Earnings Labs

Ur-Energy Inc. (URG)

Q2 2015 Earnings Call· Tue, Aug 4, 2015

$1.68

-2.62%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning and welcome to the Ur-Energy Second Quarter 2015 Teleconference and webcast. All participants will be in listen-only mode. [Operator Instructions] After today's presentation there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event in being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Penne Goplerud. Please go ahead.

Penne Goplerud

Analyst

Thank you and thank you all for joining us today. We are required to draw the attention of our listeners to the legal disclaimers contained in this morning's slide presentation, which apply equally to our oral presentation today. At slide 2, you will find legal disclaimers, with regard to forward-looking statements, risk factors and protections as well as other cautionary notes to U.S. investors. We ask that you read and consider these disclaimers carefully before investing in our shares. As well risk factors inherent in forward-looking statements and projections are set forth and discussed in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K, filed March 2, 2015, with U.S. Securities and Exchange on EDGAR and with securities regulators in Canada on SEDAR. I would now like to introduce and turn the webcast presentation over to our Founder, Chairman of the Board and our CEO, Jeffrey Klenda.

Jeffrey Klenda

Analyst · Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Great, thank you very much Penny and welcome everyone. I too am very happy and appreciative to have you join us today. We have a lot of very positive and I think exciting information to impart to you, so let's to go ahead and get started. But one of the first comments that I would like to make is that this webcast is coming at a 4Q at this time is actually on a day of week we are making the second anniversary of our final approval to begin operations at Lost Creek and of course, while we did not turn on the pumps and begin producing uranium immediately we had - that was our start date in August of 2013. Make no misstate, that too your period has been filled with plenty of trials and tribulations. The commissioning process is never easy, but I like to think that we have done a good job of navigating it. As it happens, our last webcast took place on December 4th of last year, so roughly eight months ago today. And during that webcast we provided a theme and that theme was delivering performance in the post Fukushima environment. And always to the consternation of our General Counsel, I'm firm to making forward-looking statements and we will be making forward-looking statements again today. But we also gave some guidance for what we expected for calendar year 2015. So along the way, we're going to be referring back to that webcast and some of the projections that we made for 2015 now that we are reporting at the mid-way point for 2015 and we'll let you be the judge as to how we have performed. As unfortunately have been the case all too often over the last few years, we are still finding…

Steve Hatten

Analyst · Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Thank you, Jeff. Rich if you could take us to slide five, Lost Creek development status. I'm going to first talk about, as we generally do out there, we talk about where the fluid comes from, where the fluid goes to and what it cost us. So we'll talk about, what we're doing out in the field to get production going. We'll talk about the drilling status. Right now, we've already installed all of the wells that we had originally planned in our first mine unit. This is one of those forward-looking statement, Jeff, had referred before when I say, originally planned that's exactly what we mean, Our geologists in June came out with the revised tech report where they increased our net resource in the first mine unit by 1.3 million pounds. The original planned well not incorporate those 1.3 million pounds and so in the future we will be planning for a drilling and an installation program that incorporates the production of those 1.3 million pounds of resource and thereby utilizing the existing infrastructure; fences, power, pipelines where possible and lowering the per pound cost based on that. So we have installed 100% of those original planned well, which is 13 header houses worth. We are also starting on our production well installation in our second mine unit. Those who work with me know that I routinely say that running a operation in ISR is driving a battleship you have to steer several months in ahead and this is the beginning of the steering process for mine unit too. We'll start installing those wells this year in preparation for production next year. Then finally with our drilling program, Jim Bonner will later about where we're going with the exploration end, but we are completing 150 hole program and…

