Funding American Projects Panel

0:03 Very quickly, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending on where in the world you're signing in from. I know we're expecting a couple hundred people today, so I appreciate everybody joining us for a pretty interesting discussion. We want to talk about how projects actually get funded in the United States right now, which things are attracting money, and who's getting it, and how they're getting it. So I think we've got some great speakers today to join us. It's JT Starzycki, the chairman of Guardian Metal Resources, Barry O'Shea, the CEO of Highland Copper, and a special guest, who will likely be joining us relatively shortly as well. But I'd love to get started anyway. I'm just going to do some housekeeping really quick first. There's a chat button at the bottom of the screen. You can press it anytime to add questions for today's event. I'll try to get to as many as I can. I've obviously got some questions to get these gentlemen and our other guests started, but I would love to include your questions as well, so please enter them into the chat at any point during today's event. If I don't get to them, I'll make sure that they're sent to the correct speaker afterwards.

1:00 I'll also say this is being recorded and will be available for replay quite early as we're getting started quite early today. So you probably have it in your inbox around 11 a.m. Eastern Time. It'll be up on our YouTube channel at the same time. So thank you for joining us. I'll say there will be some forward looking statements during today's event. So be aware of that as an investor. But enough boring stuff. I want to get right into the big picture. So I know Washington obviously has been talking a lot about critical minerals, domestic supply chains over the last couple of years. I feel like it's more and more every month actually that keeps coming up. So JT Berry, and JT I'll start with you. Premier Seeds is guys actually building real projects in the U.S. With near-term production. You're the right people to talk to, I think, about this. How much of that talk has translated into real, tangible funding pathways that didn't exist a few years go?

1:47 Great question. We get we get asked it, you know, pretty continuously. And I would say I would actually offer a couple of different pathways that the administration is is walking the walk and talking the talk. Certainly from a funding perspective, there are a lot of pools of capital that are out there. And I would offer that what I've seen in DC over the last few months is now the government and the various departments have staffed up and put the right personnel in place to actually start to wade through these applications. Not surprising if you are a mining venture in the United States and you have a perspective critical mineral or you have a project that has a critical mineral on your docket, you are putting your hand up right now. So part of what the government illustrated and articulated to companies like us, certainly the end of last year was we just, we didn't realize the demand was going to be like this.

2:52 We've actually had to go out and we've had to staff up and bring in, I know 1 group out of the Department of Defense under that group has got 181 openings that they're hiring for. And it's all specifically to go through applications,

3:08 qualify projects, get through the technical components. And so one of the trends that I've really liked seeing in that evolution is now they've got the personnel in place to start to take a look at all of these projects and start to rank order them, you know, and whatever their criteria is, their criteria, whether it's proximity to production, capital cost, the strategic value of the mineral, which does evolve, you know, quarter to quarter, year to year. So definitely, I would say that we've seen now the infrastructure be put in place to start executing on

3:42 it. And while it's not a topic of today's discussion, The other thing that we've specifically seen through our relationships with the US government is they've, they've actually done a really heck of a good job in helping us with our permitting process. And so us being able to move through So we've got 2 projects in the state of Nevada, which is a very mining-friendly state. But we did have something that was about 6 to 7 weeks past when the expectations were. We engaged with the chain of command that had been laid out for us, and they resolved the problem within a 24 to 36 hour span. So we've seen now the infrastructure come into place for them to start really tapping into these large pools of funding. And then we've also been the benefit of the administration's view on getting stuff put through the permitting process to benefit US-based critical minerals projects.

4:37 I appreciate that. I think the permitting absolutely fits in with this conversation. It's really, I mean, it's about funding, but it's about how American projects get to the finish line too. So I'm eager to talk about that as well. But Barry, I'll throw it to you. What kind of funding paths do you see that you just didn't 5 years ago?

4:52 Yeah, you know, to the question, are we seeing tangible funding paths? I think the simple answer is yes. And we've seen a few of those come to fruition in the past months and quarters and candidly over the last year, you know, Perpetua in the last week or 2, you know, got legislative approval of their US$2.7Bn loan from the US Ex-Im Bank. That's certainly relevant to us as we have a letter of interest from Ex-Im as well and are looking to convert that. You know, We saw US Antimony receive a DPA Title III grant for US$27M. So again, you're seeing loans, you're seeing equity and you're seeing them from varying offices. Of course, tail end of last year, we saw Trilogy receive equity, US$36M from the Office of Strategic Capital, again, another Department of Defense office. So there are incredible opportunities at the moment. They are tangible and real.

5:41 That being said, you need to be able to understand the system, understand how to influence it, where the capital is and work through those channels. Now, I appreciate that perspective, and I think that is a big part of it. Like, it's not just that it's available, but you got to know the know the roots and on how to get there, because I know right now and I hear this a lot in webinars from investors generally, there's a perception now that if you're in the US, if your project's in the US, and you're producing something the government says it needs, the money's going to find you. And I know everything we've just talked about, you still got to go looking. That might actually be there. So my question to you, Barry, I'll start with you on this is how accurate is the perception that the money is there for you to find now? And what's the reality of actually accessing government backed funding versus the kind of traditional mining capital markets financing that I think everybody in the audience is used to.

6:37 Well, I think as a starting point, I think the message is very clear from the top. And from my perspective, it's bipartisan. You know, minerals are critical, copper, tungsten and others. And that's both whether it's for national energy or defence applications, these critical minerals are necessary. And more importantly, they need to be produced domestically. So I think that's good fortune for companies like ours. That being said, These are still big units of government. There is bureaucracy.

