[Music] a volatile week gold dropping briefly below $3,000 copper falling off a cliff what are we at [Applause] [Music] $4.34 after recovering hello and welcome to the Northern Miner podcast my name is Adrien Pocabell surveying the landscape i want to say surveying the damage of this last week in the markets of course miners have joined the selloff so perhaps an opportunity i mean I think of the 800 billion or is it a trillion dollars that the EU has said they want to spend on military you think you know surely 50 to 100 billion dollars of that is going to be used for metal if not a lot more and I just wonder to myself like what is that going to do that demand for metal to prices so all of this volatility of course the result of tariffs at least in its surface explanation as we like to say here the technicals have been pointing to a bit of a top here for a while but our reason is the tariffs here so last week as a result of these tariffs being announced on China who seems to be perhaps the largest target of US President Donald Trump China has further restricted rare earth exports here's the story this is Reuters via mining.com china hits back at US tariffs with rare earth export controls china placed export restrictions on rare earth elements on Friday as part of its sweeping response to US President Donald Trump's tariffs squeezing supply to the West of minerals used to make weapons electronics and a range of consumer goods the move which Beijing had long hinted was possible further ratchets up trade tensions between the world's two largest economies and leaves American manufacturers scrambling for fresh supplies of the critical minerals they have relied upon for decades and that does bring up our feature content today bill High Totower vice president of corporate affairs in the United States at Pharaoh Globe USA and they make silicon an often overlooked metal it is an alloy and so I asked Bill all about the history and the importance of silicon as well as what Pharaoh Globe is doing and their relationship with the US government how they approach the whole business and of course China's domination of the market and how Ferro Globe has managed to survive despite the low prices of silicon that it produces so that is our feature content and also coming up this show we have Michael Turk founder of the Axion Burst newsletter who is also resurrecting the Munich Mining Conference so that will also be in this week's spotlight so lots to look forward to this episode let's return to this story beijing announced the controls late on Friday as part of a broader package of tariffs and company restrictions in retaliation for Trump's decision to hike tariffs against most Chinese products to 54% the export curves included not only mined minerals but permanent magnets and other finished products that will be difficult to replace analysts said the move which affects exports to all countries not just the US is the latest demonstration of China's ability to weaponize its dominance over the mining and processing of critical minerals seven categories of medium and heavy rare earths including samarium gatolinium turbium dprosium luteesium scandium and itrium related items will be placed on an export list as of April 4th according to a Ministry of Commerce release loheed Martin Tesla and Apple are among the US companies that use Chinese rare earths in their supply chain and we have a quote from Mel Sanderson a director at American Rare Earths which is building a rare earth mine in Wyoming quote "China made that list strategically they picked the things that are crucial for the US economy." End quote while the export controls stopped short of an outright ban Beijing can throttle shipments by restricting the number of export licenses it issues and we heard about this two weeks ago from a DL Monty founder who was saying you know the export restrictions can sometimes be worse than the ban china's move will create a quote scramble for access to the limited sources of alternative supply namely in Japan and South Korea and quote said Ryan Castillu founder of consultancy Atomus Intelligence two industry sources said Chinese export restrictions on some rare earths are a concern for some US aerospace manufacturers because they are soul sourced from China for use in avionics rtx and Honeywell declined to comment boeing and GE did not respond to requests for comment the US government has stockpiles of some rare earths but not enough to supply its defense contractors in perpetuity beijing has already imposed outright bans on the export of three metals to the US and slapped export controls on many others the move to restrict heavy rare earths are especially important because China has even tighter control over these elements said David Marryman at Consultancy Project Blue quote there is currently only one heavy rare earth element focused operation outside of China Myanmar and Laos end quote he said adding that China has close involvement in supply chains from Myanmar and Laos so there's only one heavy rare earth operation and wait till you hear this that mine Sarah Verde in Brazil ships minerals to China for processing marman added quote China is willing to escalate and quote said Nathan Picarsk co-founder of the geopolitical consulting firm Horizon Advisory quote this is likely an opening salvo in an iterative game of negotiation with the US end quote friday's move is likely to galvanize efforts in the west to build alternative supply chains according to Marcer Institute for China Studies analyst Jacob Gunter "Progress towards the goal has been slow." Quote "It's going to take time." End quote said Mark Smith CEO of NeoP Developments which has permits for a 1.2 billion rare earth mine in Nebraska but needs financing so here we have a rare earth mine in Nebraska that needs financing shares of NEORP fell 8% on Friday while shares of USA Rare Earth which is building a rare earth magnet facility in Oklahoma jumped 20% shares of MP Materials which owns the only US Rare Earths mine and relies in part on China for processing fell 10% very interesting and you know what that seems to say is the one company that did well USA Rare Earth is building a rare earth magnet facility in other words they're building the processing facility they're not just concerned with the rare earth themselves las Vegas-based MP said in a statement that China's move quote reinforces what has long been clear america must secure an end-to-end rare earth supply chain to protect its industrial and national security end quote massachusettsbased rare earth processing startup Phoenix Tailings which recycles the metals from electronic waste and other sources aims to boost its annual production from 40 metric tonses today to 4,000 metric tonses by 2027 quote China's moves just further encourages us to double down on our expansion plans and quote said Phoenix CEO Nick Meyers for companies that buy equipment from rare earth industry suppliers the worry is compounded that they may lose access to important machinery that is made in China quote "The real concern for us is whether this trade conflict grows further." End quote said Wade Centi president of Florida based