West High Yield Moves Record Ridge Closer to North American Magnesium Supply

[music] >> Today I have the benefit of speaking with Barry Bain from West High Yield Resources. How are you today? >> Bridget, I'm great. It's always a pleasure to speak with you. >> West High Yield Resources is the fastest magnesium company to production in North America. Do I have the competitive element of why correct? >> You do indeed. We have a 10.6 million ton magnesium contained resource already identified. We are well along the permitting process. We spent many years advancing this project in British Columbia. We have the mining permit that was received in October 2025. We have our other authorizations that are currently in place and we're looking forward to hitting the ground running here in the fall. >> Okay. And so when I was listening to everyone talk earlier in investor talk, they were very excited about the valuation of the company as you move forward and in particular in particular your off-take partnership. Can you talk a little bit more about that? >> Yeah, I I sure can. So we have an interested party Galaxy Magnesium and we signed a definitive agreement with them. That definitive agreement asks us to deliver over the next couple of years 62,500 tons of ore which will generate over 30 million dollars US in gross revenue each year. The first year we have some development costs to pay for so it'll be a a push year. Year two will be 30 million plus and then we will amend our permit taking it to a higher volume and we expect over 100 million in revenue in three year three of mining alone. So given the fact that we have that definitive agreement in place, the the off-take partner will be putting forth a 5 million dollar pre-purchase deposit once all the final authorizations are in. It shows that we've de-risked this project substantially and we're on the cusp of cash flow and commercialization. >> Okay, well we were talking at PDAC. I was just looking back at an old news release and discussion that we had and you have not only magnesium, you have silica, nickel, and iron. Is that correct? >> Yes, so the beauty of this resource is that, um, we don't have to process it on site and we can sell the ore and process it as we are, in this case to an off-take customer, or we have plans to future build a value-added processing onshore. And the reason that is is 94% of the ore is sellable, primarily the magnesium and silica, and then we have trace credits of nickel and iron. What this allows us to do is have extremely profitable ore, um, not have a tailings pond or processing plant on site, and add value to, uh, uh, obviously the demand profile for the critical minerals in North America. This will make us, this project as we move forward, at least to as our understanding is in the current marketplace, the predominant magnesium supplier in North America. >> Okay, and for those of you that may not be aware of it, uh, China controls 95% of the world's magnesium and, um, of course a lot of people think that magnesium is just something that you a vitamin supplement that you take, but actually the Defense Department is looking at magnesium. Can you tell our audience a little bit more about the competitive reasons why, uh, magnesium may be the most exciting critical mineral in the fall market. >> Well, magnesium is important in so many ways. You mentioned earlier the nutraceutical piece and pharma component. That's very important for human physiology and society. But the industrial base needs it for the de-weighting of vehicles, transportation, um, you're you're battery chemistry is changing where magnesium now is a core component of future battery chemistry that makes it less volatile to any kind of uh heat uh heat fires, and also gives it higher capacity in charging. So, that reduces range anxiety for for uh manufacturers. The other piece is the defense department. There's no doubt that they have a a large demand for lightweight strong material such as magnesium. And as you mentioned earlier, Tracy, again, we're China controlling 95% of the magnesium supply globally. There is a huge safe, secure supply issue that we can help solve for North America. >> And of course, there's all kinds of investment bankers and everyone racing into the critical minerals corral to take a be a part and take a piece of the government investments that they are making currently. But you guys have been around since 2003, so you're making this look almost magical in your timeline, but you've been doing this for a while. >> You know, we're fortunate. We've got a tailwind now. Uh a lot of people probably looked at the uh the front end of this process and said, "What is magnesium? Where is it going to be used?" Had no idea. So, the persistence of of what's happened here with the founder and the company is that we've been visual to take it a place where the high demand profile analysis for silica, magnesium, nickel, and iron, all of the critical minerals, and that supply piece base needs to be built in North America. For years, the company was primarily advancing, you know, a mineral project through exploration, engineering, and permitting. But today we have like our mines act permit, we have our transportation permit, we have a good indigenous strong indigenous relationship, we have an off-take agreement, uh and we have a demand profile uh tailwind ahead of us that will spray for the uh you know, next 10 to 20 years. >> Uh speaking of tailwind, you also have an extraction technology process. We talk about that all the time on Investor News that uh has a 94% success rate. Did I read that properly? >> 94% extraction rate. So, that's why it gets back to value to work. We have only 6% waste. Where a copper mine might only get a a percent a percent and a half of copper out of ton of ore, we're getting 94% of the value out of that ton of ore. Again, primarily with magnesium and silica, both in huge demand. Silica, obviously, with the with the advent of AI and how it's evolving and all of the computer trend uh needs for uh better chips, the housings, the the uh glass, silica is is another big demand product of high purity onshore silica. >> In this race towards production and of course maintaining your leadership position in the magnesium market, which is a a high-level critical minerals sector. What do we have to do next at West High Yield Resources? >> The next uh the next thing is we've gone through, obviously, everything to permitting, pretty much. We'll have those in place. Get on the ground and start start disturbance in the uh the mine. So, that'll be removing the trees, that'll be starting the construction access. I've mentioned this once before and I'll do it again that we have over a billion dollars of infrastructure in place. So, that requirement to build our mine, to get it up and running, is very small in the in the range of 30 million. Where there's some mines that have to build 100 million dollars worth of roads just to get to their mine site. We have approximate labor force, we come from a jurisdiction that is known for mining. We're 2 km north of the US border. We have rail in place, we have power through our property, gas. So, therefore, our costs uh to get the mine up and running is very low relative to other projects. Um we're we're excited. That's where we're going next. >> Westwater Yield Resources or WHY Resources, WHY. For more information, please go to the following website. And Barry, thank you so much for the update. >> Uh Tracy, it's always a pleasure. Thanks for your time, and we'll look forward to our next opportunity to visit.