Oliver Friesen, CEO of Guardian Metal Resources, joins from the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange following a major milestone for the company. Fresh off the bell podium, Oliver shares how the firm is advancing plans to develop two new tungsten mines in Nevada, positioning itself at the center of a critical supply chain opportunity. He explains the importance of tungsten one of the densest metals with the highest melting point and its essential role across defense, aerospace, energy, semiconductors, and renewable technologies. With over 90% of global supply currently dominated by countries like China, Russia, and North Korea, Guardian’s mission to build domestic U.S. production carries significant national security implications. The conversation also highlights why Nevada is a premier mining jurisdiction, the company’s strategic advantage operating on U.S. soil, and how access to U.S. capital markets will accelerate drilling, engineering, and development efforts. Looking ahead, Oliver outlines the company’s roadmap to bring these projects into production by 2028, marking a pivotal step toward strengthening domestic resource independence.
Get the latest news and updates on FINTECH.TV
Oliver Friesen joins us now down here on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
He is the CEO of Guardian Metal Resources right off the Bell podium.
It's nice to have you here today.
Thanks for joining us.
How are you doing?
Doing great, uh, much better now that you're here.
Give me a bit of an introduction first and foremost to not just your work at Guardian, but why today is such a big day for the company here at the Big Board.
It's the NYSC.
It's the greatest market in the world.
Uh, so super excited to be here, and we're trying to build two new tungsten mines in the US, so really critical time right now.
And the company is driving forward and now we have access to the obviously the US market.
I think it should be a really exciting time going forward here.
What are some of the things you most hope you could do now as much more of a publicly facing firm that maybe you could not do before today's listing?
So before today, UK listed business, great capital market in there, but it's nothing like here in New York, and both of our assets are in Nevada.
They're in the US they matter for US national security, so we had to be.
In the NYSC and make sure that retail institutional investors here could get access to our story.
I want to ask you about tungsten because I love introducing our viewers to potential new asset classes and things that they hadn't considered for their portfolio.
Talk to me about the importance.
What are the basics for someone just really learning about it for the first time?
So really unique physical properties.
It's one of the most dense metals on the planet.
It has the highest melting point.
I wish I had a little tungsten cube for you because it would really weigh you down, but.
It's used in defense, so that's obviously really important right now for all the geopolitical tension right now in the world.
Aerospace, defense, as I mentioned, automotive, drilling bits, oil and gas, chips, solar, wind, you name it.
We need tungsten for it, and the US hasn't mined any tungsten for over 10 years.
And get this, 90% of total global mine supply comes from China, Russia, and North Korea.
So our mission is really important.
We need tungsten mines in the US and guardians leading the charge. there being a national security argument as well for a lot of power players down in Washington saying, hey, we need a real US operation.
So I appreciate that.
It's not as easy as you and I walking out of lower Manhattan and finding tungsten on the ground here.
You've got to go to specific locations.
The state of Nevada crucial to your operations.
Talk about what is out there and why geographically it's such an important spot for the company.
Well, number one, Nevada is the top ranked mining jurisdiction in the entire world, so it's a place you can get done.
You can mine.
And both of these assets have been in production before, and the reason they shut down was China flooded the market with cheap tungsten in the past.
So they've done it before on home soil in Nevada.
The people in Nevada, they want mining.
They understand how important it is for the state, and it's so important to be in the right geographic location because you need people who actually want you there and want you to build these things, and Nevada is the perfect place for that.
What most differentiates your Nevada.
Data projects from other assets around the world and really the most important parts about it that you would want would be or potential investors to know more about.
It's on home soil, right?
You know there's a lot of projects out there.
They're not in the US.
We position ourselves as we believe, the leading US tungsten exploration development company.
We've received an award directly from the Department of War, from the DPA Title III office to push our projects forward and get them moving.
But I think the best place in the world to mine is here in the US and more particularly in Nevada, and that's why I think, you know, people listening should should be interested in the business is minding America, right?
We can do this on home soil and guardians leading the charge.
I got less than a minute left.
I don't want to make this sound too much like a quarterly earnings call.
You've got lots of time in future quarters for that.
Give me some sense of what now this allows the firm to do, what the rest of even 2026 looks like now that you've made this big step today.
So we've we've done a capital raise now so we can.
The projects forward even quicker, so we're going to go put that money to use.
We're going to be drilling.
We're going to be engineering, permitting in the state of Nevada, and our goal is to get these both in production before the end of 2028, before the current administration is over, and the money and obviously the access to capital here in the US and on the NYC allows us to push towards that goal.
Oliver Friesen, CEO of Guardian Metal Resources, on a big day down here on the trading floor of the big board.
Congratulations and thanks for being on the show.
Nice to have you.
Thanks for having me.