Ur-Energy Inc. (URG) Q1 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Greetings.

Welcome to the Ur-Energy Inc. Q1 2026 Conference Call and Webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during the conference, please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Alex Ritchie, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary. You may begin.

Thank you. Today's discussion includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements are based on management's current expectations and assumptions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. We do not undertake to update or revise any forward-looking statements except as required by law. Today's presentation includes disclaimers relating to forward-looking statements, risk factors, and projections, along with cautionary notes to investors. Please review these carefully together with the risk factors described in our Form 10-K and our other public filings with the SEC and Canadian securities regulators. I will now turn the call over to our CEO and President, Matt Gilley.

Thank you, Alex. On slide three, and thank you everyone for joining us today. In addition to Alex, joining me on the call are Roger Smith, our CFO; Steve Hatten, our Chief Operating Officer; Ryan Scheerman, VP of Regulatory Affairs; and Jade Wally, VP Finance. It is an exciting time to be a U.S. uranium producer. The nuclear and uranium market environment continues to strengthen and support our long-term growth strategy. Electricity demand growth driven by AI data center development is increasingly pushing the world towards nuclear energy for clean, reliable baseload power. Nuclear momentum continues to build through reactor restarts, life extension programs, and SMR development initiatives. Recently, countries such as South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan that depend on LNG imports have increased efforts to restart or expand nuclear generation in response to the closing of the Straits of Hormuz. And just a few weeks ago, TerraPower broke ground on the first utility-scale advanced nuclear power plant here in the state of Wyoming. At the same time, U.S. government policies and programs are supporting domestic nuclear fuel supply chains, and regulatory reforms intend to accelerate nuclear deployment. In January, the Department of Energy announced approximately $2.7 billion in contract awards to support the development of domestic low-enriched uranium and high-assay low-enriched uranium enrichment capacity. Long-term demand growth is expected to require significant new mine development. And while the nuclear industry is increasingly focused on secure uranium supply, only about 4% of uranium deliveries to U.S. utilities in 2024 were U.S. origin. We believe these market tailwinds continue to highlight the strategic importance of domestic uranium production. Now, let us talk about what we at Ur-Energy Inc. are doing to contribute to the transformation of the nuclear industry. Slide four. The start of 2026 brought several meaningful operational wins as we continue executing on our uranium production growth strategy. At Lost Creek, we improved our operational performance, which reflects the work we have been doing to improve flow rates. We captured 110 thousand pounds on resin during the first quarter. That is an increase of 41% over the last quarter and 48% more than 2025. We drummed and packaged 96 thousand pounds during the quarter and increased finished inventory at the conversion facility to more than 417 thousand pounds, which is a 14% increase since year-end. We also continue to improve our cost profile at Lost Creek. The average cash cost per pound sold dropped 13% quarter-over-quarter to $30.[inaudible] per pound. This cost per pound includes ad valorem and severance tax. We sold 55 thousand pounds during the quarter, which was in line with our committed delivery schedule. Note that our delivery schedule for 2026 is heavily weighted towards the second half of the year. We continue to ramp up with both mines. Our average sales price was $71 per pound, which is a 12% increase over 2025 as our sales this quarter were under newer contracts with more favorable pricing structures. We ended the quarter with $123 million of unrestricted cash. On slide five, Lost Creek. Looking forward at Lost Creek, we drummed over 57 thousand pounds in April. That is our highest monthly total since we decided to ramp up operations in 2023. Our production trend at Lost Creek continues to move in the right direction. We are still focused on better optimizing operations and increasing production rates. We have made some great strides ramping up production rates at Lost Creek. However, our flow rates continue to be impacted by fine particles from the host formation. To manage these fines, we are installing and commissioning a sand filter system that is on schedule to come online this quarter. Our 2026 production plans in the wellfield are focused on phase two of the first mine unit, Mine Unit 1. These plans remain on schedule with new header houses continuing to come online. We continue to prepare for the next mine unit, Mine Unit 5, to come online in 2027. Again, while production is trending in the right direction, we believe the specific initiatives that are underway position Lost Creek for stronger production performance as the year progresses. Slide six, Shirley Basin operations. The company reached a major milestone in April when we commenced initial mining operations at our Shirley Basin mine. After Wyoming regulators completed their inspection, we brought our first header house online, and we are now capturing uranium on resin from production solution. Construction and wellfield development activities at Shirley Basin accelerated and progressed significantly during the first quarter. By the end of the quarter, we had pilot drilled [inaudible] production and injection wells, cased [inaudible] of these wells, and constructed five header houses. We have been operating eight drills in line with our production needs. Shirley Basin is a satellite facility. We will be transporting uranium-loaded resin to Lost Creek for final processing and packaging. So our next major milestone is to start moving resin to Lost Creek. At this point, the infrastructure at Shirley Basin is substantially complete. Subject to our additional and final regulatory approval, we expect to start these shipments in the summer. This integrated operating model enhances efficiency, supports production scalability, and should substantially increase our uranium production. Shirley Basin is a historically significant uranium district that played an important role in the early development of ISR mining in Wyoming. We are on track to bringing this back into commercial production soon. Slide seven, our Wyoming ISR growth portfolio. Beyond our operating projects, we continue exploration activities across our Wyoming project portfolio that will support development decisions. At our Lost Soldier project, we commenced aquifer testing in April and plan to start baseline environmental studies this year. We are on plan to have an updated technical report, including economics, completed by year-end. There are 4 thousand historical holes at Lost Soldier, and it is close to Lost Creek. So the project has strong potential to be a future satellite operation that leverages our existing infrastructure. We also completed 33 exploration drill holes at our North Hassel project before the seasonal sage-grouse restrictions started in March. The results include 13 ore grade intercepts and indicate potential for a stacked roll-front ISR system with up to eight individual roll fronts. Looking ahead, we also have plans to begin a drill program of approximately 120 holes at our Lost Creek South property later this summer with the goal to further extend Lost Creek into a new mine unit. And on slide eight, closing, we entered the second quarter with $122 million in cash, over 417 thousand pounds of uranium in inventory at the conversion facility, and momentum building on both of our operating mines. As we move through 2026, our priorities remain focused: continue to increase flow rates and optimize operations at Lost Creek; achieve commercial production this summer at Shirley Basin, followed by production ramp-up; continue to advance our Wyoming exploration portfolio towards development decisions; continue to improve our safety culture and performance, which has already seen significant improvement; and meet our 2026 uranium sales agreement commitments from existing inventory and production. On that point, our production plans still support our potential to meet these commitments after commencing shipments from Shirley Basin, bringing the sand filters online at Lost Creek, and our other initiatives to continue to increase production. As I mentioned, the substantial majority of our deliveries are scheduled for later in the year. We are capturing uranium at Shirley Basin and are close to having two ISR uranium mines in commercial production. We are improving our production momentum, we are advancing our Wyoming ISR project pipeline, and we have a strong balance sheet. We are also bullish on the need for a larger supply of U.S.-produced uranium for an expanding nuclear industry. As one of the few U.S. uranium mining companies that is actually producing uranium, we believe Ur-Energy Inc. is well positioned to help meet the growing demand. I will now turn the call back to the operator to open up the Q&A.

