Transcript of #231 Gerard Barron - CIA Project Azorian & Deep Sea Mining That Could Change the World

Jared Barron. Welcome to the show, man.

Such a privilege to be here. Thank you.

It's a privilege for me. Thank you. Thank you for coming. You first popped up on my radar from mutual friend, Cole Fackler from GBRS. We started to look at India, and been interviewing a couple of different guys that have been mining different areas of the universe, I guess. I haven't talked to anybody doing it under the sea. I thought this would be... I'm just fascinated by innovators and what you guys are doing. I really appreciate you coming.

Well, appreciate the chance to talk 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 and 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... Tonga is a beautiful Pacific Island country, but I should mention Tonga and Nauru, which is also an even smaller country, little island in the Pacific. But look, I'm a pretty frequent traveler, that's for sure. I'm Australian, of course, as you said. But over the last 14 years, I've been working with Pacific Island countries, and they are amazing people. I mean, Tonga is beautiful. Nauru is really special. It's where the birds used to stop when they headed south. No kidding. And so it was discovered about 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 it was discovered back when good old James Cook was sailing the world after he discovered Australia, and he called it Pleasant Island. Then everyone came and took all of their beautiful phosphate, which was used to feed the world. 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?

Where's the favorite place? Where is your favorite place that you've been?

That's easy. Australia.

Australia?

I'm I'm a very proud Australian. Very proud Australian. Although, Erica, my partner, said, Why don't we get our 23 in Mead on our DNA? I was like, Yeah, I'd be interested in that. Came back 100% Irish.

No kidding? 100%?

Yeah.

Right on, man.

Right on. My ancestors were well-behaved. Kept it in the family anyway. Perfect. Many generations in Australia.

Perfect. Well, we got a couple of things to get through before we get into the interview. So one thing, first thing is I got a Patreon account. And Patreon is a community we built. They've been here with us since the beginning. When I started Best Damn Thing in My Attic. Now, 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. This is from Eric Alger. Jared, most people see you today as the frontman 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? I was building my own company at the time, but I was like, Yeah, of course. Well, Well, because I thought it was such an obvious idea, and they were focused on a different type of metals. They were focused on sea floor massive 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 2007-2008, pretty all the same time my friend left the company. But I never worked for it. But I was very helpful in attracting other capital.

And then the big guys came in. We raised four or $500 million. 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 York, 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 in 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, we're 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 It was really called administration, a reorganization. No one came forward, so they bought it and privatized it. 2018, 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 upgrade, rich in copper and gold.

Whereas we've got 2 billion tons of these rocks, like the one in my hands, defined resource of 1. 6 billion, but we think about another 4-5 hundred million tons. Of these rocks on our resource. So very different scale and also a different time. The geopolitics weren't as lively back then as they are now. But I think that project will get into production. The people that I privatized it are continuing to push forward, and I think it will be a success. But these projects are tough. Getting a new industry started is tough. We started this company in 2011. My biggest gift from Nautilus was, made some good money out of it, but it taught me about polymetallic nodules. So in 2011, we started this one, and here we are, 2025. We're what I believe to be the final stretch before the industry becomes big and commercial. So that's a very long answer to Eric's question.

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 Pamalaki eat of these? Because he seemed to be chewing a lot that day. He loves them.

Yeah? He loves them. I can't remember how many bags, but it was a handful. 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. We had them made about 5 million years old, this one. We had them made by an artist in Detroit. This one is particularly oxidized, turned a bit gold. 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. 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.

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.

But that's awesome. Yeah.

Thank you.

I've got to give a shout out to my buddy, Andre, who's one of my partners on this project. He would love this room. He would love this room. Everything about it.

Well, maybe I'll show him one day. 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. 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. It sounds awesome. I can't wait to dive into it. But like I said, it's interesting. I've had 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. It's going to be fascinating. But what got you interested in metals, in nodules?

