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

Episode Date: August 28, 2025

Gerard Barron, born in Queensland, Australia, is the Co-Founder, Chairman, and CEO of The Metals Company, a position he has held since 2017. A seasoned entrepreneur with a track record in battery technology, media, and future-oriented resource development, Barron leads the company's efforts to harvest polymetallic nodules from the deep ocean floor, providing sustainable sources of critical metals like nickel, copper, cobalt, and manganese for electric vehicles and renewable energy.  He previously co-founded DeepGreen in 2011 and assumed full control in 2017, guiding it through a public listing and partnerships to advance environmentally responsible deep-sea mining as an alternative to land-based extraction.  Barron testified before the U.S. Congress in April 2025 on national security and critical minerals, emphasizing the strategic importance of ocean resources. He advocates for innovation in clean tech, reducing mining's ecological footprint, and securing supply chains for the global energy transition, often speaking at forums like the St. Gallen Symposium and GESDA.  Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors:  ⁠https://americanfinancing.net/srs⁠ NMLS 182334, nmlsconsumeraccess.org. APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.327% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-781-8900, for details about credit costs and terms. ⁠https://betterhelp.com/srs⁠ This episode is sponsored. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/srs and get on your way to being your best self. ⁠https://bruntworkwear.com – USE CODE SRS⁠ ⁠https://bunkr.life – USE CODE SRS⁠ Go to https://bunkr.life/SRS and use code “SRS” to get your 25% off your family plan. ⁠https://calderalab.com/srs⁠ Use code SRS for 20% off your first order. ⁠https://shawnlikesgold.com⁠ ⁠https://helixsleep.com/srs⁠ ⁠https://patriotmobile.com/srs⁠ ⁠https://ROKA.com – USE CODE SRS⁠ ⁠https://shopify.com/srs⁠ ⁠https://simplisafe.com/srs⁠ Gerard Barron Links: The Metals Company - ⁠https://metals.co⁠ X - ⁠https://x.com/gtbgtb⁠ LinkedIn - ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerardbarron Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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with a towing capacity of 3,500 kilograms and a weighting depth of 900 millimeters the defender 110 pushes what's possible learn more at land rover.ca jared baron welcome to the show man such a privilege to be here thank you privilege for me thank you thank you for coming you first popped up on my radar from a mutual friend cole fackler from gbRS and um so we started look at india and i've been interviewing a couple of different guys that have been mining different areas of the universe i guess and um and uh

so haven't talked to anybody doing it under the sea so i thought this would be i'm just fascinated by innovators and what you guys are doing so i really appreciate you coming well appreciate the chance to talk to on your platform to a new audience perfect well everybody starts with an introduction here we go Jared baron entrepreneur hailing from a queensland australia dairy farm built global companies across media technology battery manufacturing and resource development chairman and CEO of the metals company leading the charge in deep sea mining. A first principles thinker committed to resource extraction with minimal impact on people in nature,

a global traveler splitting time between London, California, and Tonga. Where the fuck is Tonga? Well, I should correct that a tiny bit. It's more, you know, Tonga is a beautiful Pacific Island country, but I should mention Tonga and Nauru, which is also an even smaller country, a little island in the Pacific. But look, it's a pretty,

I'm a pretty frequent traveler, that's for sure. And I'm Australian, of course, as you said. But over the last 14 years, I've been working with Pacific Island countries, and, I mean, they are amazing people. I mean, Tonga is beautiful. Nauru is a really special. It's where the birds used to stop

when they headed south. No kidding. And so it was discovered about, you know, 80 years ago that it was rich in phosphate. And so the Germans and the English and Australians and Kiwis came and took it all. And, you know, it was discovered back when good old James Cook was sailing the world after he discovered Australia and said he called it Pleasant Island. And then everyone came and took all of their beautiful phosphate, which was used to feed the world. And so now you have 80% of the island that's uninhabitable.

Then they handed the country back to the people of Nauru, said, how would you like independence now that we've taken everything that you've got? Yeah. Right. I mean, where's the favorite place? Where is your favorite place that you've been? Oh, that's easy. Australia.

