Conference Transcript - VUECF 2026-06-08

Janet Leigh Sheriff, CEO

Greetings, everybody. Thank you for joining us today. My name is Janet Leigh Sheriff. I'm the CEO of Verdera Energy. Joining me today is Bill Sheriff, the Executive Chairman. We just wanted to provide a bit of an update. I apologize for a few minute delay. We're having some technical difficulties. You can access the presentation. There's an item where it says download presentation. The slides for some reason are not coming up, but that won't impact our presentation. Verdera has been trading for just over a quarter and I wanted to walk through a few of the highlights that we have been working on throughout this time. One of the key questions that a lot of people are having relates to the distribution of the preferred shares to Encore. We will cover that today. We'll cover operational updates and some technical projects we're working on. But I really wanted to start with what we're doing with social engagement. One of the things that we started a couple of years ago, knowing that Verdera was coming, was forming the Clean Energy Association of New Mexico. And this organization in partnership with Grants Energy is really focused on education on in situ recovery, which has been around for 50 years, but with the nuclear renaissance coming back of more interest. And with that, we formed and developed a conference called the Nuclear in New Mexico. It is located on www.cleannm.org, where you will find a full recording of the entire conference. It was a fabulous event attended by people from tribal representatives to industry to uranium trading houses from South Korea and Japan. Really brought together people in what we found was a huge gap in a necessary conversation about where we're going in New Mexico with nuclear and with uranium extraction. And with that, always important is the importance of the role of New Mexico in the nuclear renaissance with the vast resources that are available. If you will look at the slides and on slide four, you'll see our share structure. We're trading at about $63 million market cap. The preferred shares to Encore shareholders sit at about 35, sit at $35 million shares. The process that we go through with this is the SEC does a review of our F1, which has been completed. We have sent back comments received from the SEC. Once those are received, we'll have a better idea of the timeline that Encore would need to have to set a record date for the distribution. In the bottom of the slide, what you'll see is the distribution schedule, 20% on listing and 20% every three months. So a number of the shares will remain restricted. But with that, we have a healthy treasury of $24 million, and we have a number of projects underway. way. I did want to allow Bill Sherriff to speak more about the technical project that we've started our work on with West Largo. Prior to that, I just mentioned that we have been staffing up and we have a new exploration manager and team underway and really focused a lot on the data that we have acquired from Kermakee. Bill, did you want to add anything?

