One of the biggest stories shaking up the critical mineral space right now is the Nasdaq composite debut of Almonty Industries Inc (ASX:AII).
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This isn’t just another listing, it’s a calculated move with a serious impact at a time when the West is scrambling to lock down supply chains and reduce its dependency on China, Almonty is already steps ahead. Their Korean tungsten project is drawing serious attention and now Wall Street’s paying attention too.
(The following is a transcription of the above video edited for clarity.)
We recently caught up with the driving force behind Almonty‘s momentum, Mr. Lewis Black, Director, President and CEO himself. He’s not just steering a company; he’s commanding a mission that’s putting Almonty at the center of the global critical minerals battle.
One of the biggest stories shaking up critical mineral space right now is the NASDAQ debut of Almonty Industries. This isn’t just another listing, it’s a calculated move with a serious impact at a time when the West is scrambling to lock down supply chains and reduce its dependency on China, Almonty is already steps ahead. Their Korean tungsten project is drawing serious attention and now Wall Street’s paying attention too.
Joining me is the driving force behind Almonty‘s momentum. Lewis Black, Director, President and CEO himself. He’s not just steering a company; he’s commanding a mission that’s putting Almonty at the center of the global critical minerals battle. Lewis, this is a big moment.
Lewis: It’s been a long journey, and it started really last year of a strategy of onshoring into the us. Yeah. When you have something that no one else has of that scale or that size, and you’ve been backed by the kind of people that you’ve been backed by, and you have the kind of benefits of half floors, no cap on the upside and all these things that we are, we alone in our sector have been able to attract I think was important. You know, and we saw our liquidity increase dramatically in Germany and in Canada as one of the highest junior miners with liquidity in Canada.
It made sense with all of that momentum from last year to now enter into the biggest liquidity capital market in the world, especially given that our primary focus is on US defense and national security that the US government’s already publicly being written to us and publish our letters. And we already have this increasing relationship where we don’t require money and we don’t require loans. And we can fix a problem, which of course is a little, I suppose, unnerving for any government, but you’re not in the room asking for anything. You’re just saying, I’ve got a solution for you. And it’s been an interesting and proactive journey. NASDAQ is step one, so there’s more to come in. The redomicile, the downstream, and then whatever I may have up my sleeve
Lyndsay: And there’s always something up your sleeve. Let’s get right to the punchline though. Just how much capital did you raise?
Lewis: We closed at 90 million USD. It was enormously oversubscribed. I can’t give you the exact number because I’m not allowed to if it’s not in the prospectus, I’m not allowed to say it, but all I can say is that people didn’t really get much of what they wanted. I think that was a great positive. I’d like to put that down to my ability to really put forward a great story. But I think in fact, it’s more along the lines that in a very simplistic way, we already have multiple government backing.
We already have unique contracts that no one else has in strategic metals until, of course, Mountain Pass (MP) did end of last week when they got a hard floor from the US government. But until then, we were sort of alone in that we have the only project that’s coming online anytime in the next 10 years. And we are already a deeply entrenched of the US government. I think on the basis of that, there was an awful lot of interest and support in what we’re doing.
Lyndsay: That was going to be my next question anyways. I mean, what kind of buzz did you get overall from investors?
Lewis: Well, I mean, I think that we got a really, if I’m honest, we got a really good group of institutions into this. I mean, there were a lot of them, some great names, smart guys, it’s a first for a tungsten company. I mean, no tungsten company has raised this much money in the equity markets. No tungsten company is listed in production into the US or were the only US company producing tungsten and certainly no tungsten company has ever attracted this kind of blue chip roll call of really top end institutions. These are very serious guys, they’ve looked at the market. They like the market. They want exposure to the market. They came to us.
Lyndsay: Well, they do their due diligence for sure. How are you planning to use that capital?
Lewis: Well, it’s earmarked for the downstream tungsten oxide smarter so allows us to move forward much quicker with that. This is a product that’s required both in Korea and from those who are not vertical in the US. It’s important to note that we will be the only vertical tungsten oxide smelter in a transparent and safe jurisdiction, which I think is indicative of the mess that or the disaster that strategic metals have been subjected to over the last 30 years. The neglect, because it’s inconceivable that not only are we the only US company producing tungsten, but we’re also going to be the only vertical smelter outside of China or the only one in the safe jurisdiction. So, it’s an extraordinary opportunity that we have because we have something no one else has, which is raw material. And that really is the key
Lyndsay: Lewis you were also on the road meeting investors across multiple markets, and clearly something clicked here. So, what do you think was the biggest driver behind the demand?
