Source ENB
There are so many negative stories about nuclear, and uranium mining is just one of the topics being discussed as “evil” in the mainstream media. – Have you seen a uranium mine? Well, how about one that uses groundwater injections and is not an open strip mine? The mine reclamation is unbelievable. You would never know they were even there.
It is not just the mining; it is the processing of water and the clean solutions. Being good Stewards of the resources is important, and delivering low-cost energy to everyone on the planet is critical.
Thank you, John, for stopping by the podcast! I appreciate your leadership and getting the next generation of clean energy moving. – Stu
Check out everything at Ur Energy – https://www.ur-energy.com/
Follow John on Linkedin Here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-cash-774b30143/
00:00 – Intro
00:33 – Discussion about the importance of nuclear energy in the context of the energy transition.
00:59 – Importance of nuclear energy for energy security and providing stable baseload power.
04:45 – Mention of countries like UAE, China, and France investing in nuclear power.
06:53 – Observations on the global trend of countries moving towards nuclear for energy security and carbon-free power.
07:43 – Discussion about Germany’s energy transition and its impact on carbon emissions.
09:47 – Conversation about the potential of small modular reactors (SMRs).
12:51 – Discussion on the uranium supply chain, focusing on dependence on Russian processing.
13:47 – Optimism about achieving cash flow positivity and factors influencing it, including uranium grades.
15:55 – Discussion on environmental aspects, ESG initiatives, and regulatory support in Wyoming.
18:03 – Highlighting the environmentally friendly in situ mining technique.
19:56 – Conversation about the positive impact of ESG initiatives on cost reduction.
22:07 – Discussion on the labor force in Wyoming and the collaborative approach with regulators.
25:41 – John Cash discusses the catalysts and opportunities for UREnergy, including legislative developments.
28:43 – Positive outlook for the uranium and nuclear industry, with bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress.
30:33 – Outro
ENB Top News ENBEnergy DashboardENB PodcastENB Substack
Automatic – Transcription
Stuart Turley [00:00:07] Well, you know, there’s a big energy transition going on as you are. Hyphen energy publicly traded company. And we go into all things uranium in the U.S. market. And, buckle up, have some fun and stay tuned for John Cash CEO. Thanks.
Stuart Turley [00:00:26] Hello, John, how are you today? And welcome to the podcast.
John Cash [00:00:29] Hey. Doing well, thanks to appreciate you having me on.
Stuart Turley [00:00:33] I’ll tell you what, I cannot wait. I just have a, absolute blast talking about the energy and low cost energy and your and, nuclear and uranium are kind of important, aren’t they?
John Cash [00:00:47] Yeah, they really are. And it’s of growing importance as the world moves toward carbon free energy and very importantly, energy security and just baseload energy. It fills that gap really nicely.
Stuart Turley [00:00:59] You know, you’re the CEO of your your energy. So it’s you are, hyphen energy.com. And I’ll tell you before we get started, since you’re a publicly traded company, we’re going to have a producer slide in slide number two. And this is the obligatory, legal disclaimer, if I understand that correctly.
John Cash [00:01:22] Yeah. And, Stu, thank you for giving me a chance to comment on that. And we’ll keep the attorneys happy here. We are publicly traded. And because of that, we need to make sure everyone’s aware that there is risk in investing. There is risk in uranium mining. And we go to great lengths to describe that in our public disclosure. So we encourage everyone to do their homework before investing. And then also I may make some forward looking comments. So be aware of that as we go forward.
Stuart Turley [00:01:47] It sounds great. I’ll tell you, everything that you just said goes into the political world of the uranium mine. And I’m saying this I don’t give investment advice, but all I see is a van tastic, future for nuclear with Cop 28 and their agreement and their excitement, the UAE just put in their nuclear reactor. And, it’s very exciting that the UAE is. I think it’s about 25% of the UAE is now doing nuclear. France just announced 14 new reactors they’re trying to budget. This is pretty cool. And on your slide, I believe it’s slide five. Slide five, your your group talks about increasing global acceptance of nuclear. And, I mean, this is an amazing discussion about the global acceptance that the energy transition can’t be there. So I mean, wow.
