Uranium Energy Corp Q3 FY2026 Earnings Call

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. A presentation accompanying today's call is available on our website. Some of the commentaries today will include forward-looking statements, and I would encourage everyone to review the cautionary language on slide two of the presentation. With that, let's begin with highlights from the quarter. This quarter was marked by several defining milestones along the continued execution of our long-term strategy to become America's first and only vertically integrated uranium company, from mining and processing through refining and conversion. We are also pleased to provide an update on our critical mineral portfolio. The commencement of production at Burkalo is a significant achievement for UEC and an important milestone for domestic uranium production in the United States. It is the largest Greenfield ISR uranium project to come into production in more than a decade. It has been incredible to see our team develop the project from a grassroots discovery in 2012 to production in 2026. Let that sink in for a moment. It took 14 years to bring a new uranium mine online. That timeline highlights the scarcity and strategic value of fully permitted and operating uranium mines, not only in the United States, but globally. It also underscores a significant competitive advantage for UEC, which today controls 10 permitted uranium projects in the U.S. We are very proud of our team's efforts and accomplishments over the past 14 years to advance Percololo. follow. In addition, we would like to thank our landowner and stakeholders for their support. Building on the scale of our asset base, we are now operating two of our three U.S. hub-and-spoke ISR production platforms. We control the largest uranium resource base in the United States, which provides the foundation for decades of staged production growth. Our strong balance sheet and inventory physician with no debt provides us with the opportunity to pursue our 100% unhedge strategy, selling opportunistically and capturing industry-leading realized pricing, generating meaningful returns for shareholders. Through our wholly owned subsidiary, United States Uranium Refining and Conversion Corp., we have created maximum alignment with the renewed bipartisan focus on energy independence and national security in the U.S. This opportunity positions UEC as the only American vertically integrated nuclear fuel supplier from mining through conversion as nuclear power expands and fuel sourcing ships back onshore. With policy momentum building and long-term uranium supply gaps growing, we are strategically placed at the convergence of market demand and government priorities. With that overview, let's turn to operational highlights. In the third quarter, our focus remained on expanding production capacity while maintaining a low-cost production profile. As I highlighted, commencing production of Burkalo was a significant achievement. Borkolo is an important part of UEC's growth strategy, allowing us to initiate production at our second hub-and-spoke platform, anchored by the Hobson Central Processing Plats. At Christensen Ranch, we received regulatory approval for expanded production, adding an additional three header houses at the end of March. With these approvals now in hand, we anticipate increased production rates in the fourth fiscal quarter. We have an additional five header houses under construction, and one additional header house has been completed and is on standby for regulatory approval. During the quarter, 32,000 pounds of uranium concentrate were produced at a total cost per pound of $54.61, including a cash cost per pound of $46.69. cents. Costs per pound did increase during the quarter, but we view this as a temporary and largely a timing-related event. Regulatory approvals delayed production from new header houses, while costs associated with bringing those production areas online were incurred before the associated uranium production was fully reflected in quarterly volumes. Given the sensitivity of unit costs to production rates during this stage of the ramp-up, together with higher state taxes, these factors increased cost per pound during the quarter. As production rates increase from the newly commissioned header houses, we expect cost per pound to improve. Since commissioning, UEC's total cost per pound remains a leader in the domestic industry at $39.30, including a cash cost per pound of $32.40 across 276,000 pounds produced. At Ludeman, our next planned ISR uranium operation in Wyoming, we completed a 240-hole delineation drilling program. At Sweetwater, our third hub-and-spoke production platform, anchored by the Sweetwater mill, We completed a 200-hole delineation drilling program in the first two planned wellfields. At Roughrider, our development stage, conventional asset located in the Athabasca Basin in northern Saskatchewan, core drilling is over 80% complete to support our planned pre-feasibility study. A key component of our long-term strategy is the United States Uranium Refining and Conversion Corp, or URNC. Uranium conversion remains an acute bottleneck in the Western nuclear fuel cycle with insufficient commercial UF-6 capacity outside Russia and China. At the same time, a critical gap in the U.S. nuclear fuel cycle is the lack of a vertically integrated domestic supply spanning mining, processing, refining, and conversion. That gap underscores the importance of UEC's initiative with URNC. During the quarter, we made important strides to advance the project. We achieved our first U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing milestone through receipt of a docket number. Further, ongoing discussions with the U.S. Department of Energy regarding strategic nuclear fuel cycle infrastructure led us to add additional candidate locations to ensure coordination and alignment with federal priorities for restoring domestic uranium conversion capacity and strengthening America's nuclear fuel supply chain. We have now developed a final short list of candidate locations. Finally, we're excited to spotlight a recent update for one of our critical mineral projects, Alta Parana, in Paraguay. A recent completed independent report determined that the project represents a globally significant critical minerals platform with the potential to materially contribute to this security and diversification of U.S. supply chains for titanium and vanadium. UEC's critical minerals portfolio, which includes the West Bear Cobalt Nickel Project