Well, I grew up on 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. I've been building companies my entire life, so I'm naturally drawn to things that are a little bit unique. I've been lucky to build some great companies and grow them globally. Then, as I mentioned, I invested in 2001 in another project, Nautilus. 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. 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'd go to BHP or Freeport to go and find one of But actually, when I started to dive into 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 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. We get a few diamonds, but 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 manganese sit in the form of these polymetallic nodules. They literally just sit on the sea floor like the one in my hand. It's only a matter of time that we got around to it. There was a false start back in the '70s. 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. That it was a great cover story. The Russian submarine, which had nuclear warheads on at the K-129, sank in the Pacific. It had set sail from a Russian port. The Americans were, this is dating back to 1968, the Americans had already implanted listing devices on the sea floor around the Pacific, so they could detect nuclear explosion and other activities. 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. 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. 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? 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. 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 the sunken Russian submarine. 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. They reached out to Howard Hughes, and he said, Yeah, of course, no problem. The CIA funded it all. There were other companies involved. The Glomar Explorer became the first deep sea exploration vessel and mining vessel. That attracted other people into the industry because, of course, no one else knew about this. Then you had other consortia formed, 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 owns the ocean? We should all agree this set of rules. 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 sort here went. And so the mining companies involved then got busy looking for more minerals on land. But when you see this deposit, they estimate there are more than 20 billion tons of these. More than 20 billion tons. As I said, We have an estimated 2 billion tons on our license area. 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 it's been a pretty exciting year for us, last 12 months, at least, because we've pivoted our business away from this international organization to now focus entirely on permitting this resource through the US administration. And that really became possible with the election of President Trump.

That's good to hear. 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 sailable 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 sailable product. That in itself is almost very unique to this resource, because on land, you go looking for a copper deposit. Last year, the average rate of copper mined 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 it and cart it 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 shore, process them, and we turn it all into salable material. So it's 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 US is because President Trump and his administration made reindustrialization a priority because for decades, America has outsourcing mining and processing and refining to other parts of the world, particularly China. 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. It was a foolish playbook in hindsight, but it was hard and heavy industry The world wanted to be involved in cool new industries. But when it comes down to it, if it ain't grown, it's mined. And so you can't just dream up a land-based mine. 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 anything other than pristine, beautiful rainforest, which are filled with indigenous people in some cases, certainly filled with an enormous amount of biodiversity and biomass, filled with cute cuddly animals.

And led by China, it's just bulldozing it out of the way. And that's the beginning of the impacts because to process that material comes with a host of impacts. The waste material gets spilt into rivers and oceans and kills off the local industry, the fishing industries. For your listeners, just punch into your favorite search engine, rainforest nickel. I've had the first-hand experience of witnessing in one particular region. It was in Indonesia, actually, where 10 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. 70,000 people.

70,000 people.

That's a lot of people. It was all 100% done by China. When China sets its mind on things, they become very, very impactful and successful. And in this case, that's what they've done. I know we're going to talk about it today, but this industry almost went that way as well. It was 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 metals.

This episode is brought to you by Prizepicks. You and I make decisions every day, but on prizepicks, being right can get you paid. Don't miss any of the excitement this season on prizepicks, where it's good to be right. Prizepicks is the best way to win cash this football season. Make your pics in less than 60 seconds, and you could turn your takes into cash all season long on prizepicks. Prizepicks is also the best way to get action on sports in more than 40 plus states, including California, Texas, and Georgia. Prizepicks puts their users first, so all withdrawals are fast, safe, and secure. They offer Venmo, Apple Pay, MasterCard, and more for quick and easy deposits into your account. Join millions of users and sign up today. Download the app today and use code SRS to get $50 in bonus credit in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That's code SRS to get $50 bonus credit in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. Prizepicks. It's good to be right. Must be present in certain states. Visit prizepicks. Com for restrictions and details. I would do anything to protect my family. But there's always that one worry in the back of my head.

If I have to use my firearms in self-defense, who's got my back? The truth is, the justice system isn't always just. I've uncovered story after story of corruption. Good Americans who did the right thing, defended their families, and yet still had their lives turned upside down. And that's why I joined USA USCPA, the US Concealed Carry Association. They've helped thousands of responsible gun owners with legal preparedness, training, and support before and after a self-defense incident. If you've watched my channel long enough, you know I've always said preparedness is more than just training in gear. It's a mindset. Because crime is on the rise in America, which we can all see, you'll need more than just a gun to protect yourself. You'll need a plan. Go to uscca. Com/srs right now to learn more. That's uscca. Com/srs, and see how a membership can give you and your family that peace of mind you've been looking for before, during, and after a self-defense situation. Once again, that's uscca. Com/srs. Do it. Whether you're juggling tasks or trying to stay clear-headed throughout the day, Ketone IQ delivers clean brain fuel that can help you think sharper, longer, and smoother.