John Cash [00:02:51] Yeah, there’s so many countries around the world now that are moving toward nuclear for a variety of reasons. Every country has its own unique set of geopolitics, environmental concerns, so forth and so on, different sources of energy that they have domestically or that they import. But the story around the world is I won’t say it’s universal, but it’s pretty consistent that a number of countries are moving to nuclear. It’s energy security. It’s a carbon free, it’s low cost base power that they can rely on, respectively, around the world. And, you know, right now, China is really leading the way. They’re looking at 150 new reactors over the next 15 years or so, and they’re on target to do that. That’s not just hypothetical arm waving they are doing. I believe they’ve got ten reactors under construction today as we speak. And they’re going to be ramping that up. You know, additionally going forward. So right now the US has more reactors than any other nation. We’ve got about 93 right now, but China will be surpassing us within the next few years that to become the global leader in nuclear power. But they’re doing that because they want energy independence. And that’s a way for them to have that, power on hand. You can store a lot of uranium years worth of uranium. So if there’s a global conflict, that interferes with supply chain, it’s okay, because you can back that up with inventories for many, many years. And so China’s leading the way on that. And but not just China. Other countries around the world are really, doing the same thing, throughout Europe, throughout Asia, here in the U.S., we started one reactor last year. We have another one coming on. We’ve got one in Michigan that may be restarting, right. Diablo Canyon out in California. It looks like they’re going to keep that one up and running. So, yeah, just, it’s a renaissance and nuclear power. And like I said, for a variety of reasons.
Stuart Turley [00:04:46] But with the cost per kilowatt hour, if it’s amateur sized out, over all this time and you take a look at Texas and its grid, it’s a steady line I love seeing on the grid. Mean, that’s what the, balancing authorities need is, you know, you have renewable that goes like this, and then you have baseline. You got love baseline power.
John Cash [00:05:10] Yeah. No, that’s exactly right. And you’re right about the lifetime of those reactors. The initial capital expenditure for a nuclear power plant obviously is very high. And when you rise, that cost over 40, 60, maybe even 80 years, the price gets really, really low. And if you give any value at all to carbon emissions, that adds to the equation as well. And so, yeah, you know, Texas is a good example, a lot of renewables in Texas, but the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow even in Texas. And so to smooth that out, the regulators really need that baseload power. And nuclear fits that bill incredibly well. Gives that good, stable, supply of energy. Doesn’t matter how cold it gets or how hot it gets. It’s on 24, seven, three, 65.
Stuart Turley [00:06:00] And, you know, Japan is getting real excited again. They have restarting of seven reactors and they are energy dependent on everything. So it makes a lot of sense for, Japan and France, the six, you know, they’re 6 to 14 reactors that they’re just talking about. They’re they’re operating I believe, at 50% of their capacity because they have stripped out maintenance on their fleet. We’re at the 94, I think. I think they’re at the 50. I, I have to go take a look at those numbers. And they’re only operating at 50% of that because of the lack of the maintenance dollars. So France has learned the hard way. And then, Paul, Germany just cut their last reactors out, and now they’re tearing down wind farms to to dig gold. Yeah. I don’t get it.
John Cash [00:06:53] Yeah. Germany, man, it’s a bit of a basket case when it comes to, carbon emissions and energy generation. They had this strong move toward renewables. It turned out it was really expensive. It was really, unstable. And now I think they’re beginning to really regret shutting down the nuclear power. Their CO2 emissions have gone up fairly dramatically since they’ve shut down the nuclear power plants. Even Greta Thunberg is saying, hey, nuclear may be the way to go for a while until you can establish reliable renewables, which I don’t know that that ever happens. But, yeah, people around the world, environmentalist that used to be opposed to it, or looking at Germany and saying, oh, wow, look what happened there. First world country gets rid of nuclear and look what happens to the CO2 emissions. Yeah. Nuclear really has got to be a part of the story here.
Stuart Turley [00:07:43] You bet. How do you like the, market coming around the corner for summers or small modular reactors? How do you like. Where do you see that going?