in Canada, has been assembled through timely acquisitions over the last decade and represents additional embedded value that we will look to unlock for shareholders through ongoing initiatives. This strategy and component of our business aligns with the urgent need of re-establishing critical mineral supplies in support of national and economic security. Now turning to our financial position. We finished the quarter with $794 million in liquid assets, including $488 million in cash, along with uranium inventory and equities, and importantly, no debt. As of April 30, 2026, we held 1.4 million pounds of U308, valued at approximately $127 million at current market prices, excluding the additional approximately 277,000 pounds of precipitated uranium and dried and drummed U308 held at the Erigeri Central Processing Plant. UEC's balance sheet combined with our unique unhedged strategy provides the flexibility to be selective in the execution of sales as demonstrated in the third quarter where we preserved our inventory. As many are familiar, our operational platform is built around scalable hub-and-spoke ISR operations in Wyoming and South Texas, supported by longer-term development projects at Sweetwater and Roughrider. Starting in Wyoming, through our ongoing construction campaigns, we continue to scale production at Christensen Ranch, which operates as the first spoke to the Erigary CPP. As of April 30, 2026, total cumulative production from Christensen Ranch since restart was approximately 277,000 pounds of precipitated uranium and dried and drummed U-308 at the Erigary CPP at a total cost per pound of $39.30, including a cash cost per pound of $32.40. says. The company continued to develop new production areas at Christensen Ranch during the quarter. Turning to Ludeman, UEC's next planned ISR operation, the previously announced 240-hole delineation drilling program was completed. This work will assist well-fueled pattern design currently underway. Engineering of the satellite ion exchange plant progressed with the plant layout and pad design largely finalized and fabrication of the ion exchange vessels ahead of schedule we continue to advance the remainder of the mechanical equipment specifications which allows the company to begin to procurement process for longer lead time equipment turning to south texas we commenced production at the burke hollow project on april 8 2026 In order to initiate the uranium recovery process, oxygen and carbon dioxide were injected into the wellfield and will provide initial feed to the ion exchange plant. The satellite ion exchange plant was commissioned, and wellfield development continues in Phase 1A. Now that it is online, we expect to see production from Brook Hollow accounted for in the fiscal fourth quarter of 2026. looking further ahead towards our development stage assets swede water is earmarked to be a major future production center and we are working expeditiously towards this operation as both a conventional mill and a central plant for processing isr production further a 200 hole delineation drilling program in the first two plant well fields at swede water commenced in March and was completed in early May. A second 200-hole delineation drilling program is scheduled to begin in July 2026, where the third ISR wellfield at Sweetwater is planned. Finally, the ion exchange vessels for the Sweetwater ISR circuit are under construction. In Saskatchewan, Canada, we continued advancing the Rough Rider project, one of the highest-grade undeveloped uranium projects in the world. More than 80% of the planned 35,000-meter drilling program has now been completed in support of the upcoming pre-feasibility study. Turning to URNC, in addition to the progress we have made on siting, we continue to accelerate engineering work led by floor and have advanced into a new phase with a significant expansion of engineering and technical resources supporting facility design, siting, licensing, and development. Through this process, we have been engaging with the U.S. Department of Energy to align with key national priorities regarding restoring nuclear fuel cycle sovereignty. As a result, additional candidate locations were added to ensure coordination and alignment with such priorities. Last but not least, Alta Parana, our project in Paraguay. As mentioned, a recently completed independent report concluded that the project represents a globally significant critical minerals platform with the potential to materially contribute to the security and diversification of U.S. supply chains for titanium and vanadium. The project's unique strategic fit includes being located in a U.S.-aligned partner country, its access to clean, low-cost power, and its ability to integrate into U.S. and allied downstream processing supply chains. We view the project as notable because it addresses structural vulnerabilities in U.S. critical minerals policy. It demonstrates our long-standing approach to identifying, acquiring, and developing assets that align with U.S. national security, advanced manufacturing, and resilient critical mineral supply chains. Finally, the broader policy backdrop remains robust. On April 23, 2026, the U.S. Department of Energy, through its Office of Nuclear Energy and the Defense Production Act Nuclear Fuel Cycle Consortium, launched the Nuclear Dominance 3x33 campaign to secure the United States nuclear fuel supply chain and support future reactor deployment. The campaign is structured around three core objectives to be achieved by 2033, including catalyzing a secure and cost-competitive domestic nuclear fuel supply chain, accelerating advanced reactor deployment, and finally, leveraging the DPA framework to align workforce development, financing innovation, and industry collaboration in support of a nuclear build-out. Against that backdrop, let me briefly summarize the progress we made during the quarter. First, we successfully brought online the largest greenfield ISR project in the U.S. in over a decade. Burkhalo's progression from discovery in 2012 to production in 2026 serves as a reminder that uranium production capacity cannot simply be created overnight, reinforcing the important strategic value of UEC's operating assets and portfolio of permitted uranium projects. Second, we have expanded capacity enabling increased production rates as we move towards the end of the fiscal year. Lastly, we have advanced URMC to a final short list of candidate locations and are moving toward the next phase of engineering, siting, and licensing activities.

