NioCorp Developments Ltd. (NB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good evening, everyone. We're going to get this party started. First of all, thank you all for coming out on a Friday night. We really appreciate that. My name is Jim Sims. I work with NioCorp. I'm the Chief Communications Officer. And I spent my middle school years in Falls City. And so one of the things that motivates me literally every day in -- working with this team and getting this project to where it is today, which is like this far away from getting started is that I want to see, like all of us do, all of the economic growth, development opportunity that this project is going to bring to Southeast Nebraska because I still have a lot of friends here. So thank you all for coming. We want to also thank the good folks in Elk Creek for letting us bring a lot of cars in and parking all over the town. We kind of apologize for that. And welcome and also congratulations on the construction of this beautiful facility. It's a testament to the community, its ability to raise funds and get organized. It's a great facility, and thank you for letting us for the night kind of take over. We really appreciate that. So before I begin, a quick safety minute, all right? We've got about 9 exits, including these large doors. You can see where the exits are. Please take just a minute and look around for your closest exit in case there's any emergency. One thing to note is if fire alarm goes off because they've done something in the kitchen, this middle door is a fire door, and it will come down automatically. So be careful. Don't try to go through that building exit this way in a calm manner. And if it goes longer, we'll see if we can get you some warm coffee outside, kind of [ eases sting of that. ] Restrooms are where you probably see. And the food is still there. And so while we get the program started, please continue to eat because we're not going to be able to finish what's not eaten. So we'll probably donate that to some folks. So we'll have a program. The way this is going to work tonight is that we have some special speakers to start, and we're very pleased to have with us Senator Ricketts. The Senator came all the way down here even though he had an event in the afternoon in Omaha and he's got an event tonight in Omaha. So he came all the way down. He'll have to go, you're not off the clock center until to get all that done. So we appreciate him coming down. The Senator has been phenomenal in support. And my CEO is going to introduce him. We'll talk a little bit about that. Then we will -- we have 2 videos to show. One is from the Chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States. And my boss will have explained why that's important and what that Chairman says about this project is pretty extraordinary, which I think you'll agree when you see it. And then Senator Fischer was going to be here again tonight, but she couldn't. So she yesterday or the day before, I think she taped a video to welcome everyone. Earlier in the evening, we gave her -- NioCorp gave her a very special award from our company, and we gave it to her representative who is here. We won't do that now, but we will show the video, and we're very pleased with what she had to say. And then after we get done with the program, after we get done with the speeches, we're going to have a couple of us give you all an update on where this project is, how far we've come and most importantly what we see is happening in 2026 because there's a lot. And I think you'll all have a takeaway from this event that after all these years of doing this work, 12 plus for some of us, maybe more for others here who've been involved in this, we're there. We're about ready to get going and get ready to construction. So we're excited about it. So with that, let me -- and then one more thing. Once those presentations are made, there's going to be 3, they're relatively quick. Then we go to the best part of the evening, at least for us, is a question-and-answer period. And we'll stay here as long as you guys want to stay. Anyone has a question, there are no bad questions, there's no dumb questions. So lay it out, and we'll be happy to kind of fill you in on everything we know about it, give you some ideas about what you may be seeing in the next year around here, job situation, economic opportunity and the importance of this project, the Elk Creek Critical Minerals project, not just in Nebraska, but to the country because it has national implications. We're very proud of that. So with that, let me introduce my boss. And I'm going to say nice things about him not because he's my boss, but because he's the reason we're here. He came into this company before any of us did. He came in singly and turned that the original company around and now has built it to where we are today, again, on the cusp of actually delivering what we said we were going to deliver. It's Mark Smith, our Executive Chairman and CEO. Please join me in welcoming him.

Thank you, Jim, and thank you, everybody, for coming out. It is a Friday night, by the way. So I'm wondering about your social lives. But it's so good to have you all here. It is a very distinct pleasure to be able to introduce our first real speaker because you're going to hear from me later because he has been unbelievably supportive of this project. When he was the governor of the state, he was constantly asking us, how are things going? He couldn't -- he just couldn't help enough. And now that he's a Senator, the Junior Senator is from what I hear, we like to tease him about that. He is also just stepping up constantly and helping us with this project. And Senator Ricketts, much like Senator Fischer, when we set up meetings with the Senators from Nebraska, they meet with us. They don't send their staffs to meet with us. They meet with us. And that's what kind of people you have in your elected positions right now. And I think you need to be complimented for that. So without further ado, though, Senator Ricketts, may we have the pleasure of you at the podium.

