Introducing the Future of U.S. Energy Infrastructure – EVelution Energy
Intermestic Capital and EB5 Horizon sponsor EVelution Energy Interview
EB5 Horizon and Intermestic Capital are proud to provide EB-5 financing for EVelution Energy’s groundbreaking cobalt processing facility in Yuma, Arizona. In this first video of our interview series, EB-5 industry expert Michael Gibson speaks with Navaid Alam and Gil Michel-Garcia about how their global infrastructure experience and deep industry insight led to the creation of the first cobalt processing plant in North America.
Evelution Energy Interview Chapter 1
Michael Gibson, USAdvisors, interviews Navaid Alam, President Evelution Energy
Transcript
EVelution Energy Interviews Chapter 1.
Michael Gibson, Managing Director of US Advisors (USAdvisors.org) an independent Registered Investment Advisory Firm. Michael also owns and runs EB-5 Investments (eb5projects.com) and is an EB5 industry expert.
Navaid Alam, President & Chief Executive Officer
Gil Michel-Garcia, Executive Vice President, General Counsel, Treasurer & Secretary
Michael Gibson, speaking
Hi, I want to welcome everybody today to another segment of our EB5 Project Showcase. Today we are in Phoenix, Arizona. We're speaking with the principals of Evelution Energy. I have Navaid Alam and Gil Michel-Garcia. They are the principals and founders of a very interesting and somewhat unusual product for the EB5 space. Which is more familiar with commercial real estate, construction projects, hospitality, multi-family things of that nature. This is a cobalt processing facility that you all are locating in Yuma, Arizona.
I'm sure a lot of our investors and listeners have absolutely no idea what a cobalt processing facility looks like or why is it even needed, why is it necessary? So to help us understand not only why is it necessary, but perhaps why should they be thinking of investing in it to secure their green card and perhaps the return of their capital. I'm happy to have you guys here today to talk more about this. So, let me start first with you Navaid, tell us about the genesis, what, before we even get into the cobalt processing, and why is it needed? Tell us what, how you came up with the idea. You and Gil, I understand, you worked on this together for many years. What, how did this idea start in your mind?
Navaid Alam, speaking
Thanks, Mike.
We are actually have known each other for a long time, 25 years or more. We were lawyers together in New York. After I left the law about 22 years ago, I started building infrastructure projects in all over the world, so large grain terminals, oil terminals. In, in Africa, we built the first new export grain terminal in the United States, in the US Gulf in Lake Charles, Louisiana. And we realized that we could really build this infrastructure of cobalt metal in the United States and be the first ones to do it. Currently, there are zero cobalt facilities in the United States. And in fact, all North America. So being first market will be a great benefit to us and to the cobalt market in North America. We were working on copper trading. Gil used to be working with Grupo Mexico, which is one of the largest copper companies in the world. And we, we went to Africa to trade copper and we realized that the cobalt market was one of the most interesting markets with which we could gain entry and be one of the first market because a very fragmented market at the time.
And cobalt happens to be one of the most stable metals known to man. It's a great thermal regulator. It is used in high-energy, high-density applications such as jet engines, hypersonic missiles, stealth bombers. It's used in EV batteries and laptop batteries and iPhone batteries. And, we have a shortage of cobalt in the United States. Cobalt processing, the United States. So our idea was that we should build the first cobalt processing refinery in the US to take advantage of all the growth in EV demand, and hypersonic missile demand, in stealth bombers, in defense applications that are really starting to boom in this country at this point. So, we have, because of all of our experience building infrastructure around the world, we were able to source our cobalt-input from Africa. And also talk about off-take with very large US companies such as General Motors, Stellantis, LG Energy, Glencore. Who are building battery gigafactories in North America.