All of this was accomplished while maintaining one of the strongest balance sheets in the sector with significant liquidity and no debt.

With the largest uranium resource base in the United States, growing production infrastructure, and a clear pathway towards expanding our role across the nuclear fuel cycle, we believe UEC is well positioned for the next phase of growth in the uranium market. Our strategic critical mineral portfolio provides for adjacent opportunities supported by similar policy priorities. Before we open the line for questions, I'd like to note that I'm joined today by Josephine Mann, our Chief Financial Officer, Scott Melby, our Executive Vice President, and Brent Berg, our Senior Vice President of U.S. Operations. With that, operator, please open the line for questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then 1 on your touchstone phone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star and then two. Also, please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up, re-queue to ask additional questions. Our first question comes from Brian Lee with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. I guess I had a couple here. First, on the cost side, Amir, be curious. I know you said it's going to normalize a bit here into fiscal Q4 and beyond, and the lower volumes in fiscal Q3 and the taxes, obviously, pushed costs up in the quarter. Can you maybe quantify a little bit sort of what that normalization is going to look like over the next quarter or two? Are you back into the 30s as quickly as fiscal Q4? or is that going to take a couple of quarters and then maybe give us some of the moving pieces beyond volume? Are there other cost drivers beyond just higher production volumes?

Hi, Brian. Thank you for the question. And as you've seen in the press release and the remarks earlier that I made, we did highlight sort of the key drivers here. And really to expand on it and your question, as you know, a large portion of our operating costs are fixed. So, again, when production volumes are temporarily lowered due to the timing of these well-field approvals, unit costs are impacted. We would definitely sort of draw attention to the total cost per pound over the course of the 276,000 pounds produced, which comes in, as you know, within a cash cost per pound of roughly $32.40. This remains industry competitive and a leading number in the domestic industry in the U.S. As we mentioned in the press release and the material, Brian, we do expect that the trend on production going into fiscal Q4 and beyond is higher. So, again, in an environment where this is the biggest sensitivity for us and the economies of scale do matter, I definitely think that we should be improving on the numbers that you saw in this quarter. Let me just pause and hand it over to our CFO, Josephine Mann, for just any additional color or commentary on that.

Thanks, Amir. Hey, this is Josephine. Yeah, I think Amir is correct. As we are expecting to increase our production in the coming quarters, definitely we will see the total cost per pound and cash cost per pound be competitively lower than this quarter. As what Amir mentioned that, you know, a big portion of our operating costs are fixed. So when the production volumes are temporarily low during this quarter, it definitely drives an increase as compared to our Chuchu, but with the new wellfields in that Christensen Ranch and Burkalo coming to production in the full...

