Ur-Energy Inc Q2 FY2024 Earnings Call

Greetings. Welcome to your Ur-Energy's 2024 Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Penne Goplerud, Ur-Energy's General Counsel. You may begin.

Thank you. Thank you all for joining us for our teleconference and webcast this morning. We are required to draw the attention of all of our participants to the legal disclaimers contained in this morning's slide presentation, which apply equally to our oral presentation today. At Slide 2, you will find legal disclaimers with regard to forward-looking statements, risk factors and projections as well as other cautionary notes to investors. We ask that you read and consider these disclaimers carefully before investing in our shares. As well, risk factors inherent in forward-looking statements and projections are set forth and discussed in the company's annual report on Form 10-K filed on March 6, 2024, with the US Securities and Exchange on EDGAR and with the securities regulatory authorities in Canada on SEDAR+. I would now like to introduce and turn the webcast presentation over to our Chairman and CEO, John Cash.

Thank you, Penne, appreciate that. And good morning, everyone. It's a beautiful day here in Casper, Wyoming, where we're presenting from, and it's been a very busy second quarter. So we're excited to be reporting on the results of the company and what's going on at Lost Creek and at Shirley Basin. Also a lot going on in the nuclear energy space. It seems like the tailwinds continue to be behind us, and just a lot to report there and to discuss on. So in the presentation today, we'll cover off on just a few things. We'll talk about the status of our projects, including our recent equity raise and catalyst towards the market. But before we jump into all that, I'm going to turn it over to Roger Smith, our CFO, and he'll hit the highlights on the earnings that we reported out in the second quarter. So, Roger, if you’ll pick that up, and then I'll take back over and go through the slide presentation.

Very good, John. Thank you. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for being with us. I'll start with some discussion about production and inventory. During the quarter, we drummed 64,170 pounds compared to 39,229 pounds in Q1. This represents an increase of about 64%. We delivered two shipments in the quarter totaling 70,390 pounds compared to one shipment in Q1 of 35,445 pounds. After sales of 75,000 pounds during the quarter, our ending inventory at the conversion facility was 74,625 pounds on June 30. As expected, the cost per pound at the conversion facility increased during the first six months of the year, going from $28 at the end of 2023 to $39 at the end of Q1 and then to $48 at the end of Q2. Keep in mind that the beginning $28 per pound inventory was established years ago from production in 2019 and earlier. Those pounds were held in inventory and used to cover our 2023 sales deliveries. We did not have any shipments to the conversion facility in 2023 because the cost per pound sold in 2023 was $28 per pound. You'll recall that our first ramp-up shipment to the conversion facility was in February of this year and not unexpectedly, it came into the conversion facility at a higher cost per pound shipped of about $53 per pound, which increased the average cost per pound at the conversion facility to $39 at the end of Q1. Our Q2 deliveries came into the conversion facility at about $51 per pound, which increased the average cost per pound to $48. I'm pleased to note that the cost per pound shipped to the conversion facility decreased from $53 in Q1 to $51 in Q2. Although the decrease was small, I believe we turned a corner during the quarter. And as plant production continues to increase, we expect the cost per pound shipped to the conversion facility to decrease further. For an indication of our expected costs of production at full capacity, I encourage you to refer to tables 2, 3 and 9 in the March 4, 2024, Lost Creek technical report summary, which can be found on our website. I'll talk a little bit about cash now. We ended the first six months of 2024 with $61.3 million, which was up $1.6 million from December. During the first six months of 2024, we received $4.6 million in sales proceeds and $1.1 million of interest income. We also received $37.2 million from the exercise of warrants and stock options and proceeds from ATM sales. We used $5.7 million of the funds for the first quarter loan payment in January and the loan payoff in March. We also used $1.9 million for capital expenditures and $2.0 million for a reclamation bond increase. We spent about $5.8 million on production costs. As I've noted before, production activities include wellfield operations, plant operations, site administration, and product distribution. In other words, the cost to capture, drum and ship uranium to the conversion facility are included in our production costs. Our total cash cost per pound drummed, including ad valorem and severance taxes decreased in each of the last two quarters, going from $69 per pound in Q1 to $48 per pound in Q2. This brings our year-to-date average cash cost per pound down to about $56 per pound. As I mentioned before, as our production increases, we expect our production cost per pound to continue to decrease. We spent $26 million on operating costs during the quarter. Operating costs include exploration, evaluation, development and corporate overhead costs. Development costs accounted for about $21 million of the $26 million in operating costs. Approximately $4 million was related to the