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I thought the same MrsR, but looking into it last night it seemed to align with Project Vault.

I have only tried a couple of times, but unsuccessfully. JT is effectively our public relations guy… Imo this is something we need to improve now we have a market cap in the hundreds of millions.

Current premium on Gold Britannias (if they actually had any in stock!) is advertised as 7.4% at Chards. Very much looks like retail piled in to buy physical bullion after the paper induced drop. Wonder what the price will be by the time they have any back in stock…

I had assumed that they would be paying the 15% tariff on the HPMS vessels, and that there’s no way of manufacturing such speciality kit in the US as quickly or cost effectively (even with tariffs taken into account ). So if my assumption is correct, they will still be using the same equipment / supplier regardless of whether they get a tariff exemption or not. Therefore I don’t see why that particular item should hold up a detailed engineering phase. Anyway, all just speculation. I think JT said the detailed design was 40% of the way through at his last investor Q&A, so hoping we aren’t too far off.

Yes, all fair comments, the market is awaiting confirmation on a number of fronts (as are we all).

Agree soda, when I used to advise on infra financing deals the banks would want to have all the technical due diligence complete before investment committee approval, and I assume that can’t be done until the detailed engineering workstream is complete.

JT said FID would be this quarter, so if they are to hit it they will need to get a move on. Given that it is a modular design I’m not sure why the detailed engineering is taking so long, but perhaps this relates to the domestic / non-China sourcing pivot. I know it was the Germans who built the Tyseley HPMS vessel, so hopefully that crucial part isn’t affected.

My post wasn’t meant as a barb at anyone in particular, it was just a statement that nothing has changed in regard to potential EXIM support for Hypromag USA, or if it has changed, it’s increased the likelihood. We haven’t missed out on anything so far. I agree on the news front, hopefully it’s worth waiting for when it comes.

If anything yesterday’s announcement just reinforces how committed EXIM are to building out the US domestic critical minerals supply chain.

Why are people all of a sudden talking about us not getting EXIM support? Nothing at all has changed in that regard. We have a letter of intent from EXIM and JT and Will have been in regular communication with the administration. The administration have told us to go big. All roads lead to an EXIM loan.

But yes, that is just one financing source for us and one catalyst amongst many for our business / share price, which is why we have such a compelling and well diversified business case across different parts of the value chain and different regions.

It’s fascinating reading the debriefs on what actually happened on Friday speedy. Did you read about the AGQ with 2x leverage on silver? They were forced to sell $7bn out of a fund total of $10bn from what I understand, which was one of the factors in the precipitous drop.

Just shows you how dangerous a game people are playing with paper and leverage. The banks raided the silver ETFs to grab their physical. Glad I got my Britts when I did on Friday as they were out of stock the last few days.

No idea LockerRoom, sorry.

Big drop in SP just after open, a familiar sight here. Someone just bought 100k at 59p though, so people are taking advantage of the drop.

From a bit more digging it seems that the meeting began at 8am, but details of the fund were out in the market before the meeting commenced or concluded, which seems to be the way with the current administration.

Oh well, we should benefit from this in the longer term, and I have little doubt that we’ll be getting an EXIM loan at some point in the next few months anyway.

Are we sure that the EXIM board meeting today was to approve Project Vault?

Project Vault was announced first thing this morning US time, so unless the Board meeting was before 7am East Coast time it doesn’t appear to match Floyd’s original post talking about a Board meeting on the 2nd February. But perhaps it is the same thing and the news was just released early in anticipation of Board approval.

Anyway, did a bit of research on Project Vault. There is no exclusive supplier, those that have signed up per the announcement seem to be either OEM’s, financiers or commodity trading houses. There is no mention of the exclusivity for the likes of MP Materials.

Here’s what AI had to say about who will supply Project Vault, you’ll see we get a mentioned (unprompted by me!):

Project Vault aims to secure rare earth magnets by purchasing, stockpiling, and potentially sourcing materials from a diversified global supply chain, primarily to reduce dependence on China, which currently controls ~90% of refining and magnet production. The initiative will likely involve buying from various international sources and boosting domestic U.S. production.

Key Sourcing and Supply Strategy:

Open Market Purchasing: The primary strategy involves buying rare-earth elements and magnets on the open market and storing them, similar to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Domestic U.S. Supply Chain: Funds are expected to support domestic producers like MP Materials and USA Rare Earth Inc., which are developing integrated mine-to-magnet capabilities.

Allied Nations: The strategy includes securing deals for critical minerals with partner countries such as Australia and Korea Zinc.

Recycling Initiatives: Emerging, sustainable sources include recycling efforts in Europe, such as those by HyProMag.

Project Vault, with a reported $12 billion budget, aims to create a 60-day reserve to protect U.S. electronics and manufacturing from sudden supply disruptions.

Speculation last week was about an EXIM board meeting today possibly approving the Hypromag US debt financing, of around $100m. So certainly not billions, that was the wider announcement about a fund that would cover the whole sector. If the EXIM meeting was about us then we should be finding out this week I would expect.

But along with Code’s caution about the LSE trade classification algorithm, most of the large trades were delayed reported today and therefore recorded as unclassified, rather than buys or sells, so the reported buy and sell amounts on LSS are well off the mark.

Monte, the MM’s opened us up this morning a whole 1.5p below Friday’s closing price due, it seems, to the poor wider sentiment in resources and metals. We then recovered strongly and actually closed at a mid price of 59.5p, which means we were in fact up on the day. Obviously the UT at 59p makes it look like we are even, but all else being equal we should start tomorrow at 59.5p. I think today was positive personally.

That’s not my understanding Johnboy but happy to be corrected by someone more knowledgeable. The company are within their right not to discuss a takeover itself unless an official offer has been made. But the company are obligated to inform shareholders of major developments as it relates to the underlying business.

So if they had filed forms with the SEC for the MKAR SPAC (which is completely unrelated to Hypromag USA anyway) or our German plant had been commissioned, then they would tell us, regardless of any informal takeover discussions for Hypromag USA (should there be any, which I’m not suggesting there are btw).

I wouldn’t sell for 1bn personally based on what I know, but it probably depends on how real hubs 4-10 are, how the US government negotiations are going, how feedstock and offtake negotiations are going, what JT’s wider plans and exit strategy are. I said 1bn may be the floor, though they’d probably want a lot more. Your idea of 1bn cash + 1bn performance milestones feels like a sensible one. The main thing is that I’d want to avoid direct exposure to USAR’s share price as I think they are overvalued, so I prefer your idea of milestone payments.

There’s that 100k back on the bid at 59p for the 2pm auction. Nice to have you back, but you’ll have to pay higher than that…

That could definitely be true Johnboy, but it shouldn’t have held up German commissioning and I don’t see how it would directly hold up updating the Songwe technical report or completing the Pulaway PFS. If they released news now we’d likely take off like that a rocket.

Agree with the general sentiment of frustration with newsflow Kaeren, though I’m happy to take rise in SP whatever way it comes! Higher base and all that…