Q3 2024 TMC Metals Co Earnings Call
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Thank you for standing by, your call will begin momentarily.
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Speaker Change: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Metals Company 3rd Quarter 2024 Corporate Update Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 while on your telephone.
Speaker Change: You will then hear an automated message, advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 again. Please advise that today's conference is being recorded. I would like to hand the conference over to your first speaker today, Craig Shesky, CFO. Please go ahead.
Thank you, everybody, and please.
Craig Shesky: Accept our apologies for a bit of a delay here. We appreciate you joining for our third quarter 2024 corporate update conference call.
Craig Shesky: Please note that during this call, certain statements made by the company will be forward-looking based on management's beliefs and assumptions from information available at this time. These statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which may be beyond our control.
Craig Shesky: Additionally, please note that the company's actual results may differ materially from those anticipated and accept as required by law. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement.
Craig Shesky: Our remarks today may also include non-GAAP financial measures, including with respect to free cash flow, and additional details regarding these non-GAAP financial measures, including reconciliations to the most directly comparable GAAP financial measures, can be found in our slide deck being used with this call.
Speaker Change: and you're welcome to follow along with our slide deck or joining by phone. You can access it anytime at investors.metals.co. And I will now turn the call over to our chairman and CEO, Jared Barron.
Jared Barron: Thanks, Craig, and thanks to all of you for joining our third quarter conference call.
Jared Barron: Typically in these calls we remind everyone about our value proposition and provide incremental project updates.
Jared Barron: But if you're listening, you likely already know that this is a world-class, high-grade resource that is significantly undervalued based on any reasonable metric.
Jared Barron: You may even be sick of us reminding you of that. All of that information is still readily available and included in the appendix.
Jared Barron: What we'd really like to talk about is our strategy to start unlocking that significant value now, rather than waiting for first production. And over the last two weeks, we've seen some events that we believe are going to be watershed moments in TMC's journey.
Jared Barron: Last week we saw a U.S. election where Republicans will see themselves take the White House and both houses of Congress.
Jared Barron: We have allies on both sides of the aisle and have been talking with the Biden administration for years. But since people ask us all the time if this was a good outcome for TNC, the answer is an emphatic yes.
But more on that shortly.
Jared Barron: Earlier this week, we issued a press release which confirms our plans to submit NORI's application for an exploitation contract on June 27, 2025, along with our strategy and detailed rationale for the selection of the state.
Jared Barron: And just a few minutes ago we announced a registered direct offering led by our largest non-affiliate institutional shareholder to help ensure that we will have the financial resiliency to see this work through.
Jared Barron: As you have heard from me many times before, protecting the equity is something that I care deeply about. And this is also a key consideration for our two largest shareholders, All Seas and our director André Karkar.
Jared Barron: At the same time, we've also heard from some in the market that they just don't like seeing such a low cash balance, nor are they comfortable with a rising debt balance during a period of regulatory uncertainty. As such, we're pleased to announce that we've taken some money and terms.
Jared Barron: which by no means are up to my expectations for where we should be valued but are above market terms for a normal course public transaction like this.
Jared Barron: and this deal was anchored by a major institutional shareholder that we've gotten to know closely over the last years and I'm delighted to deepen that relationship. It was also supported by various existing shareholders for good measure.
Jared Barron: It is certainly reassuring to see this kind of support from the market to augment the continued strong support from Allseas and Aeros Capital, and to keep our team's eyes on the critical work ahead.
Jared Barron: On that point, we issue a press release which confirms our plan to submit Nori's application for an exploitation contract to the ISA on June 27 of next year.
Jared Barron: before NORI submits the application. And this will allow Council to agree on the process prior to NORI's application submission date of June 27, 2025, providing certainty to NORI
Jared Barron: the company, and the ISA, and allow for the review of the application to begin immediately after it is submitted under an agreed-upon process.