7:06 Processes are not always defined particularly well. And of course, it's not always particularly clear who has influence and leadership. But really That's an area that can be understood if you take the time and the patience and you work with the appropriate people in DC. You need to understand the varying offices that have the levers. I mentioned the Office of Strategic Capital. They're arguably the right one as you're thinking about equity, if indeed that's what you're seeking. The DOW, of course, has a whole host of departments where there is equity available, grants, and loans. But again, understanding the hallways there and who's giving influence, I think, is critical. Another really interesting agency, or I should say arm of the White House, is the National Energy Dominance Council. Again, just another group who seeks to influence at the various agencies where pools of funding are.

8:00 Getting in front of all of these people in a timely and a patient manner, walking through your story, helping them understand the status of your project and your capacity to assist with the supply, demand and balance and whatever material it is that you're looking to supply, I think is critical. We had a nice acknowledgement recently. I think it's the benefit of the work that we've done in DC, where we were acknowledged in the White House publication as an important contributor to copper domestic production. And I think that note from the White House, of course, is something that we can then take back to the agencies, demonstrate that we have visibility and importance. So it takes time, patience, but it can certainly be done. There you go. JT, I'll throw the same question at you. What I've come to learn, and I do, in fact, Barry and I, we were spending some time actually talking prior to this about our individual paths. Cause I've, you know, at least in my head, I've gotten to a point where depending on the asset, where the asset's located, depending on the commodity in which you're extracting,

9:05 and also dependent upon how big your CapEx needs are, every company has to start from a maybe a little bit of a different position. We were fortunate in that we put in a grant application to the old Department of Defense that was actually approved under the Biden administration. So again, kind of echoing Barry's comments that you have to understand that this is now actually become a bipartisan issue. It's obviously being driven out of the White House, but

9:34 the U.S. Has acknowledged that this is a national security issue. This is a U.S. Domestic issue. And so we were able to leverage the grant that we received, and it was a true grant. It was administered when the new administration came into office and we actually did have to go back through the same qualification criteria under the new administration to see to make sure it fit within that agenda. What that then unlocked for us specifically is our ability to then go out immediately to the open market and bring in some pretty sticky equity, which then allowed us to advance the project. And again, to one of Barry's points, to engage the right people in Washington, D.C., because it's not only the message you give along with the urgency you give, but it's the consistency of that message we're finding and making sure that you're there consistently doing updates, always providing opportunities for them to provide feedback.

10:34 And so our path is maybe a little bit different given the tungsten price and where it's gone in the last 6 months. And, you know, the traditional avenues that Barry talked about, I agree with his statement. It's sort of the crux of everything starts with the OSC, right? And how do then you build a package that works for an individual company? Maybe it's slated a little bit towards debt. Maybe it's a little bit towards equity. There are some components that have evolved in the equity packages for the U.S. Government from the previous awards. And so you end up having to sort of weigh that together. The paths are set. But to Barry's point, you have to continue to work it. And the misnomer is, ah, there's a couple of trillion dollars that sit out there. You throw your hand up in the air, you say, here's our investor presentation, and you sit back and wait for a check to be written.

11:27 We've come a long ways, but we're not there yet. And there is work to be done. But back to one of my earlier points, the organizations, the departments, now they want to, they want to actively solve these problems and they now have the personnel to do it. Well, appreciate that. I do want to talk about Tungsten actually for a second, because, geez, I bought Gold 3 years ago and I wish I had bought a bunch of little tungsten blocks instead, just based on how much the price has gone up. Because I know JT, your operation is positioned around tungsten, which sits on every critical minerals list out there. It's not one of the debatable ones and ties directly into the Defense Production Act. How far along are you in engaging with DPA funding mechanisms and what does that process look like from the inside? I'd love if you could help us just learn how the sausage is made just a little bit for the investors that are in the room.

12:16 Okay so let me see if I can tackle that bit by bit. And by the way, if anybody knows the genius move that Romeo made with gold, you should reach out separately and ask him, it was brilliant. Hey, good luck. So we've engaged, obviously our engagement has been organic through, because our award, our Department of Now award was under the DPA Title III program, right? And so we are continuing to do a couple of different things. One is as we deliver our PFS by the end of Q2 this year, we have, we strongly believe is an opportunity for them to provide follow-on funding all the way through for our DFS on Pilot Mountain. And they've actually given us a path forward and have made the right introductions for those discussions to begin.

13:08 They're beginning now and of course they we hope to have a successful resolution as we deliver the PFS. So we have a monthly update with the armed forces and the DPA program to provide updates on our PFS. So

13:21 we're working that path. There is other funding avenues that have obviously come in under the DPA program. For us specifically, and this pertains to Tungsten and I think answers to one of the questions is, we have an opportunity as a Tungsten provider to start to work with the Defense Logistics Agency that sits under the DPA, and their national stockpile program. And because of our proximity to production, and anybody that has looked at the Guardian story, and this isn't a Guardian story pitch, but we have product at surface. And it does set us up to be a near-term,

14:00 short-term solution for the big issue that we have, which is the direct military application of tungsten to everything we're using overseas right now. And so we have, again, a unique approach where We've got funding through DPA. We're asking for additional funding, not only under our current scope of work, but we've got applications in much like a lot of companies do with a track record of delivery. But also we have the added opportunity to look at the government as a customer, which then can underpin additional investment. It's that loop that you're really hoping to execute on because ironically, one of the locations for the Tungsten stockpile is Hawthorne, Nevada, which is where our Pilot Mountain project is essentially based on. And so you've got this now kind of interstate

14:52 opportunity that we're building for the Department of War to look at. So Tungsten is unique in that perspective in the sense that the U.S. Government is actively shopping to try and buy the product today because the stockpile has been depleted over the years. Now, it's disappointing for folks watching. Be interesting to read how the Chinese are treating tonics and exports are no longer allowing them. I think you'll see a trend of that increasing as the market kind of bifurcates globally. Yeah. And one of the things that goes unrecognized is the House and the Senate in 2025 passed legislation that bans all imports from China and Russia for defense department use as of January 1st, 2027.