Lewis: Well, I think that they recognized what this sector is. What Tungsten’s used in is everything. But if we just look at defense, you can’t build munitions or armor without tungsten, and you’ve got increased military spending both in Europe and in the US and you know the DOD can’t use Iranian, North Korean, Chinese, or Russian tungsten from the end of next year, which pretty much leaves us. So, you know, these guys try and scratch their heads as to how come we’re not much more valuable than we already are?
This didn’t make any sense, but when you are the only player in town, you have essentially a virtual monopoly. And it’s really worth pointing out that what we’re seeing, is very similar to what say that our Korean asset went through in the fifties and sixties.
It was the leader in its sector, and it created its own downstream. So companies like POSCO, Poongsan, TaeguTec, large, enormous, vast corporations now were created by a Korean mine. They had the raw material. No one else had and they utilized it.
We’ve just really gone full circle to now being all street metals being in the same situation. The fact of matter is the days of the cheap Chinese government subsidized raw materials that our customers and our downstream have been feeding from for 30 years and becoming very successful on the back of that subsidized material are over. So now if you have that raw material, you can now look at how best to utilize it. I suppose the shoe is on the other foot, and it’s very important that we identify that and work very hard to really capture that value for the benefit of me.
And given I’m one of the largest shareholders, means all the other shareholders benefit from what I do for myself. So inadvertently and much I love my shareholders, but I’m doing this as a shareholder and I have to take the rest of the shareholders with me. That’s just the way public companies work. But it’s really important that we don’t say rest on our laurels. Say, oh, we’ve done this raise. We are the big king, the king of tungsten, all these, let’s build a statue to ourselves. That wouldn’t be prudent. What we have to do now is understand the changing nature of the geopolitics. The changing nature of our situation, and to really explore and grab the value that’s available to us now.
Lyndsay: Did you see any sort of consistent themes that came up across those conversations?
Lewis: Why were we so cheap? And how is it possible that we’re in a situation where there’s just one big mine that’s coming online and it’s such a scarce resource, what’s going on here? Because it’s scarcity. People don’t understand rare earths, lithium and graphite. They’re not rare. There’s lots of resources. They’re just not developed. But tungsten really is scarce. It’s scarce in the west, it’s scarce in China, it’s scarce in Russia. It’s a scarce commodity. Add that to the fact that unless you know actually how to mine it and process it, they’ll have no chance. You need a deep understanding of how to handle this material. tungsten is very unique. It behaves unlike any other metal. And I think that all the people I spoke to were really amazed that we’d been going five generations. We actually done this before. That we had formerly the world’s largest tungsten mine that had been backed by all these governments, and they were only hearing about it now. So their view was once more US institutions and retail start to really uncover this story in the NASDAQ the sky is the limit for the company’s value.
Lyndsay: Why do you think that it’s taken so long for tungsten to come into the spotlight?
Lewis: I’ve always said that I’ve always felt there was a bit of a tungsten diplomacy, because it is so scarce and because it’s in everything. I mean, every part of an economy that ultimately governments would rather have handbag fights over lithium or rare earths, because they’re not rare. They’re everywhere that you haven’t developed them. But you have the opportunity to do so.
In tungsten you don’t have that. And then of course, the Biden administration bizarrely put on tariffs on a tungsten sector that doesn’t actually exist in the US. And that, of course seems to have greenlit China to say, oh, we’re talking tungsten now, are we? And with that the 30 year truce was over, and of course the first thing they said was in December of last year was you couldn’t use tungsten for dual use in which you can’t use it in match applications.
Then they carried that forward into February of this year where they said, you now need to apply for export permits for any tungsten. They made the barrier of entry for those permits very high. They want a huge data sweep of the company applying, which many companies aren’t willing to do, because of course, a lot of their work is rather sensitive. So, it has become front and center. And I think ultimately, if you look in the history of tungsten, you’ve always seen price spikes when the world is at conflict, which is terrible. It means that I’m in the business of misery. And dreadful as that may be, it is a primary metal for defense for munitions and armor. You can’t substitute it. There’s nothing that can do the job better.
If you look historically, price of tungsten has always reflected global conflict. And what we are seeing now is, I’m not saying the world’s, there’s not a World War III, but we have a re-arming of the West because they have neglected those armaments for 30 years. It’s been completely ignored. No one won any elections saying and this time next week, I’m going to produce an extra 30,000 artillery shells. So that’s really what the big difference is. Now people are replenishing their depleted stock pass.
Lyndsay: Let’s flip angles here just for a moment. If we could, MP Materials just got a massive tailwind from the US government, a 50% stock surge in a valuation north of $7 billion. Lewis, when you stack up Almonty against MP, I mean, where do you see Almonty positioned, particularly in terms of strategic relevance and valuation potential?