Speaker Change: But Tmc's value proposition extends beyond a narrow focus on mining code and the
Speaker Change: We are now in a strong position to leverage our investment of over half a billion dollars and Capabilities developed over the last decade plus as the eyes of the world's largest economies turn to the seafloor To produce the metals needed for the energy transition defense infrastructure and the needs of a growing world population
Speaker Change: To that end, we are pleased to announce this week that we are developing a new services business for seafloor resource development.
Speaker Change: We are already in discussion with several parties on services contracts to provide our expertise the areas of new exploration plans of work, resource definition, environmental impact assessments, data management, and offshore campaign execution.
We also intend to optimize and diversify our...
Speaker Change: To help us explain some of these new initiatives, we intend to announce a Strategy Day to occur
Speaker Change: For more information please visit the G 여러분 Vocabulary website at www.gu.gov.uk
Speaker Change: And while our new services business may assist on the revenue side, we're also taking a sharp look at the cost side of the business.
Speaker Change: First of all, we are going to cut spending with a target of less than $5 million in operating expenses per quarter.
Speaker Change: Further, we do not expect to raise funds for capital expenditures related to the preparation of the hidden gem vessel until such time as the final regulations are adopted.
Speaker Change: The application is approved based on the draft regulations or until other potential non-dilutive strategic finance is in place.
Speaker Change: So, how did we come to the decision of delaying the production capital spending and reducing operating costs post-application?
Speaker Change: Well, the answer is, through input from our key stakeholders, after taking a hard and honest look at what has been holding our share price back since going public.
Speaker Change: A year before going public, we were raising money at $3 per share.
Speaker Change: Just before proceeding with our public listing, we were raising money at $10 per share, but today the price is around $1. And if you look at the capital we have raised and invested in what we certainly believed were value-creating project development milestones,
Speaker Change: You are forced to confront a stark reality, and that is that the TMC market cap is below the total capital raised.
Speaker Change: Considering what we've accomplished since 2021 alone, it's frustrating for us and I'm sure for many of you to see our market cap sitting at about 60% of the nearly half a billion dollars we've spent since inception de-risking these projects.
Speaker Change: Never mind what may be tens of billions of underlying asset value based on the resource itself.
Speaker Change: We clearly think this historic milestone, milestones achieved, have inherently created value and this coiled spring has just kept getting tighter. And what's all of this work, has all of this work been worth it and why doesn't the market seem to agree currently?
Speaker Change: Our resource is more than just nickel, but focusing on nickel developers for a public company comp, it's quite obvious that we're valued at a small fraction of our peers, many of which face their own regulatory and permitting hurdles, in addition to higher capex requirements inherent in land-based capital-heavy mining.
Speaker Change: But the share price is the share price. And rather than complain and second-guess what the market thinks, we reached out to our institutional investors and analysts.
Speaker Change: with an informal survey. We asked them to rank five factors by importance for any potential rerating of the TMC stock. An adoption of the ISA mining code emerged as the single most important factor that is likely depressing the TMC stock.
Speaker Change: So through this lens of shareholder value maximization, we believe it is wiser to get the application over the line and then resume project development after the ISA adopts the mining code or grants our application based on the existing draft rules.
Craig Shesky: But I'll now turn it over to Craig to discuss some of these capital considerations further.
Craig Shesky: Thanks Jared, and I believe the slides are working on our webcast. I believe there's a frozen moment, but they are available on our website as well. So when TMC did less on the NASDAQ, we published an SEC standard compliant initial assessment of the NORI-D project, or in more familiar terms, a PEA.
Craig Shesky: The purpose of the PEA is to offer an early stage
Craig Shesky: The purpose of the PEA is to offer an early stage conceptual assessment of the potential economic viability of mineral resources in Noridee.
Craig Shesky: And that PEA showed how much development capital would be needed to get an OED to produce 12 million wet tons of nodules per year.
Craig Shesky: And importantly, it was based on a 100% new build scenario. It assumed that we'd build all the production assets, like the nodule collection vehicles, and nodule processing, and refinery plants, and do all of that ourselves.
Craig Shesky: I think as everybody's now aware, it's not our plan to do that, and we've obviously shown that we don't have to do that. With our partner, Allseas, providing our first production vessel, and our partner, PAMCO, providing a turnkey solution for processing.