Advanced Magnet Lab so huge story there and we had another interesting response from an unlikely source chimath Palihapatia an early employee I believe at Facebook and one of the hosts of the All-In podcast a pretty large podcast and again more out of tech put out this tweet which I thought was interesting keep calm carry on this may be a good moment to let everyone know that I control one of if not the largest rare earth supplies outside of China at full capacity it can be 25% of what the world needs all located within countries allied with the US and the US itself now who knows on the accuracy of this statement and is this the processing of the metal is this just the metals themselves but the reason I highlight this is once again to show how minerals and metals have really moved to the center of the conversation where you're getting fairly prominent tech celebrities using metals in this case rare earths as a kind of flex which I think just from the culture of mining is quite interesting let's continue us and DRC near Minerals Deal according to a report this is by staff at the Northern Miner the United States and the Democratic Republic of Congo are discussing an agreement that would see US companies take greater control of critical mineral assets in exchange for support for the Kenshasa government the Financial Times reported progress has been made on a potential deal msad Bulos US President Donald Trump's senior adviser for Africa said late last week bulos met with DRC president Felix Chisaketi in Kenshasa Thursday and the pair discussed trade relations and other topics according to a statement from the presidency quote "You heard about an agreement on minerals we have taken note of the DRC's proposal and I'm happy to say that the president and I have agreed on a way forward for its development." End quote bulos told reporters in Kenshasa his comments were broadcast by Radio France International and Bulos continued quote "Stimulating US private sector investment in the DRC particularly in the mining sector is a shared goal that contributes to the prosperity of both our countries but there can be no economic prosperity without security." End quote bulos said in French quote "The United States remains determined to support an end to the conflict and we are discussing next steps with our Congalles partners." End quote and as it says here US startup Cobalt Metals is among the companies that are interested in the DRC's massive Manono lithium deposit the FT said so again we're seeing prominent tech moguls of course Cobalt being backed by Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates again showing deep interest here in metals and we also have an update on the Congo and the M23 which is the cause of the whole minerals deal between the US and the Congo that is in the works congo and M23 rebels hold first talks after months of conflict this is Reuters via mining.com and it says here that Congo's government and M23 rebels last week held private talks in Qatar for the first time since the rebels conducted a lightning offensive in the country's east a source briefed on the discussions told Reuters reuters reported last week that Kenshasa and M23 planned to hold their first talks in Doha on April 9th but the source with knowledge of the situation said private talks were also held last week they were positive the source said speaking on condition of anonymity and prompted the rebels to withdraw from the strategic town of Wally Calala in an area rich in minerals including tin as a goodwill gesture m23 and Congo's government did not immediately comment on Saturday so continuing on probably one of the huge stories of the mining world last year was the Libido Corridor a railway that moves from Zambia through the DRC and then goes through Angola and goes over to Libido Port on the west coast of Africa and when US aid was being cut it seemed as if the US had abandoned its financial commitment to the project well we have an update and this is Reuters us committed to funding Angola's libido rail corridor despite spending cuts diplomat says so the US ambassador to Angola James Story sought to allay fears on Wednesday story was accompanied by European diplomats Angolan officials and executives from Libido Atlantic Railways on a tour of projects in Angola asked if funding for the libido corridor was at risk story said quote not at the moment all the projects with the DFC and also with the EXM bank are there and we're working on them various organizations say they were moving away from this project but that's not true end quote story said and we also have a quote from Libido Atlantic Railways CEO Francisco Frana who was part of the tour and said DFC financing contracts quote were currently in the final stages quote "In two or three months time we expect to have the contract signed and then the normal international financing procedures will follow." end quote so it sounds like that issue has been ironed out moving to West Africa we have an update from Bareric on the Bareric Mali situation courtesy of Reuters bareric says committed to reaching a mutually beneficial resolution in Mali and this is dated this morning and Bareric Gold remains quote fully engaged and committed to reaching a mutually beneficial resolution and quote with Mali to end a dispute over its assets there its chief operating officer for Africa and the Middle East said in a memo seen by Reuters on Saturday the Canadian miner and Malian government have been locked in a dispute since 2023 over the implementation of the West African country's new mining code which gives the state a greater share in Barracks Lulo Concodto gold mining complex reuters reported on February 19th that Bareric had signed an agreement to end the dispute which then went to the state for formal approval while there has not been any major hiccups since then the deal is taking some time to be finalized one person close to the process told Reuters in the company memo sent to staff on Saturday Sebastian Box said there are quote no major updates at this stage as a reminder all non-critical operations remain temporarily paused until further notice end quote so it kind of sounds like this memo has been leaked to Reuters if I had to speculate in order to create some urgency perhaps or to remind the government of Mali probably to sign their part of the deal it sounds like they are still sitting on this interestingly and at the end of the day Bareric has capitulated with this agreement to provide almost half a billion dollars in payment and finally on the Nippon Steel US Steel Sega Trump orders fresh review of Niponsteel's bid for US Steel this is Reuters via Mining.com so this deal also taking a long time to finalize as it says here this is Reuters via Mining.com president Donald Trump on Monday directed a powerful US national security panel to take a fresh look at Nippon Steel's bid for US Steel to help determine if quote further action end quote is appropriate raising hopes for an elusive green light for the deal and the memo reads quote I direct the committee on foreign investment in the United States to conduct a review of the acquisition of US Steel by Nippon Steel to assist