completion of a deep disposal well that was largely completed in Q1. About $16 million was for the development of the wellfield at Lost Creek. Wellfield development includes all of the costs in advance of wellfield operations, such as drilling and drill-related costs, header house construction costs, and infrastructure costs. These costs are incurred in advance of production and are expensed as incurred. Just over $1 million was for the development of the Shirley Basin mine. We are now beginning to incur costs related to the development and construction of the Shirley Basin mine. Construction and purchase costs related to the assets of the mine to be capitalized. But like Lost Creek, wellfield development costs incurred in advance of production will be expensed when incurred. Turning to sales: Sales are projected to be 570,000 pounds in 2024. Our first 2024 sale was in April for 75,000 pounds, and we had our second sale of 100,000 pounds on August 8. The remaining 2024 sales will take place later this year. We expect to realize revenues of $33.1 million at a price of about $58 per pound sold. The 2024 sales deliveries are into base escalated contracts that were negotiated in 2022 when the long-term price was between $43 and $52 per pound. These contracts enabled us to make the decision to ramp up operations at Lost Creek. Together with the additional contracts we've put into place, they enabled us to also make the decision to construct and develop our second mine at Shirley Basin. Next year, we currently expect to deliver 730,000 pounds into these contracts. And thank you, everyone, and now back to you, John.

Thank you, Roger. I appreciate you going over the numbers. I know our analysts really appreciate that, and I will answer a lot of the questions that they have. So taking a look at the slide deck. Again, just a few things we want to cover off on and keep our shareholders apprised of. First off, as Penne indicated, we like to go through the disclaimer and point out that we do encourage you guys to take a look at the risks involved with uranium mining and with the company, and with the industry before you make an investing decision and, of course, be familiar with the disclaimer here as well as in our other public filings. So for those of you familiar with Ur-Energy, you know that we have two flagship properties, Lost Creek, which has been in production since 2013, and Shirley Basin, which is fully permitted and for which we expect to have construction completed in late 2025. I'm not going to go through this slide in detail. Many of you are already familiar with it, but it provides a great summary of existing and near-term production. If you're unfamiliar with Ur-Energy, I encourage you to check out our corporate presentation on our website at urenergy.com. Our website also contains a page with our most recent technical reports for Lost Creek and Shirley Basin that were filed with the SEC in March of this year. We plan on adding a sustainability cap to our website in the near future as well to increase the visibility of our governance and sustainability practices. Our drill rig count continues to grow. I believe we are at the beginning of the end of the drill rig supply crunch. I will speak more about this in a subsequent slide, but now we have 15 drill rigs working company-wide and expect to bring on additional rigs soon. Now turning to Lost Creek. We continue to bring new header houses on in Mine Unit 2, and we are now consistently bringing a new header house on about every 30 days. As we maintain the schedule, flow rates will continue to increase. We are able to keep the schedule due to the spacing we are maintaining between drilling and construction, which is being aided by the growing number of drill rigs at the site. Up until a couple of months ago, our construction and drilling crews were getting in each other's way due to limited spacing. As I mentioned previously, we now have 15 drill rigs running company-wide. 13 of the rigs are at Lost Creek and two are at Shirley Basin. Once the rigs complete the monitor well at Shirley Basin in September, they will redeploy back to Lost Creek. We are also in advanced contracting discussions for four additional rigs. The head grade continues to be excellent at Lost Creek, averaging 73.5 milligrams per liter in July and is exceeding the average we assumed in our technical report summary. Our focus is turning more to the processing plant to ensure we capture all the pounds being brought in from the wellfield. We are focused on training and maintenance to improve efficiency. In our Q2 disclosure, we guided to the lower end of our 550,000 to 650,000 pounds of production for 2024, and we will continue to review production status. We inserted a photo of monitor well installations, so you can see the terrain at Shirley Basin. This photo is looking north toward the Laramie range, which is the source of the settlement that the ore body or the mineralization is hosted in. It's a beautiful site. Shirley Basin already has electric power, and we have installed a short spur between the existing substation and the location for the satellite plant. The substation will require substantial upgrades due to its age. The existing southern access route was graveled, an improvement made to the drainage so we can access the site year-round. We expect to begin construction of the satellite plant in the spring of 2025 and to be finished by late 2025. While installing the monitor wells, we have continued to encounter very good uranium grade consistent with those described in the Shirley Basin technical