Centrus Energy Corp (LEU) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Century of Energy Q2 2026 earnings call. At this time, all lines are in listen-only mode. Following the presentation, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. If at any time during this call you require immediate assistance, please press star zero for the operator. This call is being recorded on Thursday, August 6, 2026.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Neil Nagarajan, head of investor relations please go ahead sir good morning welcome and thank you to all of our callers as well as those listening for webcast today's call will cover the results for the second quarter 2026 ended june 30th today we have amir vexler president and chief executive officer and pontinelli senior vice president chief financial officer and treasurer this conference call follows our earnings news release issued yesterday we have filed a report for the second quarter on Form 10Q earlier today. All of our news releases and SEC filings including our 10K, 10Qs and 8Ks are available on our website. A replay of this call will also be available later this morning on the Centris website. I would like to remind everyone that certain information we may discuss on this call today may be considered forward-looking information that involves risks and uncertainty including assumptions about the future performance of entrance. Our actual results may differ materially from those in our forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to materially differ from those in our forward-looking statements is contained in our filings with the SEC, including our annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. The forward-looking information provided today is time-sensitive and accurate only as of today, August 6, March 2026, unless otherwise noted. Please note that we report results using non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe provide investors with additional understanding of the company's financial performance, as well as the strategic financial planning analysis and period-to-period comparability. A reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP measurements is included in the financial results section of our earnings release. This call is the property of Centris Energy. Any transcription, redistribution, retransmission, or rebroadcast of the call in any form without the express written consensus centers is strictly prohibited. Thank you for your participation, and I'll now turn the call over to Amir.