Certainly. At this time, we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press 2 if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the keys. One moment, please, while we poll for questions.

Your first question for today is from Heiko Ihle with H.C. Wainwright.

Hey, Matt and team. Nice little comprehensive overview you just gave. Hey, Matt. Can you give a bit of color on what you are seeing in conversations with your utility partners, given the current geopolitical risk factors that we are seeing around the world? I assume that conversations—the tone is quite positive, but maybe you want to provide the audience with a bit of color on what you are seeing in the actual market.

Oh, absolutely, Heiko. What we are seeing is a lot of activity from U.S. utilities in the first quarter regarding contracting future uranium supply. Now, of course, you would expect that. We are also seeing—I am trying to be very careful; I do not want to ever disclose anything confidential—we are starting to see a lot more interest in securing supply over price negotiations. In summary, without divulging anything confidential, there is a lot of energy right now regarding utilities looking to secure future supply. Of course, for a utility, future supply generally starts three years out, but we are starting to see a lot of interest. We get a lot of inbound RFPs. We are very careful and choosy about what we respond to because we do not want to overcommit. We have a very well-crafted commitment forecast, and we like to keep pounds extra so that we have the ability to be flexible in the future. But it is very strong out there right now regarding utilities looking out.

Fair enough. And then just for our model, how much money has been spent at Shirley year to date? And maybe if you want to give a bit of color on the rest of the year quarter by quarter, please.

Absolutely. I am going to answer quickly, then I am going to pass over to Roger to fill in the details. The entire commitment for Shirley Basin for capital this year remains at $25.5 million. That is unchanged.

Yeah, it is unchanged.

The total capital commitment for the water treatment upgrades at Lost Creek is now forecast between $25 million and $33 million. What we did there is we expedited and brought forward the building of those sand filters, which is critical to us meeting our production goals, and we have incurred a slight increase in expense by bringing those sand filters forward. Steve can go through that in more detail, but we are now at the stage where the sand filters are installed on a pad at the plant, we are piping in the sand filters, and we have the aggregate ready for installation within those sand filters.

No. I do not think so. Just know, Heiko, that we are focusing on the very detailed engineering for the Lost Creek work, already working with the construction team as well and getting procurement done as quickly as possible so we can really advance hard construction at Lost Creek this summer. But Shirley is moving along steadily. Most of the main equipment is in, and the things that you see on our site show you that. So we feel good about that.