Bill Sheriff, Chairman

Yes. Actually, West Largo is our best project by far in terms of my view and that of our chief geologist we just added and so obviously that'll be the one we work on first it's also one that we think the resource has a lot of upside the historical resource was 17 million pounds at 0.3 percent which would make it one of the highest grade deposits in the u.s that might be amenable to the isr process everything we have indicates it will be. Our depths there are moderate, extends from roughly 750 feet down to a little bit over a thousand. And in order to drill it, we need permits, of course, and that process has begun. We expect to be drilling it towards the end of the year. That drilling will consist of two different components. Number one, it'll be some initial confirmation drilling that is of the old resource. And by the way, the old resource was done by Gulf Oil and Kermagee. We do have all of the drill data and drill logs for that. Once again, the data in the U.S. is proprietary and it's not available to the public as it is in most countries. And so it's a distinct advantage with us having the enormous data supply that we have. Our database includes over 200,000 drill logs and many many reports and maps of course in fact it fills up more than one moving beam we are in the process of organizing it it is marked so it's easy enough to go through and find a certain project but to get organized it'll take a few more months to have it fully organized getting back to west largo we do intend to drill for two purposes once again i'd mentioned the confirmation drilling. But also, I think it's important to point out the historic resource was done on a grade thickness cutoff of 0.6, which is 10 feet of 0.06, or it's just your grade percentage times your thickness. And that is far in excess of current numbers that we would be looking at. So what happens when you cut that down to 0.25 or something like that, that would be more of a normal number given the current market, you're going to have two things happen. Number one, your tonnage will expand. That is, your number of pounds will expand. The grade will decline somewhat, but from 0.3, there's a lot of room. So we expect to see an increase in grade, sorry, an increase in pounds and a decrease in grade. I can't characterize that for you until the actual work's been done and the three-dimensional analysis that'll be in the resource report is put out. One thing that definitely will happen is the footprint of mineralization, that is the area of mineralization from a quick glance at the logs, will indeed expand. That is, of course, because you're letting lower grade material into the resource. And so the second part of the drilling program will be to actually go into those lower grade areas and drill up additional resources. Here again, can't quantify the size of it until we get the 3D imagery back and the estimates, but that's the first thing we'll be doing in terms of actual physical work. We do expect to have that drill program well underway in the third to fourth quarter, somewhere right around October, so target date. Also, the initial 43-101 resource, which will be verifying the information we have in hand now, we expect that to be done in the fourth quarter. So that's something to really look forward to, I think. In the meantime, we're also doing a considerable amount of baseline work on some of the other projects, most notably Inversion Lake, as well as a bit on Nose Rock. The other key factor that we're looking at doing, and that is, as mentioned, with an enormous database, we've had quite a few inquiries for either properties and or data that we own. And so we're in negotiation now on a data sale for a particular property that we do not own. We also are in negotiation with a property that we own a portion of, but another firm has put out a 43-101 on it and is working, or rather is working towards putting out a 43-101. And so we're negotiating with them whether that will be some sort of a significant purchase of our material or a lease option on our property or some sort of joint venture is yet to be determined. But it is a resource, a historical resource by Kerr-Magee that we don't even include in the presentation. And a third issue that we're negotiating on now is a non-core asset sale, and that would be one of our smaller properties. As mentioned in our presentation, you might see the upside in terms of exploration. Treeline's an example of that, a million and a half pounds that was worked on in the old days. And by old days, I mean pre-Three Mile Island, so in the 70s. And it got up to about a million and a half pounds. There's some other additional mineralization around it. and we're looking at perhaps vending off one or two of those properties to an upstart company with a good staff. So lots of news that's coming. Just been a bit of an organizational start. Would remind you we've only been public for about a quarter. So that's the, I guess, the exploration update. I can give a little bit more color from the Encore side in terms of the stock distribution, and roughly 40% of that will be escrowed, depending upon the timing of the release. There's a release schedule in the presentation, I believe, and you'll find that under the cap page. But we are anticipating and pushing to get that distribution done before the end of the second quarter. There can be no assurances on that, of course. The SEC is in charge of our timing but based upon probable timelines and the time which we submitted the f1 that would seem to provide enough time for them to get back to us and provide a short record date window so with any luck that'll be done before the end of june and then we will be obviously one of the other things we've been dealing with is some of the etfs as you're probably aware a significant part of encores held by etfs and several of those are of the very large ones and then we've got smaller ones so we're trying to to speak to those and condition them that expect that stock is coming in and also in terms of the smaller market cap companies that are in the etfs we're trying to talk to those smaller etfs to alert them so that they may indeed be able to cross some of that stock that they'll be looking to add to uh obviously be doing a roadshow here in Toronto in the coming, I believe it's a week from today, actually, and I'll be hitting a few other conferences along the way. So certainly not idle times, excitement in New Mexico is, from my perspective, the fact that everyone, all of the parties, including the First Nations, are actually sitting and speaking and making progress towards the resolution. Of course, many factors are going on in the government that's, you know, pushing forward with the uranium front in terms of production, including in some of the areas that have historically been harder to permit, such as New Mexico. And I think you'll see quite a number of government initiatives come through over the next few quarters, which will obviously be, you know, winning our sales. But with the resource we have, four major properties totaling, you know, roughly 90 million pounds of historical versus only a little over 100 million shares out. certainly got the best valuation for pounds per market cap of any company in the business, I think. So let's look forward to this year.

