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

The head of a mineral extraction company says New Zealand's rich in some of these sought-after critical minerals. 

New Zealand and the United States are reportedly discussing a 'non-binding' framework relating to critical minerals as the US looks to reduce reliance on China. 

Geo40 CEO John Worth says there's silica, lithium and antimony to name a few. 

"I think we're relatively small by international standards, but there's enough interesting stuff here." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
So it's been revealed that the Trump administration is talking
to our government about possibly signing a critical minerals deal.
Australia signed one last year, the Ukraine signed one, and
these minerals are part of the reason that Trump is
obsessed with Greenland. GEO forty CEO in Managing Director John
Werth is with us, Hi, John, Well, thank you. How
how much of the stuff have we got on the ground?

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Look, New Zealand is quite mineral rich.

Speaker 4 (00:42):
It isn't always easy to get hold of the minerals
in New Zealand, and I guess we're a bit different
than that, where we're.

Speaker 3 (00:47):
A technology to find those minerals anywhere on Earth.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
So so how much of it? Like, is it significant?
Are we are we internationally significant?

Speaker 4 (00:58):
Look, I think we're relatively small by international standards, But
there's enough interesting stuff here such that a whole series
of Kiwi companies have developed pretty clever technology to source
those minerals. And I think what we find excuting is
the potential to take that technology offshore.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
So our the stuff that we're using to get out
is the real saleable component here rather than what we've
got on the ground.

Speaker 3 (01:23):
Yeah, a little bit of both.

Speaker 4 (01:24):
So we saw silica and the Central North Island close
to topul and we sell several thousand.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
Tons of that all around the world. So we certainly
do it here. But I think that probably the bigger
potential is to export.

Speaker 4 (01:35):
Can we know how in tech, you know, to a
much bigger global opportunity.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Is there a reason why we don't just do it
in the old fashioned mining, dig a hole in the ground,
get the stuff out.

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Yeah, there's an emerging narrative here.

Speaker 4 (01:48):
There's certainly a lot of based metals. You know, we
still mind copper and gold that way. I think in
some of these strategic minerals like lithium particularly, and others
which include boron and caesium, you can find them in
underground fluids. And this is quite quite a new type
of mining where rather than digging up rocks and crushing them,
you find these old aquifers in the ground, and we

(02:09):
develop technology to get these minerals out of these fluids.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Why is there I mean, we're talking even again now,
we're talking a lot about potentially getting gold out of
the ground and Sentana and all those guys. Why are
we not having a similar conversation about these critical minerals.

Speaker 4 (02:27):
Look, I think when we started our journey at JO forty,
you know, nobody was talking about critical minerals, right, it
wasn't really a thing. And I think you know, the
growth of the ev sector and the imperative to have
listenum in just about every device we own has really
given birth to this. And you'll hear this extended to
things like rare earths, you know, and all the magnets
and all the motives that we use. So it's really

(02:48):
it's really come from over We're in the last decade
and now these are The interesting thing about these minerals
is these are really the minerals that power decarbonization, right
if we want to drive electric cars, and you know,
we need these minerals, and they're getting harder to find.
You know, they're quite widely present around the world. But
this opportunity to pull them out of these underground fluids
is really very exciting.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
So if you have a look, if you were to
compare it to the amount of gold that we've got
on the ground, is it more or less?

Speaker 3 (03:16):
Look globally.

Speaker 4 (03:17):
We believe this potential to get more lithium out of
the ground from Brian than has currently been minded hard rock.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
So I think that the potential is enormous.

Speaker 4 (03:27):
But beyond that, what getting lithium out of the or
and other minerals out of his Brian's does is it
creates a fairer and flatter geopolitical landscape.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
And in terms of what New Zealand can supply, do
we have more of the stuff in the ground than
we have gold or less. I'm trying to get a
handle on how much of the stuff we've got.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
Yeah, Look, I think there's quite a bit of discussion.

Speaker 4 (03:47):
He's not about whether we can contribute rare earth supply,
you know, to the global rare earth demand.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
I think we can do a little bit of that.
We certainly do silica at quite large scale. We can
do more of that. There's a little bit of lithium here,
not a great deal.

Speaker 4 (04:00):
So we're focused on lithium offshore, and of course we
have gold and cop one other resources and antimony. We
have some antomonymy as well, yep, correct, and that's also
found in Brian.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
So that's that's super interesting for us.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Now John, So do we sell any of this stuff
to China? Because it feels to me like we're lining up,
or at least being lined up by the Trump administration
to choose between the two.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
Look we look, we don't.

Speaker 4 (04:25):
And I guess what's that sitting behind all this, of course,
is the geopolitics of critical minerals and not just the
sourcing of them, but also the refining and improvement of them.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
So there is a globe we'll move on together.

Speaker 4 (04:37):
I guess a more level geopolitical sort of both sourcing
and refining landscape, and certainly we're playing our part of
that by trying to export our technology around the world.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Good stuff, Hey, John, thanks very much for talking us through.
John Worth, CEO, Managing director at GEO forty.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
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