report summary. In fact, we have encountered several mineralized zones with grades in excess of 0.3 weight percent and GT is greater than 2.5. The average grade of the measured and indicated resource is 0.23 weight percent. There are no inferred resources at Shirley Basin due to the high density of drilling. So at this point, we have 120 monitor wells drilled and cased, and we expect to finish completion of those later this year. We'll follow that up with aquifer testing as well as baseline chemistry. And as I mentioned earlier, we plan to commence construction early 2025, probably Q2, and finish construction by the end of next year. In July, we completed an underwritten public offering that grossed approximately $69 million before underwriting discounts, commissions and other expenses. The proceeds will fund continued ramp-up at Lost Creek, support development and construction at Shirley Basin, and be available for possible acquisitions or other strategic transactions. Further details are provided in the filings for the offering. Since one of the stated uses of funds was acquisition, I would like to take a few minutes to talk about how we perform assessments for possible acquisitions or other business ventures and our related due diligence. Our experienced production team, consisting of engineers, geologists, regulatory and land specialists, attorneys and accountants performs a multifaceted exhaustive analysis of all data we can access, including environmental liabilities, environmental surety, quality of mineralization, capital cost, operating cost, permitting timelines, permitting risk, land tenure, royalties, synergies with our existing operations, and many others. We take the cumulative data and generate NPV, IRR, and ROI calculations. Based on those calculations, we determine an offer price that is commensurate with the desired profitability. If a project can't yield an acceptable ROI, we don't proceed. As I have stated many times, our objective with M&A is to bring quality projects into the Ur-Energy portfolio. We are a pounds-in-the-can story, not a pounds-in-the-ground story. Similarly, we are prioritizing the analysis of our existing general projects. We are considering exploration at Lost Creek, LC East and other projects in the Great Divide Basin and Wyoming, including our Lost Soldier project. We have renewed analysis and geologic review of Lost Soldier and other Wyoming projects, which we expect to complete in the first half of 2025. Although we focus our conversation on Lost Creek and Shirley Basin because they are and they will be the source of our near-term revenue, investors shouldn't forget that we hold a large land position within the prolific Great Divide Basin, including Lost Soldier, North Hadsell and the Arrow projects. We have a lot of room for exploration as each of these projects has known uranium mineralization or are in highly prospective areas. The standard market position details are provided here. Please note that as of August 6, we had $121.3 million in cash with no debt. Also note in the chart that last week, there was a nice spike in our share price due to Kazatomprom's announcement that they expect a 17% decline in production in 2025 due to supply chain issues and construction delays. Turning to catalysts for the price of uranium in our share price. First, the Department of Energy has two active requests for proposals, RFPs, outstanding to acquire both High Assay Low Enriched and Low Enriched Uranium, again HALEU and LEU, respectively. Both RFPs stated a preference for domestic feedstock and processing. We expect the desired quantities of enrichment will require in excess of 1.5 million pounds of U3O8 per year, with uranium deliveries beginning in the late 2020s. We have significant uncontracted capacity for those years and have let DOE and potential bidders know we stand ready to fill at least part of the necessary yellow cake to feed into the process. We expect the RFP process to be drawn out with an unknown end date, but we will keep you informed as the process evolves. Looking at the global mine supply, the picture isn't getting any better. Despite uranium prices remaining relatively high for an extended period, beyond the challenges mentioned on the slide, technical risk remains high as several companies attempt to bring mines with technical risk online. Some will likely succeed and others will likely fail. We expect some will need even higher pricing than $80 per pound to maintain profitability for their mines. Keep in mind that with time and regardless of mine commodity, the quality of ore bodies is generally in decline, and this requires higher pricing and better technologies to maintain profitability. We believe the risk of a bifurcated East versus West nuclear supply chain is growing as the number of East-leaning executive managers at Kazatomprom appears to be increasing, and the new excise tax seems to punish Western joint venture partners. If bifurcation continues, ultimately, the majority of Kazakh production could go East and not West. It is unclear how the West will backfill such a supply gap if it were to occur. This is all speculative but bears watching as the implications could be significant. We continue to see significant growth in the build-out of both conventional and small modular reactors globally. This includes life extensions for additional US reactors and serious discussions regarding the restart of others, such as Palisades and Three Mile Island. Who would have thought just two years ago, a restart of Three Mile Island would be on the table? Finally, on this