Craig Shesky: And we're pleased to announce that we have now completed a Prefeasibility Study, or PFS, for this capital-like strategy.
Craig Shesky: Now, we're finalizing approvals and sign-ups on this SEC-compliant document, and we look forward to providing more information, including summary project economic data, in our upcoming Strategy Day in December.
Craig Shesky: Unfortunately, as I said, TMC doesn't have to be spending anything on pre-production CapEx for the onshore component of our operations, thanks to the availability of existing processing facilities like the one owned by our partner PAMCO in Japan.
Craig Shesky: And a world's first commercial-scale nodule processing trial on a 2,000-ton sample of nodules has been underway at PAMCO's Hachinohe facility since April.
Craig Shesky: So with the U.S. election now behind us, many of the elements that frankly have been in a holding pattern over the course of this year are now expected to land in 2025.
Craig Shesky: We've been spending quite a bit of time in D.C., including Jared's testimony recently to the House Select Committee on China. Our sources in D.C. tell us that the long-awaited Pentagon report is nearly finished, and we're optimistic on what it's going to say before the year is out.
Craig Shesky: Importantly, the National Defense Authorization Act, which is the Department of Defense annual spending bill, is expected to be signed in December and is also expected to call for the delivery of a feasibility study on nodules during 2025.
Craig Shesky: We are also eagerly awaiting the Pentagon's response to our pending application for a nine million dollar grant on building a refinery down the road in the United States to refine nodule-derived intermediates. We do hope to have more to say on that in the coming quarters.
Craig Shesky: The U.S. interest in the space is not new, having been a priority for both President Trump and Biden. It's had a massive influence on U.S. aviation, like the International Air Force under Trump. And last year, President Biden announced the demarcation of an additional 1 million square kilometers of seafloor to the U.S. continental shelf.
Craig Shesky: Over the past year, influential figures from across the political spectrum and the defense and intelligence communities have repeated calls for the U.S. to sign UNCLOS amid growing concern that adversaries are taking advantage of America's absence to undermine its economic and national security interests.
Craig Shesky: And in March, the Republican-led Responsible Use of Seafloor Resources Act was introduced in Congress.
Craig Shesky: Sponsored by several representatives, various committees, and endorsed by the National Ocean Industries Association and other key industry players, this bill requires financing and other support for nodule collection, processing, and refining to close defense and clean energy supply chain vulnerabilities.
Craig Shesky: Now, specifically looking at the ISA, the two most influential entities on the ISA file for the United States are arguably the UN delegation and the State Department.
Craig Shesky: Trump's nominations for the UN Ambassador and Secretary of State are already focal public supporters of polymetallic nodules.
Craig Shesky: Trump nominated Representative Elise Stefanik, one of our biggest champions and a staunch supporter of knowledgeables as a source of U.S. critical materials, to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.
Speaker Change: Through our contributions to the congressional knowledge base on deep-sea mining, we've had the pleasure of meeting with Representative Stefanik on multiple occasions, and in fact she was one of the co-leaders of the letter, along with Representative Rob Whitman, sent to the Pentagon trying to prioritize seafloor nodules.
Speaker Change: The President-Elect is also nominated Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, according to media reports.
Speaker Change: Senator Rubio in 2022 called out Volkswagen for its ESG hypocrisy in valuing deep-sea sediment over human rights and human life.
Speaker Change: Overall, it's great to see nodal supporters being tapped for their leadership on these pivotal issues as the U.S. enters the second Trump administration.
Speaker Change: Now, for those of you who joined our last earnings call, you'll remember we highlighted the increased focus on deep-sea minerals from among the world's largest economies and industrialized nations.
with multiple technology trials scheduled for 2025.
During the last quarter, we saw more notable news items.
Speaker Change: In India, the world's most populous nation and a major consumer of base metals, scientists and engineers at the National Institute of Ocean Technology recently conducted a pilot nodule collection tech trial in the Andaman Sea, which falls under India's exclusive economic zone.