Jeffrey Klenda

Analyst · Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Great. Thank you very much, Steve. As we move forward here, Jim Bonner will be our next presenter. Jim is our Senior VP for Exploration and really he has been charged with all things resource and the growth of our resource. For those of you who have been with us a while as shareholders, you know that as a company we have always held out Lost Creek as being a very scalable project. Now we have to be cautious they're not to get too excited and make forward-looking statements. That when we were in December during our last webcast. We felt that 2015 was going to be a great opportunity for us to demonstrate the scalability of this particular project. And I think we've done an excellent job of this and I would take just a moment here to comment on something and that is that over the last years we have fielded a certain amount of criticism for actually being a producer and the thinking being is that we were burning up a very valuable and very finite resource in a very challenging environment and that if we were prudent we shouldn't be producing instead, we should be a pounds in the ground company, a land bank, if you will waiting for those higher prices. Of course, when we are fielding those criticisms our detractors are always remising, never mentioning that we are realizing upwards of $30 margins, during a time when we are experiencing $35 spot prices and that we are growing our resources. One of the things that was very, very important to us and we stated this in December was that we wanted to demonstrate that we would not only replacing those pounds that we were producing but that we were actively growing the resource at a rapid rate at the same time. So this is something that was a high priority for us and once again we'll let you be the judged as to how we've done. And with that I'll turn it over to Jim Bonner to give you an update from resources and exploration. Jim if you will, please.

James Bonner

Analyst · Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Thank you Jeff. As Steve mentioned in his presentation, we have three different drilling programs for resource growth at Lost Creek this year. I'll provide some details to those programs. Number one, in the first quarter of the year, production there completed all pattern drilling within mine one. Results of this drilling were interpreted in order to update under pattern resources last reported in 2013. As part of this interpretation and based on the high uranium recoveries from production operations within mine unit one, the great thickness or GT cut off used in the resource estimation process was lowered. Together, the increased density of the drill hole data and the lower GT cut off, resulted in an increase of 2.3 million pounds of major resource with mine unit one. Even after subtracting all pounds produced from this mining unit since the beginning of operations, we realized that 55% increase to mine unit one resources. Number two, we designed 2015 exploratory drilling program at Lost Creek to replace produced resources. In the first quarter of this year, we completed 60% of this 150 hole program, as shown on the slides immediately south and east of mine unit one. We added 120,000 pounds of measured and indicated resources and nearly 300,000 pounds of inferred resources this winter. Currently, we have two drill rigs on this exploratory drilling program and should have it completed this month. Number three, this month Ur-Energy will also begin pattern drilling on mine unit two as shown on this slide as development drilling because of this increased density of drilling, we also expect to add to the resource base of his mine unit. Rich, could I have slide my number nine, please. This is a graphic of Ur-Energy's overall Lost Creek property with the Lost Creek project in the center. Total measured and indicated resources for the Lost Creek property is 10.1 million pounds with an additional 5 million pounds of inferred resources. Incorporating the results of the described exploration drilling program, the pattern drilling within mine unit two and the lowering of the GT cut off from 0.3 to 0.2, U-r Energy is planning to complete a total resource update for the Lost Creek property. We expect to complete a technical on this work in the fourth quarter of 2015. Rich, number 10 please. The Shirley Basin project remains a priority for U-r Energy and is right on schedule. Preliminary economics for this 8.8 million pound measured and indicated resource we reported in January of this year. This deposit is located on patent and claims within the historic Shirley Basin uranium mining district. As you could see on this slide, the high average grade of 0.23% makes this an extremely attractive project. We are wrapping up all baseline surveys for the project and anticipate submitting permit applications in the next several weeks. After summary of the resource related activities on U-r Energy properties, I'll now turn this back to Jeff now.

Jeffrey Klenda

Analyst · Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Great. Thank you very much, Jim. Moving forward, I will next - we'll next hear an update from Roger Smith, U-r Energy's Chief Financial Officer and Chief Administrative Officer. And I'd like to take this opportunity to take a moment and comment. I don't know if our listeners today and our participants have noticed this. But one of the things that I have certainly noticed over the last couple of years is that our accounting team has absolutely honed it's craft. One of the things that I have seen take place is that over the last two years. I firmly believe that our accounting team is now producing some of the most readable and easily understandable financial and MD&A statements in any industry. It's a real testament to their professionalism and confidence in what they do. But once again referring back to our webcast from December of last year. We stated our objectives of continuing to achieve $20 or better, targeted operational costs and we felt that this was very important. It was, we knew that we had a good year in 2014, but you are only as good as what you've done lately, and we had to demonstrate and we felt it important that we demonstrate that we could be a consistent low cost producer and indeed one of the lowest cost producers in the world, if not, the world's current low cost producer. And that if we could do that that we - and achieve those efficiencies, but it would result in discretionary sales on the part of the company and of course, widen our margins as our cost continue to drop. We've done a very good job on that, but once again I'll let you hear that directly from the man who receives it. So with that I'll turn this over to Roger to give an update on our Q2 and first half financial results. Roger?