slide, if you track the nuclear industry closely, you will have seen numerous news articles on the immense emerging electric demand for big data, bitcoin mining, and AI, for example, and their desire to get carbon-free baseload power from nuclear utilities. Goldman Sachs has estimated that by 2030, global data center demand will grow by 160% and could account for 8% of total electricity demand in the US. The use of nuclear power by big data isn't just a prediction. It's already happening in a meaningful way. For example, Talend is already selling significant power to big data, and we expect the demand to continue growing. Each of these catalysts has the potential to have long-term impacts on supply and demand fundamentals, and we expect the price of uranium to stay strong for many years. In conclusion, we are well-capitalized with strong revenue locked in for the next several years based on our contract book. We have considerable room to continue contracting, and we'll be looking for opportunities that are increasingly market-related. Although the uranium trade has been slow over the summer, we expect volumes to increase after the early September World Nuclear Association (WNA) meeting in London. Over the coming months, we will continue to increase production at Lost Creek and build out Shirley Basin while taking steps to further reduce our operating costs and increase profitability. We have our staff and drill rigs and are looking forward to a productive second half of 2024. With that, that concludes the slide presentation. But just like to put up our contact information; if during the Q&A session I don't get to your question, please feel free to reach out to me. I'd be glad to pick that up with anybody at any time we possibly can. So, leading off, the first question is actually from one of our analysts. States production through the first half of the year has totaled 109,000 pounds, indicating that you will need to see a pretty steep ramp-up to hit the low end of full year guidance. If you can, provide some color on how this is going so far in Q3, flow rates, grades, drying capacity, etc.? I appreciate the question. And during the presentation, we attempted to answer this question at least in part. The wellfield is running very well. Head grades, I would say, are exceptional. So that is going very well. As we've added drill rigs, that's given us more spacing between our construction crew and our drilling crew. Before that, they were kind of tripping over each other, in each other's way. Imagine trying to drill out a mine area while putting in lateral lines around pits, around header houses, it just got too congested. So with the increase in the number of rigs that has allowed us to separate those two crews out, so we have good spacing, and we can work much more effectively, but that's leading itself to us being able to put a new header house on about every 30 to 35 days in that order of magnitude. So that's helping a lot with our flow. And again, head grade is exceptional. We are turning our attention now more and more to the plant to improve efficiencies there through maintenance and through training of our crew. We do, by and large, have our staff hired now. And so things are definitely moving in the right direction. Not without hiccups. We still have hiccups here and there, but we are making some good strides moving forward. One of the things that many of you have heard me say and I'll continue to say is we're not seeing any technical issues in the ground of any consequence. Any of the challenges we face are on surface and are typically related simply to getting our manpower trained up and finding efficiencies. Lost Creek over the years has proven that it can produce at least 750,000 to 800,000 pounds a year. We're very confident we can get there, return to that. Those are numbers from 2015 and exceed that, especially with the head grade that we've been seeing. So hopefully, that answers that question. The second question is, in the discussion provided as part of your recent equity raise, you indicated that URG is currently bidding on an acquisition opportunity on a significant asset in the US. And the question goes on to ask about the timing of that. So we really can't comment much on M&A. We felt like we needed to indicate that as a possible use of funds during the equity raise. But beyond that, we really can't comment on it. Other than to say that when we have something definitive to report, we'll report it. And right now, there is nothing definitive to report. So I can't really speak to that at this point. Sorry about that, but that's just simply the nature of M&A. Next question is from an investor. It says given the current sales outlook and available cash, will Ur-Energy need additional public offerings in the foreseeable future? And the answer to that is no. We believe we've got the cash we need moving forward. However, if there is opportunity in the M&A front, depending on its nature, that may require additional funding. But hopefully, during the presentation, I made it very clear that if we embark on an acquisition, it will only be something that's truly accretive and something that adds to the Ur-Energy story through a quality asset, not something that we just have to hold and spend money on and talk about that we only make an acquisition if it's something we believe we can put into production. So with regards to M&A, we don't see a need for any additional equity raises in the foreseeable future. And I believe that answers the second part of the question as well as to what would cause Ur-Energy to do an equity