Well, thank you very much, Mark, and thank you all very much for being here this evening. I knew this was a big event, and obviously, it's a brand-new facility here. I didn't realize it was like Church. Nobody wants to sit in the front row. But it is a very big deal. Mark mentioned the national security aspects of this. Folks, we are probably at the most dangerous time we have been in our country's history since World War II. We see this in the actions of our adversaries. We can certainly see what Russia is doing to Ukraine right now. We've seen what Iran has done when they funded terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthis and their attacks not only our allies and partners, but there are continued attacks or attempted attacks on us. We can see it with the Bellicose intentions of North Korea. And we can see it with Communist China, what they are doing to our allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific and how they've treated us. And that's why this partners -- or this project is so important because we would like to take a firmer stance with Communist China. We know from my years of being Governor and now that they're a terrible trade partner. But they have a lock on many of the critical elements, rare earth elements, there are types of things that we need for our advanced technology. And they've threatened to cut those things off, which would harm our economy. Some of those rare earth elements and critical minerals are what are going to be out of this mine. Scandium, for example, is a -- goes in with aluminum make a lightweight alloy that's important to aerospace and for defense applications. We get about 85% of our scandium right now from Communist China. [indiscernible] rare earth elements, China has, again, about either they mine or process about 80% of these. That's really important for all sorts of electronics and specifically defense applications. Some of the other things that we get like the niobium, we can get from allies like Canada or Brazil, but that's still supply chains that are outside our country. Titanium, we can still get again from allies, but again, outside our country. A lot of our titanium comes from Japan, for example. So making our supply chains more resilient by putting them here in America is critical to our national defense, especially at this time in our country's history. And that's one of the reasons why this project, in particular, is so important for the defense of our country. It's not just important, though, for the defense of our country, but it is one of the ways we can continue to grow Nebraska. This is about a $1 billion project or more when it gets done. It's going to create roughly 450 jobs here in Southeast Nebraska. So that's economic activity and really creating a new industry we have not had here in Nebraska. Now these things do take time to come to fruition. I remember as Governor coming down here and looking at some of the drilling projects and being very excited about it. And Tony Fulton was telling me about this. And it really, really is an exciting new industry that we can create right here in Nebraska and the economic activity that goes along with that. Now that was a while ago. And so one of the things you may say is, why does it take so long to get this stuff done? Part of it is just what goes on with the mines. It's making sure you've got the deposits, it's raising the money. It's also the permitting that goes along with it. There's a phrase in a mine's life. And right now, in the United States, it takes about 29 years to be able to get this permitted and up and operational. The only country right now that's worse than us is Zambia at 34 years. So we've got work to do on this. Now congratulations, Mark, [ you're like 13 years, you're going to be another, ] so a good job. You're like way above the average here. And so one of the things that we need to do is continue to work on how we can make sure that we're speeding these processes up. I sit on the Environment and Public Works Committee in the U.S. Senate, and we've got a number of bills to be able to help do that. Our RESTART Act, which we introduced last year, is one of the ways that we can help the permitting up on infrastructure projects. I've got a co-sponsor of the FREE Act with Senator Lummis from Wyoming that would basically allow for permit by rule, which would remove some of the regulatory burden on getting these types of projects done. Also, when I was Governor, one of the things we implemented was Lean Six Sigma, which is a process improvement methodology. For example, we took our air construction permits, they were taking like -- it's like 110 steps long and taking 190 days to get done, and we cut it down to 22 steps and 65 days to get out. That allowed, again, people to get going. We couldn't change any environmental rules. That was just changing the process. And so I've been evangelizing that to everybody in the administration who is coming through my door to talk about these things. So there are things we can do with the federal government to speed this up. One of the other things we're doing with federal government is we just passed a major tax bill, the American -- or the Working Families Tax Cut Act. And there's lots of things in there that will also help facilitate projects like this. We're going to allow for the media expensing of research and development, meaning expensing of plant and equipment, interest expense, bonus depreciation. And maybe those of you in the crowd who are in accounts are going like -- doesn't mean anything to me. But I bet, Mark, you've got people that go, hey, that really is really helpful for us to be able to make the decision to make the investments and speed these projects along. So those are some of the things that we're doing to be able to help make sure from a Senate standpoint. And then I think you're going to talk a little bit about what Senator Fischer specifically has done. She sits on appropriations and what she has done to be able to help with the Defense Department to invest in this, you're going to hear about the Import-Export Bank and what they're doing to be able to help this project. And again, that reflects the importance of this project to our national security. So this is a win-win-win. It's going to be a win for the people of Southeast Nebraska. It's going to be a win for our state, and it's going to be a win for the country and our national security. This is a really important project. And so I'm very pleased to be able to support it. I will also just hit upon one other thing, too, when we're talking about that Working Families Tax Cut Act, that is going to be good, not just for companies like NioCorp who are trying to make investments and create jobs, but it's going to be great for all of our families here in Nebraska, right? By passing that act, we were able to avoid a $2,400 tax increase. At the end of the 4 years, the President's Council of Economic Advisers believes that we'll see a $9,000 take-home pay increase, things like no tax on tips, no tax on overtime. 88% of seniors won't pay taxes on social security, their federal income tax on social security. You may recall, as Governor, we got rid of the state income taxes on social security for seniors as well. Those are the sorts of things that will put more money back into the pockets of our families here. We also are taking the child tax credit up from $2,000 to $2,200 as opposed to getting cut in half. We've got incentives for companies to create childcare. We're taking that credit up from $150,000 to $500,000 with a new tax incentive for small businesses that's $600,000. And we're taking up, for example, if you've got dependence, taking that credit up from like $5,000 to $7,500. So there's a lot in here that will help out Nebraska families as well. So really, really a great bill that's going to be great for our families and great for companies like NioCorp that are creating the jobs that allow people to be able to take care of their families. So we've got a lot going on right now in Washington, D.C., and you obviously got a lot going on right here in Southeast Nebraska. It's really, really an exciting time. I look forward to seeing how this project will continue to develop because it is something that, as I said, is going to be really, really great for people here, for our state and for our country. It's really important as we think about how we are going to deter Communist China from what they are trying to do to displace us as the world power. And nobody wants to live in that world. So this is a fantastically important project for us to be able to secure our supply chains and get away from having to use Communist China. With that, again, I just want to say congratulations, Mark, to you and your entire team for all the success you've had here. I'm really excited to see you continue to develop this. I'm looking forward to getting the construction underway and looking forward to seeing how this continues to benefit the folks here in Southeast Nebraska. Thank you all for being here tonight. God bless you all, God bless Nebraska and God bless America. Have a great weekend.

Pretty supportive. I like that. Okay. The next thing we're going to do is it's actually a video, and it was done by the President and Chairman of the U.S. Export-Import Bank. He was not able to be here today. And so yesterday, he actually put together a video that we're -- get the privilege of showing today. And then I was a little disappointed that he couldn't make it here. But then I found out right before this event started tonight that he was apparently a little busy today. He was with President Trump today. Pick your priorities, but we did get his video nonetheless. And I think you'll be pretty excited to hear what he has to say about EXIM and NioCorp together. So with that, let's go ahead and show the video.

Good afternoon, everyone. I'm John Jovanovic, President and Chairman of the Export-Import Bank of the United States. I'm sorry, I can't be there with you in-person today, but I did not want to miss the opportunity to highlight how much Elk Creek matters to EXIM and America's manufacturing future. I'd like to thank you, Governor Pillen, for your leadership and for headlining today's event. A big thank you to Senator Ricketts as well. Senator, thank you for all of your support of EXIM, for all of your guidance and advice along the way and for your friendship. Your commitment to Nebraska's workers and American manufacturing renaissance is amazing. Nebraska and EXIM have a long history of working together. Over the past 10 years, EXIM has supported more than 30 businesses across the state, big and small, with over $0.5 billion in financing, helping local companies grow, strengthening supply chains and supporting jobs from Chapman to Elk Creek. And we're not done. EXIM is committed to being a partner to Nebraska's manufacturers, farmers and innovators, not just today, but for the long haul. The Elk Creek Minerals project is exactly the type of opportunity EXIM was always designed to support, advancing U.S. control over the critical minerals essential to aircraft, automobiles, advanced manufacturing and our broad industrial base. Securing our supply chain is vital to our nation's economic security. Thanks to President Trump's incredible leadership, EXIM is once again a frontline economic tool, strengthening our supply chains, empowering U.S. manufacturers and ensuring our nation is never dependent on adversaries for resources that power our economy and the world. And that's why we're proud to support Elk Creek. This project means more good jobs in Nebraska, more opportunities for American workers and a stronger, more secure industrial future for the United States. Thank you for including me today. Governor Pillen, Senator Ricketts and the entire Elk Creek community, EXIM is proud to stand with you as you build Nebraska's future. Thank you.

I love that video. So our next very short video is going to come from Senator Deb Fischer. As Senator Ricketts pointed out, she's on the Appropriations Committee, and she worked with NioCorp tirelessly. And ultimately, we received a $10 million grant from the Department of War, Department of Defense or Pentagon, I don't know what we're calling it right now, but we got it nonetheless. And it was absolutely critical to doing a lot of the technical work that Scott will tell you about in a little bit and also advancing some work on scandium, which we did announce recently in terms of a deal with Lockheed Martin. So with that, let's go ahead and show Senator Fischer's video.

Thank you, and welcome to everyone gathered at Elk Creek's new Firehouse and Community Center. I'm sorry, I can't be with you in person today. Bruce and I have many friends in Elk Creek, and we look forward to seeing you all very soon. I was delighted to hear about your official ribbon cutting. This is an exciting milestone for the community, and I want to congratulate you on this successful community development effort. I can't wait to visit the facility myself. I also want to recognize the local leaders, community members and partners joining you today, people who continue to champion responsible economic development and job creation across Southeast Nebraska. Your commitment is the reason communities like Elk Creek continue to grow and thrive. As your United States Senator, one of my top priorities has always been strengthening economic growth, expanding opportunity and supporting Nebraska families and rural communities. And as we work to build a stronger economy, I've also focused on doing everything we can to safeguard our national security. These 2 missions, they go hand in hand. That's why I have strongly supported the Elk Creek project. This mine and processing facility represents a transformational investment in our state bringing hundreds of high-quality jobs, long-term economic activity and new opportunities for the region, all while helping diversify the tax base in Southeast Nebraska. Just as importantly, the project will produce critical minerals that are essential to our national security. As a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I've worked hard to encourage onshoring and reshoring our critical mineral supply chains and resources, our economy and our military depend on. The Elk Creek project will play a vital role in advancing that effort across multiple minerals. I was proud to champion federal funding for NioCorp to accelerate this work and to help your team partner with Lockheed Martin on innovative technologies that use scandium to make our pilot safer and our defense capabilities stronger. I also want to acknowledge the collaboration that we've seen throughout this process between NioCorp, landowners, local officials and residents. This project is a true partnership, and it reflects the best of how Nebraska gets things done. Finally, to the entire NioCorp team, thank you for this award. I am honored to receive it, and I will display it proudly in my Washington office. I look forward to seeing many of you soon, whether here in Nebraska or in our nation's capital. You are always, always welcome. I hope you have a productive and informative gathering today, and I look forward to the continued progress and success of this community in the years ahead. Thank you very much.

