Leigh Curyer
Analyst · Stifel Financial
Thank you, [ Rafa ]. Good morning and thank you for joining NexGen's Year-End and Q4 2025 Financial Results and Investor Conference Call. My name is Leigh Curyer and I am the Chief Executive Officer. Today, I'm joined by Travis McPherson, Chief Commercial Officer; Ben Salter, Chief Financial Officer; and Stacey Golokin, Manager, Investor Resources, Australasia. During the call, I will highlight NexGen's milestone achievements over the fourth quarter of 2025, provide an update on recent milestones, exploration development activities and speak to the strategy and future plans for NexGen Energy. At the conclusion of this presentation, we'll move to the Q&A portion of the call, where you have the opportunity to ask Travis, Ben and myself any questions you may have. Throughout the course of today's call, we will be making forward-looking statements, so please visit our website for all the relevant disclaimers. Before we begin, I would like to thank our investors, community partners and all stakeholders for their long-standing support for NexGen's unique and fit-for-purpose approach to resource development, which is setting a new standard. 2025 was a defining year for NexGen, marked by significant infrastructure investments at site, regulatory advancements, commercial offtake agreements, exploration success at PCE, approximately $1 billion equity raise and team expansion, all highlighting NexGen's unparalleled leverage to the future price of uranium, balance sheet optimization and exploration milestones that further solidify our leadership in the global clean energy landscape. Our progress reflects disciplined execution, continuous improvement and an unwavering commitment from our team to our core values of honesty, respect, resilience and accountability. Stepping back, for the first time in many decades, we are witnessing a genuine and structural shift in global energy demand that materially benefits the nuclear energy industry. Previous years were defined by ambitious pledges and isolated demand. However, what we are seeing now is assertive and immediate action and implementation. Public policy and capital are now fully aligned to support nuclear growth for existing baseload requirements as well as AI and other high-growth technology advancements. In the United States of America, we're seeing reform to advance nuclear in a manner which hasn't been seen in the West in all of history. We are witnessing both the acknowledgment of the fragility of the supply chain as well as the actions to support and encourage activation of allied sources of nuclear fuel. This includes the recently proposed multibillion-dollar Project Vault reserve aimed at securing critical minerals and uranium supply. Importantly, these policies are designed to accelerate downstream, midstream and upstream activities. This is critical as the down and midstream build-out as it relates to nuclear fuel is significantly less of a challenge to solve. It takes money and permitting, both of which are in the control of the governments. Upstream activities, though, take regulatory support but also significant investment over a significant time. And although this is more of a focus of policy in the industry, it is going to take a significant time to solve and trigger a new Western world diversified multisource of uranium supply. In fact, it is likely that it will take decades for mined uranium supply to meet existing demand, let alone the significant growth anticipated. The U.S. alone is anticipating electrical growth of between 8% to 10% through to 2030. This is partly in response to China over the last 10 years, increasing its electrical production by more than half of the rest of the world combined. China now has doubled the electrical power capacity at half the kilowatt price of the U.S.A., a fact largely driven through the adoption of nuclear energy. Governments and industry are being tested on their ability to expand and restart facilities, advance fuel cycle initiatives and increase uranium production to meet accelerating demand. As an example, Canada just delivered the Darlington Refurbishment Project ahead of schedule and under budget. AI is rapidly becoming a material contributor to the global electricity growth and subsequently a new major structural driver of demand. The clear focus of the hyperscalers and big tech to nuclear is producing meaningful support for the expansion of the nuclear ecosystem. The U.S. Department of Energy has allocated $2.7 billion to nuclear fuel companies such as Centrus, while states like Iowa are forming nuclear power task forces to accelerate development. At the same time, large technology companies are aggressively securing long-term power supply amid intensifying competition in AI. Big Tech is increasingly underwriting new nuclear capacity. Meta, for example, signed a multi-gigawatt deal with Oklo, TerraPower and Vistra to power its AI data centers. While we acknowledge the benefits to the sector from increased hyperscaler activity, strategic critical mineral initiatives in the U.S. and continued capital flows into the uranium sector, it is important to stress that the prior underlying market fundamentals stand on their own. Even without these very persistent tailwinds, the uranium market remains structurally undersupplied with the deficit widening every year for the forecast periods out to 2050 and beyond. Despite uranium prices moving from $17 a pound in 2017 to $90 a pound today, there has been no material supply response. The past 12 months alone have delivered several downgrades in production levels. Legacy operators are facing execution challenges and key uranium mining jurisdictions remain constrained. Utilities globally are beginning to acknowledge there simply isn't enough supply available. Demand clearly supports significant contracting. The fragility of supply is even more evident in the spot market, which has had a strong start to the year in 2026. In 2025, approximately 56 million pounds traded on spot, representing approximately 40% of mine supply and 27% of total consumption. Far from a peripheral value, it is the market's true price discoverer and is what underpins the pricing in every contract signed or under negotiation. That dynamic is increasingly felt by utilities themselves. Spot purchases by utilities have surged 85% year-over-year, accounting for 1/4 of all spot volumes. The reality is, direct purchases on the spot market were made by utilities in 2025. The majority of the rest of the spot market activity is still ultimately bought and consumed by utilities through traders and other intermediaries in the market. Meanwhile, producers are selling less into spot market. Uranium producers sold just 4.6 million pounds on the spot in 2025, down sharply from 10.9 million pounds in 2022. The reason is structural. Producers are at capacity, cautious about future output and heavily committed on forward sales for the next 7-plus years. There is very little buffer in the system in the form of inventories held by utilities and producers or new supply to market. Consequently, these factors, together with the technical simplicity and low economic cost of future production [ requirements ] have informed and will continue to design our marketing strategy to offtake contracts whereby pricing will be heavily dependent on market prices at the time of delivery, hence, optimizing NexGen's status