No caffeine, no crash, no over-stimulation. Thanks to the folks at HVMN for sending me their Ketone IQ product to try. I really like taking Ketone IQ before I work out. It's not an energy drink, but it gives me a ton of energy. I wish I had this when I was on active duty. When I take it, I have more endurance, but without the crash. Ketone IQ uses Ketone Dial for a fast-acting, natural slow-release effect with no artificial sweeteners or fillers. It helps support high-focus tasks by directly powering neurons and stabilizing cognitive output and it's military-tested. Originally developed to support elite cognitive performance in the field. Hvmn has an amazing offer just for my listeners. Visit ketone. Com/srs for 30% off your subscription order, plus receive a free gift with your second shipment. Fun surprises like a free six-pack, Ketone IQ merch, and more. These statements and products have not been evaluated by the FDA. Today, these products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or condition. Is this a US-based company?

We started the company in Canada, but we set up a US subsidiary in 2013, and it's our US subsidiary that is applying for the permit. Yeah.

Got you. And you said 50% of our revenue comes from nickel?

Yeah.

Is that US revenue?

Well, at the moment, we haven't generated our first revenue. 2027 is when we're aiming for first production. But if you look at the metals in here, we've got nickel and copper and cobalt 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. 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 alloy. You need it for making military And then cobalt 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. It used to be full of cobalt. They 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 if you want to look at, over the last, since 2002, about 23 20,000 companies have evaporated who were involved in heavy industry.

20,000.

20,000?

20,000. Wow. 20,000. Millions of jobs have disappeared. And it's all because of outsourcing to developing countries. China is saying, We can do it. And of course, I know that the current administration are very focused on Looking at dumping and have these materials been coming back into the country at cheaper prices. 2. 32 reviews are underway, I understand, because it's another way 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 prices to be 50% higher than where they are to even break even. Interesting. We don't have that problem because we're so high-grade. I mentioned before last year, the average grade of copper was 0. 6 of 1%. So this is filled with nickel, copper, cobalt, manganese. But if you were to put all of those other metals into copper equivalent, just for value perspective, we're more than seven % copper equivalent. An order of magnitude richer material. And that obviously has a big impact on the economics. And so we can withstand dumping from certain markets, like China.

So we're not mining any nickel here in the US?

No, there are some that are-They've shut down because the company is not making enough money. No, that's right. Over the last five years, you've seen some of the biggest nickel miners, BHP, Vallet, slow down or shut their operations, put them on care and maintenance, hoping for a recovery in the price. But But there doesn't seem to be any recovery in the price available in the next few years. At the moment, if you've got 70% market share, which is probably what China has when it comes to nickel.

70 %? 70, yeah.

Why not go for 100? Keep the price down there. Go for 100, and then you can put the price to whatever you want.

That's true. Man, China This has got us at so many different angles, the whole world, it seems like.

That's because they're really smart. You mentioned Eric before, Bethel. He's one of the guys that gets it because he's lived there. He's lived the experience. I've lived the experience as well. I've admired their approach. I was one of the companies I grew was making batteries in China. Back when they started to invite foreign investment in the early '90s, there were starter batteries, not so much they weren't EV batteries. I watched Padong come out of the ground, there were hundreds of cranes building at the same time. I remember I used to take people with me on trips to say, You've got to come and see this. You will not believe it. 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. 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. They own, practically, our whole damn supply chain. I mean, is Australia, are they concerned about all the stuff that China's involved in and doing and innovating?

Yeah, and I think the Scott Morris, 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 fresh livestock. It didn't impact it. They just bought it somewhere else, and so we supplied them. I think 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 Any 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 is It's lost its way a little bit, in my personal opinion. I think that people want to follow Voters want to follow someone, a leader. 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've got eight out of every 10 new jobs created in the last four years are in the government.

Are you serious? Eight out of 10? Holy shit. Yeah. Wow.

And you can see a theme repeating. And I think that one of the challenges is these economies go on until they bust, right? I see it in the UK now as well. Eventually, whether it's immigration or whether it's government spending, eventually, the books don't balance. And eventually, the press coming out of the UK at the moment is horrible. 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. I I think it's coming back a little bit. At least people feel safer, partly because of platforms like your own. Being canceled by the media now doesn't matter. It's like, whatever. It's like there are better avenues to express views safely.