Australia? I'm a very proud Australian. Very proud Australian. Although, Erica, my partner said, what do we get our 23 and me done, you know, our DNA? And it's like, yeah, I'd be interested in that. Came back 100% Irish. No kidding. A hundred percent?

Yeah, yeah. Right on, man. Right on. So my ancestors were well behaved, kept it in the family anyway. Perfect. Many generations in Australia. Perfect. Well, we've got a couple things to get through before we get into the interview.

And so one thing, first thing, is I got a Patreon account and Patreon as a community we built. They've been here with us since the beginning. And when I started this damn thing in my attic and now we're, what, this is our third studio, hopefully our final. But they've been with us through the whole journey. And they're the reason I get to be here with you today. So one of the things we do is we offer them the opportunity to ask each and every guest a question. So this is from Eric Alger. Jared, most people see you today is the front man for deep sea mining.

But before the metals company, you were behind Nautilus Minerals, which collapsed under controversy. What did that failure teach you about how much of this battle is really technology and environment and how much of it is winning the story the world believes? Well, I don't think it's about winning the story. But maybe great question so I can set the record straight because in 2001, a friend of mine went to work for Nautilus. He was the second employee there. And he was telling me about it. And I said, man, that sounds amazing.

He said, yeah, and we've got no money. Can you put some money in it? It's like, I mean, I was building my own company at the time, but I was like, yeah, yeah, of course, of course. Well, because I thought it was such an obvious idea. And they were focused on a different type of metals. They were focused on seafloor mass of sulfides, which is where the chimneys pop up between the tectonic plates. Anyway, so I agreed to fund the first one and a half million dollars.

And despite it almost sending me broke at the time, because I was building another company as well at the same time, which needed money. It ended up being a great success, and we floated the company in 2006, and I sold out in in 2007-8, pretty all the same time my friend left the company. But I never worked for it. And I, but I was very helpful in attracting other capital. And then the big guys came in, we raised four or five hundred million dollars. And then, of course, after I sold out Papua New Guinea, the country in 2012 maybe,

decided they wanted to invest as well because they were focused on a project up in Papua New Guinea. And by law, the government has the right to invest. They said, we want to invest. So they did. And then what happened? I'm winding the clock forward now. Keep you mind, I sold out in 2007. In 2018, the owners, there were two main people funding the company, even though it was public.

And they said, look, were the only two people that appear to be happy to keep funding it? Why don't we put the assets up for sale? So it was really called an administration, a reorganization. No one came forward, so they bought it and privatized it. And so 2018, you know, I sold out in 2007, and I made some good money out of it, to be honest. But it was a very different time. Firstly, it was operating in the territorial waters of Papua New Guinea. It was a small resource by comparison because they only ever found millions, single-digit,

millions of tons of this stuff. Very high grade, rich in copper and gold. Whereas we've got two billion tons of these rocks, like the one of my hands, defined resource of 1.6 billion, but we think about another 4 to 500 million tons of these rocks on our resource. So very different scale and also a different time. You know, the geopolitics weren't as lively back then as they are now. But I think, you know, that project will get into production. The people that privatized it are continuing to push forward. And I think it will be a success. And, you know, but these projects are tough. You know, getting a new industry started is tough. You know, we started this company in 2011. So my biggest gift from Nautilus was made some good money

out of it, but it taught me about polymetallic nodules. And so in 2011, we started this one, and here we are 2025. And, you know, we're what I believe to be the final stretch before the industry becomes big in commercial.

So that's a very long answer to Eric's question, but, yeah. It's a good answer. One more thing. Everybody gets a gift. Oh, thank you. I've seen people chewing away at these. How many packets did our friend, Palmer Lucky, you do these? Because he

seemed to be chewing a lot that day. He loves them. Yeah. He loves them. Yeah. I can't remember how many bags, but it was a handful. So, yeah, he was all hopped up on gummy berries. Well, thank you. Well, I bought you a gift today as well. Oh, I love gifts. Yeah. Well, this is a very precious polymetallic nodule. And we had them made about 5 million years old, this one. We had them made by an artist in Detroit. And this one is particularly oxidized, turned a big gold. And it's the same as the one that sits on the resolute desk. We prepared one for President Trump when he signed the executive order on April 24 and got the American flag and the coordinates of where we found it. Oh, man, that is cool.

