Energy Fuels Inc Q4 FY2024 Earnings Call

Good morning. My name is Andrew, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Energy Fuels Fiscal Year 2024 Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. Thank you. Mr. Chalmers, you may begin your conference.

Thank you, Andrew, and good morning to those listening to the call today. My name is Mark Chalmers, President and CEO of Energy Fuels. And today, I am delighted to highlight Energy Fuels' remarkable accomplishments during 2024, which we believe has created the leading U.S.-based critical mineral company. I'm also excited to talk about our goals, guidance, and aspirations in 2025 and beyond. Many of you have heard me say many times, there is no other company in the world like Energy Fuels. Today, that is more true than ever before. Energy Fuels is building a global critical mineral powerhouse. And the progress we made in 2024 is extraordinary. We are building this business around our core uranium business, leveraging our permits, infrastructure, excess processing capacity, and most importantly, our talented and creative workforce. Over the course of the past year, we have resumed commercial uranium production, secured world-class critical mineral assets, and commercially recovered separated rare earth elements, which some of our naysayers said was not even possible. While this has caught some people off guard and a diminishing group of naysayers remain, that is fine. We will continue to pursue our creative accretive strategy, as it simply makes so much sense that it has become obvious. We are on the verge of generating significant cash flows and margins in the next couple of years and emerging as the leading low-cost, large-scale Western producer of several critical materials that are central to energy, defense, technology, and mobility. Today, I will be joined by Dave Frydenlund, our Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer; Nate Bennett, our Interim CFO and Chief Accounting Officer; and Curtis Moore, Senior VP of Marketing and Corporate Development to assist with any questions that you may have at the end of the presentation. Replays of this presentation will be available shortly, perhaps even as early as today. And Kim or we will be controlling the slides, you will not be controlling the slides, but I'll try to remember to tell Kim when to advance the next slide. So let's get going with the presentation. On Page 2, I may be making some forward-looking statements, and those are highlighted on this page that is included with the presentation. Next slide. I want to talk about our high-value sequence here. One of my slides was out of order. So look, let's talk about Energy Fuels. Really, an investment in Energy Fuels means you are getting three companies in one. We are building a globally significant critical minerals company. We have built this around our significant U.S. uranium production. We have produced uranium for the last decade or two or three with our assets, but we've never been world significant. But when you look at these two other portions of our strategy, we will be world significant with rare earth production and world significant with the heavy mineral sands production. And that, in turn, makes a world significant company in due course with multi-elements being produced and our timing is impeccable. Next slide. Let's talk about our high-value product lines. These are all in-demand materials central to energy, defense, mobility, and health. Uranium, as I mentioned before and many of you are aware of, we have been a leading producer of uranium for a long period of time and we are now in large-scale production. Currently, we have three producing mines, and we expect to have newly mined production of 1.73 million to 1.17 million pounds of contained uranium in 2025, subject to market conditions. This does not include up to 200,000 pounds of additional alternate feed materials and third-party ore purchases, so you can add up to another 200,000 pounds on top of that. We expect to sell under contract between 200,000 to 300,000 pounds in 2025 and we will also be looking at potential spot sales as prudent as the market strengthens. Inventory, we have nearly 400,000 pounds of finished uranium already on the ground at the end of '24, and we have over 700,000 pounds of contained uranium and ore and other raw materials to be processed. By the end of 2025, we expect to hold between 1.6 million to 2.3 million pounds of uranium that will either be finished or in inventory yet to be processed. And I want to comment on this because I think some people do not understand the flexibility that we have at Energy Fuels because with the White Mesa Mill, we can process newly mined ore, alternate feed that we processed for many decades, mine cleanup ore, and pond return. That flexibility has been a key success to Energy Fuels over decades because we had that flexibility. Rare earths, we are a leading producer of rare earths in the United States, and not many people can say that. We're now in early-stage commercial production. We have the capacity to produce up to 1,000 tonnes of NdPr per year. We produced 38,000 kilograms of on-spec NdPr in 2024. This material is now being tested and qualified by non-China Rare Earth metal and magnet manufacturers to support future sales and offtakes. That is going very well, and I hope to have further updates to the market in due course. We also have the potential to go back into commercial production of NdPr either this year or in '26, subject to mill schedule market conditions and supply of feedstock. On the heavy mineral sands front, we are advancing three material mining projects right now, and that is a big part of our story in 2024 and going forward: world-scale, world-class projects in Madagascar, Australia, and Brazil. Medical isotopes, we are continuing to do our research and development on the recovery of radium, which is put into solution when we're processing our uranium ores or some of our rare earth feeds. Vanadium, we're still the largest primary producer of vanadium in the United States, and we can respond quickly when markets support this. Next slide. So let's talk about 2024, which was a fundamental building year, again developing low-cost Tier 1 critical mineral assets while maintaining a very strong balance sheet. We had a net loss in 2024 of $48 million, but that really is somewhat misleading because that was driven by transaction costs and the combination with primarily base resources, which was also