Yeah, I think mainstream media is going to the wayside, like we were talking earlier. The average viewer of mainstream media right now is about 69 years old. It will die 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. Maybe more now.

Yeah, look, I think not before time. 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 Clariant Clipidon zone. And it was discovered way back in the 1870s by the British, who sailed around the world on HMS 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. 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 a millennia, they eroded into the Pacific Ocean. And so you had these currents that came from the north and south, headed west. And that's where you had this belt of nodules. It's amazing. It's about a thousand 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, 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. Well, actually, how much of the ocean floor have you explored for other deposits of nodules?

We haven't, to be honest. But there are other people exploring, including NOAH, the US agency. They go out and Bowen, 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. But this is so big, like it's multi-generational deposit. 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. Before I mentioned where these tectonic plates meet, 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 up from the core of the Earth. That's where a lot of these deposits have formed, and the systems die, so they're very Some of the systems are still active. They're still emitting gasses, so they're easier to find. They're like chimneys underwater. They're fascinating. But some of them have been dead for, 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. Tonga is an interesting example there because they They have a lot of volcanogenic activity around where they are. You saw that massive underwater volcano exploded some years ago. Look, some of these Pacific Island countries, in particular, have a lot of metals in their, potential metals in their economic zones. So there will be opportunities there as well. I think what the world is waiting to see is us to get started, and then I think there'll be a massive rush.

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, since 2011, we've spent, I don't 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 rainforest, 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. If you look on our website at metals. Co, you'll see lots of video of us doing trials down there. There are no plants down there, of course, because we're talking more than 4,000 meters deep.

And the amount of life living down there is grams per square meter. Most of it are 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. It's the perfect thing. Yet we also have people who wish we wouldn't do it.

There's pushback. First of all, I love what you're doing. You're doing it cheaper, and it's net positive for the Earth, right? Because the mining is, hopefully, going into the ocean where there's not much life. But when it comes to the rainforest and some of the stuff that we see, I've seen documentary after documentary about what we're doing there. It goes through my head when I see those things. Are Are we destroying more resources than we're even gaining? And all the undiscovered life, organisms, microorganisms, timber, trees clean the air. It didn't bother me early on in life because I didn't realize. But now when I see it, I'm like, Man, look at all the landfills and shit. I just watched one about Amazon and all the destruction that that company is doing to the Earth. And they try to put this façade on that we're saving the Earth. And it's like, no, you're not, man. You've created more waste through Amazon than arguably anything that's ever existed. And so I love that about your company. Is that an early on ethos or is that a byproduct that came out of it?

Yeah, totally. I I've always deemed myself an environmentalist, and I often get criticized for the fact that by the NGO community or activists who don't want to see any progress saying, You've just switched from talking about environment to now talking about geopolitics and critical supply chains. It's like, Well, if you go back to my presentation deck a decade ago, you'll find security of supply was always highlighted as one of the critical issues. But at the end of the day, geopolitics are pretty important because we've got trading partners who've said they'll turn off supply if they choose to. That tells you you've got to make some changes in that supply chain. But if we just maybe take a journey down that path, because circularity is something we should aspire to. At the metals company, we do aspire to it. 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? When I say lowest impact, I mean less destruction of biomass ecosystem, less impact on biodiversity, less CO₂ emissions, less impact on freshwater ecosystems, and the list goes on.

We've spent so much money, like hundreds of millions of dollars on that whole basket of studies. 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 This is the way to go. But eventually, the world has to get more focused on recycling, and they will. When I say we need to aspire to circularity, In the future, I hope we won't be picking up these rocks. In 100 years time, we should be making sure that we're 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. At the end of life, you've got a responsibility. You can't just put them in the waste pile. You've got to hand them back somewhere. Instead of us just treating fresh nodules, we'll treat recycled material, black mass as well.