Roger Smith

Analyst · Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Thank you, Jeff and thank you for those kind words, we certainly try to do a good job and hats off to my team and everybody else that helps us with that process. Anybody that works in a regulatory environment, reporting environment knows it's a daunting task. So we very much appreciate all their assistance. As Steve indicated in the first two quarters of 2015 we've been moving towards our targeted production rate of approximately 70,000 pounds per month. As we approach this rate, in the steady state we are beginning to see positive results in the form of lower production costs per pound. And result in lower cost per pound sold as well. This chart demonstrates our declining cost per pound sold trend, particularly in Q2 after higher cost pounds from earlier periods have now made their way through the system. In Q2 our all in, cost per pound sold had decreased below $30 a pound to $28.98 a pound, which includes ad valorem and severance taxes of $2.78 a pound, cash cost of $16.15 a pound and non-cash cost of $10.05 a pound. This chart also indicates that our margins for the year are improving, as the gap is widened between our average term contract price which is $50 a pound for this year and our year-to-date all in cost per pound sold, which is now down to $32 a pound for the year. Moving towards the steady state has also allowed us to improve our operating efficiencies. Next slide please. Improving our operational efficiencies has in turn given us the opportunity to build inventory, which now stands at 175,000 pounds, this included 79,000 pounds of in process inventory, 30,000 pounds of dried and drummed inventory at the plant and 66,000 pounds of finished product at the conversion facility. As you know our non-cash costs are fixed and do not fluctuate very much at penny. Our cash cost which are primarily process based do not necessarily fluctuate with production. So as production levels increase to our targeted rate, the cost per pound in inventory will decrease, so long as our cost remain on target. The line in this chart demonstrates this as it shows the all in cost per pound in ending inventory at the conversion facility by the way, so this is our finished product, which has now decreased to $27.37 at the end of Q2, down from the average that we had in Q2 driven for our cost of the goods sold. It is made up of ad valorem and severance taxes of $2.30 a pound, cash cost of $15.48 a pound, which is down from $16.18, which was our average cost per pound sold in Q2 and non-cash cost of $9.59 a pound. I believe this point, paints a pretty good picture as we head into Q3 where we are hopeful to see similar if not better cost profiles. Thank you.

Jeffrey Klenda

Analyst · Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Okay. Great. Thank you very much Roger. And if you would Rich, go ahead move forward to slide number 13 and this slide ladies and gentlemen has had all additional considerations and this is my attempt to anticipate some questions that will probably be asked during the Q&A period. So bear with me for just a couple of more minutes here and I'll cover to all quantum areas that I think that you probably have some questions on anyway. The first of these, the first bullet point, reductions in our general and administrative costs and any other savings that we can affect. But we all know this is a difficult time in the uranium space and in natural resources in general. We're not immune to those overall macro market conditions and consequently, it's incumbent upon us to effect savings wherever we possibly can. And I am very happy to report but actually over the last three, four months we have significantly cut G&A at least in my view we have been and that's upwards of $600,000 to $700,000. Now we still have some positions that we need to fill, but this is going o be something that's going to be upper most in our mind and we will continue to run what we consider to be a very lean, clean machine and we will affect those savings wherever possible. The following bullet point, has to do with our long-term sales. This is one of these things that's interesting about the uranium space. If you go back to 2011, we actually feel the criticisms for entering into those $60 plus contracts and the feeling at the time that we were giving away our Blue Sky as a company. And it's something of an oddity that characterizes the uranium space and what…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Joseph Reagor of Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead.

Joseph Reagor

Analyst · Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Good morning guys and congrats on the strong cash cost this quarter.

Jeffrey Klenda

Analyst · Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Thanks, Joe, appreciate it.

Joseph Reagor

Analyst · Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead

So I just have a couple of kind of more minor questions. You guys touched on a lot already. But on the drilling side with the additional pounds over ground, did you guys work out I guess cost of discovery was on a per pound basis for that?

