where they come from. Ocean metals from these rocks is the way to go.

47:54But eventually, the world has to get more focused on recycling, and they will. and when I say we need to aspire to circularity in the future I hope we won't be picking up these rocks in a hundred years time we should be making sure that we're using recycling every single atom we put out there in fact we we talk a lot about as metals as a service I built a software as a service company in a previous company and metals as a service is a similar idea it's like hey we'll give you these metals, you can use them, but we want them back. Because they have to do something with them, right? At the end of life, you've got a responsibility.

48:37So you can't just put them in the waste pile, you've got to hand them back somewhere. So instead of us just treating fresh nodules, we'll treat recycled material, black mass as well. And eventually, you know, recycled material will have a growing share. But at the moment, there are not enough metals in the system to meet the needs. So we need to find a fresh input of billions of tons until we build that reserve, because there are just not enough metals coming back in to be recycled. It's easy to see how an electric vehicle battery gets recycled, but a lot of the other metals in the system don't get recycled or they have a much longer life.

49:22So I can see in decades to come that we will not be in the business of picking up rocks. We'll be in the business of purely recycling the metals that we previously sold. And that's a good day because that's going to be a great thing for planet Earth, an amazing thing. That's very forward thinking on your part. Do you have any idea how much metal would mean to be in circulation for that to actually take place? We've done the calculations, and it's a big number. It's a big number. Like, I think if we use a trusted source, say the International Energy Agency or the World Bank, they pretty well align.

50:11they say we need to increase extractive industries by between four and 500 percent per annum by 2040. Four to five times more mining by 2040 to meet the needs. Wow, that's a lot. It's a lot. And, you know, and I think that that's where people don't give enough attention to where the materials are coming from, you know, for the electric car battery that you're using or your iPhone battery or just generally stuff. You know, if it ain't grown, it's mined. It's that simple. and of course we've been talking in the recent years all about AI and you know bits you know it's the bit economy but actually it's time for atoms you know because re-industrialization is going to depend on the atoms that are contained in here the real world infrastructure and so So, you know, and I think that's where, you know, I get criticism from some people in the environmental group who are very anti-anything.

51:28They're anti-growth. They're anti the fact that, you know, despite the fact that we've spent hundreds of millions of dollars on scientific research, they criticize the fact, yeah, but you spent it so you can influence the outcome. It's like, it doesn't work that way. We went and hired the best universities and organizations to carry out this research, the Natural History Museum, Texas AM, Florida University. There's 20 of the world's leading institutions who have subject matter expertise when it comes to ocean research. So we said, this is our goal. This is the work program. We'll pay for it. You get to do it.

52:07You get to publish your results. but it all filters back into this one integrated environmental impact study. And, you know, we've had the green pieces of the world come and board our boat in the middle of the Pacific to try and stop us doing this research because they don't want to see the results, you know. The results are very inconvenient to their argument. You know, we've seen time and time again that these groups, they don't want to see growth. and I mean I think the first one that comes to mind is U.S. energy sector. I mean we've really kneecapped ourselves especially when it comes to comparison to China.

52:49They're building a new coal plant every other damn day and they're way ahead on nuclear it seems to be and we don't mine our own gas, not nearly enough and can't go nuclear, the cleanest form of energy in the world, according to the folks that I've interviewed on the subject. I agree. And we use, we want to, you know, there was this big push, which seems to have died down a little bit now with this administration, but this big green push with renewables, you know, and the groups behind that claim energy independence for America, But it's not energy independence because all of the – we don't mine our own lithium.

53:35We don't produce our own solar. We don't produce our own wind turbines. That's all imported from China. And so I don't understand how anybody can think that that is energy independence when you are beholden to another country for the materials and the tech and actual production of all of the panels and stuff that come from China. That's not independence. And you talk about independence from China when it comes to the metals. And so I do have a question, I mean, in regards to the U.S. I mean, we've had the ability to gain independence in a variety of ways from our oil and gas reserves, which we have not tapped into very much.

54:28And we are relying on, you know, the Middle East for that. We just talked about renewables. We talked about nuclear. I mean, does the U.S. have the stomach to become independent, you know, in the metals industry or any other industry for that matter? Do we have the appetite for that? Do we have the stomach? Can we actually – do you think we'll actually do it? Because we've had the opportunity several times. Yeah. And it's really, you know, when you think about it and that aspect and how far we are behind on energy or supply chain, all these things. and beholden to China, I mean, do you see the change?