15:36 So we're not that far away from having 85% of the world's production not being able to be imported, even if they lift restrictions for use for Department of Defense. Yeah, it's certainly an interesting scenario. I encourage people to read about it. I've certainly found it interesting. But Barry, jumping to you, I know Copperwood, it's a copper project in Michigan, a state with a very long mining history, especially in the Upper Peninsula where you guys are. How does the local and state level support

16:05 factor into your funding strategy? Does having a project in a mining friendly jurisdiction in the US, does it actually move the needle when you're sitting across the table from lenders and investors? Yeah, it certainly does. I think support is needed at all levels. And I guess I'll start, you know, Michigan is an industrial state with a deep mining history. You know, it's interesting the people of the Western Upper Peninsula refer to this region as Copper Country. And of course, downstate there's incredible need for our Copper, the likes of Ford, GM and Stellantis. But what's nice is, in Michigan, they marry up this economic need for Copper, obviously, with really strong environmental and mining legislation to make sure that we mine well. And at the end of the day, you need to start with your support locally in the region. We're fortunate to have 22 unanimous resolutions to support from essentially all local counties, municipalities, townships, and boards demonstrating that there's a real desire to have our project.

17:00 We have our full permits in hand at a state level, that's wonderful, but you also want to be welcome in that region. You know, you take that local support and step up to the state senators.

17:09 Senator McBroom and our representative Greg Markin have been just vocal supporters of our project in the region. And then that steps towards Governor Whitmer. You know, when that local support drives through, Governor Whitmer, of course, has endorsed our project as well. And then as you continue to step up towards the federal side, which of course we're talking about now, you know, seeing that underpinning of support, we then step towards Congressman Bergman and Senator Slotkin, both from Michigan and again, bipartisan, and they have been vocal for us as well. So when you're then in the halls in DC and you're going to the agencies, whether you're at the DOD, DOE or Ex-Im, It's those voices at a federal level that really assist and aid you as you go through the process, speak on your behalf, endorse your project, demonstrate that it's also important regionally.

17:57 And you build these various levels of support. And I think that's what then, you know, entitles you and puts you in front of the right people. And of course, puts you in a position to be successful with the funding applications that you have running. I also appreciate it. I want to talk about something that you both mentioned briefly, which is the bipartisan nature of mining, because There's a comment in the chat and I expected it. It's come up, I think, in almost every panel I've run in the last several months. And that's somebody asked, could the midterms impact the current pro mining environment?

18:26 I'd love you both to speak to could the midterms impact anything federally, but also within your jurisdictions? JT, I can start with you.

18:36 The short answer is I don't think so, because I do believe that the trade wins in the United States have shifted. And whether you're in the mining space or not, or in the commodity space or not, or you're a general investor, the narrative has changed. And we've seen the likes of China and Russia weaponize critical materials and processing capabilities for decades. And I think the broad American public now recognizes that this is an issue. And it's going to be an issue that we don't solve overnight. And it's going to need continued support at the local, state and federal level.

19:19 You know, I I think that there's a probably a likelihood that one of the chambers switches in the interim elections. We're in a very unique State in the sense that we actually we have both Cortez Masto and Senator Rosen are Democrats, but very pro-mining

19:38 We have a governor in Governor Lombardo that is Republican, but has not seeking re-election That being said what that does show is you can be on one side of the aisle and be pro an industry. And I think then you mix that in with other sentiment as well. I don't believe it's going to have a negative impact to the all of our companies that are trying to build this out. And, you know, whether 1 1 chamber switches or not, maybe they both switch the current administration in the White House is pretty adamant about getting this stuff done And so there will be paths forward regardless. So I actually, my view is that it isn't gonna be this big fall off a cliff sort of moment regardless of what shakes out. I appreciate that. As people know that a lot of these states are mining states, no matter which party has been in control for 100 years.

20:35 But Barry, I'll throw it to you for your perspective on the midterms.

20:38 Yeah, different people take different perspectives. You know, whether what's important to you is energy policy or defense strategy, I think critical minerals are bipartisan. When we look specific to Michigan, the upper peninsula delegation of 1 Senator and 4 members of Congress, for instance, they're all Republican. But of course, Governor Whitmer is a Democrat and they play well and understand that copper is needed.

21:04 Congressman Bergman is Republican. Senator Slotkin is Democrat. So through the kind of range of politicians that we deal with, we deal with both sides. There may be different priorities, but there's 1 similar answer, which is criticals are mineral for the US and for Michigan. Perfect. Appreciate that. Get me a funding. I know there's a lot of investors in the room and I know they've seen projects probably outside of the US and the funding stack for US mining project can look very different from a project than Canada or Peru, for example. So I'd love if each of you could walk us through what your capital structure looks like for your respective projects and why you've approached it the way you have. And Barry, I can start with you if you don't mind. Well, I'll start by telling you that the initial capital for our project is actually quite manageable. It's about US$425M.

21:50 So not a project that needs that US$1Bn-US$3Bn figure, which would be very difficult for a smaller company. So we feel well placed from that perspective. Broadly speaking, companies like ours start with debt.

22:05 And of course, if we're in a position to get federally underwritten debt, arguably at better terms than we might get in the private markets, I mean, that's an incredible starting point as you build the overall capital structure for your project. As I mentioned, we have a US$250M letter of interest from the US Ex-Im Bank. We think we are in good position to convert that in the coming period of time. That represents the best part of 60% to 70% of the capital that we need.