Roger, did you have any further color on the quantity at Shirley Basin we spent in the first quarter?

Yes, just a bit. Heiko, thanks for the question. During Q1, we spent approximately [inaudible] million dollars of that $25.5 million of CapEx for this year. So we have probably just under $15 million yet to spend on Shirley CapEx throughout the year.

Thanks, Heiko. Does that cover what you are looking for?

It does. But would you want to guess a little bit on a quarterly basis—like, a little bit more color?

I think I do not want to guess. Look, Shirley Basin construction is heavily weighted towards the first half of the year, because we are in the very final stages of construction.

Fair enough. I will get back in queue. Thank you, guys.

Thanks, Heiko.

Your next question is from Anthony Tagliari with Canaccord Genuity.

Hey, good morning, Anthony.

Hey. Thanks for taking my questions. Maybe just on Lost Creek. Noting the 57 thousand pounds drummed in April, should we expect this to be linear for the rest of Q2? Is there any reason why production in May and June might be a bit lower than April?

You know, again, I am being very careful with putting out future guidance. I will say that in April, we actually exceeded our internal plan for production for the month. So April was a really good month. When you talk about linear, I would look at more linear from a quarter-over-quarter standpoint versus a month-by-month standpoint, peaking out with Shirley Basin and getting us to that 1.3 million pounds.

Okay, great. So maybe just the follow-up for Shirley Basin. How has that start-up been versus expectations? Maybe some commentary there would be great. And what still needs to happen from a regulatory point of view to begin shipping loaded resin to Lost Creek? And when you say summer months, is that sort of like a mid-June timeline?

I will answer the first question then hand over to Ryan. Our internal plan was that we would have the ability to add excipient and start liberating uranium by April, and we were able to set that timeline. We were actually a week or two ahead of schedule. That is progressing very well and on track. We are very excited about what we are seeing so far at Shirley Basin. Ryan, can you give more color into what is that final regulatory approval?

Yeah. So final regulatory approval is a pre-operational inspection. What this is is just a verification that infrastructure and our programs are in place to safely do what we said we were going to do. At this point, we do not believe we have anything that would preclude us from passing through that inspection. We have been preparing for it, and it has been on our radar. It is a regular part of business, so nothing out of the norm for us on that.

And when we expect to do that, again, being careful, but your original assumption was fairly on track regarding timing.

Okay, great. I will pass it on. Thanks for that.

Thank you, Anthony. Your next question for today is from Analyst with Northland Capital Markets.

Hey. Good morning, Jeff.

Hey, Matt. So outside of the wastewater and some of the upgrades to address the fines issue, it sounds like there are some other general optimization initiatives at Lost Creek that you are evaluating or implementing. I was just hoping to get a little more detail on what some of those other projects are, and are these cost optimization, production optimization, or any other details you can share?

The other main business improvement activities at Lost Creek are not capital improvements at all. They are procedural and operational improvements. They are specifically regarding our maintenance systems—just getting a well-built, well-articulated, well-executed maintenance program for the plant itself—as well as beefing up procurement. We have beefed up our procurement team and are getting it aligned so that your parts are there when you need them and your kits are ready when you need to do maintenance. Those are the two primary initiatives at Lost Creek regarding beefing up operations.

Got it. Great. Appreciate that. My follow-up on the exploration side, specifically looking at Lost Soldier, I noted you are looking at some pre-permitting activities, with a technical report coming later this year. Is the technical report, would you say, kind of a prerequisite, if you will, in getting some positive data there to more fully look at a full-blown permitting exercise? Or how comfortable are you trying to accelerate potentially permitting and getting that to production relative to the technical report and more technical evaluation internally?

I understand your question—really good question. We are progressing along with the technical report for Lost Soldier, and we will do the work to the standard we always do the work, which is an extremely high standard with economics. We have initiated, or are in the process of initiating, the baseline surveys as the beginning of our permitting, because we feel very comfortable in spending that money before we finalize the technical report to make a construction decision. It is a modest spend at this time, but it is prudent, and it will accelerate the permitting process should we make a positive investment decision at the end of this year.

Got it. And in general—not trying to hold you to too specific a timeline—but is, I do not know, two to three years a good rule of thumb for permitting a project like that, or am I off one way or another?

I would say three to five years is a fair estimate.

Three to five. Perfect. Thank you. I will turn it back.

Thanks. Your next question for today is from Joseph Reagor with Roth Capital Partners.

Hey, Matt and team. Thanks for taking the questions. Most of my questions have already been touched on, but a couple other kind of fine-tuning things. Matt, in your prepared remarks, you commented on contracts being second-half weighted. Is that just because Q1 was so light that even if we put the rest of them evenly across the year, then it is going to be second-half weighted, or even over the remaining three quarters is it still second-half weighted?