Speaker Change: Meanwhile in Norway, which announced its intention to open up parts of its territorial waters for deep-sea mining earlier this year, the government allocated a further 14 million dollars to gather essential resource and environmental data and initiatives which are crucial for the responsible development of seafloor resources.
Speaker Change: Just a few weeks ago, a new report by the Federation of German Industries, also known as BDI, noted that Germany cannot afford to be left behind on deep-sea mineral exploration.
Speaker Change: The report stated that Germany cannot escape this trend, and that, quote, it's not a question of weather, but how, unquote, deep sea mineral extraction will take place.
Speaker Change: The voice of German industry, the BDI, represents 39 industrial sector associations, including the German Association of the Automotive Industry.
Speaker Change: Now back to the key remaining deliverable on the NORI D project, our environmental impact assessment, which with this registered direct offering is the key next remaining element for finalization of TMC's application now with that pre-feasibility study finished.
Speaker Change: With petabytes of data, millions of still and video images, and tens of thousands of biological samples, NORI's dataset represents one of the largest deep-sea datasets ever compiled.
Speaker Change: The EIS is tightly focused on assessing the potential impacts of our operations on marine biodiversity and overall ecosystem function.
Speaker Change: And as time goes on, we're addressing these concerns and continue to demonstrate that activist and media speculation about potential impacts is overblown.
Speaker Change: We now know that sediment plumes generated at the seafloor stay low and settle fast, with 92-98% of sediment staying within 2 meters of the seafloor.
Speaker Change: And while activists continue to warn that organisms living in or around areas impacted by the plume will not recover, post-disturbance monitoring conducted earlier this year has shown this to be yet another tactic to mislead.
Speaker Change: We now have visual evidence that organisms we identified two weeks after our 2022 trials in areas where sedimentation was heaviest are still present and alive over a year later.
Speaker Change: The nodules that were once covered in sediment are now sitting invisible.
Speaker Change: So with our team continuously analyzing the expanding data set over the year, they have, over the years, excuse me, they've become adept at identifying claims that aren't supported by the data or claims that appear implausible.
Speaker Change: A good example of this would be the media frenzy over the so-called dark oxygen production on the seafloor of the abyssal plain, and we think that bubble is beginning to burst.
Speaker Change: The media were quick to jump in some pretty crazy conclusions about how this fundamentally altered our understanding of life on earth, while NGOs happily pointed to the paper, advancing their calls for more torrent. However, we and some of the media didn't buy the hype.
Speaker Change: Back in August, a journalist at Science Magazine reached out to my team and our team to let us know that they have not covered the paper because they felt the findings were deeply questionable.
Speaker Change: As one of the leading academics interviewed for the Peace Warrant, there's a high probability that the paper is wrong.
Speaker Change: Since then, multiple rebuttals have been submitted, including our own, warning of serious methodological and ethical flaws, a lack of data to support the paper's claims, and calling for the paper to be retracted.
Speaker Change: We'd like to point out comments made by the researchers at the University of Gothenburg, arguably the foremost experts on the type of seafloor lander experiments that Andrew Sweetman's team conducted, who cited, quote, poor quality lander incubation experiments leading to faulty oxygen flux measurements, end quote.
Speaker Change: Meanwhile, we were recently contacted by Andrew Sweetman's former employer, Harriet Watt University, who had warned Nature Geoscience that the Andrew Sweetman data had not been in a campaign report submitted to TMC because of serious concerns with its validity.
Speaker Change: and that they had not authorized Andrew Sweetman to publish this data in his research as a result. So this of course is in direct violation of Nature's own policies, which state that an author must obtain authorization to use any data from that data's owners.
Speaker Change: So arguably that alone should have been a cause for retraction, but we think the weight of criticism being levied at the paper will lead to that outcome.
On to the regulatory update.
Speaker Change: The publication of the consolidated regular text with the ISA earlier this year was a key milestone in the regulatory process, and it marked the transition to the final phase of negotiations.