That's beautiful. Look at that. It's going to look amazing on one of these shelves. Yeah, it's going to go right over there. Yeah, good, good. Man, thank you. This is really cool. Thank you. Yeah, I'm pretty sure no one else will give you one of those. I'm pretty sure they won't either.

That's awesome. Thank you. I've got to give a shout out to my buddy Andre who's my you know one of my partners on this project he would love this room he would love this room everything about it well yeah maybe I'll show him one day yeah yeah yeah I got to give a shout out to Eric Bethel too oh yeah totally he told me when I first met him we had dinner at a place here and he was telling me about some of the investments that his VC had made and and the first one that he had brought up is your company Actually, he told me about that before we ever even met and told me about what you guys were doing and sounds awesome.

I can't wait to dive into it. But like I said, it's interesting. I've had people come on talk about mining the moon, talk about mining asteroids, enriching uranium, and now you're here. We're doing it under the sea. So it's going to be fascinating. But what got you interested in metals, in nodules? Well, you know, I grew up in a dairy farm, went to university, had four jobs in my first year, realized there was no time for a fifth, started a company. And that company worked out pretty well, and I'd been building companies my entire life.

So I'm kind of naturally drawn to things that are, you know, a little bit unique. And, you know, I've been lucky to build some great companies and grow them globally. And then, as I mentioned, I invested in 2001 in another project, Nautilus. And then we started this company in 2011. And originally, I was just going to be a financial backer. I only decided to step into the ring, you know, and formerly I took over in 2017 and became chairman and CEO. Before that, we'd hired someone out of one of the big mining companies, and it wasn't working out so well. And I thought, what do I know about running a mining company, a resource company?

You know, you'd go to BHP or Freeport to go and find one of them. But actually, when I started to dive into, you know, the data behind. this resource and how big it was and how impactful it could be and to global supply and of course a number of things then came along to help as well like geopolitics

has now made this a really hot topic critical minerals are on everyone's mind and you know if we take a step back and apply some of that first principle thinking 70% of our planet is ocean, yet we don't get metals out of the ocean. You know, we get a few diamonds, but, you know, they're slowly being replaced by lab-grown diamonds, but we don't get our nickel or copper or cobalt or manganese out of the oceans. Yet in this one little deposit where we are focused, 70% of the known reserves of nickel

and cobalt and manganes sit in the form of these polymetallic nodules. and they literally just sit on the seafloor like the one in my hand and so it's only a matter of time that we got around to it and there was a false start back in the 70s when and that's that's another story right because the CIA were very involved in getting this whole industry started really why so well I've got some ideas I got a feeling

it doesn't have anything to do with mining. It has nothing to do with mining. But it was a great cover story, yeah. And the Russian submarine, which had nuclear warheads on at the K-129, sank in the Pacific. It had set sail from a Russian port. And the Americans were, this is dating back to 1968, the Americans had already implanted listing devices on the seafloor.

around the Pacific, so they could detect nuclear explosion and other activities. And so when they were tracking this submarine, and all of a sudden they heard an explosion, and the Russians didn't have this same technology installed in the oceans. And so the Americans quickly clocked onto it, and the CIA got involved. And, but they had to have a reason to be out there because the Russians were looking for their lost submarine and they'd had no idea where it was. They could just say, well, it left this port this time and we last heard at this date in this location. So the CIA went ahead and started to plan how they could recover this. First, they needed to establish were the warheads in place, were they worth recovering?

And when they decided, yes, they were, they said, well, actually, we can't just go and pick them up because the Russians, it'll become an international incident. We might have World War III on our hands. And so they said, we need to, there's a lot of polymetallic nodules around them. And so we need to use the recovery of these polymetallic nodules as the cover story to go and recover these sunken Russian submarine. So they thought, well, they're not going to believe that we, the government are going to be involved. So who can we get to front it? Howard Hughes, because everyone thought, he's a bit crazy. He'll be up for this.