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56:08Is it going to happen? But I think, no matter what your political view... And people should be grateful for the Trump administration getting into government because I swear to you, ocean metals was about to go China's way. And this is a bipartisan issue. Critical mineral supply chain is a bipartisan issue. But not many people have the stomach or the kahunas to be able to see it through. And we saw President Trump issue an executive order on April 24 to say, we have a right to these minerals. I'm instructing my government agencies to fast track the permitting because we need the critical minerals.

57:03China dominates the supply chain now. They're going to dominate this as well if we don't get busy. And so I think that a lot of the moves that this administration are making are starting to work. Every innovator that I've had in here that is doing some type of good for the country is saying the same thing. They're all beaten to the same drum saying that this administration is getting rid of a lot of the red tape for innovators to be able to do what they do and make the world a better place. And the thing I see, Sean, is the political appointees, they're really top shelf people. They are people that have come out of, they're either amazingly successful or they're people that have come and put their careers on hold so they can come and help out.

58:02You know, there's one guy who's the Critical Minerals are, you know, he just said, the administration needs me. I'm going to stop what I'm doing for this major mining company and come and help the administration sort out Critical Minerals. And, like, he's at the top of his game, you know. And that's what I noticed with the political appointees that we're dealing with. The same with Noah. You know, the people we're dealing with have conviction and they are super talented. And I think that that is going to create that momentum. And, you know, we're confident that we'll be in production during the 47th administration.

58:42And we're also confident that we will make it a bipartisan issue because, you know, re-industrialization is so critical. I don't think anyone would argue that it's not going to be good for the long-term benefit of America to bring back some of those jobs to America. And you would think the other side of politics wanted even more, right? But I think this administration will get that ball rolling, and I think it won't matter, please God, who's in power. because once you get the ball rolling, people will get a taste of it. They'll get a taste of jobs being created. Because it's true, right? AI is going to cost jobs.

59:29It's hard to – I see the optimist talking about how it's going to work out fine. You know, I'm not sure about that. I think a lot of people are worried about AI taking their jobs. Yeah. And it's already started. It's already started in just about every sector other than manual labor. But, so let's talk about how this actually works. What does it take to mine minerals at the bottom of the ocean floor 4 ,000 meters below? Well, it's a big advantage that they just sit on the ocean floor like this. So we don't have to drill or dig or tunnel to find them. It's a two-dimensional resource, which is quite amazing.

1:00:18You go down there looking, exploration's pretty easy.

1:00:25So we send a robot down. So we build this beautiful robot. In fact, our partner, Allseas, had built it for us. Allseas are one of our biggest investors. And for the last 40 years, they've been laying pipes in the deep ocean to connect oil and gas to transport it around the world. Owned by an amazing engineer, Edward Herremer. and so we build the robot. We have a production vessel floating up top. In fact, our first production vessel called the Hidden Gem was a former oil and gas drill ship, which we bought for, well, All Seas bought it, but with some help from us, very cheaply. It was a$700 million boat new in 2011 and bought it for less than$50 million.

1:01:16and we then connect it with a big riser, it's called. Think of it as a big straw, which is the vertical transport system. And so basically the robot crawls along and fires a jet of water at these nodules, so kind of a curved head, fires a jet of water. It creates an inverse pressure and lifts the nodule, goes into the hopper. We separate the sediment, which we spit out the back, and we then move the nodule into the vertical transport system and pump it up to the boat, 4 ,200 meters. How big are these robots? Well, the first one we built was six meters wide, weighed about 90 tons. The biggest challenge was keeping it on the floor.

1:02:0790 tons? Because when you put it in water, it gets a lot of buoyancy. Then you add more buoyancy. 90 tons buoyant. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, funny story, another contractor was out there doing some trials. They, too, had a collector. They weren't doing, you know, in 2022, we ran a full collector, full end-to-end production system. But they were just testing their robot. They put it over the ship and dropped it, literally. And they thought, oh, my goodness, 4 ,200 metres. And there was big panic, including from us, because it wouldn't have been helpful to me either. And, I mean, shit happens, right?

