Vulcan Elements lands $1.4B US government deal to build America's first large-scale rare earth magnet facility by 2027

the US government. Uh break it down for us. $1. 4 billion. Absolutely massive deal. Something that uh people were just getting just waking up to. Obviously, you've been thinking about this for a long time. Uh how did you how did you realize that this was something you wanted to work on?

And then take us through the anatomy of the deal. Yeah. Hey guys, thanks for having me on again. Uh it's really good to see you. So this is a problem that we've been focused on for several years. Yeah. Uh my background is, you know, former Navy.

I was a supply chain officer and uh when I was in business school was thinking a lot about the critical components that will define the 21st century technology race whether it's the data centers [clears throat] that enable AI drones robotics and when you really boil it down it's only three components semiconductors and magnets check your Wi-Fi we are getting some technical difficulties.

We lost break there. Your audio is here. Your face is uh in the past. In the past. It's a time machine taking us back to a mere five minutes ago or one minute ago out uh out in the field somewhere. Yeah. Probably doing important work. Yeah. What a what a cute freeze, too. Yes.

I mean, it's kind of working if you just want to keep talking. [laughter] Yeah. Try to bring I'm going to I'm going to hit the gong for the 1. 4 billion. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, Jord's going to hit the gong. Hit that gong, Jordy. And then we will go back. Thank you.

Uh and and I'd love for you to break down uh the structure of the deal, what it allows you to do. I know that there's a loan piece, there's an equity investment piece, there's investors, and how are you describing the deal and what it allows you to unlock? Yeah.

So, what this deal allows us to unlock is a 10,000 metric ton rare earth magnet facility. And just to frame the problem a little bit by 2030, the US will need over 70,000 metric tons of these magnets. Today, you know, we can't even produce 500.

So, what this is doing is this is going and ensuring that we can move at operation warp speed in partnership with the United States government uh the department of commerce, the secret uh the department of war to ensure that we can go and meet the demand for defense, aerospace and critical economic industries.

uh and the US government uh Secretary Haggsath, Secretary Lutnik, they're serious about solving this problem and we're very serious about ensuring that we go and meet the moment in the mission. What is the timeline for something like this?

I feel like we we're hearing about billion dollars this deal must have been like very much in the works even before Sure. uh China pulled the the rare earth card. Sure. Yeah. So we plan to have initial capacity online by 2027. If we're able to go faster, we will.

And we've been having conversations uh you know with everyone across industry and across government government uh for several years. And you know we've realized you know we need a whole of industry and government approach to go and fix this issue.

And our full intent is to go and build at a speed, an operation warp speed that hasn't been seen in this industry in the 21st century. How uh h how how much like what else is going on in the supply chain? Um is America mining enough rare earth elements?

Um, are should we be, you know, is is the job like are we on the right track now in terms of actually taking rare earths and and producing magnets with what you're going to be doing or are there other pieces of the supply chain that you want to see other founders or yourself go after in the near term? Yeah.

So, it's a really good question and the way that this works is, you know, you mine the material or you take recycled end of life magnets. You separate those chemically into a rare with oxide. You turn that into a metal and then ultimately a bespoke magnet to meet uh a customer spec.

What we're doing with this deal is we're partnering with Reelement Technologies. Uh they recycle end of life magnets and separate that uh material and we're expanding that partnership. One thing that I think is really important to note is this is less of a raw material availability problem than a manufacturing problem.

Today, China only mines 55% of the rare earth material. They make 94 to 98% of the magnets. Mhm.

So what I would say is you know with this deal and you other folks in the industry we want as many smart people focusing on this industry as possible and scaling up capacity where I think that there are opportunities are downstream as we think about uh drone motors there's a gap uh servo actuators as we think about orthogonal and complimentary critical minerals we need to do more around antimony and germanmanium and gallium and and lithium and tungsten and titanium there's a lot of wood to chop in the critical minerals industry to make sure that we have safe and secure supply chains here at home.

Well, very very exciting. The progress is uh just tremendous and uh I'm sure you will be back on soon. So, thank you for doing this this work. It's uh uh we've been, you know, following the story and we're glad that uh people like yourself and your team are are tackling the issue.

Next time with a better Wi-Fi signal on my end. Or when you're in LA, come Yeah. or in LA or just do it out out in the field somewhere. Yeah. Off your phone. We'll make it work. Uh thanks so much for the update and uh great to see you. We'll talk to you soon. Have a good one. Thanks, guys. Cheers.

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We have Eugenia Cuda Cuda uh coming back in the studio. Um we hit some timeline minutes. Let's hit some timeline. So the real story that was shaking up the timeline is that Scotty Pippen is saying it's not over. He said uh in I think in regards to the crypto market, he says it's still the shakeout