And so they reached out to Howard Hughes and he said, yeah, of course, no problem. And so the CIA funded it all. And there were other companies involved. And the Glomar Explorer was, you know, became the first deep sea exploration vessel. and mining vessel and that attracted other people into the industry because of course no one else knew about this and so then you had other consortia forms,

Shell and BP and Mitsubishi from Japan and many other corporations became involved and this whole industry was moving forward but then the United Nations decided they wanted to get involved as well because they were like well who are owns the ocean. Like, we should all agree this set of rules. Like, we should share these resources in a more equitable manner. And so 169 countries now signed on to this treaty

called Unclos. But what it meant was America had this leading position when it comes to polymetallic nodules and ocean metals. But then they decided to step back and see where this international consortia went. And so the mining companies involved, then got busy looking for more minerals on land. But when you see this deposit, like they estimate there are more than 20 billion tons of these. Wow. More than 20 billion tons. As I said, we have an estimated 2 billion tons on our license areas.

So it's generally regarded we've got the best ground out there. So you had all of these countries form this treaty and, of course, well, not form it. agree a treaty, but Ronald Reagan was the president then, and he's like, no way in the world. We're not going to join another international treaty. So America stood aside and said, well, because no one has sovereignty over the oceans, right? Every nation can traverse the oceans. Every nation has the rights to the seabed minerals on the floor, to lay cables. But all of these other countries said, well, when it comes to the sea.

floor minerals. How about we agree a set of rules? And so they signed the treaty, but America did not. And so, you know, it's been a pretty exciting year for us, last 12 months at least, because, you know, we've pivoted our business away from this international organization to now focus entirely on permitting this resource through the U.S. administration. And that really became possible with the election at President Trump. That's good to hear. That's good. to hear. What, I mean, what percentage of that rock has precious metals in it? Well, it's amazing, right? This forms through precipitation. So it grows, a little bit like a pearl grows. And so we turn 100% of this into saleable material. And it's got about 33%

pure metal. But the rest of the material is there's some silica in there. There's a lot of crystallized water in there. So about 24% of it is moisture. But the rest of it, we all turn into saleable product. And that in itself is almost very unique to this resource. Because on land, you know, you go looking for a copper deposit and last year the average grade of copper mine was about 0.6 of 1%. So it means that

you go digging up a ton of material, a thousand kilograms of material and you have to treat it and process and carted and take it places looking for six kilograms of copper. So it's very inefficient and it's very expensive and it creates a lot of impacts. Whereas we lift these up, take them to shore, process them, and we turn it all into saleable material. So it's kind of unique. You do the processing as well. That's our plan. Wow. That's our plan. Mine and process. Yeah. And the reason why we're so excited about the U.S. is because President Trump and his administration made re-industrialization a priority because for decades

America has been outsourcing mining and processing and refining to other parts of the world, particularly China. And then, of course, you wake up one day and you realize that your adversaries have control out of all of the critical minerals that you need. And it was a

foolish playbook in hindsight that it was hard and heavy industry you know the world wanted to be involved in cool new industries but when it comes down to it if you if it ain't grown its mind and so you can't just dream up a land-based mine you know they don't just appear out of nowhere and all of the obvious ones were found and developed. So that's why, if you look at about half of our revenue comes from nickel, and 100% of the growth in nickel supply over the last seven years has come from what we call rainforest nickel. And to get to it, you've got to remove the rainforest

to dig up this material called nickel laterite. And of course, we're not talking about, you know, anything other than pristine beautiful rainforests which are filled with indigenous people in some cases certainly filled with enormous amount of biodiversity and biomass filled with cute cuddly animals and you know led by china it's just you know bulldozing it out of the way and that's the beginning of the impacts you know because you to process that material comes to the host of impacts the waste material gets spilt into rivers and oceans and kills off the local industry the fishing industries and you know I mean for your listeners just punch

into your favorite search engine rainforest nickel and you know I've I've had the first had experience of witnessing you know in one particular region it was in Indonesia actually where ten years ago there were no people focused on nickel mining. We visited there, my team and I, maybe three years ago, this town of 70,000 people had been built, all focused on nickel mining. Like 70,000 people.

