Earnings Labs

Westwater Resources, Inc. (WWR)

Q3 2009 Earnings Call· Mon, Nov 9, 2009

$0.64

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to the Uranium Resources Incorporated third 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) As a reminder this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Ms. Deborah Pawlowski, Investor Relations for Uranium Resources. Thank you Ms. Pawlowski, you may begin.

Deborah Pawlowski

Analyst

Thank you, Tania, and good afternoon everyone. We appreciate your time today and your interest in Uranium Resources. On the call with us today is President and CEO, Don Ewigleben. Don was appointed as President and CEO on September 3rd and after transitioning from his previous role with AngloGold Ashanti has been fully onboard since the beginning of October. So join me in welcoming Don to the call today. Also on a call are Senior Vice President of Operations, Rick Van Horn; and Chief Financial Officer, Tom Ehrlich. Don is going to provide some comments regarding the company's operations and his perspective on its outlook, and Tom will give brief highlight of the financials. After that we will open it up for Q&A. If you don't have the news release, it can be found on our website which is 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 is sec.gov. So please review our forward-looking statements in conjunction with these precautionary factors. With that, let me turn it over to Don to begin the discussion. Don?

Don Ewigleben

Analyst

Thank you, Debbie. For those of you that I have not met as we get into the Q&A period, please don't even try with that surname it's a very difficult one and while it's pronounced Ewigleben I hope to meet all of you and so from this point forward let's just simply call it Don from here out. I do want thank those participants, many of which I have not met I do hope to meet you in the coming year. Let me start by telling you just a little bit about myself and why I decided I join URI. I hope to meet all of you soon but since I have only been on the job about 39 days, I have chosen to concentrate on meeting the URI team and learning as much as I can about our asset base and all the properties that are nearby our development areas. This is my 33rd year in mining and I spent 14 years in the coal business and approximately 19 in the mining of gold. My coal years gave me a familiarity with the utility business and I started my experience in environmental permitting. When I moved to gold in 1990, I had opportunity to develop and permit many properties in various states and countries. Working for both domestic and international mining houses, I worked in different cultures and learned that development of mining properties is never one size fits all. This was always one of the reasons that I was lured to URI and paid attention to what they were doing in the course of the past few years. I have had to develop community relations and governmental affairs strategies that had to conform to international standards but also considered the needs and desires of the local culture and…

Tom Ehrlich

Analyst

Don, thanks very much. I plan to highlight the financial result for the third quarter of 2009 and discuss a data about your eyes expectations moving forward. From an operational perspective, the production activities from our South Texas project ceased in June 2009. We did receive 6,600 pounds of positive asset adjustments that increased the uranium inventory during the third quarter of '09. Total revenue for the quarter amounted to $1.4 million. We sold just under 30,000 pounds during the third quarter at an average price of $47.21 a pound. With these sales during the quarter, we have sold substantially all of our remaining inventory and through the end of October, we have received the proceeds from these sales. Our cash position at September 30, 2009, was approximately $8.2 million. Our cash on hand at the end of October was $7.7 million. Our South Texas activities during the quarter were primarily for restoration, reclamation, and standby activities for our Vasquez and Kingsville Dome projects, and for care and maintenance activities at our Rosita project which is currently in a restoration stabilization phase. We estimate on a go-forward basis that our expenditures for restoration, reclamation for Kingsville Dome and Vasquez will be in the $1.2 million to $1.3 million range over the next 12 months. Again our cash balance of $8.2 million at September 30 of '09 was a reduction of $1.6 million from where we were at the second quarter of 2009, which is balanced with $9.3 million. During the quarter, we used $969,000 of cash from operations and had capital expenditures of about $149,000 for property, plant and equipment. Our current operating cash balance of $7.7 million at the end of October. As Don previously noted, moving forward, we're projecting an average cash spend of approximately $500,000 on a monthly basis for the balance of this year and for 2010. These expenditures will be for restoration, reclamation and holding cost for our South Texas production sites, general, administrative, legal, public company and related costs, advancement of our New Mexico properties, land holding and others. Our current employee count at the end of October 2009 totaled 44 people. This compares to 60 full-time equivalents at June 30 for 2009 and 79 employees at the beginning of 2009. As Don had mentioned, the companies management team and Board of Directors continue to probe each cost center each area of our business to minimize cost and to review all of the assets and resources to maximize these potential assets and to extend our cash position. Don?

Don Ewigleben

Analyst

Thanks, Tom. At this point, I think we're ready to open it up for questions-and-answers.

Operator

Operator

(Operator Instructions).

Deborah Pawlowski

Analyst

Well, operator I guess, we don't have questions today.

Operator

Operator

Okay. I would like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Don Ewigleben for closing comments.

Don Ewigleben

Analyst

Thank you very much and once again thanks to the participants for listening in today. If you don't have any existing questions, that's all right. We, certainly, would be prepared to answer questions at a later time. You can listen to this presentation once again from our website or you can contact key advisors or myself at any time and we'll go forward, try and respond to any question you might have at a later date. We look forward to the fourth quarter activities as we reposition this company and to be in a setting to capitalize on what we believe will be a higher uranium price. Thank you all for participating today.

Operator

Operator

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