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 [Music] welcome to CEO insights I'm Marilyn de Gusman with investing news.com nuclear fuels Corp is continuing to accelerate exploration of its uranium projects in Wyoming leveraging the projected growth in uranium demand as countries around the world expand their nuclear energy capacities discussing this Market D Dynamic with me is Greg Huffman CEO and president of nuclear fuels hi Greg good morning Marilyn how are you today I'm good thanks thanks for joining me absolutely it's my pleasure so let's

start our conversation with your take on the current supply and demand landscape for Uranium especially as projections indicate that the world's nuclear energy capacity will increase two and a half times the current capacity by 2050 what impact do you think this will have on uranium projects absolutely no and it's a very very exciting time in the nuclear space globally we you know I I I've I've been involved with the uh with the nuclear and uranium sector back to 2003 uh when I was a uranium analyst uh

covering the equities and and 2003 through 2008 was an incredibly explosive time in the cycle really D driven by some Supply interruptions that happened for for large projects since scatch one that were scheduled to come on online which saw the spot price increase from just under $7 to over $138 per pound and you know with you know phenomenal returns for many the equities in in the space at that time you know contrast that to now and we actually have an even better setup um because not only do we

have curtailments in terms of ongoing supply issues particularly out of kazakstan we also have massive massive increases in terms of expected demand for Uranium as nuclear power has very much come back into v um in terms of the 24 sing clean green available power um that's really going to be required for not just traditional uses but expanding energy uh consumption related to to Data Centers and and the overall growth in AI as well as Bitcoin related mining so really nuclear is incredibly well

positioned and really what we at nuclear fields are focused on is being able to come up with new sources of domestic us uranium to help Supply uh that that increase in in demand for nuclear power right so yeah let's talk about the US uh on the US side of things where all your most of your projects are located the US Imports about 95% of its uranium for nuclear energy so uranium projects such as yours is Con are consequential to the US Ambitions of developing domestic Supply what kind of government supports

are available for companies like yourself and how are you uh leveraging those supports yeah there's a huge amount of government support available you know really as the US um um you know works very very hard to reestablish a domestic nuclear fuel supply chain um that that basically sort of you know brings the the the production of right from from from the production of uranium through the the conversion to the enrichment to the fuel fabrication everything right across the entire um appeal cycle back inhouse domestically

in the US really you know in you know you mentioned you know the the the massive amounts of imports that you know are coming into the US um one of the the the the key factors that really was you know integral to my joining the company was the focus on domestic us uranium production um you know it's a it's a little known fact that the US used to be self-sufficient from a uranium uh production perspective I.E the us back in the 70s and 80s would produced all the uranium um domestically that they

required for their their fuel uh their nuclear generation requirements so the US is very well endowed geologically with uranium however you really it's it's they're they're generally lower grade deposits than we see elsewhere in the in the world and therefore High cost and that requires a higher uranium price but that's what we're seeing right now so basically over the last few years we've seen uranium production fall off to almost zero domestically in the US but at current uranium prices we're

starting to see some of those previously shuttered operations come back online and ramp back up what we're focused on at nuclear Fields though is making new incremental discoveries in the US for instant true recoverable uranium which really is is you know a very well-known technology used globally responsible for about 60% of global uranium production but very very low environmental impact and you know quite quite attractive from a capital cost perspective as well so that's really what we're focused on is

making new discoveries um in the US that are you know manable to the ISR process what can you tell us about sort of the government supports that are available um especially for Uranium projects as as you know the US really ramp tries to ramp up their domestic Supply yeah there's there's a couple levels um of of support that are available and and really you know I'd start with you know at the at the federal level where you know you know even before the election there's an incredible amount of bipartison support

from both the Democrats and the Republicans uh to to reestablish that domestic uh nuclear fuel supply chain so so there's a huge amount sort of of initiative there um and then you know if we go down to the state level um particularly in Wyoming Wyoming is what we call an agreement state so uh overall the the the the nuclear sector in the US is overseen by the nuclear Regulatory Commission or the NRC um and however there are certain states that have agreements with the NRC that basically allow all the permitting related to

nuclear related activities to be done at the state level and Wyoming is one of those States as is Texas so you know that's really important because it you know greatly um accelerates the permitting path for to advance uranium exploration development projects through permitting and get them into production as quickly as possible and this is really evidenced by you know the number of restarts that we're seeing currently in the state of Wyoming of pass producing projects as well as our parent