Eventually, recycling The lack of material will have a growing share. But at the moment, there are not enough metals in the system to meet the needs. We need to find a fresh input of billions of tons until we build that deserve because there are just not enough metals coming back in to be recycled. 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 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. We'll be in the business of purely recycling the metals that we 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. 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. I think that that's where people don't give enough attention to where the materials are coming from for the electric car battery that you're using or your iPhone battery or just generally stuff. If it ain't grown, it's mined. It's that simple. Of course, we've been talking in the recent years all about AI and bits. It's the bit economy. But actually, it's time for atoms because reindustrialization is going to depend on the atoms that are contained in here, the real-world infrastructure. So I think that's where 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 despite the fact that we've spent hundreds of millions of dollars on scientific research, they criticized 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 the best universities and organizations to carry out this research. The Natural History Museum, Texas AM, Florida University. There's 20 of the world's leading institutions who have subject matter expertise when it comes to ocean research. 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. 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 because they don't want to see the results. The results are very inconvenient to their argument.

We've seen time and time again that these groups, that they don't want to see growth. I think the first one that comes to mind is US energy sector. We've really kneecapped ourselves, especially when it comes to comparison of China. They're building a new coal plant every other damn day, and they're way ahead on nuclear, it seems to be. And we don't mine our own gas, not nearly enough. And And can't go nuclear, the cleanest form of energy in the world, according to the folks that I've interviewed on the subject.

I agree.

And 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. 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. 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 actual production of all of the panels and stuff that comes from China That's not independence. You talk about independence from China when it comes to the metals. I do have a question in regards to the US. 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. We are relying on the Middle East for that. We just talked about renewables. We talked about nuclear. I mean, does the US have the stomach to become independent 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. It's really when you think about it in that aspect and how far we are behind on energy, our supply chain, all these things, and beholden to China. Do you see the change? 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. And get this, some are bypassing the traditional markets and buying gold directly from miners in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. That means no US dollars, just straight physical gold. The shift isn't just It could be symbolic. It could be strategic. They could be looking to bypass Western financial systems. So if central banks are scrambling to reduce their dollar exposure and hold more physical gold, should you do the same? That's where the award-winning precious metals company Gold Co comes in. Right now, you can get a free 2025 gold and Silver Kit and learn more about how gold and silver can help you protect your savings. And all you have to do is visit shonlikesgold.

Com. Plus, if you qualify, you could get up to 10% back in bonus silver just for getting started. Go to shonlikesgold. Com. That's shonlikesgold. Com. Performance may You should always consult with your financial and tax professional. Is it going to happen? 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. This is a bipartisan issue Critical mineral supply chain is a bipartisan issue. But not many people have the stomach or the counas to be able to see it through. 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. 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 beating 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.

The thing I see, Sean, is the political appointees, they're really top-schelf people. 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. There's one guy who's the critical minerals are. 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. He's at the top of his game. That's what I noticed with the political appointees that we're dealing with. The same with Noah. The people we're dealing with have conviction, and they are super talented. I think that that is going to create that momentum, and we're confident that we'll be in production during the '47 administration. We're also confident that we will make it a bipartisan issue because 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. You would think the other side of politics wanted even more. But I think this administration will get that ball rolling, and I think it won'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, AI is going to cost jobs. It's hard to... I see the optimist talking about how, That's going to work out fine. I'm not sure about that.

I think a lot of people are worried about AI taking their jobs. It's already started. It's already started in just about every sector. Other than manual labor. Let's talk about how this actually works. What does it take to mine minerals at the bottom of the ocean 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. Exploration is pretty easy. So we send a robot down. So we build this beautiful robot. In fact, our partner, All Sees, had built it for us. All Sees are one of our biggest investors. 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 Hermer. 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 drill ship, which we bought for... Well, ALSEY's It was a little bit cheap. I don't know if you've 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 connected It with a big riser, it's called. I think of it as a big straw, which is the vertical transport system.

And so basically, the robot craws along and fires a jet of water at these nodules. So 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 6 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 fluency. Then you add more fluency. 90 tons? Yeah. Boiant? Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. In fact, funny story. Another contractor was out there doing some trials. They, too, had a collector, but they weren't doing... In 2022, we ran a full collector, full end-to-end production system. But they were just testing I've seen 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. I mean, shit happens, right? I mean, it shouldn't. But they were able to retrieve it, and it was fine because it just floats down and landed. It was like, Okay, I'm here now. They checked it over and put it back down, and it went working. Anyway, back to my story. We put a robot down there. Our production one will be wider, more like 15 meters wide, maybe even wider. It craws along like snow track tires.