Thank you, Josephine. Brian, did you have a follow-up on that?

Yeah, no, that's helpful. Maybe just as we think about those production volumes, you know, with the three header houses on in Christensen Ranch and Berkalo producing in Q4, sort of what's the step function? It seems like there should be a step function increase in volumes. Is it pretty linear where we can kind of take the header houses in Christensen Ranch and look at the volume from Q3 and sort of triple that? Or what's sort of the ramp-up cadence, if you will, at least in the near term? And then maybe last question, if I could squeeze it in, just thoughts around URNC and the timing of key milestones as we think about the second half of the calendar year here. Thank you.

Thank you, Brian. And you certainly squeezed a lot in there, but, okay, we'll unpack all of that. But we've been really ramping up when it comes to our construction capability and campaigns to build additional header houses, which is basically production capacity. And, yes, there is a linear relationship there. And, again, for context, if we step back, this is after our industry really collectively was dormant for about 15 years. And the last couple of years, we're coming back into this area and this time of incredible progress and activity. I'm going to hand it to Brent Burke to speak a bit about the growth we've had year over year in terms of our personnel, workforce capacity, and the ability to keep expanding and constructing this production capability. Brent, over to you. Go ahead. You were muted, Brent. We'll just start from the start again.

Okay, very good. Ryan, I was just saying that a year ago we had 103 employees in Wyoming and Texas. Today we've grown our operations team to 185 personnel. So in 2025, you know, the UEC team was heavily dependent on external contractors for construction and continued mine development. Today much of that work is being done in-house by our own team. and we continue to build a team that can rapidly deploy other projects in UEC's portfolio. And maybe just one other note with respect to production and normalizing. So during the quarter, you know, the bulk of that production came from well fields 8 and 10 with eight active header houses, and production predominantly came from new wells that were installed in 2025 with header houses 10-7 and 10-8, accounting for the bulk of the production during the fiscal quarter. Of course, we started up well field 11, three new header houses at the end of the quarter, and we really won't see that production until this fourth quarter, but anticipate that to move up substantially. Thank you. Back to you, Amir.

Okay, and Brian, I think you were asking about the urnc and you know specifically as we mentioned in the release we're really ramping up into the next phase here of engineering work citing permitting with an expansion of the of the engineering team and the work that's being provided by by floor as well our own team increased in size and scope over this period the citing work has been coordinated as we mentioned and the press release with some of the initiatives that are taking place at the Department of Energy, making sure we have maximum alignment there. We've always believed that the project and really the need to build a new conversion facility and has maximum alignment with priorities in the U.S. right now around creating a more resilient nuclear fuel cycle and to really repatriate the nuclear fuel cycle with the Russian ban kicking in by end of 2027. Really, that's around the corner. The current key bottleneck in our mind and in the market really remains a shortage of sufficient domestic conversion. So that work is advancing and really has kicked into next year from a standpoint of the engineering, siting and licensing, as we mentioned. Thank you, Brian.

This is from Heiko Ile with H.C. Wainwright. Please go ahead.

Hello, Amir and team. Thanks for taking my questions. I just want to point out the stock's still up, you know, 68% year over year, so something's gone, right? That said, how much in this quarter would you say was a continuation of regulatory delays that was seen in the last quarter? I mean, it looks like you're working past all of that, but maybe just give a bit of color with, you know, almost mid-June, some color on the current quarter, and maybe even the remainder of calendar 2026.

Thank you, Hypo, and I appreciate the context that your question provides. And if we step back, and if you've been following the company, you know that we talked about these regulatory delays extensively in our last quarter, and so really this is a continuation of that and it's a continuation of a broader theme of industry growing pains that we're experiencing just as the industry and ourselves are ramping up. Brent spoke about the fact that the sheer size of our workforce has gone from just over 100 people to almost 200 people year over year. Imagine that kind of growth. Well, the regulators are going through similar type of staffing and other bandwidth capacity that they need to have. And so these regulatory delays that we experienced which impacted the lower production in this quarter were discussed and really described in the last quarter, and we're making good progress. Those approvals did come in, except that they came in near the end of this quarter, and so hence it was a delay, but these are delays that have been resolved, and so that's important to highlight as well. So things are progressing, and that's why it gives us the confidence as well to be able to speak to a better outlook and improve the numbers going into the fourth fiscal year for the company and beyond that. So for sure, I think to your point, if we step back, there should be no surprises here. But at the same time, when you look at even the numbers for this quarter from a production cost point of view, you zoom out and look at it over the 276,000 pounds produced. The company is still delivering on the lowest cost production in the United States and in the domestic industry. So we've got a lot of capacity in front of us coming online, the additional header houses at Christensen Ranch, the construction that's going to be taking place at Ludamon, that will be our third ISR operation in Wyoming, and not to mention Burkalo that did start operations this quarter and will be contributing to production moving forward. We're very proud of the work at Work Hollow. As you know, that's a project that's 14 years in the making. I talked about it earlier in my remarks. And so, I can't lose sight of all the construction, development, and deliverables that we have here as well.

