Gary Billingsley, Executive Chairman of the Canadian-based Great Western Minerals Group Jack Lifton a Rare Earth Expert at San Francisco Hard Assets Resource Investors Conference

When it comes to investing in compelling opportunities, investors sometimes look for first movers and innovators as exciting additions to their portfolio. Innovators are forward-looking opportunists who create strategic alliances and develop groundbreaking business models to grow their businesses and become successful.

When we spoke to Gary Billingsley, Executive Chairman of the Canadian-based Great Western Minerals Group, he told us about their exciting innovative pursuits, which painted a fascinating picture of the future of metals investing.

"Great Western Minerals Group originated as a junior mining company where we were exploring and developing for different commodities including several rare earth projects.  In the past two or three years,  we have focused solely on rare earths and expanded our business model – the 'mine-to-market' business model – first with the formation of Great Western Technologies Inc., and then with the acquisition of Less Common Metals Ltd. in June 2008. We are the only public rare earth company that has the value added capability already in place," and later he added, "We will be the first vertically integrated rare earth elements producer outside China."

Less Common Metals Inc. Rare Earth Manufacturing Facility in Birkenhead UK

Rare earth minerals are growing in their importance today because of the applications in the marketplace. Great Western Minerals produces rare earths for only a few of the burgeoning and most highly-valued applications available. "We focus on… two types of permanent magnets," explains Billingsley, "One is called Samarium-Cobalt which is a robust magnet that can operate in extreme ranges of temperature without being demagnetized and it's very important to military applications. The other type of permanent magnet is a Neodymium Iron Boron magnet and when you think of hybrid vehicles and the new generation of wind turbines – those have permanent magnet electric motors and generators – and Neodymium Iron Boron magnets go into that. Demand for those applications has grown significantly, which in turn has increased greatly the demand for neodymium and dysprosium that go into those permanent magnets."

This kind of technical detail will catch the interest of investors who want to invest in new technologies and eco-friendly green technologies. Billingsley continues by describing another growing opportunity for rare earth applications: "Another one that you see everyday but don't realize it-- is when you're looking at your flat panel TV, LCD or plasma displays, your cell phone screen – those colors you see are rare earth phosphors and that's another important market for rare earth elements."

To investors, Billingsley says, "By and large, when you hear the term 'green technology,' think rare earths because they're in almost every application; the technology does not work without them, and there is no substitute"

Gary Billingsley at Their Hoidas Lake Rare Earth Project

Great Western Minerals developments

Hoidas Lake Rare Earth Project, in Saskatchewan, Canada, is Great Western Minerals' original project and remains their flagship project in North America. "We recently announced we had doubled the Measured and Indicated resource of Hoidas Lake," says Billingsley. "We've finished drilling there for the time being and we're now focused on the metallurgy." According to Great Western Minerals' website, Hoidas Lake has the potential to supply over 10% of North America's need for rare earth elements for years to come.

Another project they have is in South Africa – the former producing Steenkampskraal Mine. This project was started shortly after they acquired Less Common Metals Ltd., which needed rare earth elements but didn't want to rely on China for those elements. The mine has a small resource but has enough to supply Less Common Metals' needs for at least the next ten years operating at full capacity, and it allows them to become internally self-sufficient.  There has been very little exploration work done on the project and the potential to extend the mine life significantly is excellent.

They have two other projects in Canada – the Douglas River Project in Saskatchewan and the Benjamin River Project in New Brunswick. The Douglas River Project is a 100% Yttrium and heavy rare-earth-enriched-property and the Benjamin River Project is "a phosphate deposit that will have rare earths as a by-product, also about 30% heavy rare earths," explains Billingsley.

A Growing Demand for Rare Earth Elements in Fuel Efficient Autos

Rare earth mining is important because of the technology it helps to create. Permanent magnets, green technology, and screens are areas of growing opportunity. Mr. Billingsley was reluctant to talk about the opportunities in detail but he did mention that they have a letter of intent from Toyota. "They are quite keen to secure a stable supply of these heavier rare earths just in case they can't access the material in China. In particular, dysprosium is what they're looking for… they have been to our projects, they are doing their own investigations with their own consultants, and they will have to make a decision in the next month or so about whether they would like to enter into some kind of development arrangement with us, which will take the shape of a typical mining joint venture… but it happens to be an end-user that has a fairly high profile."

With all this talk about burgeoning technology and innovative markets, it's easy to forget that Gary Billingsley is first and foremost an engineer and geoscientist. He has over 30 years of experience working within the industry, where he's worked with several mining companies. His background has been across the entire range of exploration, discovery, and production, and he's worked with uranium, gold, and diamond-bearing kimberlite. He's also a chartered accountant; therefore, his background is a compelling combination of geoscience and efficient mining-business operations.

After describing a small handful of Great Western Minerals' leaders, Billingsley mentioned another innovation-developer who recently joined the Great Western Minerals team, Dr. Baodong Zhao. According to the website, Dr. Zhao, oversees all aspects of metallurgy including the development of cost effective techniques to optimize the extraction and processing of rare earth elements from the host ore. Billingsley says, "he is about to become indispensable from the mining side to the downstream side including setting up operations to separate the individual rare earth elements from the host ore and possibly even go into metal-making."

Why consider investing in Great Western Minerals?

An investment in Great Western Minerals (GWG on the TSX-Venture Exchange and GWMGF in the US) is an investment in innovation and the near-term opportunities of rare earth element applications in technology. But more than that, Great Western Minerals has its innovative "mine-to-market" business model as a benefit. "We are the only public rare earth company that has the mine-to-market capability because we are already producing rare earth products. We already have customers in place so that when our mining projects come into production, our customers are already there," explains Billingsley.

Furthermore, Billingsley points out that their projects produce elements for permanent magnets and for materials that go into flat-panel phosphors and energy-efficient lighting, "which are the two highest valued sectors of the rare earth marketplace."

Great Western Minerals Group has a compelling story with its mine-to-market business model and its focus on innovative markets and strategic relationships.

Contact Information

www.gwmg.ca

Great Western Minerals Group Ltd.

226 Cardinal Crescent

Saskatoon, SK S7L 6H8

Phone: (306) 659-4500

Fax: (306) 659-4501

E-mail: info@gwmg.ca