Just amazing. I'd love to see that support. And it all goes to what we've continually been talking about as NioCorp. It's the people of Nebraska that makes such a difference. You're so humble and down to earth, we just love it, and that's why we get along with you so well. So the award that Senator Fischer was talking about, we had handed out to her earlier. She had a staff member come in and accept it on her behalf, and she will hang it in her Washington, D.C. office. But it's an award that has a very special place in NioCorp's family. It's called the Michael J. Morris Memorial Award, and it is the highest award that our company has decided to hand out. And it's based on Michael J. Morris, who is our Lead Director, and he passed away in July of this year. Michael set the absolute highest standards for trust and honesty and integrity. And everybody that you talk to about Michael, I had the pleasure of attending his funeral and meeting all the people that I've met by having him as a friend as long as I did. Everybody talked about how he improved their lives by being part of their lives. He's just magical. He made everybody's life better. So we decided to put this award together, call it the Michael J. Morris Memorial award. And again, it will be the highest-level award that we can hand out. And we've handed that out to Senator Fischer today because of her trust, honesty and integrity, and she's changing the lives of people everywhere she goes as well. So we couldn't think of a better honorary for that than her. So very, very proud and happy to do that. I think we'll head into the NioCorp part of the presentation. But before I do that, I just want to -- hopefully, you got the sense like I do when I listen to Senator Ricketts and I listen to Senator Fischer and I listen to Chairman Jovanovic, this project is moving forward, and it's moving forward very fast right now. I know it's taken a long time to get there. It's a tremendous amount of work to put a project like this together and get the project financing together. But what you're going to hear about now is where we are on a lot of this project financing, and we are just about there. And we are anticipating starting construction on this project in 2026. But you're also going to see a whole bunch of things changing out here starting in about February of 2026 because we have had good success raising money this year, and we're taking that money to advance portions of the project to make sure that when we start the real construction project, we can stay on time and we can stay on budget. So you're going to see a lot more activity out there, and it's going to feel like we started the project, but we'll let you know when we start because we're going to have another big celebration, and it's going to be a groundbreaking celebration. So let's go ahead and start. I'm going to take this and kind of walk over here a little bit. You've heard about a lot of the things on this very first point already, strong state, local and federal support. We're getting support from all angles. Both sides of the aisle support this project. Everybody understands the dilemma that we now find ourselves in because we don't produce these minerals in the United States today and you cannot have that situation and all of a sudden have a trading partner decide they don't want to sell it to you. That kind of ruins supply chains, it ruins manufacturing, it ruins a lot of things. So we're getting all of this put together, I think, in a really strong, honest and fair way. The metallurgy, there's kind of 2 things that you think about when you're in the mining industry. One is you better have a really good resource and you better have good metallurgy. And when you get both of those together, that's a successful project. And when you add a group of people like we have over here that have put all that together and we know how to actually manufacture these products, that's a successful project. We're going to have a successful project. We're going to kick this off in 2026. So proven metallurgy. We're updating the feasibility study because as Scott will tell you about in a little bit, he's figured out how to even improve the metallurgy more, and it's a phenomenal improvement. What he did with this update is really going to change the economics of this project even more. We've been doing all the drilling. As everybody knows, this is what we call infill drilling. So we're not trying to expand the resource. We're just trying to make sure that we know exactly what's in the ground where we will be mining. And that way, it's bankable for people that are going to offer debt to it. And I don't know, [ Catherine, ] do we have that model back there? Okay. There's a model back there on the table that if you get a chance, just stop and take a look at it. The kind of bronze color, that's the ore body based on a 3D printed rendering of that ore, that ore body. That's the 38-year mine life that we're talking about. So that's how big that resource is. The 2 little white things next to it. One is to scale 3D rendering -- yes, there you go, thank you, [ Catherine. ] The scale 3D rendering in her right hand of the Empire State Building in New York, and the smaller feature in her left hand is actually the state capital of Nebraska. So just think about as you've gone to New York and you've seen that Empire State Building or if you've gone to the state capital and take a look at the size of that ore body. I think we've got something pretty good here in the ground. So that's pretty exciting. Project financing, let's talk about that because that's really what's going to allow us to push this forward now. We've done a lot of the technical work. We had to have the money to do it. So as you saw with Chairman Jovanovic, we've got a $780 million loan application in front of EXIM, and we are this close to being done with that. And I do think that, that will come together in fiscal year 2026 for the U.S. government, which means I think we'll have our binding agreement, our final agreement in place on or before like September 30, 2026. And I hope it's actually well in advance of that, but I don't see it occurring after that. The other part that we've done is that we've been able to raise over $360 million in equity fundraising this year. We've had 6 different fundraising efforts. And what we've done there, if you take a look at the stats on it, every single fundraising we did, we raised more money. We did it at a higher share price, and we did it at a lower discount to the market price at the time. That's good for shareholders. I'm happy when we do that. I'm a shareholder, too. This is how you treat shareholders. So we've been able to raise a good portion of this money. And if you just do the simple math, call it, a $1.2 billion capital project and you subtract the $780 million from what EXIM will provide for debt, that leaves $420 million. And we've been able to raise over $360 million towards that effort. So keep in mind that when we get the EXIM loan, it's not quite as simple to do the math that way as what it sounds because EXIM is going to want debt service reserve accounts and that has to be cash. And so there's additional cash required, but we can see it right now. That light is at the end of the tunnel and the end of the tunnel is really, really close, and we're going to be starting construction on this project in 2026. So we're excited about that. And we're continuing to work on offtake agreements. This is really the one item that we have to finalize for EXIM to get them all the way over the line and get us a final binding loan agreement for this project. But we're just -- we are this close right now. So be excited, but remember, life is going to change when we start really working out there on site. So get ready for that. I think we can go to the next slide. So here's a little bit more information on the left here. The $374 million is because we've had a lot of options and warrants exercised as well with our share price doing as well as it's done this year. Almost all of the warrants that we had outstanding are in the money and people are exercising those warrants. And that means cash comes into the company and the warrant holder gets shares in the company. So that's worked out very well. Our share price has done well. Our market cap is as high as it's been since I've been with the company. That creates more and more opportunities for fundraising as well because there are a lot of equity -- private equity institutional investors that can only invest in companies that have a certain market cap or higher. We passed most of those thresholds right now. So we've opened up the door to more people that want to put money in here. We talked about EXIM a little bit. We're way, way along the road here with EXIM. And I do want to identify our 3 JPMorgan people in the back who are actually here to celebrate this with us and take a look at the property, and they've just been absolutely wonderful to work with, great advisers. You don't want anybody other than that bank to help you with EXIM. They're that good, and we're privileged to have them. We talked about the $10 million award that we got from the Pentagon. Again, probably $8 million or so of that was intended for the technical work that you'll hear about from Scott. And then the other part was the Pentagon wants us to have a metal -- scandium metal production capability in the United States. We do not have that capability today. And they also wanted us to continue to work with Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin has developed a new technology involving scandium, aluminum alloys that helps make our fighter jet pilots safer. And it's the word that they use, but I still -- it makes me laugh a little bit when they say it because they just say it, so matter of fact, it makes them safer and it makes them more lethal. So that means that they can shoot down the bad guys even better. And that's good for our defense as well. So that partnership is good. And guess what we want to get out of that. It would be called an offtake agreement. So we're in discussions with Lockheed Martin on that offtake for scandium, and that will be a big part of finishing up the EXIM application. So all positive things here, and I think we can go to the next last one. So this -- the scandium supply chain does not exist in the U.S. [indiscernible] I'll start out by talking about all of these minerals. You can see all 4 of them on both sides. Niobium today, the United States imports 100% of the niobium that we need in this country today. And there isn't one other niobium mining project under development in the United States other than this one. We import 100% of the scandium we need in the United States today, and there isn't one other project being developed in the United States that will mine and produce scandium oxide. So very important. Magnetic rare earths, there's different types of those, the neodymium, praseodymium. We only need to import about 98% of what we need there. So we're producing a little bit in country, but not a lot. And then the other 2 magnetic rare earths will produce dysprosium and terbium, we produce 0 in the United States. We have to import all of those. So what -- and titanium, it's a little bit better. We only import 85% of what we need for the titanium. So there's a lot. When we take a look at scandium and those 2 heavy rare earths, dysprosium and terbium, those are heavy rare earths that China cut off. They produce 100% of those minerals. And they cut off all exports of those 3 rare earth elements in April of 2025. And that's one of the reasons why things have picked up in our country in terms of support for bringing onshore critical and strategic minerals and the supply chains associated with them. The markets opened up, as you can tell, we were able to raise a lot of money. The importance of these regional onshoring activities has become paramount in this country. And we're tired of just China pulling the card and saying, sorry, we're not going to ship this to you anymore. You can't run an economy that way. So we are bound and determined to get this up and running. But this scandium is particularly interesting because we produce 0 oxides at any mine in the country today. We don't produce any metal. And then we just announced along with the DoD contract we just talked about, where they've asked us to figure out how to make metal. We think we've got that figured out. Scott and his team will be making some in February of 2026. That will be an excellent start, and then we'll need to figure out how to produce more of it, but it will be a very good start. And then we just announced yesterday the acquisition of a company that had intellectual property and assets, and we purchased the intellectual property and the assets, and they have figured out a way to go directly from scandium oxide to the master alloy. And that's a huge technological advancement. It reduces our cost to produce master alloy by 30% or 40%. And before that, you always had to go scandium oxide, then you had to make the metal, then you could make the alloy. So we've now got a technology that just eliminates the need to make the metal for the alloy purposes. Scandium metal still has importance, and it's used for a whole bunch of different things, sputtering targets and whatnot. So it has its own use, but now we don't have to convert everything to metal and then part of it to alloy. We have another piece here, the final alloy itself where you take the master alloy and you mix it with a little bit more aluminum to make the actual alloy that people want to buy and use. And we've partnered with a company out of Indiana, who has demonstrated on the first pour that they did for us that they can produce that scandium alloy, the regular alloy, and they had some of the best results ever. It was their first time that they poured it. So we did ask them they're going to do another pour here probably in the next couple of weeks because one time might be lucky, and I want to make sure they can do it again. But we will have all of the supply chain in the United States. And that's starting here in Nebraska. And we're going to be the Saudi Arabia of scandium because we're going to produce 5x more at this mine than what the whole world produces today. And don't get worried about that because the demand for this oxide, the scandium element is very, very large. So we'll probably be trying to figure out how to produce more sooner than what everybody thinks. So this is a very exciting part. The U.S. government is behind us very strongly on this whole effort. And I think you're going to hear more and more about scandium and its importance to our country. So I think with that, we get to hand it over to Scott, and Scott gets to tell us about the drilling and the engineering work that we're doing to get ready to finalize this EXIM financing and start construction. Scott?