70,000 people. And all of a sudden, and it was all 100% done by China. I mean, when China sets its mind on things, you know they become very very impactful and um and successful and in this case that's what they've done and and you know i know we're going to talk about it today but this industry almost went that way as well and it was only the election of president trump that provided a pathway to us rescuing it and america reasserting its dominant role when it comes to Ocean Nettles.

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that is applying for the permit. Yeah. Gotcha. Got you said 50% of our revenue comes from nickel? Yeah, yeah. Is that U.S. revenue? Well, at the moment, we haven't generated our first revenue. 2027 is when we're aiming for first production, yeah.

But if you look at the metals in here, we've got nickel and copper and copper. and manganese. And America imports about 50% of its copper, but it pretty well imports almost 100% of its nickel, cobalt, and manganese. Wow. What do we use those metals for? Well, let's think about, well, copper is used everywhere, right? For wires and many other things. But nickel is mainly used to make, it's a hardening substance to make stainless steel. So you add it to steel to make stainless steel. It's also used in super alloys. You need it for making military equipment. And then cobald is of course used in your iPhone battery, but it's also a very efficient thing. They're all used in batteries for cars

as well. So if you have a Tesla EV, it's full of nickel and used to be full of They kind of managed to get cobalt out of it, but mainly because they weren't able to get an affordable supply that hadn't touched the hands of child miners in the Congo, which is where the cobalt market is characterized. And then manganese is used to make steel. You can't make a ton of steel without manganese. And now more manganese is going into batteries as well. So these are all what we call base metals.

They're the foundation building blocks. for industry. And, you know, if you want to, if you want to look at, you know, over the last, since 2002, about 20,000 companies have evaporated who were involved in heavy industry, 20,000. 20,000. Wow. 20,000.

Millions of jobs have disappeared. And it's all because of outsourcing to. developing countries. You know, China's saying, we can do it. And of course, you know, what, I know that the current administration are very focused on, you know, looking at dumping and have these materials been coming back into the country at cheaper prices. And, you know, 232 reviews are underway, I understand. because it's another way where you can go and buy where you can go and buy market share

and end up controlling an entire industry because the incentive price for local production is too low to attract investment into those industries because there are some nickel deposits in America they're small but they need nickel price to be, you know, 50% higher than where they are to even break even.

Interesting. We don't have that problem because we're so high grade. You know, I mentioned before last year the average grade of copper was 0.6 of 1%. So this is full of, filled of nickel, copper, cobalt and manganese. But if you were to put all of those other metals into copper equivalent, just for value perspective, We're like more than 7% copper equivalent. So an order of magnitude richer material, and that obviously has a big impact on the economics. And so, you know, we can withstand dumping from, you know, certain markets like China.

So we're not mining any niggle here in the U.S. No, there are some that are... They've shut down because the... the, what they, they're not making, the company's not making enough money. No, that's right. If you, um, you know, over the last five years, you've seen, you know, some of the biggest nickel miners, you know, BHP, valet, you know, slow down or shut their operations, put them on care and maintenance, hoping for a recovery in the price, but, but, um, there doesn't seem

to be any recovery in the price available in the next few years. And, you know, and at the moment, you know, if you've got 70% market share, which is probably what China has when it comes to nickel. 70%? 7.0. Yeah. Yeah. Why not go for 100? Keep the price down there. Yeah. Go for 100. And then you can put the price to whatever you want. That's true. That's true. Man, China's just got us in so many different angles. The whole world, it seems like. That's because they're really smart. You know, and you mentioned Eric before, Bethel, he's one of the guys that gets it, you know, because he's lived there.

