Earnings Labs

Westwater Resources, Inc. (WWR)

Q2 2009 Earnings Call· Mon, Aug 10, 2009

$0.64

-1.68%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

+5.77%

1 Week

-6.73%

1 Month

-4.81%

vs S&P

-8.57%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Greetings, and welcome to the Uranium Resources second quarter 2009 financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A brief question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. (Operator Instructions) It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Miss Deborah Pawlowski, Investor Relations for Uranium Resources. Thank you Miss Pawlowski, you may begin.

Deborah Pawlowski

Management

Thank you, operator and good afternoon everyone. We appreciate your time today and your interest in Uranium Resources. On the call is President and CEO, Dave Clark; Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, Rick Van Horn; and Chief Financial Officer, Tom Ehrlich. Dave is going to provide some comments regarding the company and today’s release, as well as the outlook, and Tom will then do a brief review of the financials. After that we will open it up for Q&A. If you don’t have a news release, it can be found on our website which is www.uraniumresources.com. As you are aware, we may make some forward-statements during the formal presentation and the Q&A portion of this teleconference. Those statements apply to future events, which are subject to risks and uncertainties, as well as other factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from where we are today. These factors are outlined in the news release, as well as in documents filed by the company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. You can find those at our website, where we regularly post information, as well as the SEC’s website which www.sec.gov. So please review our forward-looking statements in conjunction with these precautionary factors. With that, let me turn it over to Dave to begin the discussion. Dave.

David Clark

Management

Thanks Debbie. Good afternoon everybody. Thanks for giving us a small piece of your summer for what I believe you’ll find to be some very good news about URI. I have to tell you, I have been looking forward to this day for the past several months. The day when I can finally feel free to tell you the full extent of our actions this year, and how these actions are helping us achieve the main objective of our strategic plan. When I drafted the strategic plan two year ago, the internal vision statement called for URI to become a $20 per share company. Of course that was when uranium prices were headed to about $100 per pound, and URI was trading at $8 per share. On the March 2009 call, I talked about my expectation for uranium to trade in the range of $40 to $70 per pound neutrally for the next several years; nothing has happened since to change that view. I still believe a $40 price will continue to offer major support, given the cost curve considerations; and that $70 is high enough for supply to meet demand in an economic environment where new reactor schedules maybe pushed out a few years, together with the real possibility with the Obama Administration, in an effort to fight runaway deficits, may elect to increase uranium sales. Given these expectations, we refined our strategy earlier this year to focus our attention on the development of the Crownpoint Uranium Project, which led us to shift towards building our ISR resources and move away from conventional mining for now, given the simple but not economically viable in today’s market. This refinement of strategy, together with everything that has happened this year, has changed my per share value expectations for URI in an…

Tom Ehrlich

Management

Thank you, Dave. Our South Texas production activities ceased in June 2009 as Dave said. Our second quarter production totaled 20,300 pounds. Since October ‘08, all of our new production has been from the Kingsville Dome project. Direct costs of production for the current quarter was about $36 a pound, roughly $10 higher than what our costs were in the first quarter. As we had communicated previously, we said that we would remain in production as long as our activities maintained a positive impact on our cash flow. As our production volumes declined and the costs increased, we made that decision to cease our production in the June timeframe. At the end of the second quarter, we had just under 21,000 pounds of uranium inventory, which was produced at an average cost of just under $30 a pound. The inventory that we carried at the end of June, was included in a sale that we made in the first week of August, totaling just under 23,000 pounds. The average price for the material that we delivered in August was over $47 a pound, which results in revenue of just over $1 million that will be recorded and received in the third quarter this year. Our sales revenue for the second quarter of ‘09 was $1.8 million on 30,300 pounds. The average sales price that we received for that material was $48.85 a pound. The cost related to our uranium sales during the quarter was about $25.83 a pound, totaling 945,000 pounds. The cost of sales that we saw from operations was $20.85 a pound, and our depletion, depreciation and amortization costs that we recorded during the quarter was about $5 dollars a pound. The other expenses related directly to uranium sales is primarily our royalties and commissions, and what we…

David Clark

Management

Thanks Tom. With that operator, I think we’re ready for questions.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions) Your first question comes from David Snell - Energy Equities.

David Snell - Energy Equities

Analyst

I came on late, so I’m not sure if you touched on it, but how long will it be before we lift off of this malaise in uranium prices?

David Clark

Management

David, my view really hasn’t changed since the March call. I expect to continue to trade in the $40 to $70 range. I think $40 is pretty strong as I said, given the cost curve considerations. You just need to check back on the March call at the beginning of the transcript, you can get that.

Operator

Operator

It seems there are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the floor back over to management for closing comments.

David Clark

Management

Thank you very much. Thanks everybody for taking the time to listen to us again. It’s a gorgeous day in New England. I’m sure it’s where you are as well. Thanks for the patience with us. I hope what we’ve been able to tell you today helps you understand where we’ve come from this year, and where we expect to go in the next couple of years. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today’s teleconference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.