Thank you, Neil, and thank you to everyone on the call today. We reported strong financial and operational results for the second quarter of 2026 that were boosted by tailwind growth across all of our major addressable markets. existing and growing commercial LEU national security and HALU these developments continue to underscore the growing imbalance in uranium enrichment supply and demand and are reflected in the continued growth in published LEU pricing and by signing the DOE's enrichment award we have unlocked substantial non-dilutive non-debt funding to advance our commercial centrifuge build-out program the funding helps de-risk our build-out and advances our progress to first-of-a-kind costs while creating meaningful jobs across this nation let me first walk through the demand side of that equation we are witnessing strong demand tailwinds in our primary market global commercial lau to support baseline electricity growth for existing and proven gen 2 and gen 3 reactor designs in the u.s the nrc recently proposed multiple regulatory changes and amendments that have the potential to further stimulate the industry's growth. If finalized, these changes could expedite new nuclear capacity coming online while lowering development costs for operators. Furthermore, the newly released American Nuclear Supply Chain Loan Program seeks to help finance and accelerate the deployment of new large-scale nuclear reactors across the United States. Meanwhile, power-up rates and restarts of existing nuclear facilities continue to drive more nuclear energy coming online and subsequent LEU demand. International LEU demand is concurrently set to increase across a number of regions. In Europe, Sweden, and the Netherlands are focused on making new nuclear developments possible while Belgium is looking at ways to restart shuttered reactors. And in Asia, we see multiple areas of growth. in april for example tepco brought back online the 1300 megawatt kajirazaki reactor turning to the government market we continue to see growing demand signals for enriched uranium across various departments as agencies explore avenues to add nuclear power to their energy generation plans and in the national security market we continue to work with the nnsa on its intend to sole-source certain enrichment activities from Centris. Recall that Centris is the only viable production-ready technology that can meet national security needs. Combined, these are strong signs of potential growth in the size and duration of the government market. We are simultaneously seeing signs of growth in the HALU market, where three of four reactor designs that reach criticality ahead of DOE's 4th of July deadline are fueled by HALU. We also believe that potential Department of War funding could help further reduce their timelines. As a reminder, HALU represents an incremental growth opportunity for centrists and is a source of potential near-term capital from prepayments. Because a centrifuge is multifunctional, any funding, whether related to LEU, National Security, or HALU, advances centrist through first-of-a-kind costs. Now let's shift to our financial results for the quarter. As many of you know, there can be a significant amount of variability quarter-to-quarter due to the nature of our business. and as such, we believe our annual results are more indicative of progress made in our LEU and CTS businesses. In the second quarter, we achieved $176.1 million in revenue, a gross profit of $49.9 million, operating income of $10.4 million, net income of $16.8 million, and diluted earnings per share of $0.77. Adjusted net income and adjusted diluted earnings per share were $38.7 million and $1.77 per share, respectively. Turning to our commercial backlog, we are starting to see strong order momentum from the demand signals I referenced earlier, coupled with our build-out progress. We grew our backlog to $4.5 billion that extends to 2040. This is comprised of $3.7 billion in our LEU segment and $0.8 billion in our technical solution segment. The LEU segment's backlog is broken down between $0.7 billion of broker-dealer backlog and $3 billion in contingent LEU and HALU enrichment sales. Todd will discuss our results in more detail. Operationally, we have made meaningful progress throughout the quarter as we remain focused on restoring America's ability to enrich uranium at scale, including the signing of our U.S. Department of Energy $900 million task order that we received earlier this year. The award will support deployment of large-scale production capacity as part of our multi-billion dollar leu and halo capacity expansion this marks another significant milestone in our expansion as we pivot from a technology demonstration contract to a new larger contract that supports commercial scale production we're proud to have completed all halo production requirements under our existing demonstration contract with the doe two weeks ahead of schedule since we've begun our HALU operations contract, we have contractually produced nearly two metric tons of HALU UF6 for the government. While the first new capacity from this transition is expected to come online by 2029, in the interim, we're looking, we're working with the DOE on agreements to enable the company to privately operate the existing 16th centrifuge HALU cascade on a commercial basis. With the task quarter funds as well as cash generated from our existing broker business and strong cash balance we have now met the financing contingency for our more than three billion dollar of customer contracts for the purchase of leu and halo another key milestone and de-risking and advancing our ongoing multi-billion dollar expansion another meaningful achievement for census this quarter was the signing of a letter of intent with Oklo for Centris to supply HALU to power up to five Aurora powerhouses for multiple years, starting in 2029. We are now signing and locking in HALU fuel commitments from off-stakes. And more recently, we announced an off-stake contract for HALU with X-Energy. This marks an important step towards ensuring reliable HALU supply for next-generation reactors and validates our first-mover advantage in the HALU market. Our HALU off-take commitments generally include prepayment to Centris, which will be further negotiated in a future definitive agreement. These prepayments are another source of non-dilutive, non-debt funding for our extension and is a structure we intend to utilize in future HALU off-take contracts. We also continue to make progress with our supply chain partners, including locking in large commitments to help insulate us from price fluctuations and stabilize costs. We have finalized contracts with approximately 75% of the suppliers we have identified as critical. We also continue to evaluate M&A opportunities in our supply chain that align with our long-term growth strategy and create value for our shareholders. In the second quarter, we made meaningful progress in our workforce additions in both Pikeson and Oak Ridge. finally i'm also proud that in july centrist was invited to join the s p small cap 600 index reflecting our role in advancing u.s energy security and strengthening america's nuclear fuel supply chain now moving on to guidance we are reaffirming our 2026 annual guidance for total company revenue of 450 to 500 million dollars total capital spent in the range of 350 to 500 million, finalizing contracts with 100% of the partners we deem critical, a release of a certified for construction package, and at least 100 net new employees hired at our Oak Ridge facility. Simultaneously, given the quarter's progress, we are raising our 2026 annual guidance for Python Workforce additions from over 100 net new employees to over 175 net new employees. And finally, we are excited to announce that we plan to have our first centrifuge completed at our Oak Ridge facility sometime in 2026, an important accomplishment and milestone that demonstrates that our supply chain has come together. I will now turn the call over to Todd and return with some final thoughts and comments.

