ASP Isotopes Inc. (ASPI) August 2026 Conference Transcript

Good morning, everyone. I'm George Generikas, one of Canaccord Genuity's sustainability analysts. Welcome to the second day of our 46th Annual Growth Conference. And we're very excited to have with us here for our first presentation of the day, ASP Isotopes. And from the company, Victor Petkoff is going to present, Chief Commercial Officer. Victor, please go ahead.

Thank you, George. Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for joining us this fine morning in Boston. My name is Victor Petkoff. I'm the Chief Commercial Officer for ASPI. Hi. Before we start, please take a look at the forward-looking statements that we provide as a publicly listed entity. SPIisotopes is an advanced materials company, and we're using our proprietary technologies to enrich isotopes that are used in, broadly speaking, in three high-value end markets. That's electronics, nuclear medicine, and nuclear fuels. We currently have three production facilities in Pretoria, South Africa, for the production of silicon-28 for the semiconductor industry and carbon-14 and eterbi-176 for nuclear medicine. This is a snapshot of the corporate structure of the group. On the left-hand side, you'll see Pet Labs, which is our radio pharmacy platform. This is where we produce radioactive isotopes for nuclear medicine. We are the largest producer of fluorine-18-based radionuclides in South Africa, and we're looking to expand this part of our business by acquiring sites in different geographies. We've recently announced the acquisition of two sites in the U.S. We have a few more in the pipeline. Then next to it, we have the Stable Isotopes production platform. This is where the three existing facilities sit. And similarly to Pet Labs, we're looking to expand this part of the group in geographies outside of South Africa. Then we have Vrenogen, which is our helium and LNG production platform. We own the Virginia Gas Project, which is the site used for the extraction of helium and LNG. And then last but not least, quantum leap energy. This is our nuclear fuels business and is developing technologies for the production of lithium-6, lithium-7, high assay, low and rich uranium used in the nuclear energy space. Isotopes are critical materials that are used in various industries. However, the supply chains for those isotopes are extremely compromised. You can see the majority of those isotopes are actually produced in Russia. And a number of Western companies are looking to diversify away from that supply. and this is where we see our extremely interesting niche market and there are two technologies that we've publicly announced for the production of isotopes. On the left-hand side you see the aerodynamic separation process or ASP. It's used for elements that are in a gaseous form so think of silicon 28, methane, xenon, etc. It uses stationary wall centrifuge in order to enrich the isotopes of interest and unlike traditional centrifuges that are typically used by the Russian enrichers, we have a modular approach to the production process so we can control the size of those plants and unlike traditional centrifuges we can enrich both elements of smaller and higher atomic masses. Also the capital expenditure is much lower compared to a traditional centrifuge. Quantum enrichment, QE, is our laser-based technology and it's most appropriate for elements that don't have a gaseous form. So think of metals, so uranium, lithium, uterbium, gadolinium, etc. We use a metal as the feedstock, so we vaporize the metal, we apply high heat to it, and then we run a laser through the vapor in order to excite the isotopes of interest. And then we have a charge collector plate where those isotopes of interest are collected. So this is a snapshot of our production plants for carbon, silicon-28, and uterbium-176. The electronics industry uses electronic gases for the production of semiconductors. This is a very exciting industry. It's sized at around $12 billion at the moment, and it's expected to grow at high single digits in the years to come. Our main interest is in the production of silicon-28 for quantum computing and semiconductors, as well as fluorinated gases and helium. Helium is the backbone of semiconductor manufacturing. It is used to its extremely good thermal conductivity and its inertness across the production process for microchips. There is no substitute of helium at the moment and the supply chain is extremely compromised Given the issues in the Middle East, Qatar is a major producer of helium, supplying more than 30% of the market. And the Ras La Fan facility was seriously damaged during the strikes, which basically means that a third of the world's supply is currently offline from Qatar. And there are other industries that are using helium apart from semiconductors. So every MRI machine uses helium in order to cool down the magnets, fiber optics, aerospace launching of rockets. So that's an extremely significant focus for our company in the near term. This is a snapshot of the Virginia gas project. Phase 1 production is expected to start coming online by the end of September, so in the coming weeks we expect to start production of helium from the site, and then following the success of phase 1, we'll start the phase 2 expansion project of the site, which is 12 to 13 times capacity, where we expect to be one of the leading providers of helium worldwide. We've secured funding from the US government and from Standard Bank at around $750 million for phase two of the project. We expect that it will take about 44 months for us to complete that project. and we expect to have it online by 2031. In nuclear medicine, ASPI is the only company globally that has a vertically integrated producer of stable isotopes and consumer of stable isotopes. So Pet Labs will be using the products that we are enriching in the stable isotope part of the business, such as nickel, uterbium, in order to produce radioactive isotopes, which eliminates the risk of supply chain disruptions that a lot of the other companies are facing on a global scale. Pet Labs is the largest producer of fluorine-based radioisotopes in South Africa, and it's a company that has been generating revenues for several years. It's free cash flow generating. We recently issued a shareholder letter stating that we expect the business to generate around $14 million in fiscal year 2026. So we're trying to replicate that success in other geographies where we find opportunities. We recently acquired a site in Florida and a site in South Carolina, which we'll invest into and turn into a pet radio isotopes production facility. And we have a number of such opportunities in the pipeline that we're looking to execute in the next 12 months or so. And in terms of nuclear energy, our subsidiary quantum leap energy is in the process of being spun out of the of the group and that business is developing technologies to capture different parts of the nuclear fuel cycle. So there is a significant shortage of conversion services in the U.S. and on a global scale, so QLE is looking to provide conversion, enrichment, and deconversion services for uranium, as well as producing lithium-7 for existing fission nuclear reactors and lithium-6 for future nuclear fusion. Here's a list of milestones that we've set to ourselves. So in terms of commercial production and delivery, this is the absolute focus of the company, and we're looking to start making commercial deliveries for Silicon 28, Carbon 14, and Euterbian 176 in the second half of 2026. We also expect to commence production of helium at Renogen by September 30th and start recognizing revenue in 2026. Our radiopharmacy business is in the process of expansion. And we also have a biotech company called Alp Theranostics, which is looking to have its first clinical candidates entering human clinical trials within the next 12 months. This is a snapshot of the balance sheet of the company. And as you can see, ASPI Stokes is very well capitalized as of March 2026. We have about $290 million on the balance sheet. This EBITDA guidance is what we have provided to the market in terms of mid-term milestone. So, we're looking to generate EBITDA in excess of 300 million in 2031. And we have broken this down into several segments. So, electronic gases, we expect to be 150 million at the low range, up to 300 million in 2031. That includes helium, silicon-28, fluorinated gases. Then in terms of natural gas, LNG between 100 and 200 million of EBITDA in 2031. This is after phase two is completed. And then medical isotopes, a range of 40 to 100 million. These are the stable isotopes that we're looking to start producing at the ASP level using our proprietary technologies. And then the radiopharmaceuticals and $4,200 million coming from the production of radioactive isotopes used in the nuclear medicine industry. So that's the end of my presentation. So I'll open up for any questions from the audience.