Let's talk about your equity book a little bit. I mean, this obviously has been creating a decent amount of volatility, you know, the past few quarters. Is there a way to more normalize this going forward, you know, just for stability and more predictability for the analyst community?

Yeah, that's a fair question, Heiko. And as you know, our equity book is strategically positioned in some names that we have exposure to in the sector. It does cause this quarterly mark-to-market volatility. This quarter, as you also know, given some weakness and kind of flat movement we saw in the uranium prices, we selected to continue to maintain our inventory position so there were no sales this quarter. And, again, that was intentional, and that's a function of our own strategy. But moving forward as we achieve more of a regular quarterly cadence of sales and reporting around that equity book, I think, can probably move towards more on an adjusted basis where we can maybe pull that out and not have it impact the reported numbers. And, Josephine, if you want to comment on that as well. but I think that's part of the progression of where we're hopefully heading. Josephine, if you want to add to that.

Yes, thanks, Amir, and hi, Cole. I think that's right. The volatility in the market creates a little bit of, you know, unknown to the income statement, as you can see in our quarterly results attribute to that change in fair market. But looking forward, a cancellation of the community and your stakeholders.

Thank you. Thank you, Heiko.

And the next question comes from Alexander Pierce with BMO. Please go ahead.

Great, thanks. Morning, all. So, Amir, well, this may be a question for Brent, but just building on the question we had before about production in a quarter, If we took the delayed new header houses aside from it, the production was down quarter to quarter. So maybe you can just talk about what you're seeing in the older header houses and was this a function of tie-ins or flow rates or what? That's the first part of the question.

Hi, Alex. Yeah, thank you for that. I'm good to have you on the call. Yeah, I'll hand it over to Brent here shortly. But definitely, I would say, again, most of what you would normally see, Alex, in terms of how an operation like this with really multiple header houses would be able to manage some of the near-term natural decline curves that are going to be inevitable in some of the producing wellfields. With much fewer numbers online right now, there's bound to be some greater volatility in kind of the quarter-over-quarter numbers. But certainly, as that bandwidth increases in terms of number of well fields and header houses, we should be able to smooth the numbers out and better manage that natural decline curve that exists in institute recovery. And I'll hand it over to Brent now. Go ahead, Brent.

Yeah, thanks, Amir. And Alex, maybe just a little color on that. So the production at Christensen Ranch came predominantly from well fields 8 and 10, with eight active header houses operating. And that production came predominantly from new wells that were installed in 2025. So header houses 10, 7, and 10, 8 accounted for over 50% of that production in the fiscal Q3, and 87% of overall production came from new wellfield patterns that we installed in the same year. So, you know, with that, we've really focused our production ramp-up with ongoing mine development, and that development continued in both Wellfield 12 and 10 extension, where we have five header houses under construction. Two of those in Wellfield 10 are nearing completion with another two under construction, and one header house in wellfield 12 is nearing completion of construction. So in total, four header houses are planned in wellfield 12 for future production. The monitor wells have been completed. The pump test is planned. With respect to well installation, all drilling is completed for header house 12-1. And in that wellfield 10 extension, drilling at header houses 10-9, 10-10, and 10-11 is complete. and drilling started for header house 10-12. So we've been really focused on development. And, you know, of course, you know, collaboration with our regulators is important. But, you know, really I think the best way we can ensure that new production comes online quickly is by steadily advancing new infrastructure on the ground. Amir, back to you.

Thank you, Brent.