Todd? Thank you, Amir, and good morning to everyone on today's call. Let me walk you through our results. Our results were in line with our internal projections and reflected not only the typical quarter-over-quarter shift in contractual mix, but also the beginning of the spend for our manufacturing program. As noted, I will be presenting financials on a quarterly and trailing 12-month basis. Total revenue for the second quarter was $176.1 million, an increase of $21.6 million, or 14% versus the same period last year. TTM revenue was $473.9 million. The LEU segment generated $153.4 million in the second quarter, a 22% increase versus the previous period last year. SWU revenue in the quarter decreased by $25.7 million due to a 23% decrease in volume of SWU sold, partially offset by a 3% increase in the average price of SWU sold. Centris also had $53.4 million of uranium sales in Q2. The technical solutions segment delivered revenue of $22.7 million in the second quarter, a $6.1 million or 21% decrease over the previous period, due to primarily to a $5.9 million decrease in revenue from the HALO operations contract. Centrists generated gross profit of $49.9 million and $112.1 million for the second quarter in TTM, respectively, compared to a gross profit of $53.9 million in Q2 2025. The LOU segment's second quarter cost of sales of $101.8 million increased year-over-year by 36%, or $26.8 million, driven by an increase in uranium sales in Q2-2026. Uranium cost increased as a result of increase in the volume of uranium sales. SWU costs decreased 23% as a result of lower SWU volumes, partially offset by a 13% increase in the average cost of SWU sold versus Q2 2025. The technical solutions cost of sales of $24.4 million decreased $1.2 million, or 5%, from Q2 2025, primarily attributed to the HAL operations contract. The company generated a net income of $16.8 million and $38.7 million of adjusted net income in the second quarter, compared to a net income of $28.9 million and adjusted net income of $34.5 million, respectively, in Q2 2025. On a fully diluted basis, this equates to the second quarter 2026 earnings per share of $0.77 per unit and an adjusted earnings per share of $1.77, respectively, compared to $1.59 and $1.90, respectively, for Q2-2025. On a trailing 12-month basis, Centris generated net income of $48.5 million and adjusted net income of $92 million, respectively. The second quarter net income decrease was primarily attributed to a $12.8 million increase in SG&A costs, driven by an increase in stock compensation costs and a $7.5 million increase in advanced technology costs in Q2-2026. This was partially offset by an $8.3 million increase in investment net income for Q2-2026. Second quarter adjusted net income includes $10.6 million of growth expenses in our advanced technology costs and $17.7 million in stock compensation costs, which combined and tax-adjusted equals $21.9 million. The advanced technology costs include short-term, non-capitalized costs related to the expansion of our operations in Python and Oak Ridge that cannot be capitalized as they are associated with manufacturer readiness and security training ahead of the build-out. Please refer to the financial results section of our earnings release issued yesterday for reconciliation of net income and adjusted net income. Going forward, we continue to expect to have a certain level of these types of expenses flow through our income statement as we continued our pre-preparations. Centris backlog across both segments grew to $4.5 billion at the end of the second quarter and extends out to 2040. The growth was driven by an approximate $600 million increase in LEU and HALU enrichment sales in the LEU segment. Of the approximate $3 billion in the segment's enrichment backlog, $2.4 billion are under definitive agreements. Turning to our capitalization and capital spend, as a reminder, non-CAPEX is attributed to cost and investments such as prepayments to supplier or our growth costs associated with our manufacturing prepayers. In the second quarter, we had a total capital spend of $82.2 million, with $71.6 million coming from CapEx and $10.6 million classified as non-CapEx and comprised of the aforementioned advanced technology cost. Going forward, we continue to expect the pace of our CapEx and non-CapEx spend to accelerate throughout the year. We finished the second quarter with $1.9 billion in unrestricted tasks, using our 18M opportunistically to acquire proceeds of only $53.9 million. Importantly, all financial contingencies in our contingent LEU enrichment backlog have now been removed. We continue to feel confident in our existing cash balance, and we believe we are sufficiently funded to meet our near-term capital requirements. As Amir noted, our progress to date have allowed us to raise our 2026 annual guidance for workforce additions in Pipedin, Ohio, to 175 plus, up from 100 plus. We are simultaneously reaffirming the rest of our financial and operational guidance for fiscal year 2026. And finally, we are excited to share that we expect our first centrifuge to be completed in Oak Ridge in 2026, an important milestone in our build-out. With that, I will turn the call back to Amir. Amir?

Thank you, Todd. I am proud of the great progress we made during the second quarter across our operations and strategic partners. So, in summary, we are seeing strong demand signals across all three of our addressable markets, commercial LEU, national security, and HALU. This increased demand coupled with the progress we have made in our Benefuge Manufacturing Program has led to increased momentum in our order book backlog. Importantly, the strong demand signals in commercial LEU have led to a very constructive pricing environment. Long-term LEU pricing continued its steady ascent year-to-date while spot pricing remained at the high set last year. With market tightness anticipated for at least the near and mid-term due to constrained supply, while demand continues to grow, Centris is well-positioned to benefit as a proven enricher. Looking ahead, we will continue to focus on our mission of restoring America's nuclear fuel supply chain and are encouraged by the continued strong trends in the broader macro environment that are supporting global nuclear power development. Finally, we are excited to host our first Investor Day in December at our American centrifuge plant in Pikeson, Ohio. We look forward to sharing more about our strategy, growth opportunities, and long-term outlook at the event. With that, I will turn the call over to the operator for questions. Operator?