Speaker Change: The Council completed its first reading at the July session, moving us one large step closer to bringing the process to a close.
Speaker Change: Based on feedback from the first meeting, a revised version of the text will be circulated to all ISA members this month.
Speaker Change: And after multiple draft regulatory texts, dozens of technical studies, and thousands of hours of in-person meetings, we have a very good idea of what that final mining code will look like.
Speaker Change: Also last quarter, we congratulated the newly elected Secretary General, Brazil's Leticia Carvalho, and our team had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Carvalho at the UN General Assembly meetings in New York.
Speaker Change: Now, while the Secretary General will play a major role in ensuring the ISA's decision-making organs can fulfill their mandate, it's important to remember that ultimately it's the ISA Council that is the main driver of negotiations over the mining code.
Speaker Change: To that end, the Council, led by its Norwegian President, has already set out a thorough agenda of eight intersessional working groups which will meet over the coming months to address outstanding issues ahead of its publication of an updated consolidated text this November.
Speaker Change: Now, let's turn to what will happen once Nori submits that exploitation application.
Under the current draft rules,
following Norah's submission.
Speaker Change: On June 27th of 2025, the ISA Secretariat would then undertake a brief review of the document to assess it for completeness, before handing it over to 41 experts that comprise the organization's main technical body, the Legal and Technical Commission.
Speaker Change: The LTC will then review the application in its entirety, including the wealth of environmental baseline data and impact data that we've compiled, before making a decision on whether to approve our project, either by consensus or a simple majority vote.
Speaker Change: With approval from the LTC, it would then take a two-thirds majority from within the ISA council and a simple majority of each of the council subgroups to overturn a positive LTC recommendation. And that's why we're so confident that the LTC's conclusion is very important based on TNC's Environmental Impact Statement.
So on to the financial results.
Speaker Change: TMC reported a net loss of approximately $20.5 million, or $0.06 per share, in the third quarter of 2024 compared to a net loss of $12.5 million, or $0.04 per share, for the same period in 2023.
Speaker Change: Exploration and evaluation expenses during the third quarter of 2024 were $11.8 million compared to $7.9 million for the same period in 2023.
Speaker Change: The increase is primarily due to an increase in share-based comp due to the amortization of the fair value of restricted stock units and options granted to directors and officers in the second quarter of 2024, increase in mining, technology, and process development resulting from increased engineering work biopsies and higher personnel costs.
Speaker Change: General and administrative expenses were $8.2 million for the quarter ended September 30th, 2024, compared to $4.6 million for the quarter ended September 30th, 2023.
Speaker Change: The increase was mainly due to an increase in share-based comp due to the amortization of the fair value of NRSU's options granted to directors and officers in the second quarter of 2024, including the compensation package for their chairman and CEO, which would not vest until share prices far higher than where we are today.
Speaker Change: As long along with an increase in legal and consulting costs and higher personnel costs
Speaker Change: The third quarter 2024 results also included gain of $1.1 million for the change in fair value of warrants liability and charges of $0.9 million for foreign exchange losses and $0.6 million for fees and interest on our credit facilities.
Speaker Change: In the comparative quarter of 2023, the gain due to the change in fair value of warrants liability was $0.1 million, and charges for fees and interest on accredited facilities were $0.3 million.
Craig Shesky.
Speaker Change: In the third quarter of 2024, the net cash used in operating activities amounted to $5.7 million, compared to $12.5 million for the third quarter of 2023.
Speaker Change: The reduction in the third quarter of 2024 compared to the prior period in 2023 is mainly due to change in working capital, reflecting the increase in accounts payable and accrued liabilities, and a reduction in receivables and prepayments.
Speaker Change: The free cash flow for the third quarter of 2024 was negative $5.8 million compared to negative $12.6 million in the third quarter of 2023.
Speaker Change: Free cash flow is a non-gap measure and we pointed to the non-gap reconciliation table included in this slide deck.