Back in the 1970s, when they ran these collector trials, so it's all pretty cool. But then 1979, they actually launched a machine 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 Archimedeus a screwdriver system to propel it forward. And they made a big imprint in the ocean floor, about 80 centimeters. But whereas ALS makes about a 2-centimeter imprint, just literally glides on the ocean floor. So we fire a jet of water, separate it out, pump it up. And eventually, I anticipate we'll have a lot of production vessels out there. We then offload them. 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 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. What's interesting is this thing weighs It looks like it would be heavy. It weighs almost nothing.

Yeah.

How much of this is metals?

About 33% of it is metal. It's got a specific gravity It's a variety of about 1. 9. So I know 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 broken shell. How 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 digging-wise to get to them. They just go in the hopper, they get sucked up to the mothership, and it bring it over for processing.

That's right.

How many of those... Can you give me a snapshot of how much of those 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.

With this international treaty and everybody has access to the ocean. And you found the mother load of these things, or back in, I think you said 1870?

Yeah, the British found them in 1870.

The British found them in 1870. I mean, Will we start to see, is this gains traction? When 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 everybody be vacuuming these things up off the ocean floor in the exact same spot? Will it become crowded? I mean, how do you... Is there any possibility that you will secure 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 Unclost, the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea. And it basically said 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 Unclosse 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 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 even like multilateral organizations. 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 NGOs, and it's played right into China's hand.

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, UK is still that, Australia is still that, US 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. 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, you might not have a majority. And so what the Green Party started to do was 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 reindustrialize. 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. Eighteen 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. It was like, How about I give you ocean metals? It's literally like that. I've seen firsthand how they've worked with corporations. Wwf did the same to Mersk. Mersk were one of our shareholders. They were one of our early supporters. Great company, one of the great shipping companies of the world. 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.

I had a friend sat in the room with them. They are bullies, these NGOs. They are absolute bullies. That's how they overtook some of these countries. These countries, like Germany is another great example. Germany used to be an industrial behemoth. Now, they're deindustrialization because of energy energy policy and other things. 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. We were driving the industry forward. China, despite the fact that they want to dominate this, because 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 5-7 years.

That's good to hear.

It's good to hear. It was going pretty well for them because the NGOs were influencing the countries who were influencing the countries, who are influencing the international seabed authority, adopting the final rules. Without those final rules, it's very hard for me to get started. 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. But for me, I depend on shareholder support. 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. The team that we've had together over the last many years would have had to go. But when things get so bad, they've got to 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 There's been some allegations 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 So getting agreement when the NGOs are there, chipping away, trying to slow progress or stop the industry, that's their plan. We knew what the strategy of the NGO, the activists was, their strategy was to bleed the metals company dry, to just slow things down, to let us run out of money.

We were lucky to have amazingly supportive shareholders. I mentioned Andre before and All Sees 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. We knew there was a legal pathway to launch the application through the United States because they had the rules in place. This is a very long, winding answer to your question about who's going to dominate it, because now, of course, that international body, including China, had been very critical of us and of the United States of America for operating outside of the system. But America 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 metals. You, 169 countries, all agreed to be bound by those set of rules that you can't even agree on. 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. 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. So 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. A lot of people think home security is just an alarm after a break-in. But by then, it's too late. Your sense of safety is already gone. Real Security stops crime before it starts. That's why I trust Simply Safe. Their system is proactive, not reactive. I've used Simply Safe for years, and what I love is how easy their devices are to set up and use. I installed everything myself, and they cover it all: break-ins, smoke, water, even temperature monitoring. Simply Safe is getting even more advanced with smart AI-powered cameras to help identify threats outside your home and immediately alert SimpliSafe's professional monitoring agents that can intervene in real-time before the break-in even begins. And access audio to confront the person, trigger sirens and spotlights to scare them off, and request police dispatch when needed, all helping to stop the intruder while they're still outside. Join me in more than 4 million Americans who trust Simply Safe with their home security every day. And with a 60-day money-back guarantee and no long-term contracts, Simply Safe earns your business by keeping you safe and satisfied every day.