Janet Leigh Sheriff, CEO

Thanks, Bill. I just want to mention to people that there is a Q&A function on the sidebar if you have any questions. And also, we are available after the call. One question that has come in, and I think, Bill, you're more suited to answer this question. Any guidance you can provide or information you can provide about where the uranium sector is going?

Bill Sheriff, Chairman

Good question. You know, the uranium sector has been a bit lackluster, to say the least, over the last year. We've had a very stable and unusually stable price. We've been hovering around in the 80s virtually the entire year. I think the general tone of the market is affecting it more than the uranium price right now. I mean, we're all holding in there reasonably well. But with the, you know, Iranian war situation on again, off again, every other day, it has really made investors of the big market to go into a risk-off position. And of course, risk-off means that speculative equities such as the uranium space and some of the high flyers don't really react particularly well. And I think you can see that if you look of the charts of most of the uranium stocks. So I think it's been out of neglect rather than anything negative in terms of the uranium market. In fact, if you watch the uranium news flow on any given day, it's far greater weighted towards the positive side than anything that might be possibly construed as a negative. So the supply imbalance continues to grow. The future and backing of the small modular reactors as well as the restarts on big reactors, higher grade fuel going into those, longer lived extensions, new builds backlogged all around the world. It's a very, very good long-term proposition. And I would suggest that the malaise we see here will probably rectify itself just about the same time that the Iranian situation does.

Janet Leigh Sheriff, CEO

Thank you. Another question that I actually think is more targeted for you than myself, it's regarding the value of the data. There has been some questions about how quickly could we realize value from the data, but also long term. And I know with the combination of the Uranium Resources data and the Kerr-McGee database that we acquired at Verdera, also you have access to your own personal database. So maybe you could speak to how that provides valuation for the company over time.

Bill Sheriff, Chairman

Well, that's right. Of course, the data I have is available to the company at no additional charge. So just part of part of bringing me along. but uh and we have ranchers exploration which was another major factor in new mexico as well as wr grace and uh getty oil actually had quite a bit there as well so uh i'd say in total we probably got uh 90 plus percent of the data that's ever been generated in new mexico so it's a huge advantage i mean the cost of a single drill hole these days can be you know twenty thousand thirty thousand dollars uh and if you're going to ever look at completing it for a well field then you're looking at more. And of course, that's depth dependent. But nonetheless, each individual hole that you don't have to drill saves a significant amount of money. And when you go and you look at these historic projects that have hundreds, if not thousands, of drill holes on them, having that data and having the logs for that data puts you immeasurably ahead, certainly millions of dollars ahead when you look at an overall picture. Similarly, that data has a significant amount of value to companies if they can buy the data from on property they own that we don't own in certain instances if they can purchase that data from us then in many instances you know we can charge them what would be the equivalent of one drill hole for every four or five and sometimes even every three drill holes that they would intend to drill it's a meaningful savings for them, but also a significant cash value for us as well. So the data is sort of the gift that keeps giving just due to the vast quantity of it. There'll be new discoveries made out of it or initial discoveries advanced out of it. And then of course, as I've already mentioned, the supporting data for properties that not only we own, but others own. So it's really truly a cornerstone of value for the company.