He's lived the experience. I've lived the experience as well. I've admired their approach. I was, you know, one of the companies I grew was making batteries in China back when they started to attract, invite foreign investment. you know in the early 90s there were starter batteries not so much uh they weren't EV batteries you know i watched podong come out of the out of the ground you know there were hundreds of cranes building at the same time it was like i remember i used to take people with me on trips to say you've got to come and see this like you will not believe it you know you'd pull up at a train

crossing and there'd be 2 000 bikes there now you pull up and there's no bikes there you know it's a it's it's it's just it's impressive it's impressive but I think the West has fallen into the trap of letting them do that thinking it'll all work out in the end but that's a trap I don't think you're right I know you're right with that

I know you're right I mean they they own practically our whole damn supply chain I mean is Australia are they are they concerned about all the stuff that China's involved in and doing and innovating? Yeah, and I think the, you know, the Scott Morrison, you know, recent president, former prime minister, we call them, had a bit of a blow up with the Chinese because he ordered an inquiry into where COVID came from. they didn't like that so they banned alcohol and live fresh livestock didn't impact it they just bought it somewhere else and so we supplied them i think the 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 Australia has lost its way a little bit in my personal opinion I think that

people want to follow voters want to follow someone a leader and there 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 or in the government are you serious eight out of ten holy shit wow and you can see a theme repeating you know

and I think that one of the challenges is you know these economies go on on until they bust, right? You know, 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, we've, the press coming out of the UK at the moment is horrible, you know. Free 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. It's like 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

and in 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 yeah maybe more now 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 all does the metals company operate? 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-Clipidon zone, and it was discovered way back in the 1870s by the British, who sailed around the world on H-A-M-S challenger with a basket off the back. and 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 a thousand 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. And so you had these currents that came for 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, 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. agency. They go out and Boen, who explore their own territorial waters and, of course, other explorers that the Chinese, I think, have explored a lot of the ocean floor, a lot more than they probably admit. And that this is so big, like it's multi-generational deposit. You know, as I said, 70% 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 have a need to explore anymore. No. Do you think that there are other metals under there that we don't know about yet? Yeah, probably. Yeah, probably. I 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 like chimneys underwater. They're fascinating. But some of them have been dead for, you know, I don't know, a million years or 100,000 years.

And so they're covered. So 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 um so look some of these pacific island countries in particular have a lot of medals in their potential metals in their economic zones so there will be opportunities there as well and i 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. But 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 know, now approaching three quarters of a billion dollars. A lot of it on environmental research. even though 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

and 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. So 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 or, you know, 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 are i mean it's it's 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 rainforest and you know some of the stuff that we see i mean i've seen 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 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 shit, I just watch one about. Amazon 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 you know 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 uh you've just you know switched from talking about environment to now to talking about geopolitics and critical supply chains, it'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, you know, at the end of the day, geopolitics are pretty important, you know, 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. And so 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? And when I say lowest impact, I mean, you know, 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. But 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 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, so you can't just put them in 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, you know, when 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. So I can see in decades to come that we will not be in the business of picking up rocks. will be in the business of purely recycling the metals that we've 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 the, if we use a trusted source, say the International Energy Agency or the World Bank, they pretty well align, they say we need to increase extractive industries by between 4 and 500% 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 mind 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 reindustrialization is going to depend on the atoms that are contained in here, the real world infrastructure. And 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. They'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, you know, the best universities and organizations to carry out this research, the Natural History Museum, Texas AM, you know, Florida University. Like, there's 20 of the world's leading institutions who have subject matter experts, expertise when it comes to ocean research. So we went, said, this is our goal, this is the work program, we'll pay for it, you get to do it, you 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. search 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 that 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. You know, they're building a new coal plant every other damn day. And they're way ahead on new

it seems to be. And, you know, we don't mine our own gas, you know, not nearly enough. And can't go nuclear, the cleanest form of energy in the world, according to the people that are, 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, we don't produce our own solar, we don't produce our own wind turbines, we, 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 in 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. And 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 in 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, do you see the change? Here's the thing. The people who listen to this show are some of the hardest working in America. So you should never have to choose between comfort and durability. when it comes to your work boots. That's why I'm so glad I found Brunt. Brunt sells tough boots that feel great from day one

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I do. But I think, no matter what your political view, 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 cahooners to be able to see it through. And, you know, 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. China 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. Like, 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. You know, there's one guy who's the critical minerals are, you know, he, like, he is, 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, like, 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. And we're also confident that we will make it a bipartisan issue because, you know, reindustrialization 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 wouldn'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.