22:32 Through our work in DC and also at the state level, we're in the running for a host of both state and federal grants. That's another piece that can make up a component of the capital. So you're beginning to approach arguably 300M of what you need. And by the time you've done that, you have visibility to binding debt products in particular at a federal level, then the equity becomes, visibility to the equity component

22:56 becomes increasingly available to you. And of course, as you work through those earlier process naturally, your equity price moves in an appropriate direction. So, the dilution on the equity side is considerably more palatable. So, that's how we're looking at things right now. We have other, of course, other areas that we can utilise. We have not given up our offtake as at this point in time. That's a very strategic component to a broad financing. Naturally, the offtakers want access to your concentrate and will often give up, be it equity or favourable debt. So that's another piece that we'll look at. So we're feeling in a good position, obviously, with strong tailwinds in the US and a great copper price to step forward into our financing. I also appreciate that. JT, I'll have you talk about your cap structure, if you don't mind. Sure.

23:46 I apologize to the audience that I have to be a little bit careful in how I answer the question because we are in the final stages of PFS, which will obviously become public and we will be able to talk very specifically about the capex needs for Pilot Mountain. And then, as we're, as we're building out the resource on our secondary project at Tempai Ute, obviously that process will follow.

24:09 We are in a, again, a unique situation given where the commodity price is right now and our capital structure as it stands today, plus completing the US listing, which we did on the 20th of March, moving over to the NYSE.

24:26 Suffice to say, we also are in a similar situation as Highland Copper in that we're not talking about 1 billion dollar CapEx. We're in the low hundreds of millions of dollars. And so it becomes a scenario where we again, very, we're very thankful for the position we're in. But at a 750 million dollar market cap, our CapEx numbers are a fraction of what our current valuation is today. And so we have a little bit of flexibility in how we're going to approach post the PFS. I agree with Barry that, you know, If you can lead with low cost government debt and you have a payback period that, you know, given where the price points are for Tungsten today, that is minuscule, you're obviously gonna start there. We have shown some very sticky equity and we've got a pretty fantastic shareholder registry that has been with us in a lot of cases since the beginning and has yet to sell a share over the last 4 years. And so we do, you know, I kind of do that in a little knock on wood, but we think that the equity piece, at least where we are, will be a little bit easier slog

25:34 than if you were in different macro conditions. You given the fact that we've got global conflict happening and the massive use of tungsten in military applications gives us the ability, and this is how we're thinking about it, is, you know, the tip of the spear is obviously what you can do with the support of government and the financing mechanisms that fall behind it. But because of that, the private sector has had to sharpen the pencil a bit, and they have to get a little bit more creative in their

26:05 project financing capabilities. And if you get to a situation where you've got 1 financing package and another financing package and you feel comfortable in how you might want to raise the equity, you almost can see a scenario where you get into a bake-off. And again, not everybody's in that situation. And who knows if it will continue? But obviously, We want to start, we have government support. We want to continue to get government support.

26:35 Post the PFS, when we go out to the private sector and we start building our capital stack that way, we'd love a traditional model where it's a 75, 25 debt to equity split. Maybe it's a 60, 40 split or 65, 35. The market will tell us that when we start going to have those conversations. But no different than than Highland's path forward is we're starting with the US government because of the positive trade wins that they've created. Awesome. I appreciate that. Before I get to the next question, I just want to note because I know there's a few hundred people in the room, there's a request meeting button there at the bottom of your screen. If you scroll over towards the bottom, feel free to hit that button. You can request a meeting with any of the executives in the room today. I just want to alert you to that. But JT, I want to get back to you for just a quick second, because I know since you took the chair position at Guardian, you've been building the story

27:24 to some degree around a US listing, or at least targeting the US listing. And I saw the picture of you guys ringing the bell at the NYSE recently. Team looked great. But I'd love you to talk about that strategic decision and how being listed on a US exchange changes the type of capital and type of investors you can access compared to when you were on the London exchange.

27:44 Great question. And I do love to tell the story because it is something we sort of had in the hopper for quite some time. And frankly, Romeo, it was based on market feedback. We are we we were a UK originated listed originally on the AIM exchange, did a great job in building the capital markets here. You know, Oliver Friesen, our CEO has built a fantastic reputation in this capital markets here, where I'm where I'm at in London right now.

28:14 What we consistently heard about the story was we love the story. We don't like investing on aim outside of this capital market. And when you weigh sort of the size of the New York capital markets and the London capital markets, there's actually a pretty significant imbalance between what is available specifically for mining in London or in Europe versus in the US. And so gravity started to pull us in that direction. And

28:45 it's no easy slog to get through the process to get to a New York listing. But I would, I think everybody within the organization and all of our loyal shareholders would say it has been absolutely worth it. So, you know, we listened to the capital markets. We listened to investors that loved the story and we even had supportive investors that have been with us the whole way along saying, actually, we love the idea of you being able to tap those capital markets. It was also a galvanization

29:15 of the U.S. Defense story as well. Right. So it was about us being able to trade on the exchange where our assets are being built and really bringing to fruition that whole US critical minerals story, US defense mineral story. So that's really the origin. And frankly, we couldn't be happier with how it turned out and the response that we've had come out so far. Awesome. I appreciate that very much. Barry, I want to talk to you about Copper for a second because it is arguably the most talked about metal in the energy transition conversation. Whenever people are talking about building anywhere, Copper will come up. When you're sitting across the table from potential funding partners, whether that's in government or whether it is just funds or traditional capital markets. How much the conversation do you find is driven by the copper

30:07 macro story versus project specific economics? Are people looking at the macro towings that come up a lot or is it really just how Copperwood exists and the universe exists? Sure. For a strong national, I'll make note to some of the things JT just said because I'm personally taking notes on those. An NYSE listing is very important for American companies and it's something that we will look to do at the right time and place. That's arguably when we go to do our project funding. So it's an exciting prospect and I'm glad to hear the JT's had good success there. To your question, Romeo, certainly when we have these discussions now with the various departments and we're in and around DC, I mean, the nice thing is that we don't have to convince anyone how important the likes of Copper or Tungsten or various metals are. They have come to that determination in and of themselves.

