RE: RNS12 May 2023 15:06
Here's Oliver's answer to my question last night re the grant application process, A lot of detail but well worth the read
So in regards to grants I can speak more broadly about the process but at this time wont go into too many details regarding Golden Metal Resources specifically. We will be releasing a RNS' in the future which will cover this so until then I can't say too much. With that being said, as many investors are acutely aware there has been a significant paradigm shift in the US (and around the world) when it comes to securing domestic sources of strategic, defense and battery metals. The US is by far an away putting the most money of any country in the world towards this cause. Which is great for us. Many departments including Department of Minerals (DOM), Department of Commerce (DOC), Department of Energy (DOE) as well as Department of Defense (DOD) have multiple pools of capital (mostly funded directly from federal government) to put towards this cause (there are other departments as well but these are some of the main ones). Each department has their own specific agenda when it comes to types of projects they are looking to then deploy these grants to (and a important note is that most funds are being deployed are grants - so not repayable which is really fantastic as they are completely non dilutionary sources of capital). What is really interesting is that Pilot Mountain bridges the gap between many of these departments so there are a wide range of grants that could be available to us. With that being said, for instance if you are dealing with the DOE their main mandate is to put funding towards battery metals projects (including the likes of lithium) so this means that the department has to deal with all of the lithium applications so the process can take longer. With the department of defense, the list of metals they are looking to secure is much smaller (and tungsten is very safely on that list), and on top of that, the DOD has one of the biggest budgets to put towards their cause which I am told recently was upped to $250,000,000 for this upcoming fiscal year. So considering the fact that the US has no tungsten mines active at the moment (Pilot Mountain being the largest and most advance tungsten deposit in the USA), and they are hugely reliant on China for their tungsten imports it should be clear which angle we are pushing the hardest. On top of that, the DOD announced recently that as of Jan 1 2026 all imports from China/Russia/Iran and North Korea of tungsten are BANNED from being used by the DOD. So within 3 years they need to find new friendly and/or domestic sources to fill this very large hole in their annual imports. So this is the backstory. In terms of the actual grants one of the DOD’s is called the Defense Production Act (DPA) III Program. The way you appply for this is you submit what is called a White Paper, it is a relatively short document (less than 10 pages) which outlines what your project is, how ad