American Resources Corporation (AREC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome, and thank you for joining us for another Virtual Investor, what this new segment. My name is Jenene Thomas. I am CEO of JTCIR, and I will be the moderator for today's segment. Happy new year, everyone, and I am pleased to be joined by Mark Jensen, CEO of American Resources and ReElement Technologies. Welcome, Mark.

Thanks for having me out of the new year.

So happy, you're actually our first. So we're happy to have you. And before we get started, I just want to remind you that American Resources is publicly listed and trades on NASDAQ under the ticker AREC. And during today's discussion, the company will be making forward-looking statements, and I encourage everyone to view the company's website at americanresourcescorp.com for the latest information. Mark, it's so great to have you here with us in the new year, if you could start today by giving us a brief overview of American Resources ReElement business unit.

Yes. ReElement is an exciting division for American Resources. We are focused on the refining of critical and rare earth elements, the battery-grade materials, the lithium, cobalt and manganese, nickel as well as the rare earth elements, a neodymium presidium and dysprosium that are used in the magnets as well as the batteries. So we're really repowering the entire drivetrain of an electric vehicle, the wind turbines and as well as national security and the military applications that these elements are used in. Which is a game changer, not only here domestically, but also internationally. The world today relies upon a majority of these elements being refined in one nation, and we need to change that. We need to create a secure supply chain for our military, for our national security as well as for our commercial enterprises. And we're dead set on doing that. We're reducing that bottleneck and opening up the entire industry worldwide to be able to operate in these local jurisdictions, which doesn't exist today.

That was extremely helpful and definitely important work that you're doing with ReElement. The reason we are here today is because of a prominent appointment of Mr. Kevin Higgins to your Board. Can you provide an overview of this background?

I'm going to do my best, but it's -- he's got a very accomplished background and just couldn't be more thankful to have a team member such as Kevin joining the team. But Kevin has built a career focused on national security. He was obviously very well recognized at the CIA, which was not only protecting our nation, but also protecting international locations. And helping work with people and identify people that one are looking out for the highest regard of our national security. His experience, not only here domestically, but also internationally. As we embark on ambitious goals in Africa to bring localized refining to these local nations, we need good partners. And Kevin has experience on how to identify those local partners and how to work with people in a way that not only protects our business, but also help to drive value in these local communities. And then since then, he's been a strategic adviser to many companies, extremely successful companies, and help lead these companies in the right way. We're super excited to bring him on in our Nominations Committee. I mean, Kevin has been extremely successful in identifying people. They have him to help -- continue to identify highly talented people for our team is, we could be more thankful that he's chosen us and given his focus on national security and our focus on national security was a great fit, and he's going to help make us better.

Well, help us understand, Mark, what Kevin's appointment means for ReElement?

It's a game changer. I mean we have big goals, and we want to achieve these goals not 10 years from now, but in the near term. And we announced recently, we're going to Ghana and we're going to build the first refining solution in the African continent in Ghana, and we're excited about that. Kevin is helping us meet the right people, work with the right people, coach us on how to interact with the right people. And that's going to help us be a better company. We want to be the largest lithium refinery in the United States. And we will accomplish that goal. We announced our Kentucky facility. We announced our Marion facility, having somebody such as Kevin leading us and guiding us and helping us identify and also working with our other Board members such as Bob Galyen and Julie and Dan and the rest of the team, having a collective mindset of people with different backgrounds and different experiences will help us be a better company and help us go faster, better, stronger.

Well, Mark, that's certainly exciting, and you never cease to amaze me, every time you're on our platform, you always have exciting news, great progress. And actually, congratulations on all of the progress that you've had with ReElement to date, big announcement today, which I think is setting the stage for what's to come. So with what's to come, what is next for ReElement? What can investors expect over the coming months?

We had a great 2023, and we're starting 2024 off with adding a key member like Kevin Higgins onto our Board is just phenomenal for us, but that's not the end. That's the start. And we have a lot more coming out in the near term in the next couple of days, in next couple of weeks in terms of the business progression of what ReElement's doing. We're going to showcase that in the near term. And hopefully I'll be back on here in the next few days talking about some additional developments that we are working on, and we're super excited about building a team to accomplish big goals, you need a strong team, you need a dedicated and passionate team, and we have that. And we're continuing to bolster it, continuing to build upon it to bring in different skill sets, and we're excited about where we're going. We're excited about the very near term in the future of ReElement and what it can do, not only for the United States, but also the local partners who we work with internationally.

Well, definitely exciting times ahead impressive news today. Mark, congratulations. And this does conclude the virtual investor, what this new segment with American Resources. As a reminder, American Resources trades on NASDAQ under the ticker AREC. I'd like to thank everyone for joining. And Mark, I'm going to hold you to it. So I love to have you back in the coming days. We look forward to having you back and look forward to sharing more of our platform with our audience. You can go to a virtualinvestorco.com for the latest segments and latest events for the Virtual Investor platform. Thanks, everyone.