me in determining whether further action in this matter may be appropriate nippon Steel said it was pleased by the news quote "We have been confident from the outset that an objective fact-based review of our proposed partnership with US Steel will show that it strengthens American economic and national security end quote." A spokesperson for US Steel said the company looks forward quote to continuing to work closely with President Trump and his administration to finalize the significant and important investment end quote so it continues with US Steel so a wonderful show ahead of us we have Bill High Totower vice president of US corporate affairs for Pharaoh Globe USA discussing silicon and everything that Ferro Globe is doing to help fulfill the needs of the supply chain in the United States and all of the different functions of silicon a fascinating discussion there and also Michael Turk organizer of the Munich Mining Conference and founder of the Axion Experta.de newsletter and many more headturning news stories if you want to find us online you can find us at northernminer.com you can find us on x at northernminer you can find us on Instagram at the northernminer and on Facebook LinkedIn and YouTube where we also host these podcasts and wherever podcasts are available including Spotify Soundcloud and Apple podcasts and with that let's turn to Michael Turk organizer of the Munich Mining Conference and founder of the Axiant Experta.de newsletter for this week's spotlight join us today i'm very pleased to welcome to the show Michael Turk organizer of the Munich Mining Conference and founder and newsletter writer of Axion Experta Newsletter michael welcome to the show hello happy to be there and thanks for the invitation it's great to see someone who is involved in mining and stocks in Germany and so tell us a little bit about the Munich Mining Conference you're organizing it this year uh what are you up to at this year's conference yes so Munich has a great history for mining shows the previous metal mess was from 2005 to 2019 then co stopped it and it never returned and now I will finally bring it back to Munich in October 2025 and yes I believe it's a very good timing because gold is over $3,000 now and the companies have a great interest for this conference what I have seen so far yeah very interesting i mean Germany does have the Frankfurt stock exchange there's a culture of being interested in mining in Germany isn't there exactly yes so with Frankfurt there is the Deutsche Gold M from Kai Hoffman which is also a very good show germany or in general Europe is a very important market for the Canadian and the American companies as the German people love the mining stocks and yeah that's it so when is the conference going to take place and what can companies expect if they participate so the mining show is on the 3rd and October 2025 and there are a few reasons why people should participate in this so the first thing is it's the chance to meet new people and new investors because when you look to the other shows in Zurich in London when you go there you almost meet always the same people and Munich has totally different people and it's more retail based and not much on the institutional investors based that's the first thing the second thing it's a cheap opportunity to start marketing in Europe another very interesting thing is that Yensteiger with Swiss Resource Capital is the media partner he's doing interviews on our show with all the interested companies it's for free after he will distribute to his network and it will be also distributed on YouTube so free marketing which is always good i will have some very well-known speakers for example Florian Gomez i believe most of the people know them and a few others from the German market and it's a very good timing for the conference so gold is $3,000 and it's the week before the Nordic mines and funds in Stockholm so both conferences can be very well combined and you have only one times the travel cost when you're a company okay excellent and how large is this conference in a sense and if you're a mining company that's interested what's involved in participating at the Munich Mining Conference when we go back to the past this conference was in the average round about 5,000 retail investors are attending which means this was the biggest conference in Europe until it stopped from COVID so from this it's totally different to the other conferences but very large from the size of the investors and the people okay excellent and as far as companies how many companies do you expect to participate so 43 companies are at the moment fully signed up and I'm in very advanced talking with another 20 companies i can have there up to 80 companies from the space and a few booths are still available and the cost is $5,000 for the companies to participate which is by the way very cheap in comparable to another conferences where there at the moment the price is between 12 to 14,000 very interesting and you also run a stock newsletter you're the founder of axionexperta.de tell us a little bit about the newsletter how did you get started and what is the focus of the newsletter i bought my first stock in 1999 when I was 15 years old it was the OOL stock American online and I just bought only one stock of it which makes no sense if you do it but however I was won't be a shareholder and bought one stock and from then the stock market grabbed me and time by time I saved always more money and invested again then in 2006 I started my own newsletter Axen Expert and from there I started to share my experience in the stock market and my favorite stocks with my readers and then in 2010 I finally become a stock market millionaire so this means it was only 11 years after my first investment and I was then only 26 years old and then I was already a stock market millionaire and this is why I believe people should much more invest in stocks and not put the money to banks or to insuranceances because it never gives you that return that you have in the stock market and my stock market newsletter now has over 200 pay subscribers and is one of the biggest stock newsletters here in Germany Austria and Switzerland and even to the fact that I'm only 40 years old now I have already 25 years of experience in the stock market when I look back now this seems quite impressive for me well this is the dream isn't it to become a millionaire through stock investing so right now then what sector do you focus on is you're doing the Munich Mining Conference are you focused on mining what are you excited about right now in your newsletter from a stock perspective so there are two mine sectors that I'm investing in that I'm looking for this is gold and silver so silver in my eyes is very very interesting because gold is over $3,000 now so silver has to follow at one time i like very much for example Santa Cruz silver santa Cruz silver has at the moment a market cap of just $125 million US and making at this price is 100 million US free cash flow so they're just trading it a little bit more than over one year cash flow per year which is incredibly cheap when you compare it with another silver