foreign to CEO insights I'm Marilyn diggersman with investing News Network in this episode I'm speaking with Tim Harrison managing director and CEO of ASX listed ionic rare Earths whose magnet and rare Earth's development projects have been getting some attention lately particularly in the context of emerging Supply chains for the global energy transition hello Tim Hi Marilyn so let's start a conversation with just providing an overview of ionic rare Earths your projects and um you know


just your company's value proposition so ionic railroads is developing both primary and secondary supplies of magnet and heavywear Earths we've got a large ionic absorption clay deposit at makutu in Uganda which is a development ready uh large-scale ironic absorption clay which is a type of mineralization which is prevalent in southeast Southern China and Myanmar and it's those type of assets that produce you know greater than 98 of the world's current supply of of heavy rare Earths so it's a project


that has the capacity to help you know the new economy develop an alternative secure sustainable source of of magnet and heavy railroads and recycling through a UK subsidiary called ionic Technologies which is now producing High Purity separated magnet rare Earths from end of life uh magnets from wind turbines and other applications and so developing that that opportunity in Belfast in the UK right so speaking of you know developing stable um Supply chains geopolitical drivers are pushing the development of new


Supply chains largely due you know to reduce Reliance in China what do you see is your company's role in contributing to this process in securing Supply chains for Western governments well I think um you know producing magnet and heavy railroads from both primary and secondary sources enables us to be an early mover in helping develop the source of material for the downstream supply chain to to mature so providing an alternative source of of magnet railroads initially from our recycling some Siri ionic Technologies which we


can now put in the hands of of supply chain Partners to be converted from the oxides into metals and Alloys which can then be handed across to magnet manufacturers to produce the scented magnets permanent magnets to go into electric vehicles for example and I suppose where we are now recently um you know we've been able to talk publicly about collaboration that we're developing with LCM so less common Metals which is a metal maker in the UK one of only less than less than a handful of metal makers that exist


outside of China being able to now convert that material into a tangible magnet that can be evaluated by um Lev partner in this in this activity being fought um so yeah tremendously exciting we're able to to develop those paths for for Value addition and take the material all the way through to the final component um and then once those relationships have been developed we've got a large ionic absorption clay project which uh been development ready we can bring to production very quickly


um to source that that larger demand that will come once the capacity exists outside of China right and really I guess government support is really key in this whole Endeavor and for your companies from your company's perspective there's been some big news that I've taken place over the past few weeks you know of course two of your subsidian he's getting some very strong public support from government Representatives do you wanna could you talk a bit more about these two uh developments yeah so we've had a


really big month um so I suppose fresh off the off the um off the block is uh you know I've just got back from two weeks in the UK where we were able to announce the collaboration with um less common metals and and Ford in the UK with our recycling uh subsidiary ionic Technologies um that's been funded um by by nature of a couple of grants that we've received from the UK government um we've TR we've received tremendous support from from the UK government and innovate UK so two grants to to help us


develop and demonstrate um Sovereign capability in the UK um and then another Grant to develop the feasibility study and looking at the stocks and flows model across the UK to support a commercial facility in Belfast so tremendous tremendous support um if we look at you know going back to the start of this month we had a conference in Perth Africa Get down under where we we hosted a delegation from the Ugandan government including the minister of energy and mineral development where we received a public


endorsement from the minister stating that uh that she was going to approve our mining license and so we're we're patiently awaiting for the paperwork to follow uh follow through on uh on the on the commitment from the Ugandan government to support the project so let's talk about that for a sec uh the you know the the support from the Ugandan government or your um on your project and Uganda can you talk about more about the developments in that project where it's at right now and um what are the plans moving forward


so um Mercury Rare Earth Project so um we've completed a feasibility study which was required to support the mining license application uh we submitted all the documentation uh finalized that earlier this year we've been waiting for um mining regulations to be approved and gazetted um in Uganda which was completed at the end of uh end of August um so now with all the documents in we're waiting for the award of the mining license um we've got our environmental permits so stakeholder management and engagement


in Uganda has been tremendously strong we've got support from the the government on on the development approach and we're also building a demonstration plant makutu now so in construction with a plan to start producing mixed Rare Earth carbonate later this year that's a mixed Rare Earth carbonate that's 71 magnet plus heavy Rare Earth so it really is it's a market leading product um and because of the nature of that that product a very strong engagement from potential supply chain Partners in


in Europe North America America and Japan and Korea so um everybody a lot of our potential partners are patiently waiting for us to get all of our documentation squared away from the Ugandan government before we can move on with the next phase of supply chain engagement the other aspect of your business is ionic Technologies which is your recycling business can you talk a bit more about what this technology is what it means for your company's business strategy and how the UK is supporting your Belfast facility