30:53 They're driving that story.

30:55 I think a nice by-product to that also is just that mining as an investment and natural resources and investment is becoming increasingly popular in the US on the private side. So I think that's very positive. What we do see when we sit down with people is that they really want to understand how your project is going to assist with the supply, demand and balance. How much Copper will you produce? When will you produce it? How near dated is your

31:20 project? Do you have your permits in hand? Are you near dated and ready to be built? And that's certainly an area where our project stands out. There's that interesting statistic in the US that from first drill hole to production, it takes the best part of 20 years. You know, at Highland Copper and with our Copper project, we just happen to be at about year 16 or 17 with a lot of that geology

31:42 feasibility study and multi-year permitting process behind us. I think that's what's put us in a good, in good standing in DC. That's great. And it actually leads to a question that I'm going to throw in right from the chat. Somebody asked moments after the event began. So I'll let them get a word in here. And they want to know if both of your projects are going into production during this administration or how far towards the road to production will you be while Trump's still in the White House? JT, I can start with you. We have openly given guidance that we have a path to production by the end of the current administration.

32:16 When we started the journey, we had 1 project called Pilot Mountain that was essentially our flagship project. It is the project that the Department of War granted us the funding and what we're completing the PFS on. Part of what we did in the origination of the company is again, took a contrarian view and looked at all the other tungsten assets in the United States and kind of evaluated and said, are there ones that we have to have that could be competitors, that could beat us to production? We actually came across 1 that we ended up acquiring and that's the Temp-I-U project. So the reason that we're, you know, we can say that with a high degree of confidence is the thing about the Temp-I-U project is when we bought it, we bought it when nobody was looking at tungsten. So we got it for a song.

33:04 And it was a scenario that we acquired in today's dollars, somewhere in the neighborhood of about $30 million in infrastructure that was left behind by Union Carbide. So the shell of the mill facility exists. We're actually refurbing it right now and we're using it as part of our office space. Most importantly, 3000 kilowatt power station, which is still active that we own that sits on the mountain that powers the town at the base of our project. Water pipeline that is still functioning also came with the acquisition. And then with Pilot Mountain, it's an open pit project, right? And so quicker to production, we're not building underground infrastructure.

33:43 So yeah, we do, we feel very confident that we're going to be able to be producing tungsten concentrate from the state of Nevada before the end of 2028 or when whatever administration takes over. I appreciate that. Barry, how far along will you guys be by the end of this administration, do you think? Yeah, we think we'll be very far along. Our goal, of course, is to make a construction decision this year,

34:05 and it's a 2 to 2 and a half year construction window. So it is in that 28, 29 timeframe that we'll be progressing towards full production of copper. That is certainly a data point, I think, that resonates most with people in DC when we speak to them.

34:23 Great. There's one question I just wanted to throw at you guys real quick. And that's it'll be for you JT because the defence Metals thesis is to me very compelling, especially in this environment. I know investors in the room, people get cynical. There's been a lot of critical mineral stories come and go. There was, I remember 2 weeks where Rare Earths was, all of a sudden everybody on Twitter was a Rare Earths expert for 2 very special weeks. So I'd love to know if you could just give me a bit of context on what do you think makes Guardians Tungsten Project

34:54 specifically fundable? Tell us the macro narrative, but also why you think that's likely to be a holding story. I think

35:04 anybody that spends time in D.C. Knows that the first thing they ask is how soon can you be into production. Right. And so having a very clear path and in our case having some infrastructure that we don't have to replicate certainly adds credence to the our path forward. So I think that's first and foremost. The Tungsten story is a bit unique in just the lack of deposits. Deposits that can be drilled out, permitted, baseline studied in the United States outside of sort of what we have, it's a longer slog. Now, I wanna be crystal clear. The gap in the tungsten space is such that we encourage other projects. We need it as a country and we need it for global security.

35:55 So there are assets in Canada that are

35:58 fantastic assets and we are absolutely rooting for those to come online to as well. But why tungsten is a bit different is the lack of deposits in the US and the capacity to process tungsten actually is, there's almost overcapacity in the United States. So where Tungsten starts to separate from other defense metals is we actually, once we get it out of the ground, we don't have to send it to an unfavorable nation. We have everything here in the United States that has idle capacity. And again, gives more encouragement for getting a project like this done. And so you know, I, you would expect me to say this, but I think with doing a little bit of just digging into the tungsten space, if any of the audience member hasn't dug into it, you will see that it quickly sort of separates itself and almost flips the model on the inverse, right? It's the inverse of rare earths where, you know, you got to get it out of the ground, but

37:00 you still have to send it. Now, MPE is trying to solve that problem. Right. Perpetua and other antimony companies, there is still a dependency on processing outside of the United States. Tungsten sets itself apart from some of those stories is the fact that there's ample processing capacity here in the United States. What we lack is the upstream mining. Yeah, that's an interesting point on tungsten and copper. I know people talk about competitors and like, well, We need it all. So we need absolutely every ounce of it. So it makes sense. Barry, I know you've already kind of touched on this today, but I'd love to get into it really specifically. If you could walk us through where Highland Copper, where Copperwood specifically sits on development timeline and what the next funding milestone looks like, What needs to happen to unlock the next tranche of capital for Copperwood? For all the investors who aren't familiar with the story, basically what's next? Sure. So as a starting point, I mean, I characterize Copperwood as one of the most advanced Copper developers in the US. Of course, that means feasibility study complete, all permits to construct and operate in hand. We've actually initiated some early site work and we're meeting our environmental obligations.