Lewis: Well, I don’t think I can really talk about MP. I’m sure they wouldn’t appreciate it, but I think what I can say about Almonty, is that we process everything at sites. We are in safe jurisdictions, we operate in multiple sites. The tungsten and the resource is very scarce. So the next big sort of project is in the Northern Yukon in Canada’s 200 kilometers from nearest road, and by their own admission about 10 years away from construction. We have a fairly clear field in that regard. It’s a very difficult metal to process. So not everyone can do it. Anyone in gold or silver or tin, they’re going to struggle with tungsten because it’s so brittle. And ultimately we’ve done this a long time.
We’re considered the market leaders, and I think the difference between rare earths and tungsten. It’s a lot of what rare earths are used for you can’t even see. They’re in guidance systems, they’re in magnets and these things. But if you take the tungsten out of an aircraft, there’s not much of the aircraft left. It doesn’t have engines, doesn’t have brakes, doesn’t have any munition and even in the guidance systems you have tungsten. Without tungsten it doesn’t have any screens in the plane. So it’s a much more visible product in its uses. But again, until last year, until Biden put these tariffs on that sector, no government really wanted to spend a lot of time talking about it, because you can’t even acknowledge your short of tungsten, because that was sent a message to adversaries that you don’t have the ability to produce munitions. Rare earths are not rare. I mean, they’re pretty unpleasant to process, there’s a lot of nasty byproducts, but they’re not rare. Tungsten is very rare and it’s very difficult to mine.
So I think that’s really the fundamentalism between us and perhaps other strategic metal miners.
Lyndsay: Lewis, this was a great deal of perseverance to get here. Now that at that IPO is in the rear view mirror, the real grind begins. We all know that. So what’s next? I mean, what are your top priorities and major milestones now that you’re aiming to achieve maybe for the rest of the year or into next year? What do you want to do?
Lewis: Phase one comes online in Korea this year. We start work straight away on phase two. We have a downstream smelter now to focus on. I have to do some confirmation drilling for the Moly so I can start signing value to that project into our market capitalization. Cause Right now there’s no value at all assigned to the Moly. And then there’s the mystery box. But it remains a mystery. Like, everything that I try and do, I try not to talk too much about what I’m going to do. I just let you know after I’ve done it. Because that way I think people have to just always remember, I am first and foremost a shareholder. I am driving value because I want the value because I’m a shareholder. And yes, we raised a lot of money and we have now that to hand, but I honestly believe that what I have planned next is going to surprise everybody. But anyway.
Lyndsay: And the plot thickens
Lewis: What can, what can I say? There are some who didn’t believe me last time I said this and I keep delivering. I’m a value driven shareholder. That’s why I get out of bed. So the grind, to me, it’s not grind, it’s just about, I see it as just constantly identifying and utilizing what we have. We put ourselves in the best possible position. We have to, as I said, we’re not building strategies to ourselves. I don’t want to be addressed as the king of tungsten. I just want to deliver value to me, which means every other shareholder gets dragged along with me.
Lyndsay: Let’s continue that conversation and keep looking at the bigger picture for you. You’re not just running a company anymore, you’re playing on the global stage of resource security. So given Almonty’s expanding footprint and geopolitical importance, I mean, how do you see your role evolving, Lewis? Like, not just as a CEO, but as a key player in the global critical mineral space?
Lewis: I’m going to try and stay out of a lot of that you know, politics is not really my thing because I think what’s important is that I work closely with the policy makers in these committees so we can find a way of making sure our material ends up to where I would like it to be, which is focused on US Defense. And therefore sort of ticking that one box of national security, the other 34 odd metals they need, I can’t help them with. I don’t really see myself as a spokesman for this sector. I would like people to learn more about tungsten. I find it sometimes frustrating that it only seems to be me that’s willing to really step forward and share what goes on in our space.
But again, I suppose, ultimately I’ve done this for a long time. I run this company with my heart and my head makes the decisions, often breaking my heart. But it does. And I try and focus on running a company profitably, but with conviction. I make a decision to go a route, and if it’s not the right route, I pivot. You know, I’m not one of those people that makes a mistake and then just keeps making it so I don’t have to say I’m wrong. I try and be more right than wrong in a day. That’s how I look at it. And so I’m not focusing on my global impact on our industry. I’m focusing on making sure that I drive all of this available value into the company for my shareholders, well, for me and my shareholders.
You can find Almonty Industries now trading on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol ALM.
If you’re not already looking at this company, it’s time you start, check them out at almonty.com. This is one story that’s not waiting around.
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