John Cash [00:07:52] Yeah, I like it. I think it’s incredibly exciting. I’m a bit of a technology wonk. People that know me, know that about me, but, it’s going to be a little while. I think it’s going to take some years, before we really start to see a demand on the uranium, miners conversion and enrichment. But, I think it’s coming. And, you know, there are some challenges there. The technology is there. Right. I think we have to be careful to make sure that the regulatory regime is, in place to be able to handle the approvals in a timely manner and advanced that industry. I also think it’s very important that the engineering teams and the scientists, they come up with a few designs and they implement those. Right. And then get your fingers out of the pie, let them run. We’ll learn from that. But we can’t be re-engineering these every year because then that really starts, a renewal process on the regulatory side becomes really cumbersome and really expensive. So I think we need to be careful there. You know, like, the Ford’s, the model T’s, build model T’s and make it efficient. And then over time, we can make revisions and, make them better, but we can’t be revising them every six months. You’ve got to have some stability there. Otherwise the regulatory regime and the cost associated with that will kill that industry. So there’s going to have to be some discipline there. But in the long run, yeah, I think we’re going to be heading to s’mores cutting edge technology. Right. A lot of it was developed in the 60s, but it’s evolved with time. And I think it’s got a very bright future. But, you know, rough estimate probably eight years, maybe ten years, before we move from just experimental demonstration plants and move start moving into, an era where we’re building them by the tens or possibly even by the hundreds, and there’s tremendous demand in on the market. So we’ll get there. But it’s going to take just a bit of time.
Stuart Turley [00:09:49] I, I just am so excited about the technology and, how that, all is going to play together. And when you say it seems like if let’s leave the, argument whether or not it’s carbon, is a bad thing or a carbon life forms. But, let’s leave that off the table. If you want to get the carbon neutral, you got to have nuclear. And that you, your investor deck mentions the political, issues with Ukraine and Russia. We buy a lot of uranium from Russia. And I mean that that is just amazing to me that we have a supply chain that we need. Your. Boy, that was a kind of a good play on your company. I mean, your we need your your energy.
John Cash [00:10:44] Yeah, I know right now we buy a lot of uranium from Russia. Not in the form of yellowcake or the mined material, but Russia does a lot of the processing, the conversion and enrichment steps. In fact, they dominate the global markets when it comes to the processing of uranium. Right? Not the mining, but the processing. And the reason why we’ve not sanctioned Russia on that supply is because the Western world really doesn’t have the physical infrastructure to backstop that. Now that’s changing very rapidly. There are converters and in Richards that are ramping up, and they have announced expansions of their plants. So we’re headed in the right direction and we’re headed there fairly quickly. But up until now, Russia has really dominated the market. Not only Russia with their processing, but just as importantly, former Soviet satellites are significant producers of uranium in the mining sense, producing yellowcake. And so we are really dependent upon those nations for that supply chain. And that needs to change. We need more diversification into the Western world, into, into certain countries within Asia, Europe and the US, Canada, to be able to process that material into mine. And so we’re headed in the right direction. Good. But it is a very, very small industry. I think it’s fair to say I know most of the CEOs globally, in the uranium space. That’s not bragging. And that’s just a commentary about how small the industry really is. Right. So we’ve got to get these mines ramped up. You are energy is leading the way here in the U.S. as we ramp up production at our Lost Creek mine. That’s well underway right now. But others are needed. We can’t do it alone. And so hopefully others are able to come online as well to, to backfill that. But you’re spot on. It’s, it’s a geopolitical issue where we in the Western world have become way too reliant on Russian, processing. And essentially we’re dumping material into the market. And that caused other companies to have to shut down and reduce production.
Stuart Turley [00:12:51] You you’ve got on your commercial or your investor deck. Three offtake sales agreements. And you have 11.9, million pounds measured and indicated resource. .046 grade. Wow. That’s pretty cool.
John Cash [00:13:12] Yeah. You know, the contracting, that’s heating up, countries around the world, especially in Europe and the U.S., they realize, hey, we’ve come way too dependent on, western or eastern supply. Right. And state owned enterprises that are subject to the whims of geopolitics. And so, we’ve had the ability to go out to those utilities, and they actually they’ve been coming to us and sign up three really good long term contracts that we have in place. And, I think going forward, the price of uranium has continued to climb. We’ve got a lot more production room to sell under contracts. The price is continuing to move higher. So, we are contracting into a rising market. And I think that’s going to continue into 2024. But it’s really a reflection of a desire for diversity moving away from state owned enterprises and Russian towns.