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now conduct the question and answer session. If you have a question, please press the star key followed by one on your touchstone phone. You will hear a one-time prompt acknowledging your request. Your questions will be pulled in the order they are received. If you would like to decline from the polling process, please press the pound key. Please ensure you'll leave the handset if you are using a speakerphone before pressing any keys. And please make sure to have one question and go back to the queue. One moment, please, for your first question. The first question comes from John Winhart with UBS Financial. Please go ahead.

Hey, this is David Cho on for John Windham. Congrats on the progress this quarter, and thank you for taking my question. Just really quickly on the X Energy partnership, could you just give us a sense of, you know, the cadence of any deliveries you expect to make? I know X Energy is planning to bring their first facility on kind of in the first half of 28, And then, you know, do you expect any of those volumes to come from the demonstration cascade that you're converting to commercial offtake? Thank you.

Yes. Great questions. Thank you very much. Let's start with the X-Energy question. So as you pointed out, we announced a very exciting agreement this morning. I'd like to just, in general, frame it up as not a great evidence and not a data point to show that Centris is quickly becoming a trailblazer and the go-to for ALU. We're proud to be able to support some of the new development as far as the advanced reactors are concerned, and as you know, we have already a strong order book of LEU as I would like to remind you that the other exciting thing here is that these behavioral agreements include a prepayment as well, which is significantly helpful to us. Now, to your specific question, unfortunately, I cannot provide too many details around deliveries and other specific terms under the contract. We are unable to provide that. But as I said, all in all, just as a general statement, it's exciting. is definitive, which is very important, and we're looking forward to fulfilling it.

Thank you.

The next question comes from Bill Peterson with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Amir and Stephen. Thanks for all the details so far. I guess, you know, given that we're less than 18 months from the Russian import ban going into effect, have you seen any changes in buyer behavior? It helps me think about any potential changes in, you know, financials, including your inventory or working capital, assuming customers prefer to pre-buy. I mean, in all the systems, there's no further waivers, but just kind of getting a sense for how customers are, you know, if they're willing to sign a current level, market level first, or just have any change of customer behavior that you're seeing.

Hey, good morning, Bill. Thank you for the question. So since you gave me a free hand in answering that question, now let me give you general thoughts as to what we're seeing that probably cannot get into a lot of details. around discussions we're having with customers. But you may have heard me say this before, that we do see sort of tightness on the supply side toward the end of the decade. I do believe we're starting to see some of that. We're seeing strong momentum, customer interest generally in buying SWOOs and turning specifically to centrist for that as the newcomer and the new entrant into the market. So we're seeing very strong order momentum, and as I mentioned on the earnings call, the LEU pricing has had a very strong run-up until this point, which is very helpful to our business and further reinforces the investment that we're preparing to make here. So, all in all, I think it's in line with past discussions that we were having as to where we see the market going. And with all the added demand side to the equation and not a whole lot added to the supply side of the equation, at least not in the next year or two, we're seeing that momentum play in favor of the sellers.

The next question comes from Eric Stein with Great Holland Capital. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. This is Luke on for Eric. Thanks for taking our question. So on the cost savings front, obviously the partnership of Palantir has already proven to be extremely valuable, but can you just give us an idea of what the picture for further cost savings might look like throughout the life of your expansion project, just in terms of comparable magnitude to what you've been able to achieve thus far, since you're still just in early stages here? if there's any top areas in particular that you're focusing on now.

Good morning, and again, thank you for that question. You're actually pointing out to an area that is right at the top of our priority list. As we launch the project, as we commence manufacturing, as we start committing to commercial deliveries and to the delivery of our centrifuges, it is extremely important, as I mentioned on the last couple of earnings calls, and I'll reiterate it here that we, in parallel, unlock efficiencies, cost savings, and cost-out efforts. We talked a little bit about our efforts together with CalPier, with some of our EPC partners. We have a lot of supply chain efforts that are aimed at yielding exactly what we talked about here. The fact that we were able to locate larger order books, the fact that we now have more clarity into customer base, ordering allows us to make more leverage buys and realize saving on the supply side of our bill. The other thing that I'll mention is in addition to utilizing and expecting supplier savings we're also launching parallel a lot of efforts internally to ensure that the manufacturing facilities that we're setting up and the processes that we're setting up have things like lean and things that utilize and maximize efficiencies. All of that will result without cost-heavy. In terms of being able to give you details as to what it is numerically and while we're targeting, that's not something that I talk about on this phone call but I'll reiterate again that being able to lock in long-term agreement in large orders due to some of the clarity that I talked about results in significant cost savings.