companies they are trading with 10 to 15 times their yearly cash flow so I believe this stock has really a great potential okay excellent and are there other sectors that you're interested in i assume gold is exciting for you as well so with gold over $3,000 this gold stocks are real cash machines so there I like for example very much dinarius medals this is the former management of green colombia gold aris mining which is now almost a billion dollar company they have the sancuro and the lomero pyatos project the lomero puas project is in Spain sancudo is in Colombia they are starting production within a few weeks from now when we see it in a fullear prospect they will made in the first year of full production more cash flow as the company is at the moment wedded on the market so this is something which I like very much then mineros it's also a Colombian gold producer it's one of the biggest gold producers in Colombia I was get in touch with the stock at the onetoone mining conference in London 2024 in May so this was just 10 months ago then the price was at $116 I recommended it to my newsletter readers the stock now is trading at $235 which is over 100% up however it's just trading only two times the yearly cash flow this is still a very cheap stock and last one which I also won't mention when we talk about gold is also mining it's a very cheap say only trading around about two times the yearly cash flow and has a resource of more than 5 million ounces in Bkina Fazo by the way all these three companies that I have said now they will be participating in the Munich mining conference the same like Santa silver so people should go to there it's important to see interesting new investment opportunities okay so we talked about precious metals are there any other sectors out there in the markets that are interesting you right now Michael yeah for me so tungsten looks very promising it's a critical minerals and the US and the EU must make them independent from China which are produced around about 70% of tungsten and here I would recommend the stock from American tungsten it has probably the most advanced tungsten project in the US which can be brought back into production within 18 to 24 months from now i recommended this stock in December 2024 to my readers when it was just 35 cents and then within three months the stock went up to over $2 and this is a gain of more than 500% in just 3 months this is incredible now the stock is now below $1 and I believe it's a very good buying opportunity in the mid to long term again well I'm sure our audience will appreciate you sharing some of your recommendations with us and so as we wrap up here Michael so if people want to attend the Munich Mining Conference or if a company wants to participate or if they want to subscribe to your newsletter exonperta.de what should they do where should they go one go to the Munich mining conference we have their own website for the German people and one for the Canadian American companies so if we talking about the American Canadian companies so it's www.municminusmining minusconference.com people can request there for a boost they can ask for more details and about my Actenexperted stock newsletter it's www.acenexperted Axen expert.de Axen expert by the way means like stock expert in English excellent michael Turk organizer of the Munich Mining Conference and founder of Axion Expert.de newsletter thank you for joining us and telling us all about what you're working on in Germany thank you to be there and thank you once again to the Munich Mining Conference and exonperto.de de for sponsoring this week's episode of the Northern Miner podcast turning to the website an interesting headline out of Canada mining dominates Pyv's speedy permits list this is by Colin Mlelen at the Northern Miner mining investments make up nearly all resource projects Conservative leader Pierre Palev would approve within a year if elected Canadian Prime Minister this month campaigning in British Columbia on Monday for the April 28th election Pyav said he would start a oneanddone approvals process to accelerate 10 projects these would need one application and one environmental review he said his list includes NextGen Energy's Rook One uranium project in Saskatchewan and several in Ontario First Mining Gold's Springpole project Agniko Eagle Mines Upper Beaver underground gold and copper mine and roads to access Woo Metals Ring of Fire project leading the list is the second stage of a natural gas liquefaction project in the northern BC port of Kdamat that venture is being proposed by LNG Canada a consortium led by Shell which holds 40% and Malaysian state petroleum company Petronus with 25% quote I'm convinced we can get these projects approved in as little as 6 months end quote polyv said in terrace about 60 km north of Kitamat quote in Germany they built an LNG import terminal from concept to completion in 178 days that's not the approval process that was approval and construction end quote so Canada getting more serious in developing its resources and continuing on a small update on the Ukraine US minerals deal ukrainian team to travel to US this week to discuss minerals deal this is Reuters via mining.com a Ukrainian team will travel to the United States early this week to discuss a minerals deal a Ukrainian source familiar with the situation told Reuters on Monday us President Donald Trump's administration has proposed a more expansive minerals deal which Ukraine has been reviewing in recent days so many different deals in the work here so continuing on we got an interesting column in Reuters called Trump's tariffs and tin and this was published on April 4th so about 4 days ago us President Donald Trump's tariff blitz has shocked financial markets but the LME base metals complex got an early preview of the likely mayhem the imposition of 25% tariffs on US imports of aluminum has dislocated the light metals global supply chain while the threat of similar levies on copper has generated an unprecedented disconnect in transatlantic pricing micro tariff turbulence is now overlaid with macrotariff turmoil as markets take fright at the risk of a full-blown trade war the London Metal Exchang's index of base metals has slumped 6% this week as reciprocal tariffs move from threat to reality only one metal has escaped the tariff tsunami tin continues to outperform the rest of the LME pack boyed by its own supply chain chaos lme 3-month tin gained 25% over the first quarter of 2025 eclipsing even gold's stellar run a series of supply shocks has generated a roller coaster ride for tin traders the market sold off on news the giant Manmaw tin mine in Myanmar would restart after an 18th month absence before rebounding when Alfamin Resources announced it was closing its Bezy mine in the Congo due to the escalating insurgency in the east of the country the devastating earthquake in Myanmar throwing fresh doubt on Manmaw's return has propelled tin even higher investors have rushed to join the action fund long positioning has hit record levels lme stocks are sliding and time spreads tightening adding to the volatility mix bulls however should note that there is no