It's hard to. I see the optimist talking about how that'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. And it's started. It's already started. And in just about every sector, other than manual labor. So let's talk about how this actually works. What does it take to mine minerals at the bottom of the over?

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. You go down there looking. Explorations pretty easy. So we send a robot down. So we build this beautiful robot. In fact, our partner also had built it for us. Allsees 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 Harrimer.

And so we built 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 drawing. ship, which we bought for, well, Allsees 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. And 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 or 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 90 tons because when you put it in water it gets a lot of buoyancy then you add more buoyancy 90 tons yeah yeah

interesting yeah yeah in fact funny story another contractor was out there doing some trials they too had a collector but they weren't doing you know in 2002 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 meters. And there was big panic, including from us, because it wouldn't have been helpful to me either.

And I mean, shit happens, right? I 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's 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 metres 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, Alms. So it's all pretty cool. But in the 1979, they actually launched a machine and they to pick up these very same rocks back when America was driving the innovation. That 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 Alves 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. And 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. 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?

Because of them precipitating. It starts around a kernel of something could be a grain of sand or a broken shell. And how long? And so these are just on the ocean. floor 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 on the hopper they get sucked up to the yeah to the mothership and

it bring it over yeah for processing that's right how many of those but can you give me a a snapshot of how much of those you're 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.

So. So with this international treaty and everybody has access to the ocean, I mean, what would, and you found the mother load of these things or back in, I think you said, 1870? Yeah, the British found them in 1870, yeah. The British found him in 1870. I mean, will we start to see, you know, is this gains traction? And 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 they, will everybody be vacuuming these things up off the ocean floor in the exact same spot will become crowded? I mean, how do you? Is there any possibility that you will secure, you know, any specific rights to an area? Yeah.

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 Uncloss called for the establishment of the International Seabed Authority to be established, which it was in 1994. Now 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 know. 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

the NGOs. And 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, U.S. 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. So 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 they could you might not have majority and so what the Green Party started to do is 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 for 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 COP 23 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 medals it's literally like that and you know and I've seen firsthand how they've worked with corporations, you know, WWF did the same to Merck. You know, Merck were one of our shareholders. They were one of our early supporters. Great company, one of the great shipping companies of the world.

And that Mersk, 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's 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, sorry, 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, right? We were driving the industry forward. China, despite the fact that they want to dominate this, because, you know, 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 their 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 when I mentioned it was playing into China's playbook. This 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, you know, 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? Well, 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 survive

because we would have just kept the licenses and kept them rolling on. I would have had to streak the business, you know. The team that we've had together over the last many years would have had to go. But, you know, when things get so bad, they've got a 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, and 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 activist, was. Their strategy was to bleed the metals company dry, you know, to just slow things down to let us run out of money. And we were lucky to have amazingly supportive shareholders. I mentioned Andre before and Allsies 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 very,

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. But 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 medals. 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. 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're in opposition. They'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, it's 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. According to new reports, central banks around the world may be buying twice as much gold as official numbers suggest. You heard that right. Twice as much.

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wanted to revisit that. I'm big on national defense 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 in 2000 and 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. And, 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 control.

Controlling, you know, controls became statutory. But it also makes you really vulnerable. The fact that you can't build a ton of steel without manganese means that, and the fact that we import 100% of our manganese puts you very vulnerable. And I think it was a great initiative that the president wants to bring back shipbuilding. And if you think about, you know, 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. You know, they're built in other parts of the world.

And so I think national defense and national security is a, it's a very complex, intertwined. you know, 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. you know they control 70% of the nickel market and they are doing

they play the long game you know they 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. I 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.

So I think that building a reliable supply of all of these critical minerals and including rare earths, We saw them do a deal with MP the other day. You know, it was 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, you know. And I think giving people purpose is another benefit that's going to come out of this, you know? Well, you know, what's interesting, a couple things that are jobs I want to talk about. But, you know, you would mention the shipbuilding, you know, that used to take place in this country. And that, a lot of things seem to be coming back with this administration. In fact, are you familiar with the company Serronic? Yes. You know, Dino Mavrucas, he's doing the autonomous surface warfare vehicles.