raise? Again, that would be in the near term that would relate to M&A. We have a couple of questions next that are very similar to each other, asking about volatility in the market, why our share price is doing what it's doing? A number of factors, obviously. I mean, I talked about some of the catalysts. I think all of you have seen recently, just a few days ago, the announcement that Kazatomprom made about how their production next year will be about 17% lower, and that caused equities to improve across the board, not just ours, but everyone. So that introduced some volatility. Similarly, you see press releases from other global miners like Cameco that have affected equities across the board. So when one of the larger producers puts out a press release, the market watches, and typically across the board, there is a reaction, either positive or negative. And of course, I can't ignore the equity raise we did. That affects share price as well. We bounced back somewhat from that, but we do have a little ways to go on that. I would say as well that, obviously, uranium price affects the equities and Ur-Energy's share price. And we've seen some volatility in the uranium price. The spot market, in particular, has been very, very poorly traded over the summer. That's not unusual. It's pretty common to have what we refer to as the summer doldrums in the spot market, and that's led to some weakness. Again, not unusual. But I think what we'll see as we go into the fall, we get past the WNA meeting in London in early September, I think we'll begin to see the market find a bottom and strengthen, both in the spot and in the long-term. That meeting in London, a lot of the fuel buyers from the utilities, they go there, they talk with a lot of people, the miners, they talk with other utilities, they get a better sense of where the market is and where people think it's going. And then after that meeting, they make decisions on fuel buying. So we do expect to see additional activity after the WNA meeting in London that's coming up soon. We will be there. We've got a full slate of meetings. We're meeting with most utilities from the US and a number of European utilities. That's a great time to get together, very cost-effectively with everyone since everyone is there. Let’s see. Okay, we have a few other questions that have come in. This is an interesting question that I’ve fielded numerous times in the last two months. The question is which presidential candidate would be better for the US nuclear industry? It’s not an easy one to answer, but I can discuss what the Biden-Harris administration has done for the nuclear industry compared to the Trump administration. A lot has been done in the last two or three years by Congress, often in a bipartisan manner between Democrats and Republicans, to support the industry, with bills passed by the Biden administration. For example, the Inflation Reduction Act was a significant benefit to the nuclear utilities, along with the ADVANCE Act and the ban on Russian material, all passed with considerable support. Therefore, we can expect continued strong support if Harris wins the election. Similarly, Trump also provided good support for the nuclear industry during his presidency; he established a Blue-Ribbon Commission on uranium imports and was very supportive of us. However, looking at the front end of the fuel cycle, particularly in mining, there are notable differences. The Biden administration removed uranium from the critical minerals list, while the Trump administration had included it. As a result, it seems that there was stronger support for the mining industry, not just uranium, under the Trump administration. Overall, I don’t believe there will be a remarkable difference between the two; the differences are likely minor. I enjoy discussing politics, but I’d prefer not to choose sides on this call. If any shareholders want to reach out, I’d be happy to discuss this further and share additional insights on the pros and cons. The next question is about our plans for growing the company in the next few years. This is something we consider daily. We've discussed mergers and acquisitions today, so I won't dwell on that too much, except to highlight its significance to us. We are always on the lookout for the right M&A opportunities but will remain disciplined in our approach. Moving on to exploration, we are increasingly focusing on this area. As mentioned in our presentation, we are examining other projects like Lost Soldier more closely. We might also explore North Hadsell, Arrow, and a few other projects in our portfolio. Notably, we see substantial potential at Lost Creek and LC East. Much of the historical drilling on these properties, including Lost Soldier, focused on conventional mining methods, either open-pit or underground. In Wyoming, due to the water table, it becomes challenging to go deeper than about 350 to 400 feet using conventional mining techniques, primarily because of water inflow issues. As a result, deeper resources were overlooked, even though past geologists knew they existed. Consequently, these deeper roll fronts remain largely unexplored. We believe there is significant opportunity at several of our projects in the Great Divide Basin to investigate roll fronts that lie between 400 and 1,100 feet deep. I encourage anyone interested to check our technical reports attached to our annual report from March of this year, which contain extensive information. One particular map in that report illustrates our roll fronts, highlighting many that are open-ended and have not yet been