Speaker Change: We believe that our cash on hand, along with the funds just raised through a registered direct offering and the undrawn $33.8 million unsecured credit capacity on facility from Gerard Barron and Andre Karkar will be sufficient to meet our working capital and capital expenditure requirements for at least the next 12 months from today.
Speaker Change: During the third quarter of 2024, the company drew $3.3 million from the credit facilities and short-term debt.
Speaker Change: The company also raised $2.3 million under the ATM facility in the third quarter by issuing 1.6 million shares at an average price of $1.45 per share after raising $2.6 million in the second quarter at an average price of $1.61. There has been no ATM usage in the fourth quarter.
Speaker Change: With that, we will turn it over to the operator to take the Q&A.
Speaker Change: Thank you. At this time, we'll conduct a question and answer session. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star 1-1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1-1 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster.
Speaker Change: And our first question comes from the line of Matthew O'Keefe of Cantor Fitzgerald. Your line is now open.
Good evening, good evening.
Speaker Change: I'm very interested in the services business potential, as you pointed out in your presentation.
We've seen a lot of interest in deep ocean from
Speaker Change: governments like China, India, you mentioned Norway, I guess Japan as well. What kind of, like, with respect to the services business, how big will this be? Like, what's the revenue model going to look like? And is it a big stretch to set it up? Are there a lot of costs to set up this business? Craig Shesky
Yeah, thanks Matt. Look, we're super excited about this part.
of GoForward because
Speaker Change: We have this amazing expertise that we've gathered over the last decade, and when we look at how we operate our offshore campaigns and resource definition and the success of those campaigns that is now going to be all demonstrated in our application to the regulator,
increase 10x.
Speaker Change: once the mining code is in place, and that's just in the international waters. If you add to that territorial waters, then that number could be much higher.
Speaker Change: So, we see a great opportunity of being able to keep that talent that we've mustered over the last decade and make it available to other operators. And there's no real investment. It's really about...
Speaker Change: Looking at that talent that is going to start becoming more available once our application is lodged and how we can help other contractors.
at www.thevenusproject.com
Speaker Change: But with the advent of the mining code, then all of that excuse goes away and contract holders will be obliged to move their blocks.
Speaker Change: But I am confident many others will, particularly because we can offer a similar service to several contractors at once, particularly when it comes to offshore deployments. And there are tremendous economic advantages for all of those contractors if they collaborate on some of that work.
Hmm.
Speaker Change: And would this just be focused around Clarion and Clipperton, or do you see areas for nodules in other parts of the ocean and also other types of deep sea mining, or would you really just focus in your quote-unquote backyard?
Speaker Change: Look, our backyard is certainly the CCZ, for sure, but the services apply beyond into regional waters as well, and we have had conversations already with regards to territorial waters.
Speaker Change: We would also know, Matt, in terms of, you know, the potential elsewhere from the clearing Clifton zone, all of the strategies incorporate within the capital aid approach.
Speaker Change: So this is not something where to say, you know, hey, let's, you know, get some ships to help do this. They, the services business is really built on expertise that, you know, our team has gathered.
in sort of environmental impact assessments resource definition.
Speaker Change: other technical matters that, frankly, our team of roughly 50 people are some of the best in the world at. But it's not something where you can expect that TMC is going to get out over our skis with respect to, you know, additional capital. We certainly would love the opportunity, not only in the services business, thinking about future revenue.
Speaker Change: but thinking about increasing the size of the resource portfolio. So you can think of us as being very nimble and very good stewards of capital and evaluating every opportunity based on the return on equity and the IRR and thinking of shareholders every step of the way.
Speaker Change: Thanks, that sounds good. I look forward to more updates on that. That'll do it for me. Thanks very much.
Thanks a lot.
Thank you. We'll move on to our next question.
Speaker Change: While we're waiting, I see a question from Ryan Bolling. Elon Musk guaranteed cobalt in their child labor, used in production. How can this be a reality sooner rather than later?
Speaker Change: Well, look, I think in terms, Ryan, of, you know, thinking where the mix of, you know, metals within batteries is ending up, you know, there is a, I guess, always changing equation between how much nickel, how much cobalt, maybe LFP or other forms.