38:09 We've awarded all of our detailed engineering contracts and we're advancing those to support a construction decision at the tail end of 2026. So incredibly advanced. And as I say, that's something that I think is very important from a US perspective. Funding, I think we've done something really positive. Just about 6 weeks ago, we closed on the sale of a non-core asset for $30 million. We eliminated all of our debt. We raised that capital in a non-dilutive manner. And of course, it's given us the treasury now to see through the balance of all of the engineering that we need to do through 2026 and of course, parallel the financing process for the broader project financing. So, ideally, the next time that we need capital arguably would be post-engineering, post having been through the debt process with UXXM, where we would need to raise the balancing equity for the company, arguably a much stronger equity price than we're at right now. All of that of course then putting us in a position to be building and then producing by the 2029 time frame.

39:13 So really from a capital perspective, from an engineering perspective and from a construction readiness perspective, we're really driving hard. We know that this is our time now. I appreciate that. I have one question for both of you, and I'm lucky that there are actually looks like at least 2 junior mining CEOs in the room. So my question will be pointed in that way. If you were talking to a CEO, hadn't been through everything that you guys have already been through, because obviously you guys are pretty far down the road now, with a US-based project, what's a piece of advice you'd give them about navigating the funding landscape right now? What do you wish someone had told you earlier in the process? Barry, I can start with you. Sure. You know, there's a few things that are really important. And I think, you know, as a starting point, ensure that your project is in good standing regionally.

40:03 You need to appropriately engage your municipal, of course your state and in turn your federal representatives. You want to make sure that when you go to DC, you have that support from top to bottom. I think you need to make quite an early determination on your own capacity to navigate DC, which can be challenging. You know, of course, some companies have their own strong departments from government relations perspective, so be it. We didn't find ourselves in that position and we were spinning our wheels a little bit at the outset. So, you know, making a determination on an appropriate lobby group, making sure that you're represented well, both from a Michigan and a federal perspective. And then, you know, just keep driving the process, have patience, follow up, make sure you're getting in front of the right people alongside your representatives and your lobby firm.

40:54 And I think you will have success. There is a path to success here. It's not an easy one, but have patience and carry on. Awesome, and JT, I'll throw it to you first. Sage advice for the crowd on what you would have done differently or what you wish you had known. Well, so in all of my experience, even pre-Dating Guardian Medals in my work in Capitol Hill is start early, is absolutely a piece of advice. I don't think it's ever too early. However, that being said, to Barry's point, you want to make sure that you've got baseline studies underway, that you've buttoned up any questions that could arise on what are the risks, right? And so permitting naturally comes into play.

41:41 You can't have the permitting done, but you can at least illustrate that you have a clear path forward. You have a mitigation strategy, and then you have a mitigation strategy for your mitigation strategy. And once you do that, then you have a message that you can start to take to DC. I agree with Barry, you have to be very consistent. You have to be there on a semi-regular basis, or not there, but you need to be talking to representatives because remember, there's 600 companies and we're all sort of fighting for face time and figuring out ways to sort of separate yourself from the pack. And I echo Barry's sentiments and it was something he and I were talking about before the webcast is your representation in D.C. Put time and thought into what it is you want to get out of it? If it is permitting help, if it's financial help, or if it's a combination of then maybe even getting the state or sorry, the federal government to then help you with your state representations.

42:43 There are different firms out there that do different things and you've got to get clarity of purpose on that internally. What is the expected outcome? What do we really need out of Washington, D.C.? If you go in with a suite of asks, it's really easy for them to point you in a direction and go, okay, go talk to this person. And you find yourself in this endless loop. And so the advice I would get is get clarity with your board and your senior leadership, understand your mitigation strategies, especially around environmental and permitting, start your baseline studies as early as you possibly can, and then have all of that in an ask that you then bring to whoever you decide to represent you and just be consistently working those channels.

43:28 No, appreciate that. Jumping into a question from the chat, I know you both have a relationship with Exum. This is another Barry who's in the chat, asks, what are Exum's requirements? He says, I see them everywhere on American Critical Minerals. And it is true. I've suddenly seen them on more press releases in the last year than I've ever had before. So I'll throw it to whoever wants to answer first. What is it like working with ExSim? What are they looking for right now? I'll take a quick go at it. So ExSim are good to work with. I would say yes, they are relatively inundated so again you need to be staying in front of them. What we've learned is that what they're most interested in is the near-dated nature of the project. I think if you come to them, you know, with an early exploration idea, I think you'll be turned away quite quickly.

44:15 So as I look at their eligibility criteria, it's in and around timeline, pathway to permitting, certainly in our instance, unfortunately for us, we would come to them with permits in hand and I think that's what's defined our eligibility for our letter of interest And I think, you know, with the ongoing support that we have, as I mentioned, both from a White House perspective and of course with our representatives in DC, I think we have a very strong opportunity to convert that into a binding debt product. Awesome, Jitel, I'll throw it to you for any additional thoughts on Ex-Im. Yeah. You know, from an eligibility perspective, when Ex-Im gets to a point where, you know, they're going to convert an expression of interest into a package, You'll have to have all your main contractors not only identified, but actually essentially signed up in the bids signed off on. You'll have to have a certain amount of off take in place too as well.

45:12 I couldn't agree with Barry more that if you go as an early exploration project that has a multi-year path to even get to a feasibility study, my recommendation would be save your time and save your money because they will have a conversation and you'll have a hard time then getting back within a legitimate period of time because they will immediately look at you've got this laundry list of checkpoints that you've got to get through and again to Barry's point there's a long list of people that are knocking on that door. And so the criteria is robust. They also have gone through a bit of an evolution. There is new leadership in place, which means they've also brought additional staff into place, which is great for the companies that have now started to separate themselves from the path.