drilled. This is an intriguing area if you're looking for opportunities. To return to the question of how we grow the company, it's through greenfield exploration, brownfield exploration, and M&A. The next question addresses supply chain issues, likely in response to the problems that Kazatomprom is facing with sulfuric acid. We are primarily overcoming these challenges. Currently, we do not have any significant delays affecting production, especially at Lost Creek. However, we still need to place orders 12 to 18 months in advance to stay ahead of potential issues. Some supply chain challenges are easing, but others remain unresolved, particularly concerning industrial instrumentation like flow meters and pressure meters, which still have long lead times, along with electrical equipment such as motor control centers and transformers. At Lost Creek, we are managing well and staying proactive. Switching to Shirley Basin, we haven't encountered any major challenges yet, but we need to be proactive in our ordering, particularly for one-time capital purchases related to infrastructure for the satellite plant. This includes electrical equipment for the substation and motor control centers for the satellite facility. Our engineering team is aware of this and is deeply engaged in the design, which we will need to monitor closely. If there is anything that concerns me about the supply chain, it's related to electrical equipment. An investor also inquired about manpower, especially at Shirley Basin. We've been candid about our manpower struggles at Lost Creek, but I believe we have largely addressed those issues. Shirley Basin presents different challenges compared to Lost Creek, which is more remote, farther from a larger population, and has poorer road access. In contrast, Shirley Basin is much closer to Casper, Wyoming, which has a population of around 55,000 to 60,000, providing a larger workforce than Lost Creek. The driving distance is only about an hour from Casper, and the access roads are mostly paved. We also have a good all-season road leading directly to the in-situ projects. Additionally, Shirley Basin is a well-known site with a history of nearly 1,000 people working there during its operation. As word spreads about our plans to bring Shirley Basin back into production, I've received numerous inquiries and positive excitement regarding hiring, which should facilitate our recruitment efforts. So going to the next one, Ur-Energy hasn't announced any new sales contracts recently. Are utilities issuing RFPs and is Ur-Energy responding? Yes, utilities are still issuing RFPs. Maybe a little bit at a reduced rate compared to maybe late last year or early this year. Again, we're kind of in the summer doldrums right now. But yeah, we are still receiving RFPs. We selectively respond to those based on the quantities they're asking for and the timing. We keep all of that in mind as well as diversity of the contract book. We don't want to put all of our eggs in one basket, for example. So we are responding. As I indicated in the presentation though, we've changed tactics just a bit. We are looking for increasing our exposure to market-related contracts with floors and ceilings. Those are certainly available out there. And so we'll continue to respond to RFPs. But again, we're trying to get more and more market exposure, so we have exposure to that blue sky. Next question. You commented about the current rig count in the presentation. Are the rigs you have and are planning to bring online adequate for the development needs at Shirley Basin? We're getting a good ways into that. So I can't say yes, we've got enough rigs to handle everything, but we are a long ways into it now. I would say going forward, and Steve can jump in and correct me if he wants to. But I would say we're getting close to the total we would need for both projects. But timing is important here. Most of the rigs for Shirley Basin, we won't need until probably the second quarter of next year. So those additional roughly four, five, six rigs we would want to bring on, we don't really need those for another quite a few months. And I think we've got some good line of sight on that. So we are seeing that issue soften for us. And it's because our current drillers, they're bringing on more rigs, they're getting new drillers trained up, bringing more steel out to the site, there's growing confidence in the uranium industry. So I don't want to say we're at the end of the issue there with supply chain on drill rigs, but I believe we are beginning to see the end of that. I'm hopeful that by the middle of next year, this issue will be in our rearview mirror, not just for us, but for all of the producers here in the Mountain West.

Yeah. John, I'll give you a chance to get a drink of water. We are certainly pleased with how the market has responded for drilling equipment. It has been a slow road, but I think it's gained a lot of momentum, and we're seeing all that iron that's been sitting around for a while and a new version of drillers coming back to the market for us. We are preparing. We have had our couple of rigs out at Shirley, and we'll finish that up mid-September, so we can start doing hydrologic testing. And we really plan in the early spring to start our production drilling in earnest at Shirley Basin. And we have significant interest for the rig count that we have there. Whatever we do get on contract earlier, we'll try and put to use for, as John said, any other opportunities that may present themselves. So back to you, John. Hopefully, you got a chance to get a drink.