Thanks, Mark. I appreciate that, and I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you folks about the Elk Creek project, which I'm very passionate about. And I got to thinking about one of our early town hall meetings here back in 2015. We did it in the old fire hall. And that was a fine facility, but I think we had to stop the proceedings at least 3 times for trains. And now 10 years later, here we are in this brand-new fantastic facility, what a -- here's the train, of course, yes, timely. But I can still -- I can speak over it now. So that's a definite improvement. So here we have -- here we are. And I just got to thinking about all the hard work it took to make this facility we're in here go from concept to reality. And I really feel we're doing a lot of the same kind of work now with the Elk Creek project. We put in a lot of time and effort. Now we're finally seeing the fruits of the effort. And what I'm going to talk about here today is kind of what we've done in 2025 and what you're going to see going forward in 2026. The first thing that I wanted to talk about is just our land position. We have -- are somewhat unique in terms of a mining project in the United States, in that we don't touch any federal or state land. Everything that we do is things that we've done by working with the local landowners. And when I was brought in, in 2014 and I started working on the project, I talked to any number of people in this room about their land and getting option agreements in place. And I'm sure most of the folks I spoke to at that time didn't think that we'd ever get to the point where those options would be exercised and NioCorp would actually own some of the land. But here we are today, we've acquired effectively a square mile of ground, Section 33, Township 4 North, Range 11 East. I never get tired of saying that. And we have the land that we need now to build the project and to operate the project probably for something like 30 years. So we're in a great position. We have some additional land yet under option that we can acquire for expansions or other things we might want to do down the line. But that was -- it's a great accomplishment, I think, and we feel a lot of pride as a company getting to this point. And we couldn't have done this without the support of the community. So I'm very grateful for that. As Mark mentioned, we did a drilling program this year, and that program ran from April until about October. And what you see on the figure there on the right-hand side of the slide is projections to surface of some of the drill holes we drilled here in 2025. These figures are a little bit inscrutable, but the purpose behind this drilling was to increase the confidence that we have in what's underground. And you can drive by the site today, and you can't tell that there's 300 million tons of mineral resources underneath the ground. Everything we know about the project is stuff we know because we do drilling. And as we've been talking to the bank, the bank really wanted some higher confidence in those mineral resources and the part that we'll mine, which is known as the mineral reserve. So they asked us to do some additional drilling. And so all these holes that you see on the figure are really holes that are effectively in between holes we've drilled previously. And when you put holes in between holes that you've drilled previously, you tighten up that spacing and you increase the level of confidence that you have in your resources and reserves. So that was very important work to get behind us. What we do with all that information, and it's still coming in even though the drilling finished a few weeks ago now. But we bring all that together. We take all of the data we have. We generate a new resource. We build a new mine plan around that. So we'll have a new mineral reserve. And here in the new year, we'll package all that up into a new technical report for the project, which will then help us get through the final bits and pieces of the loan process with the Export-Import Bank. While we were drilling, we did some other things, too. We don't want to ever waste any time in the field. And so while we're collecting all this data on niobium, scandium, titanium rare earths, we also collected a bunch of data on hydrogeology and in particular, our ability to grow the underground formation to prevent water coming into the mine. And we did a bunch of geomechanical work. And geomechanics is just a way to talk about the strength of the rock underground. We want to make sure that when we establish the mine, it's going to be safe and stable for everyone that's going to be working in there. And just to put things in perspective, you see an abstract number up there, 11,431 meters of drilling. If you were to take all that drill core and stack it end-to-end, I mean, it runs from basically here to Tecumseh. So keep that picture in your mind. It's quite a bit of drilling that we did. The other thing -- big work package that's going on here in 2025 is work that is happening in engineering offices. It's not necessarily something you'll see on the ground at the project site. And what we're trying to do is take everything that we've learned about the project today to make some improvements. And it's kind of reflected on this project layout. One of the big things you see there is kind of in the center bottom of the figure. You see an area that's marked twin mine portals. So if you look at our previous work on this project, we've always said we're going to access the mine with 2 vertical shafts. And we took a look at that and found a competing technology that's proven and looks like it's a little better. And that is instead of sinking vertical shafts, we'll drive some ramps down and use ramps to get down to the ore body area. The reason we're doing that is in looking at this from an engineering study standpoint, we think that we can get the ramps established faster than the shafts. And certainly, we can do it, we think, cheaper than the shaft option. So that's great. It gets us underground. The other thing that goes with that is this thing called a Railveyor, which you'll see a picture of in a minute. A Railveyor is a way of moving rock out of the mine from depth to surface. And it really looks like it's kind of a cross between a conveyor belt and the flume ride at an amusement park. It's like a series of coverts that move on a track, and we can fill it up with ore and move it up to surface. And it's a very cost-effective and efficient way of moving the rock out of the mine. So that's kind of one of the bigger pieces and changes that we've made to the project layout. Along with this, you'll see we still have some fairly substantial production plants. I wanted to note that we're continuing to have an entrance to our facility off of 721 Road from the north. We really wanted to do that to get as much traffic as possible off of Highway 50. And I think the other things you see on the figure here are some stockpiles and the places where this Railveyor when it brings rock out of the mine makes stockpiles on surface. So this is kind of what the mine would look like if you took a vertical slice through it after it's been established. And the things I want to draw your attention to here are the purple lines that start at the top and kind of snake their way down. Those are the 2 ramps that we want to establish. One of those ramps will be for people and for equipment. The other ramp will have this Railveyor system in it. And to put this figure in perspective, the distance from the top of the purple lines to the bottom of the mine is about 3,000 feet vertically. So this is pretty big. And again, Mark gave a good analogy with the model of the ore body that we have at the back of the hall here. Just again, to give some context and perspective to this visual I'm showing you. Each of those green and blue boxes is what we call a stope. The stope is an individual mining unit. And each stope is 120 feet high, it's 45 feet wide, and it's anywhere from 45 to 300 feet long. So you can see this is going to be a big operation. And what's personally exciting to me is that this mine, which has a very long life, represents something like 10% of the mineral resources that we know about today. So when we get this mine established, as Mark noted, we're going to be here for a very long time. I think a project that will happen now in 2026 that is very important to this community is some improvements we're going to make to the junction of Highway 50 and 62. And -- what we envision is, of course, a fair amount of new traffic to the area as people who are doing the construction and people who work in the operation come to work every day. And so we did a traffic study and determined that we needed to add a southbound turn lane on Highway 50 on the 721 Road as well as a northbound turn lane for the same purpose. And along with those road improvements, we would take then the section of 721 Road from Highway 50 to our entrance, and we would pave that. So this is a way, I think, to safely and efficiently manage the traffic that's going to come down the road and try and get into the site. And I really want to recognize Johnson County here. Johnson County has stepped up and earlier this week approved a package of contracts to help us effectuate these road improvements, which we hope to start early in 2026. And just to be perfectly clear about this, this project is completely funded by NioCorp. So we're paying for the road improvements. We're paying for the construction management from a company called Olsson. We're paying for the County's special adviser on this, a company called MEI, and we will pay the County's costs for overseeing the construction and maintaining the road once it's built. But nonetheless, we couldn't do this without a very strong partnership and the support of Johnson County. And I'd just like to recognize the Chair of the County Commission, Dave Borrenpohl. He really pushed this along as well as road superintendent, Matt Schaardt, and the County attorney, Jennifer [indiscernible]. So a very important project. And again, this will be one of the early works that you'll see here starting in 2026. The other big project that we hope to get kicked off early in 2026 is the start of the establishment of the underground mine. And we refer to this internally as the portal project. And we call it a portal because when you're starting a mine, you dig a big hole and you start driving some tunnels, that's typically called a portal in mining parlance. And -- the reason that we're focusing on this particular aspect of the project is kind of the first things we're going to do is we really feel that overall, the schedule for the mine involves or the critical path for the overall project involves getting the mine established and producing. That is the thing that will drive our overall schedule getting from where we are today to a producing operation. So this is where we focus our attention first. And in addition to starting these -- digging a big hole and starting these ramps that go into the underground, you'll see some other features there. So we're going to put in an internal road from 721 Road down to the area of the portal. We're going to establish an area where we're going to have our initial offices and base of operations. We're going to have a couple of stockpiles associated with the excavation. We've got to dig down through the soil. We need to put that somewhere, so we'll put it in a stockpile. We also need to drill and blast a bunch of limestone, which we will temporarily stockpile adjacent to the excavation, and we'll eventually crush that and use it for road base around our site. In addition to that, we'll save all the top soil that we excavate from the portal area. We'll save that for the ultimate reclamation of the site far in the future. And we'll put a sedimentation pond at the south end of this whole operation to capture storm water, let the sediment settle out before that water goes on into Elk Creek. So very excited to get this going. This will be a pretty serious project. It will be very apparent, I think, to everyone who's a resident in the area. The last thing I wanted to cover here is just what a Railveyor looks like. This is the discharge end of a Railveyor. So you can see there's just a series of these small cars on a track, you fill them up with rock, and they go over this big wheel and the rock spills out into a stockpile. We're very excited about this technology because, as I mentioned, this is part of an overall strategy of getting the mine established faster than we could do it with shafts. But the other part that's exciting here is that this is part of an overall strategy to electrify our operations underground. And that's important for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, it makes the environment underground better for the people working there. So if you don't have a completely electrified mine, you'll have a bunch of diesel equipment underground, and you have to ventilate the mine to deal with the diesel exhaust, but it's much nicer for the people working there if everything is electric and there's no diesel emissions for the folks there to deal with. It also helps us make the mine more economical and more efficient because with a completely electrified mine, you need to basically push less air down into the mine because you're just trying to get the air down there for folks to breathe. You don't need to dilute diesel fumes. And the other thing is it's just a lower operating cost than other ways of conducting the mining. So pretty excited about this. And I think this is a real winner for the Elk Creek project. So just to sum up, we've done a lot of work here in 2025. But I think in 2026, you really start to see the fruits of our labors. You see a lot of activity on the site, a lot of construction type work. And it's going to be a very exciting year, I think, both for the community and for NioCorp. With that, I will turn things over to our newest director, Tony Fulton, to talk about some of the economics of the operation.