shortage of tin in China shanghai futures exchange stocks have risen by 47% so far this year and at 9,800 metric tonses are the highest since September so interesting developments there continuing on Myanmar's Tinrich W state delays mining resumption meeting after earthquake this is Reuters via mining.com myanmar's Tinrich Was state has postponed a meeting to discuss the resumption of mining in the region a regional spokesman confirmed on Thursday the meeting originally called for Tuesday was postponed and no alternative date was set according to a notice dated Monday and confirmed by a WAS state spokesman on Thursday the meeting had raised hopes among traders that an almost 2-year ban on mining in the region could soon be lifted was state produces 70% of Myanmar's tin exports myanmar is the world's third largest producer and China's biggest supplier a tin trader who works for a company that operates in Myanmar speaking on condition of anonymity said it was difficult to predict when operations could resume as the extent to which infrastructure and power plants were damaged was unclear china's imports of tin ore from Myanmar more than haved last year customs data showed increased supply worries as a result of last Friday's earthquake pushed tin prices on the Shanghai futures exchange to $41,000 per metric ton on April 2nd the highest since May 22nd 2022 tin prices on the LME also hit the highest since May 2022 reaching $38,000 a ton continuing on Kazakistan says it has discovered 20 million ton rare earth metals deposit this is Reuters via mining.com kazak geologists have discovered a rare earth metal deposit with estimated resources of more than 20 million metric tonses at a depth of up to 300 meters the country's industry and construction ministry said in a statement on Wednesday kazakhstan does not currently feature in the US Geological Surveys list of countries by rare earth metal deposits if confirmed the deposits would place Kazakhstan behind only China and Brazil by size of reserves in a statement on Telegram the ministry said that the Xanak Kazakhstan site contained neodymium serium lanthanum and itrium and that its average rare earth metal content is 700 g per ton it did not specify which companies may develop the site or when so again so much is dependent on the processing continuing on US produces most uranium since 2018 eia says this is Reuters via mining.com the US produced more uranium concentrate which is used to fuel nuclear reactors in the last 3 months of 2024 than it had in any quarter in the last 6 years the US Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday higher prices of uranium and the resumption of production at the White Mesa Mill in Utah which is the country's only active uranium mills spurred the output increase the EIA said in a report the rise of US electricity demand brought by data centers onshore manufacturing and the electrification of transportation and buildings has renewed interest in power supplied by the country's long-strugging nuclear energy industry companies are now in the process of attempting to restart two fully shut nuclear reactors including one at the former 3M island facility in an effort to kickstart the domestic supply chain for nuclear power the federal government offered contracts to six companies to make uranium fuel late last year continuing on Chile to cut 2025 copper price forecast wall Street Journal reports this is Reuters via Mining.com chile the world's largest producer of copper is preparing to slash its official price estimate for 2025 the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday "The Chilean government will cut the estimated average price to $3.90 to $4 a pound from a current projection for the year of $4.25 a pound," the Wall Street Journal said citing a person familiar with the preliminary calculations and continuing on First Quantum pulls back from arbitration on Panama Copper Mine this is Bloomberg News via Mining.com first Quantum Minerals dropped one of its arbitration cases against Panama and suspended another signaling potential for more negotiations with the nation over the company's copper mine that's been shuttered for more than a year the company said Monday it agreed to discontinue arbitration proceedings with the International Chamber of Commerce that sought compensation for Cobre Panama's closure it also said it had suspended arbitration filed under the Canada Panama Free Trade Agreement the move paves the way for renewed talks with Panama over the future of First Quantum's $10 billion mine the government ordered it to shut in December 2023 amid sweeping anti-mining protests and political upheaval panama's president Jose Ral Molino has repeatedly said his government would only negotiate with First Quantum if they first ended their arbitration proceedings against the country and the company said in a statement quote the company reiterates that it remains committed to dialogue with the government of Panama and to being part of a solution for the country and the Panameanian people those are your news stories now let's take a look at metal prices [Music] and turning to metal prices let's take a quick look at the bond market for context quite an interesting week here for those that were paying attention we saw the US 10-year bond go below 4% before recovering the US 10-year bond is currently yielding 4.14% down only 04% on the week after quite a roller coaster ride there the UK 10-year guilt is yielding 4.65% that is 04% higher than last week the Italy 10-year bond is yielding 3.87% that is up 08% on the week the German 10-year boond is yielding 2.66% that is down 02% on the week and the Japanese 10-year bond yield falling to 1.24% that is down.25% on the week so a little bit of a hint of the action that we saw in the Japanese 10-year bond price but really looking at just the weekly prices one might miss the dramatic action that occurred there in the bond market in the last 7 days turning to precious metals gold is trading at $3,15.70 per ounce that is down $143 on the week and was actually as low as $2,982 on the futures market on CNBC silver is trading at $3010 per ounce that is down $365 on the week platinum is trading at $89820 per ounce that is $112 lower on the week and palladium is lower at $877 even that is $106 lower on the week and turning to industrial metals copper is trading at $426 per pound that is 76 lower than last week ironor is trading at $1264 per metric ton that is 21 cents higher so iron ore edging slightly higher on the week but pretty much even aluminum is trading at $18 per pound that is down 7 on the week lead is trading at 85 per pound that is also down 7 cents on the week nickel is back below $7 at $6.58 per pound that is down 64 on the week and again below $7 tin is trading at $165 per pound that is down 38 on the week and remaining above $16 cobalt is trading at $15.39 per pound that is 4 cents higher on the week and lithium finally breaking $10 on the downside trading at $9.93 per kilogram that is down 27 on the week uranium is trading at $64.90 per pound that is 55 higher than last week and zinc is lower at $1.20 per pound that is 10 cents lower on the week zooming