Stuart Turley [00:14:05] Well, and your your other one that sitting here looking at it surely basin. Correct me if I’m wrong. I do need a crayon for a lot of my math a lot of times, but, you have, 8.8 million, pounds measured it and indicated resource at 0.23 grade. That’s a huge difference between those two, facilities. Correct?
John Cash [00:14:28] Yeah, it is, pounds and grade, respectively. The awesome thing about Lost Creek is we have been able to maintain a very low cost of production, and we think that’s probably because of the kinetics. Very small grain crystals. And Walnut Creek, they mine really well using the in-situ technology. So that’s helped us keep our cost really low. Shirley Basin, the grade is considerably higher. Probably won’t recover quite as fast as Lost Creek. We’ll see. But the bottle roll test or the benchtop test look like they’re going to be pretty good. Pretty good recovery maybe 80% or so. Whereas in Lost Creek we’ve got 90% recovery over ten years. So yeah a bit of a difference between the two properties. But they both look like, really good properties. Shirley Basin is completely drilled out. Right. That’s why we say 100% of that resources in the measured and indicated categories. And it’s a relatively shallow or body as well. So those things are going to help us keep our cost very low as we move in that direction. So Shirley Basin’s completely permitted. And but we have not made a decision to build it out and ramp it up yet. But if the market stays this hot and if we are able to continue, growing our contract book, I think, in the not too distant future, we’ll be making that decision, to ramp up Shirley Basin. But like I said, it depends on the contract book. We’ll see how that goes going forward. But pretty optimistic there. Things will look.
Stuart Turley [00:15:55] And you’re optimistic for being cash flow positive. And I don’t want to put words in your mouth because I’m not. I notice that you just go for our podcast listeners here. He is the CEO and he just go really big. He mentioned free cash flow and it’s not next week, but it could be, in in 2024 with these new contracts. Is that a yeah.
John Cash [00:16:17] That’s a fair statement. I mean, hinges on a number of factors. Of course. It depends on the growing the of the contract book. It depends on our ability to ramp up production at Lost Creek. Production costs as well. So there are a number of factors that come into play there. In 2023 and we’ve already announced this revenues a little over 17 million. That was based on a relatively small contract book. That contract book is going to grow dramatically this year. Or 500. That. Well, about 500,000 pounds under contract going towards 600,000 pounds under contract now for this year. And so, yeah, it’s, significant growth in that contract book. And we’ve got a lot of room, for production above and beyond that. And right now the spot price is about $92 a pound. And we are well, well in the money. If we decide to sell into the spot market, if we’re able to produce above and beyond our contract book. So, yeah, we’ll see how 2024 plays out. But we’ve got a lot of room to grow that production and sell into contracts are still in the spot. And, so yeah, it’s quite possible by late this year we could be cash flow positive, depending on a lot of those factors that, remain to be seen. But things are looking very positive right now.
Stuart Turley [00:17:32] I love learning, from, our great guests and, and and a and when you’re sitting back and talking about the supply chain, Greg Stankey, who I interviewed, she was the, Miss America last year and got to interview her from Dubai with. 28. But. We use nuclear and a lot of stuff. I mean, we use your. I mean, people are just thinking power. There’s a lot of things like health care and everything else. It’s a big market.
John Cash [00:18:04] Yeah, it really is. I mean, of course, it dominated by the utilities that buy that to generate electricity. But you’re absolutely right. It’s used for other things. It’s used for counterweights. It’s used for armor. The depleted uranium is used for armor on tanks and also for, on shells for penetrators. It’s used for that. It’s used for medicine. So, yeah, it’s used, for a number of things in other defense needs, of course. Right now the US government is not buying for defense needs. They’ve got a quite a large stockpile that they’ve been relying on for a long time, but nonetheless, ultimately in the future will become an additional market.
Stuart Turley [00:18:42] Yeah. Well, I’m going to mention some bad news. With our interest payment now over our defense budget. That is a travesty. As far as I’m concerned, as a taxpayer, I feel like I’ve paid the whole thing, so you know it. We we need more nuclear. Totally. But, but look at the bright side. With the, depleted uranium, the realm of munitions around the world are going off. You’re gonna have some contracts coming up. I bet they can’t use their stockpile. They may be using. I will leave my opinions out of there. So, and now, the nuclear. When you look at mining, and one of the things that I’m always hearing is the negativity that miners are evil and all that, and you guys know ESG, you know, they’re you’re not. Can you tell us a little bit that, you know, the nuclear has gotten a black eye, and you guys get hit in the back of the head with legislation through regulatory actions? You’re not that bad of guys, are you?