As Alfred Hitchcock once said, good evening. Does anyone know, Alfred Hitch -- I am old. I don't look like it, but I'm pretty old. So good evening. I joined the Board of NioCorp back in 2013 with Mark, actually. I was in the legislature with Lavon up until 2012. And about that time, well, I hung around Lavon a lot. In fact, I had written some of this down and some of which, which I'm not going to reshare, Robin. But we spent probably, I don't know, 14 hours a day together, 12, 14, 16 hours a day for 5, 6 months out of the year. And so we talked about a lot of stuff. Well, this project was one of them. I remember talking about it with Lavon back in 2010 and '11. I'm from Auburn originally. And of course, I knew there were always magic rocks under the ground in Elk Creek. But what was really here, I started to think about it some more in those years when I was with Lavon. So right around the end of -- middle to end of 2012, I started buying shares of the company at that time. It was called Quantum back then. And I did so with my kids. So I was trying to teach -- I was learning about investing myself, but I was also trying to teach my kids about it. And so my wife and I wanted to have a large family, mission accomplished. We have 8 kids, and they are all shareholders at different levels of NioCorp. And it's really been something that's -- it's been a tool that we have used in the raising of our kids. So there are some young people in Lincoln, Nebraska, who are really excited about this. They didn't believe me for the longest time. But -- so after that time in the legislature, I served on the Board for a period of time. And then Governor Ricketts, well, he was Pete at the time, became Governor Ricketts, and he asked if I would join him in his administration. So I served -- the reference there was I was the Tax Commissioner. So I served as Pete's Tax Commissioner for 2 terms. And if you followed my time back in the legislature, you'd know that taxes, I didn't really like them. So it was a bitter irony that I served in that position, but God has a sense of humor. So there I was. Well, after that time was over, I handed it off to the next guy. And I went back to my businesses and just doing things in the private sector. I'm really a big believer that we can do things for the betterment of mankind through the power of the private sector, especially in this country. And so I was fortunate after having been off the Board for that time that I was able to rejoin the Board of NioCorp back in August, I guess it was. So not too long -- this time, I'm an old newbie on the Board of NioCorp. But we want to show you some of the economics that I said earlier this afternoon, I've heard these numbers, but I just think it's important that we reemphasize these numbers because it's just jaw dropping. I said this earlier today, too, growing up in Auburn, Nebraska, I would never have guessed these kind of numbers would be something that would come from Southeast Nebraska, okay? But it's real, it's true, and we should go over them. The number of long-term jobs that this mine will provide is 450. Pete, Senator Ricketts mentioned this earlier, 450, and that number is etched in our brain. And we'll see with the -- we're working on another feasibility study. We'll see what that number is. But it's going to be -- this is a lot of people, okay? This is about, I don't know, 8 or 9 Elk Creeks, is big. So these are all people with families and futures, some of whom are here today, some of whom will be born in future years and in years after that. The number of indirect jobs, that's another impressive number. It's over 2,000, and we're talking about supporting jobs, the teachers, the restaurant workers, the people who work in the grocery store and the gas stations. And as Mark said, there are going to be changes. And so it's a brave thing that's going on here. The -- that number in the middle, $3.4 billion, cumulative operating expenses over project life. This includes salaries and wages that will be paid to these families who are supporting the future of our country, the future of Southeast Nebraska. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of families. So lots of people could go around and have 8 kids if they wanted with that kind of pay, $1.1 billion. The amount of revenue that would be generated for local governments, but also for the state, $608 million. It's a lot of money. And then lastly, this is the eye-popper. Royalties paid to Nebraska landowners over the project life, $300 million. That's money that's going to find its way into the economy here in Southeast Nebraska. It's just -- it's a remarkable thing. So we thought it was important to point this out. I want to say that in closing, the mantra, our President wants to make America great again. And I went and I checked this quote that I heard some time back, and it's attributed to Tocqueville, but I'm told that it's not actually him who said it. America is great because America is good. It's a wonderful statement, and I think it's true. Well, then it's fitting that Southeast Nebraska's contribution to American greatness will come from American goodness, something about which we should be very proud. So okay, we've got some Q&A coming. God bless you guys, and God bless a great company of NioCorp.