offset by uranium sales. We sold 450,000 pounds of uranium for a gross profit of $21 million at a margin that was north of 50%, and we sold it through a combination of contract sales and spot sales that averaged around $84 per pound, which is a better result than a lot of our peers. We also sold approximately $40 million of heavy mineral sands products, which includes ilmenite, rutile, and zircon. We had one-off transaction cost of over $10 million, as I mentioned, related to the acquisition of Base and the formation of the Donald joint venture project with Astron. Some of our recurring costs and additional operating costs were higher with the acquisition of Base and the reclamation of the Kwale project in Kenya that came to a close at the end of December of '24. We also purposely elected to not sell uranium during Q4 due to weak prices. That all contributed to the loss. We still have excellent liquidity with over $178 million at current commodity prices made up of cash, cash equivalents, liquid marketable securities, uranium and other receivables, and inventory. We have, as I said earlier, 400,000 pounds of finished uranium. We also have 900,000 pounds of vanadium, and we have some mixed rare earth carbonate and 38,000 kilograms of finished separated NdPr in inventory. No debt. We probably have $1 billion worth of assets plus. We also raised $60 million of cash on our ATM from the beginning of the year through February 14 at an average share price of $5.34 per share. This is to ensure we have plenty of cash to advance our Tier 1 mineral assets that we're currently really not getting valued in the market. Next slide. Let's examine the diversified asset portfolio we've developed over recent years. In the Northern Hemisphere, this primarily consists of our uranium assets, many of which are permitted. Our headquarters is in Denver, where we operate the White Mesa Mill, capable of processing both uranium and rare earths. This site is where we apply our hydrometallurgy expertise. In the Southern Hemisphere, with the addition of Base Resources, we have an office in Perth and a complete management team ready to progress our heavy mineral sands objectives and eventually recover monazite, focusing on physical metallurgy. We are actively advancing two final investment decision processes on the notable Toliara project and the Donald joint venture in Victoria, supported by a full team. Next slide. This graphic demonstrates how our operations are structured. We are processing uranium ore and also working with vanadium ores from several projects. The White Mesa Mill enables us to produce U308 and V205, as our facility has been retrofitted for rare earth processing. This mill's capability to handle both ore streams is significant, achieved at a cost of around $20 million. The mineral sands at the bottom in orange mostly do not utilize the mill except for recovering monazite, which can be processed through our Phase 1 plant. Our Phase 2 initiative involves constructing a new rare earth processing facility, separate from the uranium processing facility, as we look ahead. On the far right, various materials and elements can be processed through our infrastructure. We've seen how volatile critical mineral prices can be, like lithium and uranium, and our company is well diversified to manage multiple revenue streams at a global scale. Next slide. We currently have three mines in production, and the mill is actively processing uranium today. In late 2024, we only operated the mill at the end of Q4, resulting in the production of about 160,000 pounds of ore. We anticipate finishing additional uranium production in the first half of this year, estimating between 200,000 and 250,000 pounds. This figure could be higher depending on the amount of feedstock we decide to process, influenced by contract fulfillment and spot sales strategies. The mining of ore is estimated to be between 730,000 and nearly 1.2 million pounds, primarily from the Pinyon Plain mine and La Sal complex. Moreover, there could be up to an additional 200,000 pounds of feed and third-party ore purchases. We are working on ramping up to a run rate of 2 million pounds per year with continued efforts at the Whirlwind project and Nichols Ranch alongside additional drilling. We are also thrilled about our groundbreaking agreement with the Navajo Nation for ore transport, which is proceeding smoothly from the Pinyon Plain mine. Additionally, we are collaborating closely with the Navajo Nation on environmental cleanup of abandoned uranium mines, aligning perfectly with our commitments to ESG and community responsibilities in the Four Corners Region. We hold four long-term contracts, and for 2025, we expect to sell under contract between 200,000 and 300,000 pounds of uranium. Like in 2024, we may pursue opportunistic spot sales if conditions permit, but we do not plan to engage in sales at current spot prices in the mid-60s. We are building an inventory of uranium, targeting a total of 1.6 million to 2.3 million pounds, which we can process to align with market conditions as needed. Next slide. In our rare earth efforts, we continue to emphasize monazite as a low-cost byproduct of heavy mineral sands. Monazite features favorable distributions of NdPr, Dy, and Tb, critical components in this industry. This byproduct has emerged from our various heavy mineral sand projects assembled in the past 18 months. The White Mesa facility is currently the only one in the U.S. capable of processing monazite. We are also looking to boost production with our Phase 2 plant, having conducted a pre-feasibility study that suggests scaling up to 6,000 tonnes of NdPr annually. We have contracted Barr Engineering to carry out the definitive feasibility study, which is currently in progress and expected to be completed by the year’s end. Simultaneously, we are piloting the separation of Dy and Tb. All of this work is being accomplished without compromising our uranium output. Next slide. We have illustrated the integration steps necessary to reach the production of magnets and drive trains, and we are rapidly progressing with our world-class heavy mineral sands and monazite assets. Our capabilities to process mixed rare earth carbonates and separate rare earth oxides will grow with Phase 2, while our immediate focus remains on advancing to rare earth metals and alloys. We are engaging with companies globally to help facilitate this integration. It is a top priority for our company moving forward. Next slide. In