How Does the Bill Affect Almonty Industries?
Transcript
Kelly : Let’s talk about your company Almonty Industries, how would this potential Bill affect your business? And does a fair share go into conceivably procuring new land here or developing existing mines offshore? How does that work for you?n
nLewis :nWell, I think, you know, building a semiconductor factory is a fantastic idea, you still got to feed it, though, with the raw materials, right. And therein lies the problem, you have a shortage of raw materials right now. It’s why commodity prices are extremely high. And you also have areas that these raw materials are produced in that perhaps you don’t want to take any vacation time in. And so you’re caught between a rock and a hard place, you want transparency of your supply chain, you want ESG to apply to where those raw materials come from. n
nBut right now, the only choice you have, are from locations that aren’t tremendously good. We’re very fortunate, we’ve only ever worked in safe jurisdictions, because that’s what our customers have always demanded of us. And to be honest, I want to be able to sleep good at night, I don’t want to be in a country where the president’s son decides he wants to be in the tungsten business, and I find a new door on the gate or when I go into work. So it’s important that that transparency exists. But I think this is a long process. I don’t think people should expect this to fix overnight.n
nKelly : Right? So you don’t see any potential benefit for your own company at this point?n
nLewis : I think we benefit because there is a natural migration away from the traditional sources of tungsten. So we are fielding much more inquiries from existing customers to increase our outputs, to develop new mines, which we’re reopening now the world’s largest tungsten mine in South Korea, because bizarrely, they actually consume more tungsten per capita than anywhere else in the world because of the semiconductor business. So it’s a you know, it’s a very good territory to be in, but in North America, there are no mines, not in Canada and not in the United States. And so we are now looking to develop a site in North America.n
nKelly : Okay, that’s what my question was gonna be. Real quickly. Where would that be? Would that be like out in the Badlands of Nevada or Utah?n
nLewis : We’re going to look where the best project is that we feel has the greatest longevity when we look at grade longevity location mining in the United States is not for the faint hearted, that’s for sure. So, but we know, it’s Canada or the United States. These are the two territories that we will look atnn
nLewis :nWell, I think, you know, building a semiconductor factory is a fantastic idea, you still got to feed it, though, with the raw materials, right. And therein lies the problem, you have a shortage of raw materials right now. It’s why commodity prices are extremely high. And you also have areas that these raw materials are produced in that perhaps you don’t want to take any vacation time in. And so you’re caught between a rock and a hard place, you want transparency of your supply chain, you want ESG to apply to where those raw materials come from. n
nBut right now, the only choice you have, are from locations that aren’t tremendously good. We’re very fortunate, we’ve only ever worked in safe jurisdictions, because that’s what our customers have always demanded of us. And to be honest, I want to be able to sleep good at night, I don’t want to be in a country where the president’s son decides he wants to be in the tungsten business, and I find a new door on the gate or when I go into work. So it’s important that that transparency exists. But I think this is a long process. I don’t think people should expect this to fix overnight.n
nKelly : Right? So you don’t see any potential benefit for your own company at this point?n
nLewis : I think we benefit because there is a natural migration away from the traditional sources of tungsten. So we are fielding much more inquiries from existing customers to increase our outputs, to develop new mines, which we’re reopening now the world’s largest tungsten mine in South Korea, because bizarrely, they actually consume more tungsten per capita than anywhere else in the world because of the semiconductor business. So it’s a you know, it’s a very good territory to be in, but in North America, there are no mines, not in Canada and not in the United States. And so we are now looking to develop a site in North America.n
nKelly : Okay, that’s what my question was gonna be. Real quickly. Where would that be? Would that be like out in the Badlands of Nevada or Utah?n
nLewis : We’re going to look where the best project is that we feel has the greatest longevity when we look at grade longevity location mining in the United States is not for the faint hearted, that’s for sure. So, but we know, it’s Canada or the United States. These are the two territories that we will look atnn