1:02:54I mean, it shouldn't, you know. But they were able to retrieve it, and it was fine, because it, you know, just floats down and landed. It was like, okay, I'm here now. And they checked it over and put it back down, and it went working. And so anyway, back to my story. So we put a robot down there. Our production one will be wider, more like 15 meters wide, maybe even wider. And it crawls along like snow track tires. And, you know, back in the 1970s when they ran these collector trials, so it's all pretty cool. But in 1979, they actually launched a machine to pick up these very same rocks back when America was driving the innovation.

1:03:43That was really pioneering engineering. But back then they used a Archimedes screw drive system to propel it forward. And they made a big imprint in the ocean floor, about 80 centimeters. But whereas ours makes about a two centimeter imprint, just literally glides on the ocean floor. So we fire a jet of water, separate it out, pump it up. And eventually, you know, I anticipate we'll have a lot of production vessels out there. We then offload them. You know, the analogy, two analogies I use. One is they're like golf balls on a driving range. We've got to pick them up with the greatest efficiency and the lightest, lowest impact.

1:04:26And then it's a little bit like harvesting a paddock of wheat. You know, you just keep harvesting. and then the bin pulls up alongside. In our case, it'll be a bulk carrier. We offload the nodules. It goes off to port. Another one comes. It goes off to port, but you're always in production. Interesting. You know, what's interesting is this thing weighs like, looks like it would be heavy. It weighs almost nothing. Yeah, yeah. And so, I mean, how much of this is metals? About 33 % of it is metal. It's got a specific gravity of about 1.9. So no, it's very light. It's because of how they form, right?

1:05:10Because of them precipitating. It starts around a kernel of something, could be a grain of sand or a broken shell. And how long?

1:05:24and so these are just on the ocean floor like like sand they're just right there on the top you don't have to do anything you know digging wise to get to them they just go in the hopper they get sucked up to the yeah to the mothership and it bring it over yeah for processing that's That's right. How many of those, can you give me a snapshot of how much of those you're gaining an hour a day? I mean, how many of those are you picking up? Well, our production vessel will do about 3 million tons a year. 3 million tons a year? Yeah. Wow. And we'll be in production about 270 days a year. Yeah.

1:06:16So with this international treaty and everybody has access to the ocean, and you found the mother load of these things back in, I think you said 1870? Yeah, the British found them in 1870. The British found them in 1870. I mean, will we start to see, you know, is this gains traction when it sounds like it will? I think you said 2027 would be the first production vehicle. Yeah. How are the competitors, if there are any? I mean, will everybody be vacuuming these things up off the ocean floor in the exact same spot? Will it become crowded? I mean, is there any possibility that you will secure any specific rights to an area?

1:07:02Yeah. It's highly regulated now. Very highly regulated. So since 2011, we've been working through the International Seabed Authority. And if you recall when I said the United Nations stepped in and took over the process, they created this framework called UNCLOS, the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea. And it basically said, you know, every country owns 12 miles from your coastline, has an economic right to everything within 200. But beyond that, it will be considered the area. And this UNCLOS called for the establishment of the International Seabed Authority to be established, which it was in 1994.

1:07:57Now, remember, the United States never agreed to it. In fact, they've been a consistent objector to it. So they're not part of it. But for 169 other countries, including China and Russia, they signed this treaty that said, when it comes to minerals, these are the rules we'll play by. And America went, no, we're not going to do that. They were like, we don't even like multilateral organizations. You know, one vote, one country doesn't seem to work for the biggest economy in the world. And, oh my goodness, how insightful they were. How insightful they were. Because this international organization has been entirely overrun by NGOs.

1:08:42And it's played right into China's hand. So China have five licenses through this body, the International Seabed Authority. But what started to happen was, and this is more a representation of politics around the world, how the world went a bit crazy. You saw governments in Europe be very heavily influenced by smaller governments who had to form coalitions to govern. So you don't have two parties, like in some countries, like UK is still that, Australia is still that, US is pretty well still that. But in other countries like Germany and France, you had, or Belgium or the Netherlands, you have like a dozen different parties to form a coalition to get the votes to be able to govern.