John Cash [00:19:57] No. You know, so we use a mining technique called in situ, which is a Latin word. It means in the place. So and that’s about how half of the world’s uranium is mine now globally. So it’s not a new technology. It’s not, black magic or anything like that. It’s a well-established technology, but we don’t dig into the ground. All we do is we install water wells into the ore body. Oh, no. We inject groundwater and oxygen and CO2 that dissolves the uranium in the ground, and we simply pump it up in a solution. Just like sugar would dissolve in water. The uranium dissolves in that solution, and we simply pump it to the surface. When we get done mining, you won’t even be able to tell we were there. We’ll reclaim the surface. Well, within a few years, it’ll be returned back to grazing land with no restrictions whatsoever. Our water usage is very, very low. And, we right now, we use less than one half of 1% of the water. We withdraw, we, waste, so one half of 1% very low. And we’re working on reducing that even further. We would love to get down to about 3/10 of 1% usage of all the water. We withdraw. So we’re making some good strides there. We’re really proud of some of the research and development. We are doing a u r energy toward that, ultimate goal, and that’s one of our priorities. You know, a lot of people say, well, ESG, that just adds cost. I don’t necessarily agree with that. Proper ESG. When you implement it properly, it also reduces your cost. For example, wastewater generation. The less water we utilize, the cheaper it gets for us, the less ground we disturb, the cheaper it gets for us. So we see the two, being really interlocked with each other. And so we’re making great strides with regard to research and development to advance our environmental footprint, to lessen that. So I think there’ll be more coming out from our company in 2024. Certainly that research and development aspect is an important part of what we do in our industry, especially at u r energy.
Stuart Turley [00:22:07] You know, what’s kind of fun is your labor force. I’m sitting here looking at your slide deck, and I’d like to, say that since y’all are drilling, you got a lot in common with the oil and gas, work. Folks, if you’re pumping the water off and you’re filtering it, you’re doing. The U.S. oil producers are the best in the world at not, you know, trying they try to take care of the environment. And, so on your, slide deck for, investors, I recommend that you would put a before and after picture so that, you know, when you drive by and you see a windmill, or a wind. Ma’am. You see all the dead whales on the beach, you know, I mean, it’s it’s pretty sad sometimes. Or the bone yard. None of it is recyclable. And just like, Japan was releasing their water in there, and they’ve cleaned it. I mean, it’s like, you know, the the nuclear, community does a great job, on this. And so, it’s not early on, John, you know, and we’re sitting there looking at the early on oil folks, they were not the best in the world. So regulations did help them out a bunch. Yeah. And so, you know, I’m not a I am a humanitarian. And let’s take care of the environment. And I’m thrilled that you guys have a lot of that, workforce capable so you can pull them in, especially in Wyoming. I love Wyoming. You got good.
John Cash [00:23:48] People. It’s a great place to work. Yeah. We do. It’s a great place to work. You know, it’s a resources recovery state. That’s mining. That’s oil and gas. It’s renewable energy. There’s some massive wind farms, in place and being developed here in Wyoming. So we are all about energy and natural resources. The people in the state understand that they work in those extractive industries. Our government agencies appreciate and understand that. And I’d like to think that industry and our regulators, we work hand-in-hand to make sure we are right. And I think Wyoming is the prime example of that. So we’re really glad to be working here. The state of Wyoming in 2018, they had the ability to take over regulation of the nuclear industry from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or the federal government. And so they were successful in taking over that authority in 2018. And that has gone really well. Are regulated. Yeah. It is easier for them. If I had a concern before then I literally had to go back to Washington, DC, to have a meeting. If I wanted to do something in your face to face. Now, our regulators are nearby. They can inspect more frequently. They, you know, they have their finger on the pulse better. They have a very high level of expertise. Outstanding regulatory regime. So local is always the better way to do it. So we’re very pleased with that. And it’s worked really well for the state of Wyoming to enhance, uranium recovery in the state.