out the volatility and downdraft in markets affecting metals but in a mixed way with some metals being affected more than others you think of nickel and you think of lithium while tin still above $16 you think of cobalt uranium up a little bit and those are your metal prices coming up I'm very pleased to welcome Bill Hightower vice president of US corporate affairs for Pharaoh Globe USA to the Northern Miner podcast for the very first time we discussed Ferro Glob's operations and its mission to provide silicon to the US supply chain as well as Bill's view on tariffs and how that could help domestic production of metal in the United States and also larger geopolitical issues surrounding silicon and its many uses and even a little bit of history so fascinating discussion with Bill High Totower i hope you enjoy it and I will see you on the other side [Music] [Music] join us today i'm very pleased to welcome Bill Hightower vice president of US corporate affairs at Ferro Globe USA to the Northern Miner podcast bill welcome to the show thank you it's a pleasure being with you today it's very interesting and topical to have you here Bill ferro globe my impression and my understanding is it has to do with silicon silicon quartz these are things that are often glazed over or missed when you're at say the big mining conferences could you tell us a little bit about Ferro Globe and really what you guys are working on pleasure to do so great to be with you ferro Globe is the western world's largest producer of silicon and we have a presence in the western market in Europe South Africa South America in the US and Canada the product we make I know a lot of people are thinking about going to buy silicone at Home Depot or Lowe's and maybe uh sealing their windows our product is in that but that's not what we're making we make silicon and silicon is a byproduct of wood chips a carbon product and quartz gravel and we put it in a smelter and out comes molten metallurgical silicon and so that's our role we're the most dominant producer also in the US but Adrian there are only two producers left in the United States and we'll talk more about that but this product is used almost everywhere semiconductors solar cells medical equipment cars aluminum steel you can't make either of those without silicon okay interesting so it is a combination of materials then would you call it an alloy yes it is an alloy and it is not easy to make for instance the Russians have not cracked the code yet on making silicon metal we're very good at it and we've been good at it for decades we're a chief innovator in that area we're constantly looking for new applications and modifying our product in order to meet customers needs china is the most dominant producer of silicon they produce 80% of the world's demand so it really has some interesting geopolitical elements to it and trade is so important of a subject in our markets indeed there's so much to discuss when there was the you know Silicon Valley revolution and the chips i guess it was Intel i'm vaguely familiar with the history how important was Silicon we hear about Silicon Valley can you give us just a little bit of an outline on the history glad to the western world had many more operations producing silicon than they do today and the reason they don't have as many is because of dumping for instance in Europe in the past 5 years metallurgical companies have lost 50% 50-% of market share in Europe due to dumping you know Europe does not have a EU industrial policy each country manages their own industrial policy thank goodness that the United States does have a national industrial policy and we're maturing more and more in our understanding of things for instance the application of critical minerals or critical materials this is really a significant step for industries like our own when you go to a doctor and you have an illness it's after he names the illness that they can begin to treat the problem and what we've done basically in the United States and in Europe and Canada is that they've named silicon as a critical material so the number of producers has declined tremendously however the criticality of it has increased as you mentioned in semiconductors this is a necessary ingredient in semiconductors you can't make them without silicon about silicon metal in particular so we see it as a critical component and we're seeing nations begin to develop policy around critical materials silicon is one of them okay excellent so just to get a sense then of your operation are you basically mining certain aspects of silicon of this alloy are you importing all of them and then just putting it together you know in a sense processing it what is the nature in a sense of your operation at Fereral Globe that's a great question Adrian we're actually miners before we're smelters we mine we have our own mines we have a mine in South Carolina a mine in Alabama and a mine in Kentucky and we do that purposefully because the United States imports over half of its demand for silicon over half you know for instance steel we I believe the numbers are we import 25% of our demand for steel and it's you know how much visibility steel has but silicon and the production we champion the vertical integration of our production process so that we can assure all of our customers that all of the materials that are feeding into the supply chain and you know how important the supply chain discussion has become both at the federal level and industrial level the supply chain is protected it's verifiable it's transparent we don't use forced labor we don't use bad emissions we are responsible sustainably produced silicon producers so it's quite a strategic step for us to have that vertical integration of our supply chain so that we can assure the US producers that if a pandemic occurs the supply won't be interrupted from the dependence on imports if there is military conflict it won't be interrupted either we'll have a domestically sourced supply chain okay excellent and when you say you have mines what are you mining is it quartz or what exactly are you taking out of the ground we're taking quartz gravel the process is really interesting because we go into farmland and we of course pay the owner of the land and oftentimes the land is in awful shape and we basically extract the gravel out of the ground and then put the dirt back the soil and we reconfigure the topology of the ground so that if the farmer wants rolling hills with a lake for his grandkids or his cows we do that if he wants flat land to be able to put crops in we do that so that's our coal mining operation and the land owners love us cuz we put the land back better than it was the other is we have a coal mining capability in Kentucky we use low sulfur blue gym coal in our process and we mine our own and this of course gives us a secure supply chain there are some augmentations to that need for reductant or the coal and that is biocarbon we're using bow wood products and charcoal in our process as well so it it's not just coal but we need that carbon atom to come into the process and that's where we get that okay fascinating and finally just on the nature