1:09:43So you had green voters who might only hold two or three seats, so a very tiny, tiny, tiny majority, but they might have the balance of power. Without their two votes, you might not have majority. And so what the Green Party started to do was to say, we really care about this ocean metal, and there's no better example than France. So France have a pretty good nuclear industry, right? And if you go back four years ago now, Macron, the president, came out with a very public statement, which I was very excited about, said, here's our 2030 plan. France needs to re-industrialize. We need to bring back jobs.

1:10:28For that, we need metals. We have these ocean deposits. We can get these ocean metals far more effectively than we can possibly find metals on land. It was a pretty good speech. 18 months later, at COP, I think it was COP23, total switch. We should ban deep sea mining, was Macron's new pitch. And the reason why he changed his position was because, once again, he was losing influence, losing power. So he had to do a deal with the Greens. And they wanted him to pull back his nuclear ambition. He said, I can't touch that. We need it. And it was like, how about I give you ocean metals? It's literally like that.

1:11:12And, you know, and I've seen firsthand how they've worked with corporations. You know, WWF did the same to Maersk. You know, Maersk were one of our shareholders. They were one of our early supporters. Great company. One of the great shipping companies of the world.

1:11:31And WWF went in there and said, we don't like you being part of the metals company. We'd like you to sell your ownership or we're going to come after you for your green shipping ambitions. And it's like I had a friend sat in the room with them. Like they are bullies, these NGOs. They are absolute bullies. And so that's how they overtook some of these countries. So these countries, like Germany is another great example, right? Germany used to be an industrial behemoth. Now they're deindustrialization because of energy policy and other things. And there is an industry body there that represents every industry association who has pleaded with the government to support ocean metals like they used to because America can't get reliable supply.

1:12:18Sorry, Germany can't get reliable supply. Yet their government were appeasing the green side of things saying, oh, we should slow down and just wait. Now, this all played into China's hands because we are the most ambitious player in the industry. We were driving the industry forward.

1:12:41China, despite the fact that they want to dominate this, because President Xi made a public statement saying, we want to dominate deep ocean, deep earth, and deep space. Part of their plan. But they're running a little bit behind us, five to seven years. That's good to hear. It's good to hear. And it was going pretty well for them, because the NGOs were in there influencing the countries who were influencing the International Seabed Authority adopting the final rules. And without those final rules, it's very hard for me to get started. And so this is playing into, this is what I mentioned, it was playing into China's playbook.

1:13:21This is how they were doing it. China sat back going, oh, it's going to take a bit longer, is it? No problem. Just let it happen. But for me, I depend on shareholder support. And unfortunately, shareholders would not have been willing to give me another five years to sit around and see what happens. I would have had to pivot the business into something else, which I was preparing to do because I did not like what I was seeing. What would you have pivoted into?

1:13:55well we were running the ruler over a number of other assets land-based opportunities my board didn't like it particularly but we would have done what we had to to survive because we would have just kept the licenses and kept them rolling on um i would have had to shrink the business you know the team that we've had together over the last many years would have had to go and But, you know, when things get so bad, they've got to self-correct. It's like the rubber band. It was just pulling and pulling and pulling. And we just knew it would break. Question of when. And luckily it broke in the form of President Trump being elected.

1:14:42And it had gone so far crazy. So we knew there was a pathway because America put the rules and regulations in place in 1980 that the International Seabed Authority still can't agree. And you can understand why they can't agree. There's 169 countries trying to agree something, even though they have a smaller council, 36-member council. So getting agreement when the NGOs are there, chipping away, trying to slow progress or stop the industry, that's their plan. And, you know, we knew what the strategy of the NGO, the activists, was. Their strategy was to bleed the metals company dry, you know, to just slow things down to let us run out of money.

1:15:30And we were lucky to have amazingly supportive shareholders. I mentioned Andre before and Allseas and myself agreed to keep funding the business. and we lent the company money because we believed we didn't want to keep printing equity. We wanted to just keep the business moving, waiting for a moment in time when the value could be restored to something more equitable. And so we knew there was a legal pathway to lodge the application through the United States because they had the rules in place. So this is a very long, windy answer to your question about who's going to dominate it. Because now, of course, that international body, including China, have been very critical of us and of the United States of America for operating outside of the system.