Speaker Change: I think what we've seen certainly over the past few quarters is that, you know, while we do focus on electric vehicles, and that source of demand is going to be very big,
Speaker Change: For TMC, thinking about some of the metals we produce, such as industrial metals for manganese and nickel used in stainless steel, there are scenarios we could talk about, you know, over half of revenue down the road, perhaps coming from some of those sources outside.
Speaker Change: of batteries. It all depends on what the nature of some of our future contracts look like, but the underlying demand for these metals is not only driven by EV batteries. And I think that's one of the reasons, too, when you talk about cobalt or you talk about nickel,
Speaker Change: It's evolving past the situation of the EV industry struggling with these difficult decisions and that's why it was so important to see Marco Rubio.
the incoming Secretary of State, if he's confirmed.
Speaker Change: calling out Volkswagen and other brands for their hypocrisy and what some of their sourcing methods are.
Speaker Change: But I think we can expect over the course of the next year to see this pivoting away from an EV industry equation and something where it's, you know, NGOs versus contractors and really take in the form of, you know, the West versus China.
and, you know, TMC.
Speaker Change: certainly was featured and had a lot of our video in the Washington Post article on this topic late last year as well as a few pieces in 60 minutes. So it is definitely evolving into national security and certainly with the Republican administration coming in and the majority in both houses of Congress, that sets up very well and I think we're positioned better than anybody to take advantage of that.
Speaker Change: Thank you and our next question comes from a line of Dimitri Silverstein of Watertower Research. Your line is now open.
Speaker Change: Good afternoon, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my questions. I just wanted to follow up on your service business potential.
Speaker Change: Are you, I think Gerard you mentioned that you're talking to some contractors now, are you in discussions that are a little bit more serious than talking at this point, or is this something that's still in the very early stages?
Speaker Change: Well, there is a bit of a lead time and I would think of it as 2025 calendar year.
Speaker Change: There will certainly be more of our team available after that application is lodged, and of course
for us.
Speaker Change: You know, our team applied or approached regularly to go and join other operators.
Speaker Change: Everyone likes working as part of a coherent team, and we've really amassed
and others.
And for us, it's about how do we...
Speaker Change: How can we economically keep that team together? And the easiest way...
Speaker Change: is to make them available and sell those services into other operators. And, you know, there's tremendous synergies if we can encourage other contractors to work together. But someone needs to bring it together. And, of course, it's worth reminding that we have conducted 22 successful offshore campaigns over the last decade.
Speaker Change: We've had no wipeouts, and that's really unusual. Look at the amazing collector trial that we ran in 2022 with our partner Allseas.
Speaker Change: You know, it was amazingly successful. And, you know, we didn't lose a single day of operation through COVID, yet we ran nine offshore campaigns.
Speaker Change: And so, you know, we've had some amazing successes in this area and so our credentials are very strong and that provides a good base to go and build a business around, particularly because it doesn't require any investment.
Speaker Change: Sounds good, Gerard. Thank you for that. And then one final question, and I think it was just, I lost connection on my end, but when you're talking about the Deep Dive Day that you're planning to hold, is that, can you repeat the date for that? Yeah, we haven't announced the date, but it will be before the end of the year.
and we can't wait.
Speaker Change: Yeah, gotcha. Okay, all right. Thank you very much. That's all the questions I had. Thanks.
Thank you. One moment for our next question.
Speaker Change: Our next question comes from a line of Jake Seselsky of Alliance Global Partners. Your line is now open.
Hey guys, thanks for taking my questions.
Bye.
Speaker Change: Just a quick one here. Are you able to provide any additional color on that $9 million in government funding that Craig had mentioned earlier related to domestic refining capacity? Domestic supply chains are obviously becoming very topical after the election. I'm just curious how advanced you are in that process and have you identified any potential sites at this point?
Speaker Change: Yeah, definitely. Appreciate that Jake. Always good to speak with you and the answer is yes, we have identified potential sites. The quality of our application I think is...