46:06 There's one question from the chat that I find interesting. So I'm really curious for both your perspectives. We've kind of touched on already, but how is talking to the US government different than talking to investors? What are their priorities versus funds? So to go behind the curtain a little bit, do you have a different deck? Are you looking at talking about different information? I'll throw it to everyone to answer first. Jay Taylor, I'll let you take that one first, Jason. All right, fair enough. We don't have a specific different deck, although I do have certain slides that I do bring that illustrate a couple of avenues and it focuses specifically on why the project and most importantly, the commodity is important to the US government. How I would how I would differ the 2 stakeholder groups is, at least in today's administration, they want to understand how a deal benefits them and the company as well. Right, but more so than other administrations in any experience I've had, you have to have that value proposition and be ready to clearly articulate it for them to then come back and go, I like that. Now let's move you through the process.

47:18 An investor is going to look at proximity to production. They're going to look at your multiples. They're going to look at how quickly what the liquidity of your stock is like. So if they want to get in and out of a position, what is their ability to do that? It is a if you have the right investors, they take a 3 to 5 year horizon. The horizon is obviously a little bit more truncated. Any any administration is going to look for a victory within that current administration. So, you know, I find that we probably break things down maybe a little bit more into digestible bites when we're in DC to talk about victories along the way. Whereas with the investor community, generally speaking, if you get across the macros and you get across the project, they can get ultimately pretty comfortable with the investment proposition over a period of time.

48:14 Helpful, I think that's a useful context. And Barry, I'll throw it to you for any additional comments you got on that. Yeah, I mean, listen, what's most important to the US government right now is just the supply, you know, the timeliness and the security around bringing whatever metal it is to the US market. So, you know, not to say that they're not focused on the equity returns, but it's less important. It's more about that binary question. Can you build? Can you permit? Can you supply? Certainly at XM, you know, again, it's a bank, right? So they would be interested in, you know, debt payback in the same way that a traditional bank would be. Again, maybe a little less focused from an equity returns perspective. So maybe that's the key difference. Appreciate that.

49:00 I think we've got time for the 3 questions remaining, but I'm also going to give you guys a chance to just talk about your stock really quickly before we jump. But somebody from the chat insists on making you crystal ballgaze. So I apologize in advance. They want to know where our tungsten and copper price is going by the end of this year. So I will unfortunately make you both engage in this crystal ball gazing exercise. Barry, I'll throw it to you first. I know there's various predictions about where the Copper price will go by the end of this year. So really, which are you most favourable towards? So, you know, Copper is showing incredibly strong tailwinds. I think it's a very well understood story just from a straight economic theory perspective. There are by the day new pools of demand, Whether that's across data centres, energy applications, defence, otherwise, that continue to eclipse potential supply specifically from a domestic production level in the US. So the fundamentals are simply in place to continue to support What we're seeing today, which is a $6 spot price, and I think it has further upside. One thing I will say though, that I really do keep an eye on, is the long-term consensus. So, you know, take top 20 banks, brokers, and take a look at what the average consensus for the long-term is. And that is steadily moving up by the day, approaching $5 at this point. So if you begin to see not just upside at $6 or $7 for a project like ours, but you see a floor at $5 where the economics are

50:30 incredibly robust, For mining projects like ours, seeing that floor consistently move up is wonderful to see also. Great. Appreciate that. And JT, Tungsten price, obviously, if we had this conversation a year ago, it would be dramatic. 3 months ago. Yeah, 3 months ago. Every time I look, it's quite different. So you have the more difficult crystal ball gaze, I think. But where do you think it goes for the rest of this year and why? Oh, man. I mean, if I had that ability, you know, I'd probably be a rich man. To your point, if we were sitting here 6 months ago, well, let me first start by saying this. Tungsten prices are looked at a little bit differently. They're looked at as either a metric ton unit, which has a smaller unit price, or if you want to extract it by ton. So I'm going to assume that the audience would prefer to have me talk about it on a per ton basis.

51:25 And really historic prices of tungsten has been anywhere from $3,200 to $3,500 a ton. It's been as consistent as gravity. We're now in a market where actually it's $300,000 per ton and the inland China price is actually higher than the global recognized price. So you have your fast markets, you have your Argus, you have the independent groups that manage the price points, and I know for a fact they're going back and having to redo all of their short, medium, and long-term forecasts because of the parabolic growth that we've seen. I tend to I tend to have a similar view to Barry in that what is different and one of the things that I do feel confident in saying is whatever it comes down to and these prices won't increase forever and they're going to level off and they're going to decline at some point. I don't know when they peak and I don't know. But what I am very confident in saying is the old floor price no longer exists. Much like I don't I don't think the days of sub thousand dollars an ounce gold will ever come back, right?

52:33 Will it come off, you know, 4,800? I mean, it could settle down. All of the commodity prices will find a natural evolution to settle into, but I think very confidently that whatever the floor price used to be, the new floor price, the new paradigm is going to be vastly different. And so I think like with any project, you have to make sure your project is financeable at historic price points. So if that's low or high, you've got to make sure that your project stacks up against that. Everything else is an upside. If we were in production today, the EBITDA on our project would be through the roof. It would be the economics would be unlike anything you've ever seen before on a domestic mining project that isn't a precious metals project.

53:22 Don't know where it's going to go. Would have thought that things would have started to level off right about now just because at one point China controls so much of the narrative. There was supposed to be a summit between Trump and Xi. It didn't happen. Thought maybe things would start to level off. Every time we think we're gonna hit sort of a new peak, it goes up the next week. And then it goes up the next week. And so, you know, it's now over 300,000 a ton. It's not going to maintain that position. Could go up from there. But the message I want to leave the audience with is we're never going back to 35,000 a ton. There's just not enough product. China has mined out their mines for 60 years at 60,000 tons a year. They don't have the resource. They don't have the ability to impact the market the way they did generations ago.