1:16:27But America's like, they came out with very forceful statements saying, we've never been part of that system. We've been a consistent objector to that system. We have a legal right to be able to go and collect these metals. You, 169 countries, all agreed to be bound by those set of rules that you can't even agree on. So why don't you just keep doing whatever it is you're doing, and we'll see you out there. That's good to hear. Yeah. That's good to hear that we're doing that. It is. It is. And the administration have been amazing, ranging from the regulator, Noah, Secretary Lutnik. We were lucky to have a lot of people that the president chose in his cabinet who we knew well when they were in opposition.

1:17:15They'd been big supporters of ours. And they'd written letters on our behalf and lobbied Congress to make funding available to do studies on processing here in the United States. And so, you know, all of our stars aligned all of a sudden. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, I want to get into how this concerns national defense.

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1:20:57All right, Jared, we're back from the break, and we want to get into some national security stuff and the implications of this and what it would do for national security. And I know we covered some of it, but I just wanted to, you know, revisit that. I'm big on national defense and and something I talk about a lot here. So I'd like to just go into more detail on that. So how is this going to help our U.S.'s national defense? Well, as I mentioned, since 2002, we've lost so much of the manufacturing industry. We've lost millions of jobs. We've lost hundreds of billions of dollars of annual GDP.

1:21:47And, you know, I think all of a sudden when you realize the reason we've lost them is because we've exported those industries. Because it was very convenient to outsource to the developing world heavy industry because it was a little bit dirty. And, you know, this was before some of the greener pollution controlling, you know, controls became statutory. And but it also makes you really vulnerable. You know, the fact that you can't build a ton of steel without manganese means that and the fact that we import 100 percent of our manganese puts you very vulnerable. And I think it was a great initiative that the president wants to bring back shipbuilding.

1:22:35And if you think about what turned the Second World War, it was America's Navy, right, at the end of the day. And they were able to build ships efficiently. And now ships don't get built in America. They're built in other parts of the world. And so I think national defense and national security is a very complex, intertwined network of you've got to have desire. You've got to have really strong partners. And it so happens that because China dominates the, if they don't dominate mining, they certainly dominate all of the processing and refining. So it means that, you know, I gave you that example of one town we visited where, you know, China went from zero to 70 ,000 people in less than a decade.

1:23:34You know, they control 70 % of the nickel market.

1:23:41And they are doing, they play the long game. You know, they're playing with the classification standards. They're playing with the IMO standards, trying to put in place initiatives that would become very expensive for the shipping industry, but only they can supply the equipment. You know, and we saw Secretary Rubio come out and stamp on that the other day. I was very pleased to see that. So it's very complex and they're very smart and tactical, the Chinese. And you asked before, does America have the will and endeavor to fix this? And I think the trend of this administration does. They see the problem and they've got people in power who see the problem and they're putting in long-term strategic fixes.

1:24:33I know in our case, we've had many meetings, become a frequent visitor to the White House because they are making it very clear that they want to support us to come and build processing capacity on USA soil. But they also recognize that capital needs to be available to do that. And when you're competing against a country like China, where capital is freely available from the state, then you've got to have something equally enticing from the US government to encourage it as well.

1:25:16So I think that building a reliable supply of all of these critical minerals, and including rare earths, we saw them do a deal with NP the other day, is a smart deal. I think we've heard from the administration that they're going to do more deals like that because they want to see investment on the ground. They want to see jobs created. There are so many good knock-on benefits like we talked about before. Bring jobs back. And I think giving people purpose is another benefit that's going to come out of this. Well, you know, what's interesting, a couple of things. There are jobs I want to talk about.

1:26:02But you had mentioned the shipbuilding that used to take place in this country. And a lot of things seem to be coming back with this administration. In fact, are you familiar with the company Ceronic? Yes. You know, Dino Mavrucas, he's doing the autonomous surface warfare vehicles. And, I mean, that guy is awesome what he's doing. And, you know, I remember, I don't remember the exact stats, but, you know, I remember him telling me that China had over 50 % of the global shipbuilding capacity and that the U.S. had less than 1 % of shipbuilding capacity in the world. and you know and he's trying to change that and he's making these boats that you know they're they're they i mean he's he's going to pump them out at record pace and so i'm sure your metals company is going to be able to you know enable them to make them even cheaper than what they already are doing and hopefully we we can get back to being you know some type of naval superpower with with many boats yeah not just you know 0.1 percent or whatever it is 0.0 0.5 percent I can't it was less than 1 % of the of the US ship building capacity another question that I have for you though is are any of the metals that you are mining in the ocean are getting ready to mine in 2027 do those will those play any type of a role in the computer chip business yeah totally yeah I mean, we do have a lot of rare Earths in here as well.