Now it's my favorite part. We get to go to any question that you want. But before we do that, I do want to have the NioCorp team who is a little bit scattered, but mostly over here, stand up so you know who all the team is. And remember, we got some back here, too, and one Dan is way in the back, Matt over here. We have doubled the size of our team in about the last 3 months. And so we're changing as well, and you're going to meet more and more people. Three of the people are actually going to be working here in Nebraska now. So here we come, and we're going to be here for a long time. You heard Scott -- you guys can sit down, I'm sorry. You heard Scott. We run a 38-year mine plan based on the reserves and the resource and those have different definitions, but the resource is about 10x that large. So we're going to be here for a long time, and we can't wait because you've been very, very warm and receptive all along. But let's get to the fun part. Anybody have a question tonight? Here's one right here.

How dangerous is this mining?

It's a very good question, ma'am, and thank you for asking that. First of all, let me tell you that Scott and I started our careers in the health, safety and environmental area. And so there's very little in these operations and these mine activities that's more important to us than the health and safety of our people. Our goal is to make sure that every single employee leaves the facility the same way they came in every single day. We have a great track record on this. We both worked at a different mine. It was a very large project that was involved. We had gone over 10 years without a lost time accident, and we had probably 1,100, 1,200 people as part of a large construction project for 3 years, not one lost time accident. So can it be dangerous? Absolutely, it can be dangerous, and you hear about it all the time with accidents going on at mines. But we do everything in our power to make sure our people are safe and they go home every single night. Quick -- Scott has something that he wants to add to that.

Well said, Mark, I think -- just to maybe put some more perspective to the safety question. We just finished the drilling program. And if anyone in this room remembers it was an epic summer here in Southeast Nebraska. There was rain and thunderstorms. It seemed like almost every day. Very challenging conditions for our drillers and for our geologic team. We have a very strong focus on safety. And one of the things I'm particularly proud of is that team was able to deliver this drilling project, and there were no incidents, there were no injuries over the course of that time frame from April to November. And that's kind of the way we think about safety. We don't want -- we want everyone to go home in the same condition that they show up for the job at the beginning of the day. I'll maybe share one other statistic, if I could, on safety, which I think is relevant and may resonate with the room here. If you look at all the mining activity in the United States, it's usually broken into metal mining and non-metal mining. In a typical year, there may be as many as 40 fatalities in the industry. That's 40 too many, but those are the statistics. How many people do you think are killed in agriculture each year? It's about 10x as many. So we have a very strong focus on safety in the mining industry. And certainly, the operation that we intend to build here will be safe for everyone that's working at it.

Mark, you've shared the benefits to the country, to the military, to the town, to the state. What is the benefits to the shareholders that got in early and took a 10:1 reduction in their share value? What do we expect for the people that got in and have stuck with NioCorp for a long time?

First of all, let me duly note that I am one of those people as well. So I get it, and it was something that we needed to do in order to be registered on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange, which has been one of the best things this company has ever done. Being on the NASDAQ allowed us to raise $360-plus million this year. I couldn't do that on TSX. I couldn't do that on OTC. So yes, it was a little bit painful to go through that, but that was what the requirements were to be listed on the NASDAQ Stock Exchange. Now I worry about things like dilution and I worry about things like ownership because I had always been until this year, I was the largest single shareholder in this company. And I'm no longer the single largest shareholder in this company because we raised $350 million. And we've gone from about a 98% retail shareholder holding to less than 50% retail now. But how I look at this is more on value than on ownership. So that 22 million shares that I owned before we did the 10-for-1 split at the time was worth, I don't know, $0.60, $0.70 each. When we did the 10-for-1 split, the price of each share went up as well. And so today, sitting here at $6 or $7 a share, my 10-for-1 split is still -- it's upwards of $12 million to $14 million. So I'm in this for value, not for ownership. And if you're in it for ownership, you got a lot of competition because there are some institutional investors that hold a lot of shares right now. So I hope that, that helps a little bit.

Do you expect it to be a dividend type of stock or do you expect this to be a share value stock?

Well, I think for now, we have no choice but for it to be a share value stock because we have no revenue. But once we get up and running, and we're making $400 million or $500 million a year in EBITDA, our Board of Directors and one of them we got Dean Kehler and we've got Tony Fulton. So you've got 3 of the 7 here. We have a really hard job because all the extra money that's going to be sitting there, we have to decide what is the best thing to do with that money. So we'll look at dividends. We'll look at acquisitions. We'll look at expanding this mine to even be a bigger mine and create more cash. But that's our job as shareholders. That's our fiduciary duty to you is that we have to figure out what's best to do with that money. Now the good news here is that between Dean and Tony and myself, we own a couple of shares of the stock. And so we might lean towards that dividend side a little bit. Good question though. And not that I want to challenge you, but this afternoon, we did questions for how long.