Yeah. I did. Thanks, Steve. I appreciate that little break. But yeah, Steve is spot on. There is no shortage of opportunities. So we are not worried about bringing on too many rigs because we have so many opportunities for us, both in greenfield and brownfield exploration. So we can deploy rigs to that at any moment. The next question is somewhat of a repeat of a previous one, but it's a little bit more specific with regard to supply chain and ramp-up of production at Shirley Basin are asking if we're seeing any issues that will delay the schedule to bring Shirley into production? And at this point, the answer is no. We're not seeing any supply chain issues that would infringe on our schedule of being complete with construction late in 2025 and bringing it on production very shortly thereafter. Just would comment, we are regulated at Shirley Basin like at Lost Creek by the Uranium Recovery Program. Once construction is completed at a new facility, the Uranium Recovery Program requires you to go through a preoperational inspection before they allow the facility to be turned on. Our experience is that, that inspection will typically take about a week, maybe a little over a week to complete. That is an on-site inspection. That includes quizzing of our employees and a review of equipment. It also is a review of our paperwork, administrative standard operating procedures. The agency would also probably take a few more days to complete their desktop review out of Cheyenne. So probably about a two-week process to get through that review. If there are any concerns, they would ask us to address those. They may come back out and inspect again. So a two, maybe three-week timeline between completion of work on construction to get that inspection complete before we would have the opportunity to turn the facility on. So it's not as if we can just simply turn it on the day we get construction complete; we would still need that final sign-off by the Uranium Recovery Program. We have been through that process before. It's not new and novel to us, so we do have experience there getting through that process. There have been a couple of questions that have come in, particularly about why gains in U3O8 spot pricing have slowed in 2024 compared to 2023. That's a great question, and I'm not entirely sure why it has plateaued. Looking back at the last few months, the spot market has been trading very slowly, which may explain the plateau and slight softening over the summer. I believe activity in the market will pick up as we move into the fall. It's important to note that the current prices are still significantly higher than what we experienced one and a half to three years ago when we began signing contracts, and they are favorable for us moving forward. Would we like to see prices increase a bit more? Yes, definitely. I included a slide in my presentation discussing catalysts, and I anticipate continued upward pressure in both the spot and term markets as circumstances develop. Regarding mine supply in the next six to twelve months, we are going to learn a lot about not just Lost Creek, but also other companies facing restarts. There are many restarts happening, and while some will succeed, others may not. Overall, I suspect we will see less production than some are predicting, which will create additional pressure on the market. So, let's stay tuned to see how that unfolds. Next question I have is the cadence of remaining shipments in the second half of 2024. Roger earlier laid out the demand for the remainder of this year to fill our contract book. We've already made 175,000 pounds of the 570,000 pounds required this year. So if you take the delta of that, we typically ship about 35,000 pounds of U3O8 per shipment. And if you evenly space that throughout the rest of the year, that's the approximate cadence we'll be on. We do have a shipment schedule for early next month. Another truckload will be going out, and they should be going out routinely thereafter for the remainder of the year. So Steve or Roger, do you have any further comments on the cadence of shipments through the second half of 2024?

No, not really, John. I think you pinpointed it accurately. As you mentioned, our improvements in plant operations play a significant role. We have brought on additional staff, and training is ongoing, but our team is performing well, and we are consistently dispatching trucks, which is great as we reconnect with ConverDyn. They are facing similar challenges and are working to ramp back up, but we are all focused on meeting those shipment schedules regularly for the remainder of the year.

All right. Thanks, Steve. I appreciate that. I've got one more question here that's a little bit redundant that deals with deliveries for the rest of the year in RFPs. I think we've answered that. Next question I have is, what is Ur-Energy's perspective on fuel production for SMRs? My understanding is that LEU is the only USA producer of HALEU for SMRs. How will that impact sales of uranium feedstock? Great question. It's been about a year ago now that the NEI did a survey of its members and asked how many SMRs they planned on building between now and then in 2050? And the number was around 300. We're continuing to see a lot of excitement around SMRs in the US and around the world. It takes a little bit of time to get them permitted, licensed, constructed and up and running, but we're seeing very meaningful movement in that direction. And that fuel for those has to be bought two or three years in advance. So we expect we're going to be seeing increasing demand for fuel by the SMRs here in the not-too-distant future, including the reactor here in Wyoming that's being built by Bill Gates' company, Terra Power. They are actively doing ground clearing now in Kemmerer, Wyoming, which is not too far from our Lost Creek site. So the demand will not be huge for the first couple of years, but we do expect it to grow to a material amount in the not-too-distant future. At this point, we don't have any enrichers in the US that are producing HALEU. So the investor is correct in his assessment here. However, Urenco is ready and willing to build out the back-end of their plant to take their existing LEU and run it through additional