the heavy mineral sand sector, we are achieving significant advances toward establishing low-cost, large-scale titanium and zirconium mines that also provide a source of monazite. These raw materials are vital for various industrial applications, including pigments, paints, plastics, metals, and more. In 2024, we projected around $40 million in revenue from the Kwale project, which yielded 18,000 tons of rutile, 48,000 tons of ilmenite, and 2,500 tons of zircon. We are rapidly progressing with our heavy mineral sands projects in Toliara, Donald, and Bahia, supported by a new project team in Perth. The partnership with Chemours positions us to reach scales comparable to Lynas over time, benefitting from the strong economics associated with heavy mineral sands and rare earth processing, which enhances profitability as we move through the production chain. Next slide. The Toliara project is pivotal for our company and the critical mineral sector. Once fully approved and operational, we expect it to transform global rare earth production along with titanium and zircon markets. We finalized the combination with Base Resources on October 2, followed by the Madagascar government's lifting of the project's suspension. Shortly thereafter, we signed a memorandum of understanding with the government to advance technical and financial aspects of the project. Legal agreements are currently in progress, and the bidding process for Toliara has begun, targeting completion in the first half of 2026. This project has immense resources, including significant quantities of monazite, ilmenite, rutile, and zircon. The market may not fully comprehend the significance of this acquisition, as it is set to contribute substantially to our Phase 2 plant's feed and generate massive EBITDA for decades, with a mine life currently projected at 38 years, and potential for extension. Next slide. We also have the Bahia project, which is in exploration and permitting stages, fully owned by us and able to supply material for both Phase 1 and Phase 2 plants. Additionally, the Donald project is a joint venture where we are securing a 49% interest, which would provide monazite resources, albeit on a smaller scale than Toliara, but still yielding 7,000 to 14,000 tonnes of monazite annually for many years. Most of the necessary permits are secured, and we are progressing toward completing the final investment decision by June 30 of this year. Our collaboration with Base is helping facilitate the FID process at the joint venture, as well as advancing Toliara, completing reclamation at Kwale, and pushing along the Bahia project. We have a dedicated projects team, crucial for efficiently managing these initiatives. Next slide. This timeline outlines our rare earth development activities. I want to emphasize the Phase 1 separation plant we commissioned in 2024. Despite halting rare earth processing to focus on uranium processing, we plan to ramp up our capabilities for 5 million pounds in the coming years through our permit advancement efforts on undeveloped projects. We expect to have four sources of heavy mineral sands and monazite coming online soon, including Chemours, Donald, Bahia, and Toliara, positioning us for global scale comparable to Lynas. The Phase 1 separation plant can be restarted as needed, but we aim to have the Phase 2 separation plant operational by 2028 to align with the supply from these projects. Next slide. On medical isotopes and radium recovery, as mentioned earlier, this represents a complementary growth opportunity, especially in targeted alpha therapies for cancer treatment. Isotopes such as Radium-226 and 228 are in high demand, and we are exploring the potential for recovery within the U.S. medical supply chain, with possibilities for global distribution as well. We possess a research and development license and are currently advancing this project, which has the potential for significant commercial production in the future. There is a worldwide shortage of these isotopes, so we are optimistic about this opportunity. Next slide. Now as I said earlier, finished material, and it can be more than this in the first half of 2025, 200,000 to 250,000 pounds of uranium production currently and it can be higher, as I mentioned. We only have 200,000 to 300,000 pounds of uranium under contract. In 2025, we'll opportunistically look at selling spot uranium if the market strengthens, but we're not going to if it stays weak. I talked about the ore production at the conventional mines, and this is ore production, and we'll process it or not depending on what the market looks like, but we'll have it to process and we can process it in a couple of months if need be. This doesn't include the 200,000 pounds or up to 200,000 pounds of alternate feed third-party purchases. Towards the end of the year, we could have inventories of between 1.6 million and 2.4 million pounds, both finished and in process. Still working to increase the run rate up to 2 million pounds plus. We have these two additional permitted mines that we're working on, as I mentioned earlier, and we have these other projects that we're still advancing with our permits, the large-scale Roca Honda project, Bullfrog, and we also have the Sheep Mountain project in Wyoming. We'll continue to do our research and development on radium. Next slide. I also mentioned that we have the ability to go back into rare earth production in '25 or '26 if we elect to, and we have the feedstock to do so. I talked about the Phase 2 expansion engineering that's underway. We're very excited about that with Barr Engineering, and we'll be coming up with updated capital and operating costs for the Phase 2, and we'll be coming up with updated capital operating costs for the fits that are underway for both the Donald project and Toliara this year and early into next year. I talked about doing the two bids underway for both Donald and Toliara. And as I indicated, we have a complete project team to advance those. We're pursuing the final agreements on Toliara with the Government of Madagascar. Lastly, we're developing a comprehensive project finance strategy for these remarkable projects, which are world-scale, low cost. The timing could never be better for critical elements at this scale, I don't believe any company I know of at this point in time. So now I'd like to open it up for questions.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. Your first question is from Heiko Ihle from H.C. Wainwright. Please go ahead.