company Encore Energy and their work in Texas where they've successfully restarted two past producing operations over the course of the last 12 months um maybe it's a good time to talk about um that partnership with Encore Energy as they've made that substantial investment in um nuclear fuels what are the Strategic advantages talk about those um for the company from this partnership absolutely and and it's another thing that was really attractive to me when I was considering the the

opportunity to come and join on as as CEO of nuclear Fields you know for those who don't know Encore Energy is a uranium producer uh focused on Institute recovery uranium operations in the the United States um as mentioned earlier they they've successfully restarted two past producing operations both located in South Texas um and that makes them the only uh us Uranian producer with two assets currently in operation uh delivering pounds to the market so that's something is really important it

brings a lot of expertise um and a lot of Market intelligence so really you know the the Genesis of nuclear fuels is as Encore was staying focused on restarting those operations in Texas there was some earlier stage projects within the portfolio that weren't going to get the attention while they were focused on on the restarts and really what the idea was The compy Encore really wanted to have those projects advancing in parallel so the idea was to put them into a separately listed separately managed separately financed

company um uh being nuclear fuel so that we would be able to advance those in parallel um while Encore state is a supportive shareholder at the at the at the um at the corporation level with a 19.9% equity stake in nuclear field so there's a very close typ relationship corporately where we're able to lean on encore's technical team for advice and there's also very good um support from the corporate level in terms of uh continuing participation in our ongoing fin financings um and overall support at

the board level where they have two board members uh representing their interest this might be a good good uh time to talk about your projects in um in the states in Wyoming um what are the you know what are the compelling uh characteristics of this projects and what is your strategy for development absolutely so we're really as mentioned earlier we're focused on uh the advancement of ISR manable um uranium projects in the US with a preference for agreement state so that really leads us

to to Wyoming and and that's where the focus of our our exploration efforts are are right now we've got a number of projects in the state of Wyoming um the flagship is called the Casey project it's on the western margin of the P River Basin there's a number of other um ISR operations uh owned by other companies immediately around us that are currently in the in the midst of restarting we have very very similar geology um but over a very large land package that hasn't seen any concerted

expert expiration efforts since the 1980s so really what we've done is picked up on the expiration efforts that were done back in the 70s and 80s really before ISR was a focus for you know the companies's exploring back then taken that information and really sort of looked at it from an ISR amenability perspective so we've you know been growing here for about the last year and a half and have you know been very successful in sh is expanding on the historical resources that have been

defined previously on the project um and and growing those resources and now we're really focused on making new potential discoveries on that project as well it's worth noting too that at the casy project our Flagship um Encore does have a back in right so if we achieve a a resource um a 4311 compliant resource of at least 15 million pounds they do have an option to reacquire a 51% interest in the project and would Advance it through through through to production however if they decide to

exercise that option they would need to pay us two and a half times our expiration expenditures and provide um uh the the our share of uh capex um uh to carry our 49% interest through the production repayable eventually out at EV eventual cash flows so there's a really good setup for nuclear fuel shareholders it's a win-win situation with Encore potentially having another um development property within their pipe within their Pipeline and also a very low um uh minimal dilution to nucar field shareholders uh resulting in a 49%

uh carried interest so there's a there's an excellent setup here um predicated upon expiration success which is really what we're focused on with the current drill program which is uh continuing on as we speak as we approach the end of the year maybe you can talk about some next steps what are the plans for the next year absolutely so we're we're just in the in the midst of um of wrapping up our drill program here over the next week or two um at the casy project um you know we've

had a very successful uh 2024 drill campaign we'll look to build on that for 2025 and and and increase the size and scope of that program um as we now have a very good understanding of the overall geological framework um so that will be a definite Focus um over the course of 2025 we'll probably look to start up Jo at Casey again uh in the spring and drilled right through the spring summer and into the fall uh similar to what we did this year in addition to the Casey project we'll also be focusing on our

boo heill project in the Shirley Basin the booill you know you know is a very very attractive project as well it actually we saw quite a bit of advancement um during the 2003 to 2008 cycle to the point where it actually got to the to the NRC from a permitting perspective at that point so we'll look to have a drill program there uh next summer as well and we're always on the you know continue to look out for additional properties that could fit well within our portfolio so that'll be

an ongoing Focus as well oh right we'll leave it at that thank you again Greg for joining me today and providing some updates about your company wonderful Marilyn thank you very much for the time it was a great opportunity to speak with you and and uh hope you have a great rest of the day thanks and thanks everyone for watching join us again next time for another edition of CEO insights if you like this video like or leave a comment below we'd love to hear from you and if you haven't already done so

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