of the operation are there any supply constraints like when you're looking for say gravel quartz is it hard to find or it sounds like that's something that would be I would imagine fairly common and then maybe the real bottleneck is the processing so to speak would that be accurate the quartz is the key thing Adrian because you've got to have quartz that's pure enough and doesn't have too much iron content because if it has high iron content we can only make ferroilican and ferocyic is a great product because you can't make steel without it so we know it's critical but what we have to do is get quartz that has a low iron content to make the silicon metal which goes into photovotayics semiconductors and aluminum and will soon go into batteries we have yet to touch on the innovative part of our business where we are developing silicon anodess for the new next generation batteries okay excellent and let's start heading in that direction what does silicon do what is the big feature like why do people use it in chips why is it used in batteries does it just conduct very well what is the feature here that it offers yes in batteries silicon is 10 times more efficient than graphite and there's some other things at play because when I say graphite you of course know that about 97% of our graphite in the United States it comes from China and now there are some technologies being developed for synthetic graphite that are very promising but what people don't see is what happens in American industry the ingenuity that our economy has and that is we've just sidestepped the whole issue of graphite and we're going to replace it with silicon we already with our partner Core Shell who is focused on this anotic material have already created a 60 amp hour battery that at almost 500 cycles has shown very little degradation of its ability to hold energy and it has some great advantages too the silicon in the battery with this application of silicon to replace graphite we do a couple of things the battery becomes more efficient we can charge it faster maybe 20% faster it'll hold a charge 30% longer but one of the great things and I've been talking in Washington DC about this is that the battery is lighter so think about all the war fighters out there our military who we're all proud of and all of their equipment can you see them carrying a car battery on their back to run some kind of radio well if we can cut that battery weight in half by the use of silicon we've helped them tremendously we're proud of what is happening in that space and that's one of the innovative areas for silicon now if that demand ramps up we've got a number of major automakers that are partnering with us and core shell in order to make this happen when they adopt this technology it's not going to be a gradual adoption is going to be a hockey stick and demand will increase tremendously but there are so many other applications besides just EVs right and so it sounds like it's pretty useful so in terms of the supply chain then what is the situation say in the United States is it a dire situation you know if a whole bunch of technology shows up can you meet demand uh what is the situation right now the US imports over half of its silicon demand and thankfully we have a tariff on the China product that comes into the US so very little of that comes into the US this goes back to your opening statement about trade and talking about these kind of issues because what's happening is even though China doesn't directly import into the US they are so dominant globally that they take their product and they dump it in Europe or they dump it in another country that has good trade relations with the US so those countries then are forced to dump their product in order to just meet their fixed costs and variable costs so it's really a strategic discussion with the US government that I'm having that just recently President Trump put aluminum and steel on the 232 tariffs because they're so critical to national security national defense well you can't make either aluminum or steel unless you have silicon and so I think this opens up a broader policy discussion about the supply chain for any product when it comes to national security thankfully the US government has begun to identify the silicon supply chain the steel aluminum supply chain other product supply chain and address that they could do it better and we're trying to help them and counseling them on the way forward with that but it's an important discussion for us to have because if those overseas sources are interrupted then you can't make semiconductors you can't make solar cells batteries or body armor our product goes into body armor it goes into ceramics for high heat applications on turbine engines they're just a number of things it touches now you mentioned tariffs so are you able to compete then say pre-tariffs like in a sense my question is how are you still in business with all of this dumping going on are you able to compete on price with these very low prices how is it worked out for you how are you still here as a company well you know I I'm certainly one to invite competition and I think it improves our business processes to have competition but it's unfair competition where countries that are producing this product don't have emission standards in the weaguer region of China where most of the silicon smelters are forced labor by the weaguers these are unfair pricing that these companies want to dump globally we have to be careful to protect our industries so how are we able to compete we're able to compete because we have trade secrets and we are very good at incremental innovation in our processes and taking cost out we've also made it known publicly that we intend to invest in the United States and build more capacity because we see the demand coming and that capacity is going to be the most competitive capacity in the world we're going to apply technologies that have not been seen in the silicon production realm and it's going to be very low cost and we think the market is really promising in the United States but just like steel and aluminum unless we have a tariff regime that protects US industry we won't have the industry we just won't have it but we've got to think strategically in that regard and thankfully I think the US government is trying to deal with that issue through the system of tariffs interesting now one of the big criticisms even from people within the mining industry of the tariffs is these things like an aluminum smelter these things aren't built overnight so you know you can put on a you know 25% tariff but there's probably going to be a few years one could argue before you actually get those new smelters up and running what do you think about that is that inaccurate in your view how do you see that issue this is a great point and uh one we're trying to anticipate because we see the demand for silicon to be increasing tremendously 2030 2032 and so we're already trying to position for that in advance but you really do point out a dilemma they put a tariff on the product where are the US producers going to get their product we can meet the demand right now we have unused