1:27:48We don't recover them in our first plant, but there is a plan to recover them. And, of course, there are a lot of the cobalt and, of course, copper is used in that entire AI space extensively will be used a lot. And so yes is the answer. I just want to go back to that shipbuilding because, you know, one of the exciting things about some of these industries is that, you know,

1:28:29when China started taking these industries away from the US and other countries, they had a big workforce. You know, farmers were becoming non-farmers or peasants were looking for other industry jobs to move into. And so they were happy to use a very available, cheap, abundant labor force. But, of course, a lot of things have happened since then in the automation space. And the shipbuilding industry is a really good one to look at. If you look at what Hanwar and Hyundai and the other Korean shipbuilders have done is they've brought a lot of automation into those industries. And the same is going to be on metal processing.

1:29:22Now with automation, you can take some of the dangerous jobs away. and what you end up doing is just generating a lot of GDP for local economies. So there's a lot of direct jobs, but there's an enormous amount of indirect jobs that come as a result as well. But also it means that you can compete because you're not having to compete with 100 ,000 almost free labor force You're actually competing on a technology basis. And once again, China has been amazing at building and deploying technology at a rapid rate. But the West and America are starting to recognize the need to do that. And when it comes to certainly critical minerals, they've made it very clear that they're going to make the capital available to encourage and entice.

1:30:23We took a big investment from a company called Korea Zinc recently, and they're in many metals other than zinc, but they have a rich, long history. And outside of China, they're one of the only companies that can produce the PCAM materials using their own technology. And so it's a really important partnership for us. And in fact, their chairman and I attended some White House meetings a couple of weeks ago. And, you know, they have moved their position. And they've moved it primarily because of the Trump trade strategy. Their view was, we've already got a recycling business here. It's not working because China's underbidding us or outbidding us for all the recycled material, which is another strategy China's very smart at.

1:31:16They're like, you know, we'll overpay to get it, to get them out of the country and send them back to China. Wow. Yeah, it's very clever. It's very clever. But I know that a year ago, you know, Careers Inc. would not have contemplated building here in the USA. But now, along with us, they are very keen to bring their expertise and turn it into jobs on the ground and local supply chain. And, you know, that, of course, is the beginning because it spawns many, many other industries. When you have available supply of these metals, then you can look at all of the ancillary industries. And, you know, my standard presentation, there's like a thousand other industries that can be built off that other industry.

1:32:07But if you don't have the material, And then, of course, if the government truly have these dumping reviews that are underway at the moment, if they truly do impose some sort of penalty over importers, and it's not just China, there'll be other players as well, dumping material into the US, then if that can all be sorted out, then you're going to see a very, very vibrant industrial, re-industrialization go on here. And I think everyone wants to trade with the USA, right? And so America will go from import replacement to becoming, under our plan, the biggest supplier of nickel and cobalt and manganese and a big exporter of it as well.

1:33:07And so it's a massive turnaround, and that's going to lead to tremendous GDP growth. It's going to lead to new companies being formed, new jobs being formed, new industries to support those industries. It's a massive knock-on impact. and, you know, but it's only possible if you've got the kahunas to say, you know, this is how we've got to turn this around. You know, we've got to get things back on a level playing ground. And, yeah, I've got to tell you, when President Trump started talking tariffs, you know, it was like it's going to be interesting to see how this plays out. But I've got to say it's working out pretty well.

1:33:52It's working out pretty well. When you say that new companies will be formed from the new industry that you're creating right now, what kind of companies do you envision popping up around this?

1:34:12It's not just what companies, but it's the efficiencies of redesigning new industrial process. And if we think about manganese, for example, there are two ways of treating our nodules. You either dissolve them in acid or you use heat. Now, actually, because of parts of America's abundant supply of affordable energy, which is ironic, right? I mean, energy is the cornerstone of a healthy, industrializing economy. You need energy. And of course, that's why parts of Europe are de-industrializing because they can't compete. But America has it. So it's a great, great starting point. And that's why America will be able to compete with countries like China as well.