Jeffrey Klenda

Analyst · Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Well, I would defer to either Roger or Jim on that.

Roger Smith

Analyst · Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead

No, we did not. The program wasn't terribly expensive. Drilling as you know, was relatively shallow, so we don't spend a terrible amount on it. We're in the process of another currently, and we'll continue to monitor that. Of course, we watch our cash very, very closely as we can.

Joseph Reagor

Analyst · Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Okay. Do you know what the total cost was for the first 60% that was completed already.

Roger Smith

Analyst · Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead

It wasn't very much. I think the program in total was in the neighborhood of $300,000, if I recall, is that correct, Jim.

James Bonner

Analyst · Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Yes, that was the total. So we would have spent somewhere in the area of $200,000.

Joseph Reagor

Analyst · Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Okay, so you're at less than $1 a pound.

James Bonner

Analyst · Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Right.

Steve Hatten

Analyst · Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead

This is Steve Hatten I think what's important to note here is that a lot of this comes in the form of as we produced and we saw the production levels coming out of the existing installations, we revised our modeling as Jim has pointed out before. We revised our GT contour evaluation and so essentially this was not a drilling exercise, so much on the additional resources in mine unit one as it was a reevaluation of the existing data. And that's where we really reaped a lot of benefits.

Joseph Reagor

Analyst · Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Okay. Thanks for the color on that. Then one other thing. On the cost side, it seems like you know if you're guiding to without saying it, but that such a costs per pound basis, could be down another $1 dollar to $2 a pound. Just looking at the inventory cost levels versus what your sales were in the second quarter. Is that an accurate assessment?

Roger Smith

Analyst · Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Yeah, is forward-looking statement, but yeah, I believe we're going to see a continued decrease until we basically achieve that steady state for multiple periods. Assuming our cost profile doesn't change a lot, I would expect our cost per pound to decrease a bit further. I'm not going to peg in, number just yet, but we'll watch that pretty closely.

Joseph Reagor

Analyst · Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Okay. Thanks a lot.

Jeffrey Klenda

Analyst · Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Great. Thanks, Joe.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Colin Healey of Haywood Securities. Please go ahead.

Colin Healey

Analyst · Haywood Securities. Please go ahead

Hey guys, I'll second what the first thing you said, into the improving cost trends, just very soft. So congrats on that. My question has to do with the - back in March, when you guys reported 2014 year-end. I think you've said that 630,000 pounds were contracted for 2015 in the kind of average price. So that was going to be $50.10, so if my math is working here, you've sold 480,000 pounds year-to-date into the contracts, leaving 150,000 pounds for the contract at sales through in second half of 2015. I'm looking around $57 for that, just based on the numbers I just gave you. My question is, and I think it was mentioned that you're expecting somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 million in revenue for H2 '15. So if there are spot sales in there because I'm calculating about $8.5 million of contract sales. So I'm just was wondering what kind of the sales guidance is back at the $10 million, if I heard that number right.

Jeffrey Klenda

Analyst · Haywood Securities. Please go ahead

You heard the number right and that's spot on. We as Roger pointed out, we have a significant and growing inventories at this point in time. We have actually our highest price delivery will take place this month. I believe we're scheduled for the 17. And there will be a spot sale to augment that. Obviously, we'll try and time that as best we can for an upswing in the marketplace. It's a bit weakness out there right now, but as you know, we in our projections for the year, we have modeled a certain number of discretionary spot sales.

Colin Healey

Analyst · Haywood Securities. Please go ahead

Okay. Good. That's it for me.

Jeffrey Klenda

Analyst · Haywood Securities. Please go ahead

Great. Thanks, Colin.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from George Casper [ph], private investor. Please go ahead.

George Casper

Analyst

Yes, good morning. Just a little color if you could on Shirley Basin timetable. Can you outline what you're looking at possibly going forward in terms of a timetable on the prospect? And do you have any early thoughts on uranium total that you would be zeroing in on there? And what type of development, financial development is it going to require on your part?