Hi, Mark. Thanks for taking my questions. How are you?

Always a pleasure, Heiko.

Let's discuss your long-term contracts and, more significantly, the contracts that are yet to be established. What insights do you have regarding the market, particularly over the last month in light of the recent uranium pricing? Is there still interest in geopolitically secure uranium? Please share your observations from your customers and others you are in contact with.

Yes. Heiko, I'll have Curtis answer that question. The term market is still pretty strong. And I think people recognize the need to have long-term contracts, and the spot is weak. But Curtis, go ahead and...

Yes, absolutely. Hey Heiko, how are you? So yes, the term market still seems to be pretty good. The term price is still hanging in there in the $82 per pound range. There are RFPs still being issued right now, probably, I suspect to take advantage of some of the lower pricing we're seeing in spot markets. Long-term, I think that the market remains good. The spot market is seeing a little bit of what I would say is some short-term weakness due to just, I think, people trying to get their heads around what's happening with the new administration in Washington, D.C. There's not a big rush to go out and be particularly active in the spot market and deploy capital there. Long-term, I think the fundamentals look as good or even better than ever.

Fair enough. Good. And then just a quick clarification, I guess, I saw there is a sentence in your press release that states the company expects to mine stockpile ore from its Pinyon Play in La Sal and Pandora mines totaling approximately 730,000 to 1.17 million pounds. That's a huge delta. Can you provide just a touch more color on what factors you would expect to cause this large-scale range aside from contracts and spot pricing?

Yes, the Pinyon Play mine is very high grade and low cost, and we've completed significant development work there. We can mine quickly and potentially produce even more than 750 pounds of uranium due to these conditions. The La Sal complex and Pandora have higher costs. Currently, with lower uranium prices, we might decide to limit ore mining at La Sal or Pinyon Plain and focus more on development work, exploring new areas that haven't been mined before. This is why there is a range in our projections. It depends on whether we decide to intensify our efforts at Pinyon Plain, adjust our focus on Pandora and La Sal, or engage in development work at other sites.

That is very helpful. Thank you very much and I will get back in queue.

Hey Mark and team, can you hear me all right?

Yes, Joe.

I saw this was capital to be used for taking projects to FID. How much of the $60 million do you think you would spend in 2025 on rare earth projects?