1:35:03CapEx is higher, but the government recognized that, so they'll make it easier. But operationally, actually, you can compete largely because energy is abundant and affordable. But when we use heat, we generate really hot. I mean, the furnaces go up to 1 ,200, 1 ,300 degrees Celsius. And as that material comes out, it cools down again. But then when you go and use it, you've got to heat it back up again. So one of the immediate opportunities is to be able to use it when it's still hot. and you save all the energy of it cooling down and you avoid having to spend energy heating it back up again. So there are opportunities to build adjacent industries near where we are to be able to use those materials in their current form.

1:36:03But if we then look at manganese, what else is it being used for? Well, it's used in water purification. It's used in fertilizer. It's used in batteries are now moving to a manganese-rich battery cathode. So it used to be very high in nickel, still is. But it's now starting to use more manganese and less nickel because manganese is cheaper. So all of a sudden, America could be very competitive. And we've already produced our first, it's called manganese sulfate, which goes into a battery. So we've been working on that for some time. There's no real magic to doing it. You've just got to do it. But at the moment, there is zero industry.

1:36:45And to make manganese silicon, we import 100 % of that in from China at the moment. But to be able to build that right next door to a reliable supply of manganese is more jobs. We don't make much stainless steel here in America because we don't have the... We import the iron ore. We import the nickel. and we import the manganese. So all of a sudden, there is a pathway to be able to generate that. You know, the material that goes into the stainless steel and the steelmaking industry. It's like all of these things are very interconnected. And then when it comes to nickel, I mean, firstly, it's used, it's a super alloy, so you need it for, you know, these beautiful planes that we see the U.S.

1:37:36Air Force flying around. nickel is a vital ingredient, as is cobalt, in those structures. But there's a lot of simpler industries as well, whether it's energy-related businesses, solar. In fact, I have a page on one of my presentations. There's literally 1 ,000 industries that - 1 ,000 industries. A thousand that depend on nickel, cobalt, manganese, or copper as an important import. And I think, you know, because at the end of the day, you know, one of the great things we've learned from people like Elon Musk is how to get in and drive cost out of processes. You know, he'll look at things and go, well, the bill of materials says$100.

1:38:28Why am I paying$5 ,000 for this? And, of course, that's what's enabled him to build rockets and cars and everything else much more economically. And then, of course, he's a great manufacturing genius. And so I think we receive inspiration out of that as well. And I think there are many, many efficiencies that when you start focusing on and re-industrialization, the fact that we exported it all. and as I mentioned before, more than 20 ,000 companies have disappeared. More than 2.5 million jobs have disappeared in the last 20 years. 2.5 million? 2.5 million jobs have disappeared from the manufacturing sector in the last 20 years.

1:39:17Jeez. So the amount of jobs this could create is really unfathomable. With all the new industry that could... I think the opportunity is a lot more new industries. Those two and a half million jobs might come back at a lower number, right, because of automation and other things. But it's about GDP growth as well. And that GDP growth will lead to more industries around it. It's about direct jobs and indirect jobs. And so I think that's the exciting part for the American economy. And, you know, a reliable, affordable supply of these critical minerals is the beginning of a great era, I believe, for the United States.

1:40:07I think you're right. I think you're right. When it comes to the refining of these things, how fast will you be able to turn that into a usable product? Well, the good news is the approach that I have taken is to bring partners in who can help speed that up. So, for example, I mentioned a company, Allseas, who have worked with us on the offshore. And Allseas employ many thousands of people. For 40 years, they've been laying pipe for the oil and gas industry in the deep ocean. So they're used to 365-day, 24-hour-day operations laying pipe. It's magic to see. They built the world's biggest production vessel.

1:40:53They built a boat that can lift 30 ,000 tons at a time. So instead of decommissioning an oil platform at sea, which they used to take apart piece by piece, they built a boat that allows you to cut the legs off, lift it, bring it back to shore, and then do all of that deassembling there. Much safer and much faster. Takes risk out of it and danger out of it for everyone. So they bring all of that expertise to help us on the offshore. And the same is the case with the onshore. We've been working with a group in Japan called Pacific Metals. But more recently, we took this big investment from Careers Inc.