And, I mean, that guy is, you know, he... it's 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 ship of the of the global shipbuilding capacity and that the u.s had less than one percent of shipbuilding capacity of the world and you know and he's trying to change that and he's making these boats that you know they're they i mean he's going to pump him 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 can get back to being, you know, some type of a naval superpower with many boats, not just, you know, 0.1% or whatever it is, 0.0.5%. It was less than 1%. percent of the U.S. shipbuilding capacity. Another question that I have for you, though, is are any of the metals that you are mining in the ocean or 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. We don't recover them in our first plant. We, we, 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,

When China started taking these industries away from the U.S. 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. You know, if you look at what Hanwar and Hyundai and, you know, the other Korean shipbuilders have done as they've bought a lot of automation into those industries where, and the same is going to be on metal processing, you know, that now 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 it also it's it's it means that you can compete because you're not having to compete with you know a 100,000 almost free labor force, you know, you're actually competing for on a technology basis. And once again, China have 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. We 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. They'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 if 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 uncillary industries. And, you know, my standard presentation is like a thousand other industries that can be built off that other industry. But if you don't have the material, and then, of course, if the government truly have these dumping reviews that are underway, the moment, if they truly do impose some sort of penalty of importers, and it's not just

China, there'll be other players as well, dumping material into the U.S., 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, you know, 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. And so it's a massive turnaround, and that's going to lead to tremendous GDP growth. It's going to lead to, you know, new companies being formed, new jobs being formed, new industries to support those industries it's a massive knock-on impact and you know

it's but it's only possible if you've got the cahooners to 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 on a level playing ground and yeah I 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 up but I'm going to say it's out pretty well. It'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? It's just, it's not just what companies, but it's the efficiencies of redesigning new industrial

process. And if we think about manganese, for example, you know, 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. CapEx 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. But 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. And 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. be able to generate that, you know, the material that goes into the stainless steel and the steel making 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, in these beautiful planes that we see the U.S. Air Force flying around. there's nickel is a vital ingredient as is cobalt in those structures

but there's a lot of simpler industries as well you know whether it's energy related businesses solar in fact I have a page on one of my presentations there's literally a thousand industries that a thousand industries 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 material says $100. Why am I paying $5,000 for this? You know, 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, you know, we receive inspiration out of that as well. And I think, you know, 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 two and a million jobs have disappeared in the last 20 years. Two and a half million? Two and a half million jobs have disappeared from the manufacturing sector in the last 20 years.

Jeez. 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. I 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, Allseys, who have worked with us on the offshore, and Allseys 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. They build 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 build a boat that allows you to cut the legs off, lift it, bring it back to shore, and then do all of that, you know, de-assembling 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 Careersink, and Korea Zinc 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. And I think there are tremendous efficiency. Palantir, of course, have really helped perfect that as well. You know, we're talking. We're 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, 27. We've already got our first boat.

So that's good. And I think it's probably a four-year window to put process. and refining infrastructure on the ground here in the United States. So 2031, do you think? I hope sooner than that. I hope sooner than that. 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 this morning I'd been on the phone with Allseys, you know, we're mapping out. You know, how do they build more scale? And I held a strategy day in New York on August 4, and we had the owner of Allseys, Edward Harammer, there. And, you know, 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 to flee to these boats. and that's what we want as well I 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 because 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 you know 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 felt 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 zero 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. Now, Jerry, we're wrapping up the interview, and so my final question is, you know, I bring a lot of innovation, in here, and there's some amazing companies that are coming to fruition right now in the U.S. 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 some days I mean it is there's been some dark days and

but the days had been a whole lot brighter since November 6, put it that way and but look we you know we look 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 and we're going to form, perform a very important part in re-industrialization, you know, and we're going to be wearing that badge very, very proudly. Well, 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,

thank you for coming. And I wish you the best of luck. And I can't wait to see what happens in 2027. So, thank you. Thank you. Cheers It's part sports We have football on the brain Part pop culture Dennis Lyrich True or false

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