Alex, back to you. okay thanks for that um maybe a second part of the question then um obviously you've mentioned the the um new wellfields coming on with the new regulatory approvals but um have you seen any streamlining of the process for getting the regulatory approval so that you know going forward maybe you can manage um better and avoid some of the delays that you saw for this round Go ahead, Brent.

Yeah, I would say that state regulatory agencies have demonstrated a very high level of collaboration and are, you know, they're actively working to address some of those longer lead time challenges that, you know, naturally arise during periods of increased industry activity. You know, UAC, of course, has remained active and has an ongoing dialogue with the agencies, you know, continuing to advance wellfield development in parallel. And, you know, I'd say this coordinated approach allows us to progress and maintain both regulatory and operational fronts. You know, the timing for the reviews ultimately rests with the agencies themselves. You know, however, you know, I can confirm that the infrastructure development and related activities continue to move forward. and, you know, we'll certainly provide more updates as key operational milestones are achieved. I would say, you know, the regulator, much like us, when we restarted operations, is, of course, growing and responding to increased, you know, regulatory submissions that come across their desks. And, you know, we are seeing some progress and some improvement. Back to you, Amir.

Thank you, Alex.

Question comes from Justin Chan with CPR Financial. Please go ahead.

It's SCP, but I'll forgive him that. I probably bumbled there. Thanks for taking the questions, Amir and Brad. Hi, guys. Maybe just to follow up on Alex's question, maybe first to clarify, I guess you would have five header houses now producing at Christensen Ranch, like five plus or two plus three um and then maybe just as a bigger kind of my main question on on this direction is what what level of header houses and maybe rollouts per month do you think you need to get to that one million or two million pounds a year level uh given you know some of the wells will be declining you'll need new ones to come on i guess what do you see a steady state in that regard hey Justin thanks for the question and there's no doubt and this is what you're

building on that there is a linear relationship between this construction activity building new header houses and well fields and the increase in production that we're expecting and building out we're right now as you know reporting and kind of providing updates on this activity in our quarterly reports. And by the time I think you see us report to fiscal year end where we've had a chance to bring several more of the header houses online and see them actually in operation, there'll be a better ability to kind of forecast and see the contribution from each header house towards a segment of production. Bottom line is that not every header house is the same size or created equal. So while there is a linear relationship, I think some of that ability to kind of just extrapolate that forward may not be as simple as kind of, you know, this many header houses to get to that end result. And as you know, you know, we're really looking to get to those higher production outputs. We have the largest resource base in the U.S. We've got 12 million pounds of combined license capacity. But to really increase production, we need to be able to continue to deliver on some new projects and new header houses, all of which is moving forward and advancing, Brook Hollow being a notable one. And so we'll have more information on all of that. But Brent, if you want to just comment on that too additionally for Justin's question.

Yeah, absolutely. Hi, Justin. As you noted, we had two header houses constructed and installed in 2025. Those are header houses in Wellfield 10 Extension, 10.7, and 10.8. Of course, we recently added three into production in Wellfield 11, so that's 11, 1, 3, and 4. And we've got five under construction now. Yeah, the other thing I would note, Justin, is, you know, we've significantly increased our drilling capacity to install wells, but, of course, drug-drive production as well. And, you know, we've got a three-fold increase from when we started the operation at Christensen Ranch to today. So, you know, we're really ramping up our construction capacity and, you know, zeroing in on increasing our production profile as we move forward. Amir, back to you.

Thank you for that. Thank you, Justin.

The question comes from Joseph Rager with Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead.

Hey, Amir and team, thanks for taking the questions. A lot of what I wanted to ask was already touched on, But just kind of a few things left. I guess you guys did a good job of explaining why production declines over time. But as you look back at Christian Charance's performance to date compared to what was, let's say, you know, the model ahead of time, you know, has it performed in line with expectations? Slightly better, slightly worse, obviously, the, you know, regulatory stuff's out of your control. But how is the mine performing compared to the model?