centrifuges to produce HALEU. They have the technology. It is the exact same technology to produce LEU. You simply run it through these additional centrifuges to continue to grow that enrichment. And so they are willing to do that. I was on a call Wednesday of last week, Urenco expressed their interest in providing HALEU to US and global reactors. So it is a bit of a bottleneck right now because that production line has not been ramped up by Urenco, but they do have the capacity to do that, and I think they are going to be moving toward that in the not-too-distant future. So hopefully, that's responsive to your question. Thank you for your question. You're correct in observing that we may be undervalued compared to our competitors. The market often overlooks the difference between producible pounds and merely the pounds available in the ground, which is something I continually strive to clarify. Our highlighted projects are indeed those that can be produced, and we are bringing them into production soon. It's essential for investors to recognize that the valuation of pounds in the ground should be less if they aren't economically viable. We provide detailed economic analyses of the pounds we report, and it's vital that the market acknowledges this. We have strong contracts in place that will enhance our company's value, along with significant remaining production capacity at Lost Creek and Shirley Basin, allowing us to benefit from rising market prices. We're pursuing contracts that align closely with market trends, incorporating solid floors and ceilings. Discussions with utilities about these contracts have been promising. As more requests for proposals emerge, we expect to strengthen our contract portfolio, securing substantial revenues while maintaining exposure to favorable uranium prices. Overall, we do have work to do regarding our valuation, and I believe now is an excellent time to invest in Ur-Energy as we increase production at Lost Creek and, soon, at Shirley Basin. So forgive me here, I'm going to have to toggle back and forth on emails to get the inbounds. All right. Next one is from one of our analysts. Can you provide some color on what you're seeing with longer-term contracts with your utility customers? Yeah, I can provide a little color there. I have to be careful not to say too much for obvious reasons. Certainly, it is now a seller's market, not a buyer's market. I would say that RFPs now in contracting opportunities, we're seeing less and less flex being insisted on by the buyer, by the utilities. So we don't see that as much. We don't see as much of a request for optionality at the end of the contract. For example, a three-year extension at the buyer's option, we don't see that so much anymore. And we're seeing less and less comments in RFPs or insistence on base price with escalation. I think most of the utilities recognize now that the mining companies, they need that exposure to the market; they insist on that, the shareholders insist on that. So they're much more willing to accept a contract that is linked into the market, spot price, sometimes with floor and ceiling. So we're moving in that direction. But in general, it's much more a seller's market today than a buyer's market. It's been a little quiet over the summer. But again, we expect that to pick up going into next year. There is a lot of unfilled demand as you get out into '28, '29, '30, and of course, it just continues to grow thereafter. But we are approaching the time right now where those utilities that don't have coverage in those years, they're coming into the market. So we do expect a lot of RFPs late this year, early next year to begin filling the book for those years. So hopefully, that's responsive. Now the related question from the same analyst. What do you see with pricing, especially as it pertains to longer-term contracts? And what are you seeing regarding premiums for lower-risk origins for your material? Thanks. I can't get into the numbers that we're discussing with utilities, and I don't want to tip my hand there. But is there a preference for more diversity to move away from Eastern supply and begin to bring in an increasing amount of Western supply? Absolutely. We routinely hear from US utilities and from European utilities that they have an increasing desire for that diversity, and they are willing to pay a bit of a premium for those Western pounds. So companies like ourselves and Cameco, we certainly benefit from that desire to have Western diversity. We are beginning to see more and more interest in our carbon emissions. And more and more companies have goals to purchase uranium from companies that have low carbon emissions, and they're willing to pay a bit of a premium for that as well. So one of the reasons we are going to be posting a sustainability page on our website is so that we can begin to kind of show what our emissions are. As an in-situ miner, I would say, on average, our emissions are considerably lower than the conventional miners, and our numbers bear that out. So yeah, it's not just Western supply. It's increasingly about your CO2 emission on a per-pound basis of U3O8 generated. Not a big deal, but we have discovered that we are sequestering a bit of CO2 in the geologic formation as we mine with CO2 and O2, those two gases. We're not recovering all of that CO2; it's getting locked up likely within the interstitial portions of the phyllosilicate clays, and so we are actually taking a little bit of CO2 and leaving it in the ground as being captured there for the long term. So that's something that's interesting, a bit of a novelty for the Lost Creek project. So with that, let me see if I've got anything else. We are at 10 o'clock, and I believe I've answered most, if not all of the questions. If I didn't get to your question, if I've missed it somehow, we still have my contact information up there. Please feel free to shoot me an email. I tend to be very responsive to inquiries, or I sure try to be, and be glad to pick up the conversation. So thank you all for your time. We'll return the rest of the day to you and enjoy the rest of the summer. We'll talk again in the third quarter.

Thank you very much. This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.