Thank you.

Thank you. The next question comes from Mark Shooter with William Blair. Please go ahead.

Congrats again on the Oakland X Energy Supply Grounds.

Thank you.

I understand you guys are limited on what you can disclose, but maybe a comparison may help bring out some context for us. If you look at the two HALU contracts you recently signed with Oklo and X Energy Today, can you highlight anything where they may be the same or differ? They may be in size, timing, not also in structure. Is one further along, more definitive? Do you either have take or pay commitments?

Yep. So, as you know, I'm fairly limited in the details that I can provide just because there are non-disclosure agreements and we just typically not in the habit of revealing details of commercial agreements. However, there are a lot of similarities, and I was mentioning on the last couple of calls that we are starting to see a much greater ability from our customer base to actually commit to legally binding agreements, a definitive agreement, and that's what you saw with the X Energy agreement that we've announced, and that's what we're marching towards with Oklo as well. So I do want to explain a little bit of the LOI dynamic versus a contract. The LOI is a step that precedes a definitive contract. This is an agreement over general terms as we see them, and once we get to that point, we're very close to finalizing contractual terms and conditions. So the similarities that we're seeing is you're seeing now some of these OEMs being able to commit and put fuel as a priority in their purchasing strategy. And we're seeing a maturing of the SMR market. And probably the most important thing I want to convey on this call is that we now are leading the pack and we are the haywood supplier. We now are the go-to for HALU supplies, and as you know, we kind of view HALU as a bonus. LEU is the sure business, the sure thing in the market. We've been focusing on that very strongly. HALU has been really a big bonus for us, and I talked a lot about just generally the economies of scale, So we naturally are trying to not only get the HALU, but also get the LEU feed, which is extremely important to us for economies of scale. The third similarity that we're seeing is prepayments. We're seeing the willingness, the ability, and our sort of strong preference for a prepayment, which adds significantly to the non-diluted capital that we're able to invent.

Appreciate it, Colin.

Thank you. The next question comes from Vikram Barji, the CD Group. Please go ahead.

Hi, it's Ted on for Vic. Thanks for taking our questions. I just wanted to come back to the guidance, and could you just maybe remind us what's driving the bookend there? The release had mentioned the potential roll-off of funding for the operations contract. So, just wanted to understand where that may fit within the revenue balance range.

Yes. So, just a reminder, on our revenue guidance, we increased it last quarter. One of the things that, you know, I just want to remind is our business has variability from quarter to quarter. So, it's always wise. That's why we're talking about our 12-month. We're not providing quarter-over-quarter guidance. guidance. However, we're maintaining our guidance for the year. We feel that along with our strong order book and the market maturing that we are able to maintain our guidance at the current sense for revenue and also CAPEX. But additionally, another strong item is that we've increased our headcount around the pipeline facility. communicating and transmitting for a centrifuge is going to be completed in Oak Ridge.

Again, this is in line with the investment that we're making, the project planning that we have, and this is probably one of the most exciting steps towards realization and commencement of enrichment in Piketon.

Got it. Thank you. And then one further question, just in terms of the increase to the backlog quarter-over-quarter, are you able to just talk about, you know, what led to that increase in terms of did the signing of the DOE awards contribute to that or are some of the more recent awards within there? And how do you actually define the backlog? Does it include any LOIs?

So, unfortunately, I won't be able to get into a lot of details, but I will tell you this does not include the DOE. These are all commercial agreements. the increase in backlog has to do with commercial agreements. I cannot really go into any more detail than that.

Thank you.

Thank you. The next question comes from Rob Brown with Lake Street Capital Market. Please go ahead.

Good morning and congratulations on all the strong progress. I just want to talk a little bit more about the off-take agreements, maybe just sort of big picture. What's your thinking on the amount of your future capacity that you hope to have in terms of off-take agreements signed up? This, I guess, is a HALU-specific question, but how much of, you know, the capacity do you hope to have off-take agreements signed for?