Hey, Joe, I mean, thank you for that. And, you know, we couldn't be any more clear about the performance. I mean, the ultimate performance of any mine is the cost and the output and the efficiencies there. And for a project that on this call in particular, we spend a lot of air time given to regulatory delays that are outside of our control, we can't lose sight of the fact that we're 277,000 pounds in across really a modest number of header houses, and we have industry-leading production costs. That's really a testament to the efficiency of the operation, the quality of our team, and the work that's being done to really deliver these industry-leading numbers. So I would argue, and I think you and I have talked about this, that the cost numbers out of Christensen Ranch, in fact, have come in better than expected and better than expectations that folks had in terms of how the project can do. So there's no doubt that as we continue to expand the project, that our confidence is built on the foundation that this could be a very efficient, low-cost operation. And it really is about making sure we can install and construct and build that additional output and capacity which header houses afford and provide. So certainly something that we're very pleased about. This is a project that is a brownfield and historically has, prior to our restart, had six, seven years of prior operating history as well. So it's certainly a notable project. Along the way, as you know, we've had not just refurbishments, but upgrades and all types of work done that we've reported in prior quarters. So we've come a long way in a very short period of time, And it's really only been about 15, 16 months since production started. And as I mentioned in the last quarter, most of this low-cost production so far has been carried. I'd say almost 70% of the load has been carried by two header houses. That's quite remarkable. So it certainly gives us the confidence to continue to invest. And you've seen that in our numbers that we had increased investment in Christensen Ranch this past quarter, which was really driven by the additional construction work that we're doing and are completing and have underway.

Yeah, just good to have you say it. That was a sense I got. And then the other item, you know, it's mentioned in the release that, you know, you're working on the PFS for Rough Rider. What's the timing goal for you guys to have that PFS, like to have the summary release?

Joe, that's a great question. And we're, as you noticed in the release, didn't list an end time on that. And that's mainly because we're almost done with the conversion drilling. We're 80% done. We need that work to be completed. We need to make sure that, you know, all the steps with respect to getting our chemical assay results back on that drilling is in hand. and so the work can be completed with the third-party technical and engineering firms that are on board and available. If I had to sort of estimate at this point what we're looking at, Joe, I would say we're estimating towards the end of the calendar year to have that PFS ready. But that's an estimate at this point, but something that we're definitely working towards, and hopefully we'll have it by then. Okay. I'll turn it over. Thanks, Samir. Thank you, Joe.

And the next question comes from Christian Tashiani with National Bank Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hi, Amir and all. Thanks for taking my question. Colleen, on behalf of Mohamed, just going back to the UR&C timing that we were talking about earlier, I just wanted to confirm that the conversion study should now be expected in 2027.

Yeah, Christian, thanks for that question. It should be a 2027 event. Between now and then, we will have further updates along the way as we're progressing on the work, including, again, whether it's on siting, whether it's any of our discussions with strategic partners and or the U.S. government and or even potential utility off-stage discussions that we're having. So there will be updates along the way, but with respect to the work that will culminate in supporting what would ultimately be a Class 4 cost study, which is what the next phase of the study on this will be, will be a first half of calendar 2027 events.

Great. Thanks very much. And then I was wondering if you folks could provide us with some more color on the change in ad valorem taxes and or production-based royalties in Wyoming for modeling purposes.

Yeah, I'm going to hand it over to our CFO, Josephine, then to provide some color on that. Go ahead, Josephine.

Yeah, thanks, Amir. Thanks for the question. Yeah, so this is a normal and routine process with the Wyoming Department of Revenue. So they have been very fair to the uranium industry during the previous ups and downs in the commodity cycle. So we see that the state of Wyoming tax led these two separate tax on the mineral production in the state. So it's a service tax and the volume tax. The service tax is imposed at the state level while the volume tax is imposed on the country level. So right now, we see that there is an increase in the industry factors that the Department of Revenue used to capture the value of the uranium production to calculate both taxes. So in this quarter, we saw there's an increase in this industry factors, and the increase was for a four-year cycle. So this new industry factor is applied prospectively from 2026 to 2029. So we'll see a steady industry factor that will be applied to uranium production in the next couple of years. Back to you, Amir.

Okay, thank you, Josephine, and thank you, Christian. Back to the operator. I would like to turn the conference back over to Amir and Nani for any closing remarks. yes thank you and thank you all for joining the call today and we look forward to any follow-on communications that we might have with you in the coming days and look forward to the quarter ahead thank you all and have a good rest of your day the conference is now concluded thank you for attending today's presentation you may now disconnect