Latest / Best of Business / John Worth: Geo40 CEO on the presence of sought-after metals in New Zealand

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John Worth: Geo40 CEO on the presence of sought-after metals in New Zealand · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk sed B.
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  Speaker 2: So it's been revealed that the Trump administration is talking
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  Speaker 2: to our government about possibly signing a critical minerals deal.
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  Speaker 2: Australia signed one last year, the Ukraine signed one, and
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  Speaker 2: these minerals are part of the reason that Trump is
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  Speaker 2: obsessed with Greenland. GEO forty CEO in Managing Director John
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  Speaker 2: Werth is with us, Hi, John, Well, thank you. How
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  Speaker 2: how much of the stuff have we got on the ground?
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  Speaker 3: Look, New Zealand is quite mineral rich.
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  Speaker 4: It isn't always easy to get hold of the minerals
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  Speaker 4: in New Zealand, and I guess we're a bit different
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  Speaker 4: than that, where we're.
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  Speaker 3: A technology to find those minerals anywhere on Earth.
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  Speaker 2: So so how much of it? Like, is it significant?
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  Speaker 2: Are we are we internationally significant?
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  Speaker 4: Look, I think we're relatively small by international standards, But
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  Speaker 4: there's enough interesting stuff here such that a whole series
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  Speaker 4: of Kiwi companies have developed pretty clever technology to source
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  Speaker 4: those minerals. And I think what we find excuting is
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  Speaker 4: the potential to take that technology offshore.
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  Speaker 2: So our the stuff that we're using to get out
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  Speaker 2: is the real saleable component here rather than what we've
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  Speaker 2: got on the ground.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, a little bit of both.
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  Speaker 4: So we saw silica and the Central North Island close
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  Speaker 4: to topul and we sell several thousand.
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  Speaker 3: Tons of that all around the world. So we certainly
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  Speaker 3: do it here. But I think that probably the bigger
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  Speaker 3: potential is to export.
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  Speaker 4: Can we know how in tech, you know, to a
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  Speaker 4: much bigger global opportunity.
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  Speaker 2: Is there a reason why we don't just do it
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  Speaker 2: in the old fashioned mining, dig a hole in the ground,
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  Speaker 2: get the stuff out.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's an emerging narrative here.
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  Speaker 4: There's certainly a lot of based metals. You know, we
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  Speaker 4: still mind copper and gold that way. I think in
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  Speaker 4: some of these strategic minerals like lithium particularly, and others
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  Speaker 4: which include boron and caesium, you can find them in
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  Speaker 4: underground fluids. And this is quite quite a new type
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  Speaker 4: of mining where rather than digging up rocks and crushing them,
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  Speaker 4: you find these old aquifers in the ground, and we
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  Speaker 4: develop technology to get these minerals out of these fluids.
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  Speaker 2: Why is there I mean, we're talking even again now,
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  Speaker 2: we're talking a lot about potentially getting gold out of
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  Speaker 2: the ground and Sentana and all those guys. Why are
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  Speaker 2: we not having a similar conversation about these critical minerals.
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  Speaker 4: Look, I think when we started our journey at JO forty,
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  Speaker 4: you know, nobody was talking about critical minerals, right, it
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  Speaker 4: wasn't really a thing. And I think you know, the
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  Speaker 4: growth of the ev sector and the imperative to have
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  Speaker 4: listenum in just about every device we own has really
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  Speaker 4: given birth to this. And you'll hear this extended to
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  Speaker 4: things like rare earths, you know, and all the magnets
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  Speaker 4: and all the motives that we use. So it's really
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  Speaker 4: it's really come from over We're in the last decade
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  Speaker 4: and now these are The interesting thing about these minerals
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  Speaker 4: is these are really the minerals that power decarbonization, right
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  Speaker 4: if we want to drive electric cars, and you know,
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  Speaker 4: we need these minerals, and they're getting harder to find.
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  Speaker 4: You know, they're quite widely present around the world. But
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  Speaker 4: this opportunity to pull them out of these underground fluids
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  Speaker 4: is really very exciting.
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  Speaker 2: So if you have a look, if you were to
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  Speaker 2: compare it to the amount of gold that we've got
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  Speaker 2: on the ground, is it more or less?
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  Speaker 3: Look globally.
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  Speaker 4: We believe this potential to get more lithium out of
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  Speaker 4: the ground from Brian than has currently been minded hard rock.
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  Speaker 3: So I think that the potential is enormous.
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  Speaker 4: But beyond that, what getting lithium out of the or
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  Speaker 4: and other minerals out of his Brian's does is it
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  Speaker 4: creates a fairer and flatter geopolitical landscape.
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  Speaker 2: And in terms of what New Zealand can supply, do
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  Speaker 2: we have more of the stuff in the ground than
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  Speaker 2: we have gold or less. I'm trying to get a
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  Speaker 2: handle on how much of the stuff we've got.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, Look, I think there's quite a bit of discussion.
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  Speaker 4: He's not about whether we can contribute rare earth supply,
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  Speaker 4: you know, to the global rare earth demand.
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  Speaker 3: I think we can do a little bit of that.
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  Speaker 3: We certainly do silica at quite large scale. We can
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  Speaker 3: do more of that. There's a little bit of lithium here,
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  Speaker 3: not a great deal.
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  Speaker 4: So we're focused on lithium offshore, and of course we
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  Speaker 4: have gold and cop one other resources and antimony. We
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  Speaker 4: have some antomonymy as well, yep, correct, and that's also
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  Speaker 4: found in Brian.
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  Speaker 3: So that's that's super interesting for us.
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  Speaker 2: Now John, So do we sell any of this stuff
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  Speaker 2: to China? Because it feels to me like we're lining up,
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  Speaker 2: or at least being lined up by the Trump administration
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  Speaker 2: to choose between the two.
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  Speaker 3: Look we look, we don't.
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  Speaker 4: And I guess what's that sitting behind all this, of course,
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  Speaker 4: is the geopolitics of critical minerals and not just the
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  Speaker 4: sourcing of them, but also the refining and improvement of them.
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  Speaker 3: So there is a globe we'll move on together.
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  Speaker 4: I guess a more level geopolitical sort of both sourcing
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  Speaker 4: and refining landscape, and certainly we're playing our part of
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  Speaker 4: that by trying to export our technology around the world.
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  Speaker 2: Good stuff, Hey, John, thanks very much for talking us through.
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  Speaker 2: John Worth, CEO, Managing director at GEO forty.
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