as the world's most levered company to the future price of uranium. The fundamentals remain increasingly compelling. As the structural supply deficit widens, the window to make meaningful new discoveries is now and NexGen is operating in the most valuable post code in uranium globally. While the jurisdiction of Saskatchewan, Canada is world class, our results are a function of extremely favorable geology, a disciplined strategy, combined with proven technical capability and steadfast persistence. Every drill campaign reinforces the potential for another Tier 1 discovery within our land position in the Southwest Athabasca Basin. Our basement [indiscernible] Patterson Corridor East discovery continued to deliver highly encouraging results throughout 2025. Multiple high-grade assay results, including the company's highest grade discovery phase in the state to date, inclusive of those discovered during the development of Arrow. And the mineralized system continues to expand at PCE with each exploration program driving exciting results that continue to validate PCE and demonstrate the substantial exploration potential beyond the Arrow deposit. On permitting, NexGen has now completed the 2-part Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission hearings on November 19, 2025 and February 9 to 12, 2026, marking the completion of the final stage of the federal approvals process. The depth, capability and professionalism of our team were evident throughout, with CSE staff acknowledging the exceptional quality and rigor of our submission. Indigenous community support was both strong and unequivocal with positive intervenors emphasizing the importance of a timely approval. We are extremely proud to have the formal and public support of our 4 indigenous nations within the local priority area who have continuously advocated for the project and NexGen's stewardship of the Rook I Project. The province of Saskatchewan continues to champion Rook I as a priority project and the CNSC staff have formally recommended approval of the project to the CNSC commission. This alignment across indigenous and community partners, provincial leadership to federal regulators is a testament to the strength and the authenticity of our partnership-driven development model and reflects more than a decade of disciplined technical work, meaningful indigenous and community engagement and a rigorous regulatory process. Our world-class team stays ready -- stands ready to seamlessly advance development into construction upon receipt of final federal approval. I would like to also take the opportunity to commend Denison Mines led by David Cates on the recently received approval for the Wheeler River project. NexGen and Denison represent the future of uranium mining in Canada with both advancing world-class projects. It is time for Canada to take center stage in the supply of critical nuclear fuel and to do it in a way that stewards the industry successfully into the future. We've continued to strengthen and scale our organization. NexGen is fortunate to have exceptional talent across every level of the business with over 50% of the team residents of the north of Saskatchewan. We are building on that foundation as we prepare for the next phase of growth. We have had over 4,000 applicants across 65 advertised roles over the last year and 586 applicants for 13 roles advertised in just the last month. This is an endorsement of the culture we have built, the quality of our team and the magnitude of the opportunity that lies ahead. With regard to our contracting activities, multiple offtake negotiations are progressing with utilities across the world, including the U.S., Europe and Asia. We expect to announce additional contracts in 2026, optimizing the value of each and every pound we produce. At the same time, we've deliberately maintained full strategic optionality with a strong cash position of over $1.1 billion at year-end. We have access to multiple highly accretive financing alternatives. As always, we will optimize these alternatives with discipline and with the current cash on hand, we'll continue to evaluate. Our production flexibility profile, combined with the technical setting of our project are designed to maximize the value of every pound we produce. We will always optimize our exposure to uranium prices at the time of delivery and any funding structure we pursue will incorporate that optionality. Following our successful CAD 950 million capital raise, including $600 million from Australian investors, NexGen was officially included on the S&P/ASX 200 Index on December 22, 2025. This transaction materially increased our market capitalization, liquidity, Australian institutional ownership and free float, enabling us to meet the ASX 200 eligibility. This inclusion is reflective of the strength of investor confidence in NexGen and represents an important step in broadening our capital market presence and increasing liquidity as we advance through construction and into operation. Turning to site activities. Since 2013, NexGen has safely and successfully advanced Rook I across exploration, engineering, procurement, development and supporting infrastructure, representing a cumulative investment of approximately $786 million in Saskatchewan. During Q4, site exploration programs progressed on schedule and on budget. We will be significantly expanding on-site capacity to support exploration at scale, increasing camp accommodation from approximately 220 beds to just under 600, while nearing completion of the temporary exploration of the strip and existing site access road improvements. On the project side, detailed engineering is progressing in line with the project schedule and procurement is advancing with 28 packages having gone to RFP in 2025, critical path items have been secured to allow immediate mobilization following final federal approval. The convergence of government policy, Big Tech demand, grid reliability challenges and accelerating global nuclear deployment continues to underpin uranium as one of the most critical pillars of the future energy system, setting the stage for sustained demand growth. In 2026, NexGen is positioned to capture this next phase of value creation, underpinned by a derisked development pathway, robust market fundamentals and growing global recognition of nuclear energy's role in the energy security and decarbonization initiative. We are not positioning to meet short-term market tightness. We are developing a platform capable of addressing structural global supply deficits for decades to come. This is our differentiator. Through the disciplined advancement of the Rook I and continued exploration success, we are building both immediate and material production capacity as well as longer-term growth. Our immediate focus is to transition efficiently into construction of Rook I following the final federal approval. We will execute with the same discipline and integrity that has defined our approach to date, upholding the elite standards NexGen is known for, while creating enduring value for our indigenous partners, governments of Saskatchewan and Canada, shareholders and the global clean energy future. We are prepared with the team, the asset and the timing and the capital to execute our next phase. Thank you and I look forward to updating you on our progress throughout this transformative year in 2026. Now I'll open the call to questions.