Well, it all depends on what you're doing here because if we're mining uranium ore, we're not processing it, we're spending money on uranium ore. The key thing is that, when you look at things like advancing the rare earth work with Toliara, when we do project certification, we're going to have a number of payments that we're going to have to make fairly quickly, totaling about $30 million or so. We want to ensure we have plenty of funds in treasury so we don't get caught out with our successes.

Fair enough. It sounds like there's a lot of moving pieces. Then just on the broader market, I know Heiko touched on it a little already, but what do you guys think is driving the price? Is it just less uranium being processed because of the 10X export restrictions? Or is there something else out there you guys are seeing?

Yes, Joe. This is Curtis here again. Good to hear from you. There's been speculation about uranium from Russia coming into the United States. Shipments are going forward as planned. Some folks out there are kind of unwinding some trades. There's a fund out there that's been selling a little bit of material, I believe. I think that's created some weakness, and there's not a lot of buyers out there. Utilities aren't particularly active right now in the spot market just because they're fine for the foreseeable future. I think that's what's created some of the weakness. This is a short-term phenomenon. The long-term price is hanging in there, so I think that could be a buying opportunity on the spot market.

Okay, thanks for the color. I will turn it over.

Hi, good morning. I was impressed by your summary of Toliara and Madagascar, and it seems that everyone is focused on getting this done. Are there any other encouraging signs you see, both from the government and legislative side, as well as broader interest in the project, that suggest things might proceed smoothly this year?

The government appears to be motivated and wants to get this project advanced. We're doing a lot of work with the government directly and various lawyers. It needs time and care because everyone wants to get it right. We're making amendments to their laws, and that's going to be carefully thought out, but everyone is motivated. The government is suggesting a schedule that's pretty aggressive, and we'll see if that plays out.

Great. You mentioned a few high-level contributors to uncertainty. Does that feel like most of the work to be done on that is straightforward fundamental analysis? Or do you feel hamstrung a bit until a few months out, we get some better clarity on those issues?

I don't think we're hamstrung. We've been focused on securing the assets and demonstrating we can deliver on-spec salable NdPr. We're coordinating with U.S. and Australian governments to show that we are a big part of the solution on critical materials in the U.S. We're getting our financing in order before making final FID decisions. We've hired advisers for Donald and Toliara to aid in financing. We believe our timing is perfect because we are presenting a well thought out plan, not just a dream.

It's great to see processing activities at White Mesa ramping up. We're wondering if you could provide additional color on how operating costs per pound U308 are tracking?

When you look at the uranium we've sold, it's been at a very low cost, around $35 to $40 per pound. As more capital is spent and as we open new projects, operating costs may start creeping up. We plan to manage that as best as possible. The Pinyon Plain Mine is quite low cost, while alternate feed remains very low cost as well.

Can you hear me? Great work last year. I guess I have two questions: One on the uranium side, what is the replacement cost or production cost of all these other new mines? If they can't make money, they should not be selling uranium. What do you think their costs will be?

Zach, it has to be north of $100 a pound. The costs to permit, build, operate, and reclaim a project should be considered. Many new companies will struggle to produce at $100 per pound. It needs to go up to replacement value over time. That's a good situation for us because we are purposeful about not selling uranium at $65 per pound as that's below replacement value.

It seems that contracts have to go above replacement cost. Is that a reasonable assumption based on the discussions you're having?

Yes, once we have an offtake agreement, financing revolves around the value of that project, making our funding independent of stock value.

There are other small actors in the downstream outside of China, some in Europe and Japan. We are building our own capacity in the U.S. and we believe that they will grow in line with Energy Fuels' ability to produce these oxides. Our best offense and defense is having world scale, low-cost production capabilities.

We believe we can solve U.S. critical mineral issues in the current term in the next three to four years because we're executing well.

There are no further questions at this time. Please proceed with closing remarks.

First of all, everyone who joined today or is listening to the replays later, thank you for your interest in Energy Fuels. We're advancing a very unique strategy to build a company that has multiple critical elements focused on low-cost processing in the United States and large scale. We have a long way to go here in terms of demonstrating to the market the next steps we're taking. I think 2025 will be an important year because we're going to provide clarity on how these pieces fit together with updated studies, review, and potential announcements regarding offtake or funding mechanisms, including how we plan to organize our long-term project financing. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, but we will always be aggressive, but not reckless. We would like a strong balance sheet. Thank you very much, and have a great day.