Visit simply simplisafed. Com/srs to claim 50% off a new system. That's simplisafed. Com/srs. There's no safe like Simply Safe. Do you ever want to just turn off the news and ignore politics? I know I do. It can be overwhelming at times, but we're citizens of a Republic, and it's important to me to know and understand the United States Constitution. That's why I'm so excited that Hillsdale College is offering a brand new free online course called The Federalist. The Federalist papers were authored by founding fathers Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, and they shaped the foundation of American democracy. They show how the Constitution created a government strong enough to protect our rights and restrained enough to prevent tyranny. I learned how checks and balances still safeguard our freedom today. The Federalist includes 10 lectures, each about 30 minutes long. There's no cost to sign up. Plus, Hillsdale offers more than 40 other online courses, and they're all free. Go right now to hillsdale. Edu/srs to enroll. There's no cost, and it's easy to get started. That's hillsdale. Edu/srs to enroll for free. Hillsdale. Edu/srs. The most important action you can take today is to help protect your family's future from cyber criminals and online predators.

And Bunker, that's B-U-N-K-R, can help you do just that. Bunker was developed by experts with 25 years of experience catching criminals and fighting cyber crime. They created Bunker to help protect their own families, and now they're sharing it with you. Bunker even offers a family plan. With the family plan, you get a private messenger to share messages, photos, and files with your spouse and children, connecting only with people you approve. No spam, no surveillance, no impostors, ever. You also get a password manager to help safeguard your family's online accounts, including financial, shopping, streaming, and social media. You even get a vault to help securely store important documents like photos, IDs, birth certificates, and passports. Visit their website, bunker. Life/srs, and use code srs for 25% off your family plan today. That's B-U-N-P-R. Bunkr. Life/srs, and use code srs for 25% off your family plan today. That's bunkr. Life/srs, and use code srs for 25% off your family plan today. All right, Jared, we're back from the break, and we want to get into some national security stuff and the implications of this and what it would do for national security. I know we covered some of it, but I just wanted to revisit that.

I'm You're big on national defense and something I talk about a lot here, so I'd like to just go into more detail on that. How is this going to help our US's national defense?

Well, as I mentioned, 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 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 this was before some of the greener pollution controlling controls It 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. I think it was a great initiative that the President wants to bring back ship building. If you think about what turned the Second World War, it was America's Navy at the end of the day, and they were able to build ships efficiently. Now, ships don't get built in America. They're built in other parts of the world. I think national defense and national security is a... It's a very complex, intertwined network of you've got to have desire, You've got to have really strong partners.

It so happens that because China dominates the... If they don't dominate mining, they certainly dominate all of the processing and refining. It means that I I'll give you that example of one town we visited where China went from zero to 70,000 people in less than a decade. They control 70% of the nickel market. And they are doing... They play the long game. 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. 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. You asked before, does America have the will and endeavor to fix this? 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. 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 US government to encourage it as well. 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. 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. I think giving people purpose is another benefit that's going to come out of this.

Well, it was interesting. A couple of things, there are jobs I want to talk about, but you had mentioned the ship building that used to take place in this country. A A lot of things seem to be coming back with this administration. In fact, are you familiar with the company Saronic? Yes. Dino Mavruchis, he's doing the autonomous surface warfare vehicles. I mean, that guy It's awesome what he's doing. I don't remember the exact stats, but I remember him telling me that China had over 50% of the global ship building capacity, and that the US had less than 1% of ship building capacity of the world. And he's trying to change that, and he's making these Boats that they're... I mean, he's going to pump them out at record pace. And so I'm sure your metals company is going to be able to enable them to make them even cheaper than what they already are doing. And hopefully, we can get back to be in some type of naval superpower with many boats, not just 0. 1 % or whatever it is, 0. 0, 0. 5 %. It was less than 1 % of the US ship building 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. We do have a lot of rare earths in here as well. We don't recover them in our first plant, 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. So yes is the answer. I just want to go back to that ship building because one of the exciting things about some of these industries is that When China started taking these industries away from the US and other countries, they had a big workforce. Farmers were becoming non-farmers or peasants were looking for other industry jobs to move into. 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. If you look at what Hanwha and Hyundai and The other Korean shipbuilders have done is they bought a lot of automation into those industries. And the same is going to be on metal processing. 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 also, it means that you can compete because you're not having to compete with 100,000 almost free labor force. You're actually competing 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 pecan 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 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 is very smart at. They're like, 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 I know that a year ago, careers inc would not have contemplated building here in the USA. But now, along with us, they are very keen to bring their expertise EATs and turn it into jobs on the ground and local supply chain. 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 ancillary industries. My standard presentation, there's 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 at the moment, if they truly do impose some penalty over importers, and it's not just China, there'll be other players as well, dumping material into the US, then if that can all be sorted out, then you're going to see a very, very vibrant industrial reindustrialization go on here. I think everyone wants to trade with the USA. 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.