I'll start asking a few, Victor.

Perfect.

Thanks, George. so maybe for some people who may be a little bit newer to the company can you sort of maybe first talk about your radio pharmaceutical business first why is it seeing this acceleration and momentum and second explain exactly how that relates to your nuclear your medical isotope business and why they're sort of tangential to one another sure so the reason for the significant increase in revenues you know our pet labs business and the radio pharmaceutical business is a few fold we in in the last four years we've invested a significant

amount in the development of our flagship radio pharmacy in Pretoria South Africa we installed a cyclotron we installed ancillary equipment that resulted in significant increase in the supply of isotopes in the production of radioactive isotopes. The other driver is the increased demand by hospitals that are increasing number of PET scanners in the country. And this is something that we see on a global basis. PET scanners provide much more detailed information than SPECT, which is where our focus is we've also started generating revenues in the spec part of our business which was not operational in 2025 in microbiology in analytics so this is basically that increase in revenues is a result of all the investments that we've made in the last few years in the business and this is a model that we want to replicate in other countries this is a very for example carolinas have um also targets in europe which we see as a as a very interesting market as well so this um this is a business that um that can really be um you know the backbone of the of the medical um part of of the group right and how does relate to your medical isotopes business exactly? So as I mentioned during the presentation we're the only company on a global basis that produce both the stable isotopes and the radioactive isotopes. Other radiopharmacists will have to go to a stable isotope producer, most likely from Russia, in order to source their feedstock. Whereas in our case we expect to have a parent company or subsidiary that is responsible for the production of those stabilized stoves used as the feedstock in pet labs. That's driving both the security of the supply chain, but also the economics, given the high margins in that business.

We have a question from the audience. It's a two-part question.

You might not be able to answer the second part. How much of your materials pipeline can be produced exclusively from your U.S. sites? And have you spoken with Genesis and the DOE at all?