Yes, good morning. Thank you for the question. I think a few calls back, I was mentioning that really our strategy is depending on what our solid order book looks like, that would sort of determine the proportion of LEU versus HALU that we're building. At this point, based on what we're locking in, we're not really changing the proportions of what we're building out. We are going to be building both. We have the flexibility to build both. Depending on the customers that step forward and are making firm commitments, that's what we're going to be building. And obviously, we're going to be looking for solid commitments for as long of a term contract as possible. And, you know, we kind of transmitted exactly those points to the market last year. And I'm happy to say that it's been kind of progressing exactly on how we transmitted it last year. as well.

Thank you. As a reminder, please limit your question to one question only and go back to you. Thank you. The next question comes from Ryan Finst with Beer Riley Securities. Please go ahead.

Thanks for taking the question.

Maybe you follow up on your work with Palantir and efficiencies more broadly. You discussed efforts in one of the previous responses on the cost side, but could you give more detail on progress you're looking to make on lead time reduction?

Good morning, Ryan. Thank you for that question. So you are correct. I think lead time is extremely important as an opportunity as well as cost out. The reason is, is we're backing into commercial agreements. And quite frankly, the commercial agreements are demanding even faster timelines. There is a gap in the market in terms of supply, as I mentioned to one of the earlier questions. So there is really a tangible and real reward to whoever can come to market with enrichment capacity as soon as possible. So part of our work with Foundier, part of the work that we have with our EPC providers and other partners, meaning the large suppliers that I referenced earlier. I mean, all of these critical suppliers, we have ongoing efforts and sort of projects that we kicked off where we look at both lead times and we look at cost out because lead times really translate into enhanced revenue and being able to realize revenue much earlier, much sooner. So we're focused on that. I hope I was able to answer your question with sufficient detail. So I'm not sure that I can go into any more detail than that. No, that's great.

I appreciate it, Amir.

Next question comes from Nick Anikusi with Evercore. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, Amir and Todd. I'm going to kind of focus back on the guidance, too. Just as we think about the CapEx ramp through the back half of the year and the, you know, the completion of the centrifuge, How should we think about kind of the cadence of the balance of the spend through the end of the year, and then as we kind of think about it into 2027, where that CAPEX number kind of filters out?

Thanks, Nick. Well, first I'll say is, you know, this project will continue to ramp up. We're not going to provide guidance just at this point beyond 2026. But you, as I mentioned, you see that we maintained our guidance for 2026 on around the CapEx. You saw the most recent quarter in which we spent through either prepayments, capitalized labor, or pre-orders. This project will continue to move forward. I think one of the items that I will also point to that will meet our customer demands for their deliveries in the future period.

Nick, this is Amir. I just wanted to add something to what Todd was saying. It may be somewhat tangential to your question around cadence, but I mentioned it earlier and just want to emphasize it again. So we did announce, and we're very excited about this, that the first centrifuge is going to be completed this year. The intent, obviously, is here, we're building a manufacturing facility, which is a first-of-a-kind in the United States to actually manufacture one of the most complex things humans have ever invented, which is the centrifuge. It is an impressive facility. We have top people, top engineers, top suppliers working on it, and we are excited at the fact that we're doing something that has never been done before, and it's coming together. The first centrifuge is the first concrete sign and proof of it. And obviously, the intention is that there is going to be a cadence of production that is fully synchronized with how we are supposed to deliver the product past, you know, the end of the decade. So, although I cannot obviously give you guidances, as Todd said, in terms of numbers, but definitely look at it that way.

Great. That's helpful. Look forward to seeing you in December. Thank you.

Thank you. The next question comes from Jeff Grapp with Northland Capital Market. Please go ahead.

Maybe to build on the last topic, on the hiring front, you guys continue to make, obviously, positive progress on accelerating the hiring goals that have piped in.

Can you touch on, like, the potential, I guess, de-risking or accelerating of timelines to first cascade, given the hiring acceleration? Are those correlated at all, or can you touch on any other benefits to the business or timeline with the accelerated hiring?

Yeah, so this kind of goes to the earlier question that I had, maybe two or three questions ago, where I talked about not only cost savings, but, you know, improving lead times. Being able to improve lead times is tangible, real benefit to the company in terms of our ability to get on the market quicker. So a lot of our efforts are associated with going faster and taking costs out. Some of the acceleration in adding the workforce that you referenced and as we've talked about in our guidance is directly related to that. Overall, I view that as a positive sign, I view that as something that is meant to absolutely ensure that we are delivering on our commercial commitment and potentially do better than that, but obviously nothing new to announce at this point.