It is weighted in the second half. You know how lumpy our delivery contracts are, and that is one of the consequences of the way that we contract. It comes in real lumpy. We focused our delivery commitments for the second half of the year to match our production profile for ramp-up, Joe. We put out some guidance in the 10-Q to show the delivery commitments by quarter. They are weighted to the second half to match our production ramp-up. Joe, does that answer the question you are looking for?

Yeah. That was fair. And then just, in general, as you think about how Lost Creek has performed since it restarted, there have been a number of challenges or hurdles as we have gone along from hiring to getting enough header houses built. But do you feel that the underlying resource has performed as expected, and this is simply a matter of getting enough header houses built and operating so you can get production up to nameplate? Or is there anything that has underperformed under the hood that we have not talked about yet?

Very good question, Joe. At Lost Creek, and this is reflected in our updated technical report earlier this year, Lost Creek has demonstrated the ability to produce uranium as an ore body. The resource is very solid. We have updated that resource, and we are very confident in that resource—to the point we actually added almost 4 million pounds into that resource. So the resource itself and the ability to get uranium into solution has been very well documented at Lost Creek. There were challenges in the start-up—labor was tight and drill rigs were tight and all those things—and we have worked our way through those. The thing that is hindering us from increasing ramp-up even further right now is those fines coming in from the wellfield. It is important to note our hypothesis right now: those fines are not really present in the ore body. They appear to be iron mineralization that is being liberated by the same process, with the oxidant and oxygen we are adding into the solution also oxidizing some iron mineralization. We refer to it colloquially as orange grunge that comes out on top of our resin columns. We did not anticipate needing a pre-filter into the plant before. We now have, or are installing, the filters so that we are pre-filtering all of the solution coming into the plant, as well as, on all the new header houses for Mine Unit 1, we have installed filtration at the discharge of the production wells as well. So, in summary, we are very confident in the resource at Lost Creek, and it has demonstrated—proven itself multiple times—as being there and being very amenable to what we do. I do not have something hidden that you do not know about. We really see the solution to the fines as being the next major change and inflection point in the production ramp-up curve at Lost Creek.

Okay, thanks, Matt. It is good to hear. I just had to ask, obviously.

Yeah, 100%. It is a good question. Very good question, Joe.

Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press 1. Your next question for today is from Sundari Iyer with B. Riley Securities.

Hi, Matt and team. Congratulations on the quarter. I just have two questions. Starting with the realized price—you realized about $71 per pound on Q1 sales, which was a meaningful step up from last quarter and last year. How should we think about the blended realization as we go into 2026?

Very good question. We disclosed this in the 10-Q as well. We have committed to deliver 1.3 million pounds for the year, and we expect the realized revenue from that 1.3 million pounds to be $83.2 million. So that tells you what the blend is—you can do that math and see the blended price for the year. The $71 that we received in the first quarter was a good contract, relatively better than some of the other contracts we are delivering into this year.

Got it. That is helpful. And then, on just the macro front, in the U.S. uranium space, we have just a handful of producers with permitted ISR sites. How are you thinking about the M&A landscape going through 2026? What is the appetite for organic growth or inorganic growth in this industry today?

Very probing question. I believe that all of the CEOs you talk to are going to tell you that we are in a period that appears to be amenable—being very careful with my words here—appears to be amenable to consolidation. It is a very exciting time to be a uranium producer in the United States. There is opportunity for consolidation, and we at Ur-Energy Inc. are very well placed to participate in that consolidation. We are producing today, we are located with our corporate headquarters in Casper, Wyoming, and we have a very healthy balance sheet with the cash necessary to utilize for high-quality opportunities should they arise.

Thanks, team. I will turn it back.

Thank you. I will now hand the floor over to Valerie to moderate webcast questions.

Thank you. Our first question—we touched on this earlier. Can you describe some of the terms on the long-term contracts that you have signed recently?

We do not disclose that. What I can tell you is the present appetite for long-term contracts right now—and I am really regurgitating what Cameco talks about quite a bit—you see your term price in the low nineties right now. All these prices are typically escalated to around 3%. You are seeing the term price around the low nineties. You see almost all contracts now include a portion of the delivery that is market-related with floors and ceilings. The floors and ceilings typically run right now with the floor in the $80s and the ceiling towards $120. Each one of these contracts is different. Each one has its own nuance. I am being a little careful, but that is generally the industry trend right now.

Okay. There are no more questions from the webcast.

There are no further questions from the phone lines. I will now hand the floor back to management for closing remarks.

Thank you, everyone, for participating in the call today. A very strong quarter from the standpoint of the ramp-up at Lost Creek and Shirley Basin. We are very proud of the activities we have completed. We are very energized by what we are seeing going forward. We look forward to 2026 being a real inflection year for Ur-Energy Inc., and we are proud to be part of the U.S. nuclear fuel cycle. Thank you everyone for joining today.

This concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.