1:41:32And Careers Inc. want to come to America. They want to put infrastructure on the ground. They also are the world's biggest antimony producer and a very large gallium producer as well, which are two critical minerals needed here in the United States. So they bring a lot of strategic importance as well, but they can help us build much, much faster. And, you know, the Trump administration are very committed to taking away the permitting challenges, and I think for construction and approval. And I think that's where the red tape has really slowed things down. So, you know, there's been desire, but there's been so many people who need to stamp the page.

1:42:16And I think there are tremendous efficiencies. Palantir, of course, have really helped perfect that as well. You know, we were talking to those guys about how they could help us streamline that whole permitting process. And, you know, they've been very successful in other industries and they can help us in our industry. And so much quicker than we could do it by ourselves. Production, I mentioned 2027. We've already got our first boat. So that's good. And I think it's probably a four-year window to put processing and refining infrastructure on the ground here in the United States. So 2031, you think?

1:43:02I hope sooner than that. I hope sooner than that. when you when you say 2027 would be the first actual mining successful mining operation i mean how fast do you see that scaling does it start with one vehicle it does yeah it does unfortunately but already um this morning i'd been on the phone with all seas you know we're mapping out how do they build more scale. And I held a strategy day in New York on August 4, and we had the owner of All Seas, Edward Harrimer, there. And we asked the question, like, what's the appetite? Do you want to have a fleet of these boats out there? And he's like, yes, we want a fleet of these boats.

1:43:52And that's what we want as well. We love to hear that. Yeah, yeah. Love to hear that. Yeah. And, you know, you get the first one done, You know, and the strategy we've adopted at the metals company is we don't want to be the boat owner. There are people who are really good at owning boats, you know, and they make a business out of it. Whereas what I want to be is focused on the permitting, owning the resource, letting contracts out to companies who can come and collect our nodules for us in return for long-term contracts. and owning part of the processing onshore, and then very much in the marketing of those materials into the marketplace.

1:44:41Because I'm absolutely certain that when people see the lower environmental and human benefits of ocean metals, they're going to want to buy products that are made with these metals. And remember that great campaign, Intel Inside, that they used to run. You should buy a computer with an Intel chip. I think it'll be the same when it comes to our ocean metals because we can measure every single thing. We can guarantee whose hands have touched it. We can tell you how much CO2 was generated. We can tell you how many trees we felled, zero. We can tell you how much child labor we used, zero. We can tell you how much contamination was caused in the water tables.

1:45:27zero. And once we start measuring and making these commitments, other people are going to be forced to do the same. Or they'll go out of business. Or they'll be limited to where they can sell the product. They'll sell their products into markets where people turn a blind eye. But that won't be in the United States of America. Well, they likely won't be able to compete either because you'll drive the price of these metals down. I think that's a realistic expectation that prices can go lower. You know, if you can deliver efficiencies in the way you handle these materials, because in years to come, there won't be many people on these boats.

1:46:12Now, Jerry, we're wrapping up the interview. And so my final question is, you know, I bring a lot of innovators in here and there's some amazing companies that are coming to fruition right now in the US. And almost all of them have been private companies. And so is this a company that people can invest in? So we're a public company and our ticker is TMC. We're listed on the NASDAQ. And it's fun being a public company. Is it?

1:46:52Some days. Some days. I mean, it is, there's been some dark days. And, but the days have been a whole lot brighter since November 6th, put it that way. and um but look we you know we um look it's it's i think it's it's an amazing place to invest your money it's a it's an amazing company at the beginning of a new industry you know we've we've got a really loyal group of shareholders you know that the Key shareholders own just under half of the company. Our retail brigade of shareholders are an absolute army of loyalists. We've got a growing list of institutional shareholders. And we're going to perform a very important part in reindustrialization, you know, and we're going to be wearing that badge very, very proudly.

1:47:54Well, Jared, I love what you're doing. It's good for the planet. it's good for the country it's bringing jobs back and it's not good for china and i love that so yeah thank you for coming and uh i wish you the best of luck and i can't wait to see what happens in 2027 so thank you cheers

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