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Speaker 1: So it's been revealed that the Trump administration is talking

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Speaker 1: to our government about possibly signing a critical minerals deal.

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Speaker 1: Australia signed one last year, the Ukraine signed one, and

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Speaker 1: these minerals are part of the reason that Trump is

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Speaker 1: obsessed with Greenland. GEO forty CEO in Managing Director John

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Speaker 1: Werth is with us, Hi, John, Well, thank you?

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Speaker 2: How much?

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Speaker 1: How much of the stuff have we got on the ground?

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Speaker 2: Look, with New Zealand is quite mineral rich. It isn't

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Speaker 2: always easy to get hold of the minerals in New Zealand,

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Speaker 2: and I guess we're a bit different to that. We're

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Speaker 2: a technology to find those minerals anywhere on Earth.

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Speaker 1: So how much of it? Like, is it significant? Are

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Speaker 1: we are we internationally significant?

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Speaker 2: Look, I think we're relatively small by international standards, But

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Speaker 2: there's enough interesting stuff here such that a whole series

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Speaker 2: of Kiwi companies have developed pretty clever technology to source

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Speaker 2: those minerals. And I think what we find exciting is

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Speaker 2: the potential to take that technology offshore.

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Speaker 1: So the stuff that we're using to get out is

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Speaker 1: the real saleable component here rather than what we've got

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Speaker 1: on the ground.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, a little bit of bout, so we saw silica

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Speaker 2: and the Central North Island close to typl and we

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Speaker 2: sell several thousand tons of that all around the world.

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Speaker 2: So we certainly do it here. But I think that

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Speaker 2: probably the bigger potential is to export key we know

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Speaker 2: how in tech, you know, to a much bigger global opportunity.

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Speaker 1: Is there a reason why we don't just do it

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Speaker 1: in the like old fashioned mining, dig a hole in

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Speaker 1: the ground, get the stuff out.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there's an emerging narrative here. Sores certainly a lot

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Speaker 2: of based metals. You know, we still mind copper and

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Speaker 2: gold that way. I think in some of these strategic

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Speaker 2: minerals like lithium particularly and others which include boron and caesium,

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Speaker 2: you can find them in underground fluids. And this is

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Speaker 2: quite quite a new type of mining where rather than

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Speaker 2: digging up rocks and crushing them, you find these old

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Speaker 2: aquifers deep in the ground, and we develop technology to

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Speaker 2: get these minerals out of these fluids.

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Speaker 1: Why is there I mean, we're talking even and again

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Speaker 1: now we're talking a lot about potentially getting gold out

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Speaker 1: of the ground and Sentana and all those guys. Why

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Speaker 1: are we not having a similar conversation about these critical minerals.

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Speaker 2: Look, I think when we started our journey at G forty,

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Speaker 2: you know, nobody was talking about critical minerals, right, it

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Speaker 2: wasn't really a thing. And I think you know, the

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Speaker 2: growth of the ev sector and the imperative to have

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Speaker 2: listen them in just about every device we own has

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Speaker 2: really given birth to this. And you'll hear this extended

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Speaker 2: to things like rare earths, you know, and all the

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Speaker 2: magnets and all the motives that we use. So it's

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Speaker 2: really it's really come from owhere in the last decade.

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Speaker 2: And now these are the interesting thing about these minerals

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Speaker 2: is these are really the minerals that power decarbonization, right

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Speaker 2: if we want to drive electric cars, and you know,

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Speaker 2: we need these minerals, and they're getting harder to find.

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Speaker 2: You know, they're quite widely present around the world. But

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Speaker 2: this opportunity to pull them out of these underground fluence

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Speaker 2: is really very exciting.

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Speaker 1: So if you have a look, if you were to

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Speaker 1: compare it to the amount of gold that we've got

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Speaker 1: on the ground, is it more or less.

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Speaker 2: Look, globally, we believe there's this potential to get more

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Speaker 2: lithium out of the ground from Brian than has currently

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Speaker 2: been minded hard rock. So I think that the potential

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Speaker 2: is enormous. But beyond that, what getting lithium out of

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Speaker 2: the or and other minerals out of these Brian's does

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Speaker 2: is it creates a fairer and flatter geopolitical landscape.

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Speaker 1: And in terms of what New Zealand can supply, do

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Speaker 1: we have more of the stuff in the ground than

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Speaker 1: we have gold or less. I'm trying to get a

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Speaker 1: handle on how much of the stuff we've got.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, I think there's there's quite a bit of discussion.

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Speaker 2: He's not about whether we can contribute rare earth supply,

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Speaker 2: you know, to the global rare earth demand. I think

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Speaker 2: we can do a little bit of that. We certainly

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Speaker 2: do silica at quite large scale. We can do more

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Speaker 2: of that. There's a little bit of lithium here, not

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Speaker 2: a great deal. So we're focused on lithium offshore. And

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Speaker 2: of course we have gold and copper and other.

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Speaker 1: Resources and antimony. We have mantomony.

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Speaker 2: We have some antimony as well, yep, correct, and that's

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Speaker 2: also found in Brian So that's that's super interesting for us.

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Speaker 1: Now, John, So do we sell any of the stuff

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Speaker 1: to China because it feels to me like we're we're

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Speaker 1: lining up, or at least being lined up by the

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Speaker 1: Trump administration to choose between the two.

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Speaker 2: Look, Look we don't. And I guess what's that sitting

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Speaker 2: behind all this, of course, is the geopolitics of critical

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Speaker 2: minerals and not just the sourcing of them, but also

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Speaker 2: the refining and improvement of them. So there is a

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Speaker 2: globe we'll move on together, I guess, a more level

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Speaker 2: geopolitical sort of both sourcing and refining landscape, and soon

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Speaker 2: as we're playing our part of that by trying to

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Speaker 2: export our technology around the world.

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Speaker 1: Good stuff. Hey, John, thanks very much for talking us

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Speaker 1: through at John Worth's CEO managing director at GEO forty.

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