Janet Leigh Sheriff, CEO

Okay, thank you. A question that I think is for me is the relationship and the support for uranium extraction with tribal governments and tribal communities. I think what we're seeing and really highlighted by the conference that we held about a month ago was a willingness to engage in a conversation about how the future looked and how we all worked together. There was historically some practices that were harmful to the land and the people and a lot of interest in in situ recovery. And with that, we took last summer some people to the Crow Butte project, to CNISR project. There's a lot of work being done at the community level, which is important and it is resulting in some great initiatives going forward. I was recently speaking at a tribal energy conference and I will be, and we will advertise this, I will be speaking on a podcast with a national tribal energy group that really is interested in seeing nuclear as a mix, as part of the mix for energy. And I think that's the best way to approach how the relationships are growing, that there is a role and there is nuclear as part of that role. It's just how do we proceed forward? And I think that there's the last question that I'm seeing is really, you know, why has New Mexico been so quiet for so long? And what is its role in the future? 40% of all the uranium ever produced in the country was from New Mexico. The country was energy independent in 1980. It's the world's largest consumer of nuclear energy at about 50 million pounds a year. New Mexico is essential to the U.S. nuclear renaissance and domestic energy. And I think there's a lot of people that are starting to realize that and address how we move forward in the state. I think we've got some great companies there and some really great communities that are embracing in situ recovery technology which uh if you're not as familiar with is wellfield technology and prevents the conventional operations um bill did you want to add anything to that no no i think uh you know if you just look at it it's the seventh largest uranium district in the world and uh you know the the historic open pit and conventional milling aspects of the industry in the past have, you know, left, oh, an improper, you know, view of uranium and its current

Bill Sheriff, Chairman

status. I mean, we've come a long way in 50 years. And, you know, it's very environmentally friendly when you go and look at ISR versus open pit. And the in situ is the future of the industry, you know, a good two thirds of it in the world's produced that way. And, you know, Look forward to bringing the new style of mining that's certainly more environmentally friendly and at the same time being able to try and help address some of the past problems that still exist in terms of abandoned mines in New Mexico through some form of actual constructive action on our part. months for revenue generating, obviously contributing to that effort. But it's certainly something that's kept the industry behind for the last 40 years. And like I say, it's just recently that we've started having constructive conversations all the way around. So I'm very much encouraged by that. And I think that that engagement is going to prove to be very beneficial to those of us working in New Mexico.

Janet Leigh Sheriff, CEO

Thank you. And just in keeping with the technical difficulties, the slides are now available on the screen. So I have put up the portfolio for your information. I do want to just go back to the capital structure and give you a breakdown of the preferred chairs that we spoke of with on-course distribution and also show you the land position for Verdera. As you can see on the map, the checkerboard lands.

Bill Sheriff, Chairman

And I would ask Bill just a quick overview of how these came to be at verdera i'm sorry what was the question the checkerboard lands we own approximately 400 square miles of patented mineral rights these were originally deeded to the santa fe railroad or the atlantic and san francisco pacific otherwise known as the frisco route and these were every other section of mile for 20 every other square section one mile square on either side of the railroad right of way for 20 miles in both directions. And these went all the way through the state. This was quite common through multiple transcontinental routes from north to south in the U.S. that bridge the west and the east. So some of the best title you could ever have to resources. And, you know, just here again, looking at the other resources I'd mentioned with West Largo that it was calculated with an extremely high grade cutoff and most of the others with the exception of Crown Point and House to Butte are in the similar situation that once we begin 43-101s on the other resources you should see significant increases in pounds and yet at a lower grade which is what happens when you lower the cutoff grade. Doesn't change the total amount of uranium involved in the deposit from a geologic standpoint but it certainly does from a more of a look when you look at that uranium that's extractable under any reasonable economic scenario so I think you'll see that demonstrated very effectively with West Largo and then you know next year we'll be getting on to Ambrosia Lake and then ultimately to Nose Rock and and of course we're still going to be concentrating some work on on our house to view ground point project as well, as it certainly is the more advanced in terms of modern studies.

Janet Leigh Sheriff, CEO

Well, thank you, Bill. I seem to have answered all of the questions that came in today. I do thank everybody for your time. It is valuable, and we appreciate you sharing some of it with us. If you do have any questions going forward, please do not hesitate to contact us at info at VerderaUranium.com. Our website is also VerderaUranium.com and we look forward to hearing back from you and we'll keep with the updates coming.

Bill Sheriff, Chairman

Thank you again, Bill. I appreciate your time.