Speaker Change: underpinned by the fact that, you know, we haven't been thinking and planning.
Speaker Change: on this for a very long time in consultation with our
project team as well as our business development team.
Speaker Change: So I think because we are so far along and because we do feel we have growing support, and that's only, you know, going to multiply exponentially when you see, you know, some of the people who are getting into positions of influence within the incoming White House.
Speaker Change: We feel it's in a very good place. Now, look, these applications do take time. We think on average.
Speaker Change: They've taken over a year for most applicants and there's always a question of at any point in time what funding is available from the Department of Defense's Defense Production Act Title III grant program.
Speaker Change: But it's now been close to nine months since we launched that application. So it's conceivable in the next couple of quarters that we will know more on that information going forward. And in the context of this project, in the context of this resource, nine million may not sound like a lot.
We would say it's more about, you know, that
Speaker Change: explicit support from the government that's going to be very helpful, not just with, you know, eventually building out some capacity in the United States.
Speaker Change: But that's the type of thing that really does give confidence and cover for other people to kind of
Speaker Change: put their head above the parapet and not be so afraid of the NGO noise.
Speaker Change: because a lot of people get it, a lot of people understand that this resource is transformational and one extra push where it's sort of you have explicit support from the U.S.
Speaker Change: is the type of thing that, you know, can make it easier for investors.
Speaker Change: of all shapes and sizes to come on board. So we're going to view that as a very key moment, but at the same time, it's certainly.
not a must-have. We view this as being very opportunistic.
and I think what you've seen in cadence.
Speaker Change: Craig Shesky, Ph.D.: Of news on modules over the last year shows that this has been an investment well spent the time well spent on our team.
Thanks again.
Thank you, Jake.
Speaker Change: I do see a question in the online queue from Tyler McNeil. Can we ensure investors the application date is not going to be pushed back beyond June 2025?
Speaker Change: And then something on the sides of potential services contracts. Well, Gerard did mention on the services business, the addressable market in terms of other contractor spending in the ballpark of $100 million per year. Now, we do expect that the number of that will increase substantially as the mining code is getting closer.
Speaker Change: And there will be requirements from contractors to effectively play catch-up on You know work that perhaps hadn't been pushed forward in the past
Speaker Change: Beyond that, again, the addressable market is beyond just what we're looking at narrowly within the area of the clearing Clipperton zone or high seeds, but a lot of other areas and national jurisdictions that will see quite a bit of increased spending.
Speaker Change: In terms of the application date not being pushed back, look, we are, you know, full bore on this and we have our cadence and our schedule lined up and the team is all in agreement on what needs to be delivered.
Speaker Change: There is a rationale, too, to say getting that over the line on that June date, we didn't just, you know, pick it out of a hat.
Speaker Change: That's a date that allows us to put forth the best application, but importantly, to ensure that in the March 2025 ISA session, we get additional clarity from the ISA on what the application review process looks like very specifically.
Speaker Change: such that once the application is in towards the end of June, they can start dealing with it at their July session. So there's a natural reason why we pick that date and certainly every incentive in the world to ensure that there's no delay beyond that.
Jared Barron: Jared, I'm not sure if you have any other comment on that.
No, other than we...
Jared Barron: It's all all roads lead to to that date and as as we alluded to There were many stakeholders we
Many stakeholders we consulted on that
Jared Barron: We also are aware the UN Ocean Council is meeting, which we'll be attending.
dialogue between sponsoring states.
Jared Barron: is certainly on the increase, or between member states of the International Seabed Authority. And we're very encouraged by that dialogue, and we think it all leads to a adoption of the mining code in the very near future.
Speaker Change: Thank you. This concludes the question and answer session from the phone line. I would now like to turn it back to Craig Shesky.
Craig Shesky: Hey, thank you very much. Thanks for everybody for attending this call. Usually we say we look forward to seeing you on our next quarterly update call, but hopefully we can see many of you even before that when we announce news and the date for our strategy day before year end. So stay tuned on that and thank you all very much.
Speaker Change: Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This concludes the program. You may now disconnect.