So we currently, so we don't have production facilities in the U.S. at the moment. So for stabilized stores, our production facilities are in Pretoria in South Africa. The radio pharmacies that we acquired in the US, they are involved in SPECT, so they produce products such as technetium for diagnostics in SPECT scanning. So the idea for us is to invest and to install cyclotrons on those sites so we can start producing isotopes the feedstock for for those vary but they can be sourced from from various various parties including us supply yeah any other questions from the audience i will continue so there have been a number of equipment delays over the last you know couple

of quarters that have mitigated the ramp that you've expected in some of your stable isotopes. Can you sort of talk about, number one, what those were, and number two, how confident you feel now in this second-half ramp that you've guided?

I mean, we try to be very transparent with investors and with our stakeholders regarding the operations of the company. We have experienced delays in the operation of those facilities for stable isotopes in South Africa. The issues are in their core legacy issues that we've inherited from the company where we purchased the original assets from. The technology at its core works exactly in accordance with our mathematical models. We are absolutely happy with how the separation process works for the production of isotopes. however we've come across various engineering issues and the engineering team has been working tirelessly to address those issues you know we've had to exchange a number of components including valves heat exchangers and now in the process hopefully we see ourselves on the final line now very close to it and we are in the process of completing the servicing of our compressors. We publicly announced that the, if we take the silicon 28 plant as an example, the plant operates with 48 stages and about 200 service compressors and we are seeing, you know, we are processing Silane at the moment at the plant we're seeing enrichment however in order to have to achieve that final grade of product we we need to have the full plant um you know operational and we expect to see that by the end of the year in in in the second half of of 2026 um you know some of the other plans um you know The issues were due to external counterparties, so the carbon production plant, unlike silicon-28 production, the feedstock for carbon-14 enrichment is very unique. So we're partnering with a Canadian company that provides us with the feedstock. The plant has been ready. It has been enriching carbon in the last two years, but we haven't received the full amount of feedstock that is required at the right quality in order to produce carbon-14. But we're working very closely with our counterparty, and we expect to see that product, again, having commercial product from that facility by the end of 2026.

So it's all going to happen, hopefully, but in the second half of this year?

That's what we're working towards. Okay.

Maybe to focus on Silicon 28 for a second, because I forget, are there six nines or five nines of purity that you have to get to? So you mentioned that your mathematical models are suggesting that you'll get there, but you haven't had the equipment to prove through engineering. So how confident are you, number one, well, we already answered the question around the mechanical operations actually being figured out in the second half of the year.

But once you get those up and running, that you can achieve the purity levels that your customers require for Silicon 28 specifically. yeah i mean that's what our models are suggesting that if the plant is running at the right number of stages we'll be able to achieve the um the grades of silicon 28 that is required by by customers bear in mind that there are two broad groups of customers that we aim to service with our silicon 28 offering one of them is the very high end very high enrichment level customers in quantum computing. They require, you know, four nines, five nines isotopic purity for, you know, keeping the coherence of qubits in quantum computing. But we have another very exciting line of prospective customers which are involved in the in production of semiconductors and silicon 28 is required there for heat dissipation which basically means that a lower grade of enrichment will add heat value to to the production process of those customers. So these are the two end markets that we're looking to service. Quantum computing, very high value, low volumes, but then the other markets we expect to be high volumes. That is still something that is extremely interesting for us as a commercial opportunity.

Interesting. We have a minute left. By the way, what's at least in my opinion pretty compelling about this guidance that you've given, it excludes your nuclear business, right, the 300 million plus, and that's still obviously part of the company. Maybe last question has to do with helium. Very, very topical. We talked about earlier, you could help solve a lot of our problems in the Strait of Hormuz. So you've had some recent momentum in signing customer contracts once you start production. Can you maybe just talk about those a little bit?

Sure. So we publicly announced that we started executing or we executed a contract with an Asian industrial gases company for about 15% of the capacity in phase one with discussions of a number of customers for the outstanding balance. We don't see shortage in demand for helium. And I think that we're in such a position now that we still haven't seen the biggest impact of the crisis on helium pricing we believe that this is yet to come and um you know we are we're working with our prospective customers on signing those contracts um but there is also a reason why we don't see ourselves being in a massive rush to uh to execute those because prices will go up more yeah so i'm likely to go up yeah i want to ask that because that's interesting Why are the worst problems from the crisis going to happen later and not now?

Have they been working through inventory in your opinion?

That's exactly right. So the strategic reserves are starting to get depleted, and we actually expect those to get depleted in the next few months. So the big industrial gases companies have their reserves that you know they've been drawing on since the start of the crisis and therefore you know they've they've been keeping the you know the the supply of helium relatively undisrupted but you know I think there is a there's a big risk that the situation will will change very soon and that's why we want to be in a good position to fill the gap in the market to make sure that you know we bring in the the supply that is required for the operation of semiconductor industry, of the medical industry, aerospace.

Well, we're up on time. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Thank you, George. Thanks, everyone. Thank you.