Jeffrey Klenda

Analyst · Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Yeah, I'll tell you what let me just make just a brief comment on this and then I'm going to turn it over to Jim Bonner for specifics. But as you may or may not be aware for more than a year now, we have been engaged in completing our baseline data gathering for Shirley Basin. In addition to that we did updated our technical report and finalize a PEA that was released preliminary economic assessment that was released at the end of January. So we have - these are very well defined pounds. And in that PEA we pointed to a little over $30 million as capital costs that will be attended to bringing that into production. But with specifics on the resource and timetables and the filing of the amended application, I'll let Jim speak to that although, not with us today, taking some much-deserved time off is John Cash. He normally heads that, but Jim is certainly best suited to comment on that. Jim, if you would please.

James Bonner

Analyst · Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Yes, Jeff. George, our original that we put out with our preliminary economic analysis. We're saying that we were shooting for our programming, which we are on schedule and start of construction, the end of 2017 and so that's our rough timeframe for starting this operation up. Now with respect to drilling, Pathfiner mines had drilled this deposit out on very close centers. And so for us to go forward and into some pattern [Audio Gap] will go right into designing patterns for ISR operations. Does that help at all?

George Casper

Analyst

Yeah, thank you. My compliments to the management. You are very detailed in your analysis on your operation currently and certainly that will go a long way in projecting interest on the part of the investor. And as you move to the next exploration and development move. I have a question and if you could answer this. On the U.S. uranium demand situation right now, has there been any change in the percentage of uranium produced in the United States? What is the time the U.S. requirement at this point in time? As a percentage of the U.S. based production?

Jeffrey Klenda

Analyst · Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Well, George, I'll make a couple of comments on that, but you have guys on this line in the form of the analysts that are far better suited to comment on this than I am. But of course, we live this every day. We've seen that last year's production, 2014 came in just under 5 million pounds. Our consumption once again, will come in somewhere around the 55 million pounds. With the EIA report that I referred to earlier, actually was very instructive. The simple fact of the matter is is that the United States purchased 53 million pounds last year; 39% of those coming from Russia, Kazakhstan Uzbekistan and other 38% coming from Canada and Australia. The second number doesn't bother me, the first one should cause great concern among our U.S. utilities. I can't imagine how anybody feels secure in relying on 40% of our primary supply of uranium coming from part of the world and I think anybody that does, should probably speak to some of the Europeans have been relying on natural gas and oil from those same sources for their comfort. But, no, that has not changed a great deal. We continue to be the largest consumer on the planet and we are a very small producer. Personally, it has always been my contention that this is murk into consistent something of a national security issue at some point in time. But I'll leave that for future administrations handle, wish I had a better answer for you on that, but that is the current state.

George Casper

Analyst

Okay. Well, thank you for that.

Jeffrey Klenda

Analyst · Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Great. Thank you. I understand, Andrew, that that is the last of our questions.

Operator

Operator

That is correct. So I'd like to turn the conference back over to you for any closing remarks, sir.

Jeffrey Klenda

Analyst · Roth Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Great. Thank you very much and I don't know whether or not we were just incredibly thorough or if we can attribute just a three day weekend in Canada either way. We greatly appreciate your participation today and joining us. And I just like to make a couple of closing comments. Look these are very, very difficult times and during times like these, it's very easy for companies to lose their way or perhaps lose sight of their identity and certainly nothing has tested that more than the 4.5 years that followed Fukushima. But we like to think that as a company we have not lost our identity. We feel that our shareholders gave us a mandate many years ago to become legitimate uranium company. We are not going to be - we're not selling Blue Sky, we're selling performance. We are not going to a pounds in the ground player. Since we feel that that is our mandate, we firmly believe that things like low cost, growing revenues, positive cash flows and profits are actually what our mandate is and we don't believe that those our motive, it calms us. We will continue to work on improving our efficiencies. We'll continue to strive for steady-state production and consistent production. We will continue to endeavor to growth those resources at a very rapid rate and certainly far out stripping our level of production. And we will continue to advance Shirley Basin at a very rapid pace, putting it is our next million pounds a year. And all I can say to you ladies and gentlemen, is that you get the very best efforts of this management team and we will succeed. So with that I will say thank you very much and we will look forward to presenting to you again in early November with our third quarter results. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.