It's a massive turn around, and that's going to lead to tremendous GDP growth. It's going to lead to new companies being formed, new jobs being formed, new industries to support those industries. It's a massive knock-on impact. But it's only possible if you've got the cohunas to say, This is how we've got to turn this around. We've got to get things back on a level playing ground. I got to tell you, when President Trump started talking tariffs, it was like, It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out. But I got to say, it's working 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 companies do you envision popping up around this?

It's not just what companies, but it's the efficiencies of redesigning new industrial process. If we think about manganese, for example, 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, Energy, which is ironic, right? Energy is the cornerstone of a healthy industrializing economy. You need energy. And of course, that's why parts of Europe are deindustrializing 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 furnace has got 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 catheter. 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 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 import the iron ore, we import the nickel, and we import manganese. All of a sudden, there is a pathway to be able to generate that, the material that goes into the stainless steel and the steel-making industry.

It's like all of these Things are very interconnected. Then when it comes to nickel, I mean, firstly, it's a superalloy, so you need it in these beautiful planes that we see the US Air Force flying around. Nickel is a vital ingredient, as is cobalt in those structures. But there's a lot of simpler industries as well, whether it's energy-related businesses, solar. In fact, I have a page on one of my presentations. There's literally a thousand industries.

A thousand industries?

A thousand that depend on nickel, cobalt, manganese, or copper as an important import. And I think, because at the end of the day, one of the great things we've learned from people like Elon Musk is how to get in and drive cost out of processes. He'll look at things and go, Well, the bill of material says $100. Why am I paying $5,000 for this? 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 He's a great manufacturing genius. I think we receive inspiration out of that as well. I think there are many, many efficiencies that when you start focusing on in reindustrialization, the fact that We exported it all. As I mentioned before, more than 20,000 companies have disappeared, more than two and a half 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. 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 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. I think that's the exciting part for the American economy. 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. For example, I mentioned a company, All Sees, who have worked with us on the offshore. And All Sees 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 a magic to see. They built the world's biggest production vessel. They built 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 built a boat that allows you to cut the legs off, lift it, bring it back to shore, and then do all of that decent deassembling 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 Career Zinc.

Career 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. They bring a lot of strategic importance as well, but they can help us build much, much faster. The Trump administration are very committed to taking away the permitting challenges, I think, for construction and approval. I think that's where the red tape has really slowed things down. So there's been desire, but there's been so many people who need to stamp the page. And I think there are tremendous efficiency. Palantier, of course, have really helped perfect that as well. We're talking to those guys about how they could help us streamline that whole permitting process. And 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 2027. We've already got our first boat, so that's good. I think it's probably a four-year window to put processing and refining infrastructure on the ground here in the United States.

So 2031, you think?

I hope sooner than that. I hope sooner than that.

When you say 2027 would be the first actual successful mining operation. 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 All Sees. We're mapping out how do they build more scale. I held a strategy day in New York on August 4, and we had the owner of all seas, Edward Haram are there. We asked the question, What's the appetite? Do you want to have a fleet of these boats out there? He's like, Yes, we want a fleet of these boats. That's what we want as well.

We love to hear that. Yeah. We love to hear that. Yeah.

You get the first one done. The strategy we've adopted at the Metals Company is we don't want to be the boat owner. There are people who are They're really good at owning boats, 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. 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 filled, 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. 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, Jared, we're wrapping up the interview. My final question is, I bring a lot of innovators in here, and there's some amazing companies that are coming to fruition right now in the US, 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. There's been some dark days, but the days have been a whole lot brighter since November 6, put it that way. But look, we Look, I think it's an amazing place to invest your money. It's an amazing company. At the beginning of a new industry, we've got a really loyal group of shareholders. 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 we're going to perform a very important part in reindustrialization, 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.

Yeah, thanks, Sean. Thank you.

Cheers.