Yeah, and I just will make one more point that when you think about the Piped-In versus Oak Ridge headcount, As Amir said, we're setting up a kind of a first-of-a-kind facility in the United States to manufacture enrichment. That's where we're manufacturing the centrifuges, which are then shipped to be installed and stood up and piped in. So all of these items are connected, where the supply chain, the lead times, the quicker that we can stand up the manufacturing and produce those centrifuges, they are able to be shipped to Piped-In. And currently, you know, there is a lot of work that's being done at Piped-In to be prepared for those centrifuges to be, you know, received to attend the investor.

Appreciate the details and look forward to it.

Thank you, guys.

Thank you. The next question comes from Joseph Rigger with Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead.

Hey, Amir and team, thanks for taking the questions. everybody um a lot of my questions have already been touched on but just kind of trying to put a bow on everything you guys just said to instill the expectation that commercial production would commence somewhere around late 2029 at piketon or is that timeline potentially moving forward uh i would remove the adjective late and just say in 2029 that that is our goal Absolutely.

To use your words, to put a bow on it, we are exploring opportunities and working hard to ensure that we can potentially compress timelines, but there is nothing to announce and no commitment to this point.

That's helpful. Just to sum it up. Thanks, I'll turn it over.

Thank you. The next question comes from Samir Joshi with H.C. Lanebride. Please go ahead.

Hey, Amir.

Thanks for taking my questions.

Could you talk about the smooth price dynamics here? I think if I heard right, the prices went up 3% during the quarter, whereas the costs went up 30%. What are the drivers for the costs?

Hey, good morning, Samir. This is one of my favorite questions to talk about. The reason is it really kind of summarizes the market in one number that everybody can look at, and obviously opinions may differ, but it comes down to really basic economics. school prices have been escalating and have are still escalating due to the simple fact that you have demand that is outstripping supply and more importantly you know this is 2026 9 as 2026 we still have two or three more years or so until you know there is capacity that's going to start to come online from numerous projects that have been announced and so I still think that my personal view is there is going to be continued to be constrained we're going to continue to see some of the dynamics of being a seller's market so to speak so the simple answer is is there has been no new capacity added and not a day goes by, we're not hearing of more new reactors, operates, decommissioned reactors coming back online, new plants for new reactors. All of these require fuel. All of these require more fuel than they required before. Capacity remains the same. That's what you're seeing in the prices. As I said, in the near term, I don't see that dynamic changing a whole lot.

Amir, can you also comment on what is driving the costs up concurrently? Because I would imagine it's mostly energy costs, but there are some other costs that are also clearly going up.

Well, the costs relate to a mix of uranium costs. Obviously, we can't comment on specific costs of each deal, But the inventory cost is a contractual mix in how we account for the inventory on the books. But, again, we're seeing strong smooth prices. Our margins are coming in line with our expectations. We can see market demand that will maintain those smooth prices.

Next question comes from Drew Scott with Needle & Co. Please go ahead.

Thank you for taking my question. Can you guys talk about pricing structures in your off-take agreements that you guys are pursuing? Are you guys using the fixed-price structures, or are you guys indexing to some type of pricing? And if you think the market is tightening, how much off-take are you wanting to sign today?

Yeah, well, I mean, currently we can't comment on our, you know, pricing. I'm assuming you're talking around all off-take arrangements on the pricing. I just want to make sure I understand your question. Okay, yeah. We can't comment on the specific pricing of our contracts. Unfortunately, you know, we have NDAs. I think one of the most important areas that you see, and I think Amir mentioned this several times during the call, is, you know, these are the new contracts, and we also met our financial contingencies on our backlog, is that they're definitive, first-of-a-kind, or initial build-out. And so the more offtake that we find results in further economies of scale, continuing to meet all of our customer demands. As you see, the HALU market has matured quite nicely over the last six months, and we continue to be there to be the first HALU provider in the market. Okay, great. Thank you.

Thank you. The next question comes from Christopher Souther-Richelis. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Thanks for all the color here, and congrats on the progress, you know, both in Piked Inn and Tennessee and with some of these customers. Maybe you can give us an update just on how discussions are going with utilities for LUE on potential long-term contracts now that we've met financial contingencies. How should we think about the cadence for incremental orders between now and 2029? It's great to see some of these SMR developers that are dependent on Halo being proactive, but curious if you have a sense or target on the visibility we could continue to build, you know, between now and 2029, and if you're seeing more urgency for contracting from some of the, you know, traditional utility customers as well, given the pricing trends.