54:12 No, I think that that's helpful. And it's also an interesting point about the inland China price is different for Tungsten. I think we're going to see more and more of that across the board. Global commodity prices, I think, might be, we might be towards the end of that era for better. Becoming that importer, which is crazy. Crazy. Yeah, that's quite different. One question I wanted to throw from the audience. Yeah, I've got time for one more and then I'll give it to you guys to wrap us up. Grasson Howe asks, is permitting harder on state land or federal land or does it depend? I imagine it's probably Canadian investors used to dealing with province versus federal. So I'll throw it to both of you for your perspective on what land is easier to work with in the current environment. You know, I'll speak for us. I certainly can tell you that we have had very good fortune permitting private land at a state level.

55:03 And in Michigan, what I would say is they have this incredibly strong and arguably environmentally forward legislation from a mining perspective, but I think that's a positive thing. If you design your project and demonstrate that you can operate well in Michigan, the permitting process becomes about engineering and it's quite pragmatic and there's modest to no political involvement. And that's what we've seen both through our permitting process and even in the last year when we've had to renew or amend certain permits, they take very good pragmatic look at it. If you adhere to that strong legislation, you move forward and get granted your permits or your amendment. So that's been very favorable for us.

55:49 Awesome, JT, I'll throw to you. So I'll make a general narrative comment on the areas you don't wanna try and build a project on is forest service land, right? Cause then you've got fish and wildlife and you've got water considerations. And that is far and away the most difficult in the United States. Then you move to sort of BLM land. And BLM generally, in my experience, comes from a viewpoint of how do we make it work, right? Because the federal government benefits at that point. If you can make it work and you properly follow the NEPA process and you have the right type of engineering and you can mitigate any of the risks. We have the benefit in Nevada being the most mining friendly state, probably in any jurisdiction in the world, where we have some of our land on BLM, and then we actually have the majority of our other project on private land and to Barry's point private land is some of the best that you can have right they call it patented land here you have a streamlined set of permits you actually don't have to go through the NEPA process.

57:02 You do have a level of permits that you have to get through, but it's even more streamlined than the BLM. And so, you know, when you've got projects where you can be on a combination of BLM land or what we call patented lands, you're in great shape. And that, you know, if I would be evaluating projects, I'd always start with what does that landscape look like? And then what are the local and the community items and boxes you have to check? Awesome. And to wrap us up today, I know we've only got a couple of minutes left. I wanted to give each opportunity to just for a minute, pitch the stock basically, I would say it in more calm words, but like 90% of this audience is Americans. We don't have to be Canadian polite at all. So I'll throw it to each of you for give me a minute on why investors should look at your security right now.

57:47 Barry, I'll start with you. Sure. Listen, Highland Copper and the Copper 1 project, like I mentioned, it's the most advanced copper developer in the US with the main distinguishing factor that it's fully permitted that really puts time in our hands. The other key differentiator for us is leverage to changes in Copper price. We did our Feasibility Study about 2, 2.5 years ago at a US$4 Copper price and the economics work, it's pretty good. It's about 170M NPV and an 18% IRR. Moving to US$5 Copper triples the net asset value to US$507M. And if you move to US$6 Copper, which is the spot today, it nearly doubles again to US$850M. Against the backdrop today of our current market cap of US$75M, and candidly with about US$20M to US$25M in the bank and enterprise value in the CAD$60M range, there's an incredible capacity for us to scale value over time. Naturally, the net asset value takes care of itself through the leverage to changes in Copper price.

58:45 But as we execute, which we've been doing over the last 2 years, and as we demonstrate capacity to finance those steep price to net asset value discounts begin to evaporate. I think we have a real path to value as we develop the project over the next few years. Barry, thanks so much. JT, I'll let you close us off today. Yeah, so look, if I was gonna, the headline is, the value proposition is for us, it's proximity to production, right? We've started this journey 4, 4 and a half years ago, which means that we've gotten through our baseline studies. We have multiple years of data, which makes our permitting path pretty straightforward. And so when you look at the other assets, you looked at the tens of thousands of meters we've already drilled to find resource SK1300 compliant with a PFS that's coming with an updated SK1300 resource and our ability to utilize the infrastructure that's already in place. And I haven't even talked about the stockpile and the tailings at surface of our Temp I.U. Project, which is very near term production. You know, that's near term production before end of 2027 type conversation.

59:57 So for us, it's proximity to production because we've started this journey 4 and a half years ago. I think the other thing now that is really bolstered our story is the liquidity that has been put into our stock with us moving to the New York Stock Exchange makes it extremely easy for to get transparency into the movement, into what we're doing, gives people the ability and the confidence to know that they can get in. They're still upside. We had 2 research notes released yesterday from BMO and DA Davidson. Barenberg has released research on us as well and we know that we've got more coming so there's an ample amount of information about our our projects and our company and most importantly you can go in and you can model it and you can see the upside that is still there for investors to take advantage of. So you know the move to the New York Stock Exchange and the ability that that has opened up for us and our proximity to production are really what you want to look at when you're looking at Guardian.

1:00:56 Awesome. JT Berry, thanks so much. Last chance to hit the request meeting button at the bottom of the screen. But thank you for letting me grill you. I know we didn't get to all the questions. I know there are quite a few of you in the room today. I will pass on those questions to the executives in the room so they have a chance to get back to you. But gentlemen, thanks so much. I think this was a great discussion. Appreciate your time very much. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. Have a good day, everyone.