capacity we have additional capacity we can start up we also have the ability of switching our furnaces from silicon metal to ferroilicon to manganese alloys so we have a lot of flexibility and we have a global footprint although all of the production that the US ferro globe operation produces here in the US the United States market absorbs every bit of it so we're not exporting from the US but we have additional capacity and can ramp up and these smelters are 247 operations they don't shut down they continuously operate and they're a real important piece to communities around the United States they're located usually in communities that don't have a strong economic background and most of our co-workers are multi-generational co-workers our plant in West Virginia these people I mean it's been there since 1932 it's got a tremendous history four generations at times work at these plants but we can meet the demand of any demand increase that's one of the I guess advantages to our industry at least i know that won't be the same for some right so you don't export outside of country as it stands in the US that's correct okay very interesting and just out of curiosity breaking down how much of a percentage say of your product say goes to chips how much of a percentage goes to I don't know you were saying you know windows you know household or you mentioned ceramics I mean do you have a rough breakdown of say like the most common usages of silicon or is it a more complex question where it's like well we produce this very specific kind of silicon for chips and this other kind of silicon for ceramics for instance yeah broadly it's a third metallurgical or more goes into aluminum and steel production a third goes into chemical and a third goes into all other and chemical would be the semiconductor the polysilicon and such okay very interesting so that's almost surprising i mean you mentioned steel earlier but that is quite a bit that goes into steel and of course steel is a pretty important component so I assume as we start to wrap up here Bill I assume you know you're mentioning Washington like I assume there is a dialogue of some kind that's going on with the government say between you know the company and the government yes a lot of its education you know people just don't realize the number of jobs that we create and how critical our product is of course the Department of Energy has identified silicon metal as a critical material and it's also on the critical minerals list of Canada the EU and Australia but just to step back that I was talking about earlier to mention that Russia sees it as a real critical industry there in 2023 they confiscated a ferroilicum plant that was owned by a oligarch Yuri Antipov and he was making ferocilic and selling it to various countries and I'm sure he enjoyed the margin that came with that but Putin said he was doing something illegally and he came in and confiscated the plant so that it could be fed into the war fighting machinery in Russia for the Ukrainian war so it's an example of how critical it is and that message I think is missed and I want Washington DC to understand that as they develop policy and try to think about how it is we can rebuild US manufacturing we can focus on those things critical not something that's on the fringe but something's right in the core of US manufacturing and US capabilities and maybe we could wrap up on that note of geopolitics i mean what is it that we should know big picture here about silicon and geopolitics maybe we've already discussed it but maybe just kind of frame it for us a little bit what should we know about the geopolitical nature of say silicon well the global industry has changed dramatically we've got hostile nations that don't want to just take market share they want to take us down as a nation and as a western world and I think as we step back and look at it from a high level we can applaud the fact that the DOE the Biden administration the Trump administration have all identified critical elements of our manufacturing supply chain and they are trying to develop policies about them you know this is a bipartisan issue this whole issue about supply chain and US manufacturing when I speak to legislators it doesn't matter whether they're Republican or Democrat they will rally behind the US worker US manufacturing and try to solve this challenge that's being presented to us by these unfairly priced products being dumped in our country and across the world so we think we're making progress in that but it's slow i think when the aluminum and steel industries get that much visibility on the challenges they face I can only believe that upstream the products that go into that will also be considered very very critical which they are and finally is there anything we haven't discussed about say ferog globe and silicon that you think we should mention here well there's only two producers of silicon metal in the United States right now and there's only two producers of ferro silicon in the United States i like to say that with a bit of an alarm because it's a dwindling of this particular core product that goes into so much of American life it goes into lipstick it goes into paint aluminum our tanks our war fighters our semiconductors think of how many chips we right now we're operating on adrian it is a critical element of everyday life and a lot of people don't know it it's like we take it granted when we turn on the water faucet there's just going to be water there and I think we've got to take a a bit of a harder look at those things which are the backbone of US manufacturing and silicon is definitely one of those and I do have one final question Bill what is the biggest challenge that you face at Pharaoh Globe right now it's imports the dumping effect around the world is hurting everybody's market and hurting everybody's ability to make product i can be selfish about that and say it's silicon but I'll tell you it's with steel it's aluminum it's with other products as well 30 years ago we were delighted that we had found a lowerc cost source and we were always looking for the best cost producer now we've discovered there really has to be some fences on that question it's not just any lowcost producer we have to ask how is it being made who is making it what are their intentions toward our country i think those are very important as we move forward to develop American policy regarding mining and production bill High Totower vice president of US corporate affairs at Ferro Globe USA thank you for joining us and sharing everything you're working on at the company and in silicon you're welcome Adrian [Music] thank you once again to the Munich Mining Conference in axionexpert.de for sponsoring this week's episode of the Northern Miner podcast and thank you to Bill High Totower for a fascinating discussion on silicon and everything that Ferro Globe is up to and thank you dear listener for continuing to support this program if you want to help out the podcast please leave us a review in the Apple podcast directory share it with your friends and until next week take care [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]