Stuart Turley [00:25:20] Isn’t that cool? I mean, that is, I’m I’m just really excited about today’s, discussions and everything. What do you see coming around the corner besides, the opportunity for free cash flow as you build your contract book? What are some exciting things coming around the corner for you guys?
John Cash [00:25:42] Well, sticking with you, our energy and the catalyst here. Then maybe I can look more globally but not growing that contract book, right? There are a lot of rupees that are out from utilities looking to buy pounds. We’re going to continue to respond to those with the objective of growing our contract book. Building out Shirley Basin as we signed up more contracts than getting that going. That’ll take our mind capacity up to 2.2 million pounds per year. Once we have Lost Creek and Shirley Basin up and running. So we’re really excited about that. We’ve also got a number of other development and exploration projects. We don’t talk about a lot, but they’re out there. So we’re looking at advancing them as well. And so that’ll grow our pipeline moving forward. But looking more globally. Right now the US Congress is looking at cutting off Russian supply. I don’t know when that will happen or if that will happen. It’s impossible to predict what Congress will do, but the House has already advanced that in a bipartisan way, and the Senate also has taken a look at it. Unfortunately, we’ve got one senator that has been holding that back, but hopefully he’ll withdraw his objection to that in the near term. And the Senate will be able to also pass that legislation. The white House has already indicated that they would sign it and cut off that supply from Russia. So we’re keeping a very close eye on that. Yeah, we see a lot of other financial players that are jumping into the space, buying up towns and sequestering those towns. That’s putting a lot of pressure on the market. We expect that to continue as well. And we think that’s going to drive the spot price in particular, right. But the long term price will probably come along with that as we go into the future. Right now, it doesn’t look like globally the miners are going to be able to keep up with demand. It’s going to take a few years for the miners to keep up. But that’s where you are. Energy really has a leadership role to play because we are already ramping up. We’re already permitted and licensed and producing pounds, and there are some other companies that are trying to advance their projects as well. But we’re kind of in the leadership role there to ramp up production globally. So it’s an exciting time in the uranium space and it’s a very exciting time for you are energy.
Stuart Turley [00:27:59] You know, I think this is such a great conversation because so many people when I mentioned, you know, nuclear, the great Meredith Angwin, when we talk about security for the grid and then you talk about the next generation, and then you talk about new jobs, that you guys can create. This is an exciting time for uranium, especially when the EU was mentioning that they were, looking at shutting down and putting weaponization against the uranium, from Russia. So this is a really quick decision that I think the in the United States is not going to be the only ones doing that. So the prices for uranium, everything looks brighter in the corner.
John Cash [00:28:43] Yeah. It does. Yeah. You know, I’ve been in this industry now for 30 years, and, hands down, this is the best the market is ever looked. It looks like we’re going to continue to see growth with the build out of not just small modular reactors, but also the conventional reactors globally like we already talked about. And, you know, in my 30 year career, I’ve never seen Democrats and Republicans agree on, nuclear like they are right now. There were some significant components in the Inflation Reduction Act. And potentially the cut off of Russian supply. The support for the back end of the fuel cycle, the energy generation is stronger than it’s ever been. You know, it’s not all. It’s not all, you know, cherries and daisies. There are some issues there that we need to work through on the regulatory regime. It will work. Continue to work through those. But by and large, things are looking very good in the uranium space of the nuclear space in general right now.
Stuart Turley [00:29:41] Well, I’ll tell you what. Thanks for stopping by the podcast. I had an absolute blast. We will have the key slides in the in the show notes, and, people can get Ahold of you on the website, which is u r-energy.com. Your stock ticker, symbol is u r e if I saw that correctly. I can’t read today, so that’s a good thing being as old as I am. And then, so they can also see your, email there. I just noticed that at the back slide there. So you’re not hiding from anybody, are you? Oh, no.
John Cash [00:30:19] No, no, I’m usually pretty easy to get Ahold of and, look forward to talking to, existing investors or potential investors, after being in the industry for 30 years. It’s more than just a job. It’s kind of become a passion.
Stuart Turley [00:30:33] I’ll tell you what, the future is bright for nuclear. And, I mean, that is not necessarily a pun, but also is, it is because we need it for an energy transition. If people want to get off coal, you better like, buckle up and get used to the idea of lots of nuclear. So yeah. Thank you. John, I do appreciate your time. Thanks for stopping by the podcast.
Energy News Beat