An hour and 45 minutes.

Yes, and I will stay here until every question is answered. Yes, sir.

You guys mentioned something about EXIM needing to be satisfied with the loan. They needed more in agreements with the mineral that you have?

Offtake agreements, yes.

How much more percentage do you need based on what you have now?

It's not an easy question to answer, but we do need more than what we have right now. And how that all works out is that we have to demonstrate with our offtake agreements, how much revenue that will generate and then EXIM puts it into an economic model and then they'll tell us what our debt capacity is and what our ability to repay that debt is. Those are the 2 calculations, and you can only do that with the offtake agreements. So it's a little bit of a puzzle, but I would tell you that the 75% of the niobium being fully contracted for with an enforceable contract, not an MOU, that's a heck of a good start, and they know it. And that's why we got through as far as we have with EXIM is because they take -- they pull all the sensitivity levers as they run their economic model. And when they did that on what we call TRC1, they felt that our economics were strong enough that they could support a loan on this project. So we won't have to contract 100%, but we do need more than what we have right now. And we've got I don't know how many different things we've got going on, and we have new resources like Ernest Cleave, who's helping us work on these sales contracts. And we have some contracts we're trying to go after with single companies like Lockheed Martin right now. We've got other contracts where we're looking at getting in with larger trading partners where they agree to buy everything else that we have, and that's -- it's an easier way to go. What I can tell you is that we're going to have offtake and we're going to have offtake pretty soon because I'm not going to let EXIM not issue this loan because of offtake.

How long do you anticipate the construction period to be?

That sounded like Greg. No. The construction period will be 3 years. But Scott, all you have to do is just either nod or shake your head sideways. Scott, do I ask you about how much more we can shorten that? Maybe every day. I mean we -- and every day is going to count, right? And once we get the loan and once we start construction, the sooner we have revenue, the better.

And then just a follow up, how much supply of the United States will you be able to provide versus 100% now scandium and niobium being imported?

Yes. So in the United States today, there's about 15,000 tons of niobium used per year. We'll be producing about 7,500 tons of that. But don't forget that our largest contract for niobium is with ThyssenKrupp out of Germany. So we'll be exporting that to Germany. And don't forget that we don't qualify for the EXIM loan unless we export a certain amount of our offtake. So it's a good thing that we're shipping it to Germany, friendly allied nation. It allows us to qualify for the EXIM financing. I can't find a debt package that will be cheaper than the one we're going to get out of EXIM. So there's a lot of positive things there.

What is your plan for finding employees for either the construction or the permanent jobs?

Scott, I'm going to have you come up here, so you can kind of explain how we're going to structure the construction a little bit. We're going to have a 3-year construction project. So that will kind of have its own hiring process, and Scott will cover that in just a minute. And then probably sometime within a year to 1.5 years before construction is done, we'll start hiring our own employees and go through the training and transition. So that they can -- the construction folks can literally hand our operating folks the keys and then they take over. So probably 1.5 years, maybe 2 years from now before we start hiring all 450 people that we're going to hire out there. But Scott, why don't you talk about the construction project, too?

Yes. I think it's fair to say that the construction is really split into 2 parts. There's the underground construction part and then there's the surface plant. And they're really quite a bit different as far as the workforce goes. So for the underground mine, we're going to be using a firm called Dumas as an EPC contractor. So that means engineering, procurement and construction. So they're going to come in and self-perform all of the work of building the mine. And the typical model and the model that I like is one where they bring in a core of experienced development miners, a small group. Those -- that group starts the development of the mine, and then we hire locally to build up the mining workforce. And what we would expect to happen is once that workforce has developed the mine, we would transition those folks into the operational workforce. So really, most of the mining workforce, the hourly folks doing the work would come from the local area. In terms of the surface construction, we are partnered with a firm called Zachry. They have a big engineering office in Omaha. They're headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. They're also an engineering procurement construction firm. So they self-perform all of the work. They have a craft workforce in-house of about 22,000 individuals. And they will bring all of that craft or not all of that craft workforce. They'll bring portions of their craft workforce to the site, and they will perform all of the surface construction activities. As Mark alluded to, as we get to the end of that construction process, we'll start building up our own team and once that surface construction is complete, our workforce will move in to commission and operate the surface facility. So a little bit different between surface and underground. But again, we expect to hire heavily here in the state of Nebraska.

And Dumas and Zachry will basically be putting their workforces together, and we enter into contracts and they get all that done. So I suspect that they will start hiring pretty soon, but that is their part of the contract, not ours. It's when we're ready to switch over to operations where we have NioCorp employees that we'll be hiring ourselves. So probably about 1.5 years on that, but pretty quick on the construction side.

You mentioned blasting and drilling. How will that affect your neighbors? And what hours will you be blasting?

That's a great question because I've been very close to some road construction projects where they didn't care too much about what time and how much. I'll have Scott answer this in more detail. But a lot of the work that we'll be doing once the mine is established, it will be underground. And you probably won't hear, see or feel anything. You've got a good example just off the road, where we're going to be deeper than them and you can't really hear or see what they're doing. But on the front end, this portal project, there's going to be some blasting on the front end of this project, and you might hear that. But we don't do any of that at night. That's all going to be done during the day and like not before 8:00 a.m. because we don't want to irritate anybody. But you want to talk a little bit more detail about that?

Sure. So a good analog to what we're going to be doing is the Weeping Water Mine up the road. The Weeping Water mine is mining limestone, which sits underneath the glacial tiller, sometimes we call that the soil. And the depth we're talking about at the Weeping Water Mine is probably on the order of, say, 100 to 200 feet below ground surface. And I don't know this for a fact, but they're drilling and blasting every day. And I don't know that the community around there has any issues with those practices. For practical purposes, our mine is much deeper. So the geologic formation we're going to be mining doesn't start until we get at least 600 feet below ground. And we go from 600 feet below ground surface to about 3,000 feet. And certainly, when we're -- there's 2 types of blasting that happen underground. The first is what's called the development blasting where you're just advancing a tunnel. So it's a blasting volume, let's say, 18 feet by 18 feet by 10 feet long. The other is production blasting where we're actually blasting ore, and we're doing that to feed our surface plant. And those blasts are a little bit bigger. So it's certainly possible that people living close by might feel the production blast. I don't think anyone will notice the development blasts. Those blasts will probably happen a few times a week. And the safest way to do that in an underground mine is at shift change. So say at 6 o' clock in the evening when the day shift leaves, but before the night shift starts, everyone will evacuate the mine, we'll initiate the blast from surface. It's over in a fraction of a second, and then the night shift comes in and resumes activities. So that's kind of what we'll see in this particular mine for drilling and blasting.

Our goal would be is that you don't even know. That's the best way.

Mark, there was a question this morning at the luncheon that might be on people's minds that follows on from that is what will folks see and perhaps smell from the facility?

Yes. I'll have Scott do that. He did a great job with it earlier.