so I only technology is important to ionic railroads as an overall strategy is to be able to start to produce High Purity oxides from recycled material now which we can then work with supply chain Partners on demonstrating capacity and capability to to go all the way through to you know centered uh permanent magnets for applications across electric vehicles and and wind turbines for example um so the technology itself is is a step change on a lot of the other Technologies in in the rare earth and


magnet recycling at the moment in that it's able to take magnets of varying quality it processes the material via Hydro metallurgical process to individually separate out the the magnet rare Earths which we can then take all the way to a high Purity oxide and then provide those materials to the metal and alloy makers so that they can start to make the magnets with varying compositions of neodymium price edemium dysprosium and terbium for example to make specific magnets for a multitude of different


applications so a lot of the other Technologies at the moment in the recycling space don't have that ability to produce the high purity products they produce a mixed Rare Earth oxide which has varying compositions from one batch to another batch and therefore a lot of alloy and magnet manufacturers especially those making the scented magnets work will steer away from that material so when we presented our high Purity oxides to to some of our supply chain Partners it's the first recycled material that they


they've been willing to to take and have been a big vote of confidence and endorsement on on the technology and the products that we're able to achieve with the technology from ionic Technologies and then with regards to I suppose the support from the UK government um UK government has has identified that in order for it to to be able to produce the products to to compete and be able to to develop their own Advanced manufacturing uh industries that they have to look at at alternative paths to


to secure this material recycling um of of permanent magnets has been something that's been identified uh through through various uh facilities within the UK government innovate UK which is a a branch of the UK government that has been set up to to help develop these new Supply chains has been a big supporter of the technology that ionic Technologies is developing so the grants that they've they've uh they've awarded ourselves and our partners are all part of a systematic approach to be working


towards a business case and a potential commercialization of the technology in Belfast Belfast is a unique location in that post-brexit it uh it has the ability to participate in both UK markets and the EU so with that dual Market access um access to material from from Great Britain itself but also potentially materials available from the island of Ireland meaning that we have a much wider potential pool of material that we can source and a much wider pool of potential supply chain partners that we


can work with as we develop the the business case and work towards commercialization in Belfast additionally the infrastructure in Belfast is absolutely fantastic given deep water port and very visible um wind turbine deployment and decommissioning that's underway right now so yeah it's a fantastic location for us to be looking at commercializing the tech yeah that's that's an interesting point you know beyond this technology really you know beyond the UK Market have the potential to be rolled out globally


what's your strategy in terms of um is it just uh you know just looking at the EU what's the global strategy for this technology yeah look um we've we've had inbound inquiries from from a lot of uh different corners of the world to be honest um since we announced the the products that we produced uh back in June um so we're evaluating that we are very conscious of our ability to make sure that we can deliver what we've set out to achieve in Belfast but we are and we have identified several potential


jurisdictions globally where we think uh commercialization of of subsequent cookie cutter recycling facilities could be developed over the course of the next few years so uh tremendously exciting for the the Milestones that we've been able to to deliver with ionic Technologies and over the course of the next few years we do anticipate there being more than one recycling facilities under the ionic Technologies Banner with supply chain Partners similar to those that we're working with now so really


strong engagement from yeah potential actually Europe and North America where we do have something that's very different from from current recycling Tech and you know if we look at policy you know the European critical raw material act mandating that you know targets are 15 of these newly dubbed strategic raw materials of which magnet railroads fall within needs to be sourced from recycling by the end of the decade so we do see substantial opportunity for the technology to be deployed in in Europe for example as a


key market right and things seem to be developing rapidly for the company whether you see your company in 12 months time yeah look at 12 months time I anticipate that uh we're we're well on the path to commercializing the tech in in Belfast we anticipate that on the back of one of the grants that we've recently received we'll have a feasibility study completed with a business case and uh and a very good understanding of the potential scale up of what that looks like in Belfast and if we look at makutu itself over the


next 12 months we've got obviously the award of the mining license which I hate to use the word imminent but we do expect it very very shortly we've got a demonstration plant that's in in construction now so later this year we'll be producing mixed Rare Earth carbonates and given where we are as the you know most advanced dinakidz auction clay project in the Western World with product that's not committed to China we do see our ability to commit to some of these new Supply chains being


announced over the course of the next six to 12 months so tremendously exciting for for where we are as a business and and the hard work that's gone into to getting to this point we're all the best to your company or for those you know upcoming developments thanks uh Tim again for joining me today and sharing your insights thanks Marilyn thanks everyone for watching join us again next time for another engaging conversation on CEO insights if you like this video subscribe to our YouTube channel and


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