Excellent question. Thank you for that. I stated numerous times on our earlier calls that we were greatly appreciative and focused on the LU market. That provides a strong foundation for our off-take backlog. These are solid commitments that are needed by reactors that are operating every day and will continue operating for decades. So they obviously are at the top of our list. The dynamics there is, you pointed out correctly, the fact that we now have essentially no required contingency there that we have met across the threshold, that makes us a much lower risk startup and a much lower risk and richer on the market, and I would expect that that would give us a lot more play with utility. We are seeing generally more interest and inward look by utilities towards sort of the few enrichment providers that are in the market now. And I am sensing that there is a lot of focus on the new entrant to make sure that there is competition in the market. and we're getting a lot of advantages by being the new entrant and somebody that makes that investment and now represents a much lower risk than we would have, say, a few years ago. So all in all, the dynamics is unfolding in our favor, and we are in constant engagement with utilities that are looking to fulfill their LEU needs for years to come. I will add, and I said this before as well, that some of these discussions don't result in the linear sort of numbers that you can track quarter to quarter. They're lumpy in how they're being delivered. Some of these discussions take longer. Some of them take less time. But all in all, we continue to make that a priority from a commercial standpoint, the existing reactors and the existing LEU needs here in the United States and abroad.

Okay. So maybe just kind of following up there, like, you know, as far as contract timing, you know, understanding there's stuff that we won't necessarily see kind of in the interim, but, you know, is kind of 2028, 2029 kind of big, you know, circle dates for contracting from some of those, or could we see some of that earlier?

Sure. I want to make sure I understand your question. So your question is, is there an opportunity to have delivery in 2028, like earlier than we announced?

No, as far as, like, longer-term contracts, you know, are they kind of, you know, in a bit of a wait-and-see for some of that, you know, for incremental stuff beyond your current backlog? Or, you know, is there kind of upside to the backlog between now and 2029 materially?

Right, right, right. Yeah, so I hope I'm answering your question. If I don't, please, of course, correct me on that. The buying patterns of the utilities are very different from utility to utility. The larger utilities and the smaller ones have different strategies as to when they go to market. Some of them have different tolerance or risk or interest in incumbents versus new entrants. And as I said, the fact that we are now delivering centrifuges or, you know, we're going to be demonstrating that we're delivering, installing, and we also have no financial contingencies, I believe that there is going to be a lot more interest from utilities that are in a wait-and-see mode, and there's quite a few of them there. Fully expect that.

Yeah. One thing I'll add is that obviously the market anticipated the Russian ban and, you know, a lot of the market in the near term utilities have secured their position. So, you know, discussions with the utilities and the RFPs are for, you know, the future periods and future periods when we plan to have, you know, capacity online. But I would just remind you that we have a strong broker business that has supported since the past few years and continues to support Centra's cash flows, and we stand ready to meet any customer requests that may come in the near term.

Really helpful.

The next question comes from Joseph Osha with Guggenheim Securities. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. This is Peyton on for Joe. Thanks for taking our questions. I guess just stepping back from the quarter here, As you transition the HALU cascade from cost-reimbursable DOE work to commercial operations, what does the fully ramped earnings power of the combined LEU and HALU business look like? And if you could say a couple things about what needs to go right over the next 18 to 24 months to get there, that'd be great.

Yeah, we don't provide any additional guidance on that. Obviously, the transition of the demo cascades, the commercial, demonstrating our ability to operate these cascades, our ability to produce HALU that's out in the market. We're excited to be able to continue those cascades and provide commercial HALU. Obviously, these require LEU feedstock.

I'd like to add something. When you think about the intent of the demo cascade, I mean, there's a lot to be read and concluded here as of our technology, the capability of our technology, and the high expectations that we have set for it to operate in the field. So, I mean, all in all, we see this as very positive progress and development.

Great. Thanks, guys.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I will now transfer the conference over to Neil Vigarajan, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Operator. This will conclude our investor call for the second quarter of 2026. As always, I want to extend a thank you to our listeners and our analysts online and those who called in. We look forward to speaking with you again next quarter and sharing more information on our upcoming Investor Day.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the conference call for today. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.