So yes, it's a natural extension of the question. Thanks for thinking of it, Jim. This is going to be a little bit different in terms of what you will see, hear and maybe smell from what you're used to in the area. So what smells around here anhydrous ammonia, chicken houses, pork operations, those kind of things. So those have their own unique odors, and I grew up in the pork industry, so I've got no issues with that. The thing that will happen in our operation is we'll be using things that smell different. So as an example, we'll be using mineral acids, hydrochloric and sulfuric acid. We'll be using some chlorine compounds. So those things obviously smell a little bit different than the chicken house. But I think the thing that everyone should remember is, first and foremost, everything that we do is going to be inside an enclosed building. So number one, it's contained. Number two, by virtue of the fact that we have a construction air permit from the State of Nebraska, we had to demonstrate with a really high degree of specificity that every source of emissions was documented and that we have a control technology for every source of emissions at the facility. And when I say control technology, it's not just any old technology. We had to demonstrate to the state that what we were going to put in was what's known as best available control technology. So we had to survey the whole universe of controls. We had to demonstrate to the state satisfaction that what we were putting in is the very best control technology available. So to the extent that there will be dust or chemical smells, they've all -- they've been -- they will be controlled to the highest degree we can possibly achieve. So I really don't think you're going to see or smell really anything from the facility. But in the event that you do smell something, maybe it's the slight smell of an acid or something that smells a little bit like a swimming pool, if that helps for context.

Two quick questions. The 450 people that are going to be here long term with the mine, what type of craft personnel are you looking for that?

I think it will be every kind that you can think of. We're going to want mechanics. We're going to want electricians, instrument people. We're going to want welders, all of that. We're going to want engineers. We're going to want geologists. It might need 1 or 2 executives, but not much. We don't -- it's the people that work at the mine to make it all happen. And it's everything that you can imagine that just think of a chemical plant and an underground mine and anything that can or will breaking, those, we've got to have somebody to fix it. We need the labor, too, right? The people that do the really hard work, drilling and blasting.

Right. And then I recently read that a gentleman in Japan came up with a scandium battery. And they're saying it's so much more efficient than a lithium ion that it's going to eliminate the lithium-ion battery eventually. Has there been any speculation in the industry of what that's going to do to the scandium demand?

I haven't seen any speculation about what that would do, but we can imagine that, right? If it replaces just every lithium ion battery in every electric vehicle, we won't make enough here is my first comment. So we'll have to increase production. But we need to -- that technology is going to take a while before it's proven out. These things take time. I mean that may be a 10-year development project. But we are aware of it. We are watching it. We think it would be fantastic. Okay. Is there any other -- okay, we've got one more -- actually, 2 more here. And then I think we're going to, unfortunately, probably stop the questions because things are icing up outside. And the sheriff, who is one of the kindest sheriffs I've ever met, by the way. He thinks maybe we ought to be safe and get going. He suggests sooner than later. So let's do...

Why do you anticipate the company being profitable.

Why do I anticipate it being profitable?

How long will it be until it's profitable?

When we're done building this facility, we will have ore on the ground already. And then when we start to commission the aboveground facility, we start producing product, I mean, as soon as it's through the system, which doesn't take all that long. Then we start generating revenues. And the customers we have, for instance, in the niobium space, they want what we're going to produce right away. So they'll give us a little bit of leeway on the specs and whatnot. So we'll start generating revenue. And once we can get up to full capacity, at least based on our 2022 feasibility study, we'll be producing about $400-plus million of EBITDA, which is the equivalent of cash flow per year. So 3 years construction and then just give us time to ramp up and this mine is going to be very profitable.

Are there any plans at some point to partner with [indiscernible].

They are a very good company that poured a great alloy from master alloy that we gave them. There's lots of options on the table. We could do a JV with them. We could have a tolling agreement with them. We could just sell them master alloy and they could make and sell the scandium aluminum alloy on their own. So right now, what we're trying to do is to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the U.S. government that this whole scandium supply chain can exist and it can exist on U.S. soil. They will worry about all the business arrangements some way or the other. But they did a great job on that first pour.

With your team trying to develop offsets for your product, has anyone contacted Elon Musk and his teams for -- they have SpaceX. They have Tesla. They're producing all their equipment there. They have the solar panels. They have the digging, the boring company. I had sent out a text to him to see if he would contact you guys, but has anyone from the company tried to talk to them?

I'll reverse that and just say that they have contacted us. Happy to keep doing more questions. I just want to make sure everybody is comfortable and feel safe with the ice. We got one over here.

What could the communities around here -- and I know there's already been a lot of work being done, this being an example. What can the communities be doing to prepare the employees to be successful for you as an example and just prepare the community areas in general?

I'll have Scott answer some of the answer as it relates to housing and whatnot. But my simple response to that question is, be you. You all make us feel so comfortable here. And when we get this mine up and running, if you treat the mine people the way you treat us, they're going to be as happy as can be and they're never going to want to leave. So just do what you do naturally. It's just so perfect. It's just so warm and inspiring for all of us. So just be you. I've heard the Governor talk about the greatest thing about Nebraska is its people. And if you ask people outside of Nebraska, what's -- what do you know about Nebraska? What makes Nebraska so great? And everybody outside of Nebraska says, it's the people. But the Nebraska people are so humble that you don't want to actually talk about how good you are and all this stuff. And when we ask you what your state should be known for, you just kind of kick soil a little bit, put your hands in your pocket and look down and you're just precious, you're precious. Just be you. Yes sir.

I have been in industrial maintenance for over 20 years and I serve as a maintenance manager currently. And I'm looking for the same guys you are. I'm in Lincoln, which is a larger population, obviously. I'm looking for electricians, welders, automation guys, mechanics. I mean, what motivates somebody like me to come down? I mean there's some fishing holes around here, but I don't know much else around here, honestly.

Well, that would be a pretty good start, though, wouldn't it? We've got to have the right culture so that you as an employee feel like you're an important part of the organization. We have to make you feel welcome. We have to pay you properly. And I'll tell you that you're right, everybody in the United States is looking for these crafts because they just don't -- we just don't have a strong workforce in that area. The good news is that most of those numbers are starting to turn around and more of the young people are starting to go into the craft trades area, that really makes me happy. I'll tell you that we're not going to just sit and let that happen either. We're going to work with the local organizations. We're going to work with the university, and we're going to make sure that we have people trained and what we need them to be trained for. We're going to do internships. And I mean we're going to do everything we can, but most of all, make it a welcoming environment for an employee.

When it comes to sending out your product after it's mined, obviously, probably using semis and trailers. How many do you anticipate going in and out a day going up and down Highway 50? Are they going to be going north? Are they going to be going south? How much truck traffic is Highway 50 and the intersection out there going to be? Because like up at Weeping Water, when they're busy during the day, it gets kind of crazy and we're not used to that down here. So I was just wondering how many are going to be going in and out?

I'll answer part of it, and then I'll have Scott answer the rest of it because he's already done the calculations and he's going to tell you how many trucks a day are going to be leaving with niobium. But on scandium, we're going to produce 5 truckloads a year. So you're not going to feel that one at all. And all of the production of our materials is small enough because these are minor alloying agents for much bigger products. You don't need a whole lot of them. So our products are all going to be shipped by truck to either a port that then they get exported from or whatever but everything from the plant will be shipped out by truck. And then I'll have Scott talk about crazy things up North versus how nice it's going to be down here.

Yes. Thanks, Mark. Maybe to put some hard numbers around that. So we'll produce something like 7,500 to 7,800 tons of ferroniobium a year. And if you work that backwards, assuming that a truckload is about 20 tons, that's about a truck a day of niobium product going out of the facility. Titanium might be 3 or 4 trucks a day. I think to put that in context, as I understand, the Weeping Water operation, when they're busy, it's 150 to 300 trucks a day. So really, I think the production -- the product flow out of our facility is going to be fairly modest in terms of traffic impact. And I think you'll see trucks heading both north and south because they're going to want to get to I-80 or I-70 to get where they need to go.

Any other questions? All right. I think we did it. And again, a huge thank you to everybody for coming out on a Friday night, be safe driving home. And we hope to see you again real soon. 2026 is the year.