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Westwater Resources, Inc. (WWR)

Q4 2018 Earnings Call· Tue, Feb 19, 2019

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Welcome to the Westwater Resources Inc. Full Year 2018 Results and Business Update Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions [Operator Instructions]. I would now like to turn the conference over to Christopher Jones, President and CEO. Please go ahead, Sir.

Christopher Jones

Analyst

Thanks, Aerial and thanks to all of you for joining us today. And welcome to the Westwater Resources 2018 results and Energy Materials Business Update conference call. With me here in our Centennial Headquarters is Jeff Vigil our CFO and Vice President of Finance. And with us by phone is Dain McCoig, our Vice President of Operations. I would like to remind our listeners to read our cautionary statements on the following pages as we will be discussing some forward-looking statements and information. With that, please turn to Slide 5. Westwater has moved forward on all of its business goals set in 2018. In the first half of the year, the company finalized the Alabama Graphite acquisition and made notable progress on our business plan to unlock shareholder value. The second half of 2018 saw continued progress in the development of our graphite business with further production and testing in commercial quality purified micronized graphite. Just a couple of months ago, we also announced a significant Canadian discovery at our Coosa Graphite Project in Alabama. All of the progress comes due to the hard work of the Westwater team who have many decades of combined experience, operating mining, processing and manufacturing facilities of up to a billion dollars in annual revenue. Our current business development plan outlines pilot plant operations beginning in the second half of 2019. The plan startup and initial operations will use graphite feedstock purchased on the open market, allowing us to bring revenues and the cash flow forward over time. The initial revenues from the processing facilities are anticipated in 2020 with Westwater's graphite business projected to generate positive cash flows by 2021. Also keep in mind that we have over two dozen non-disclosure agreements signed and in place with potential suppliers and customers relating to…

Jeff Vigil

Analyst

Thanks Chris. Good morning everyone. First let's look at our capital structure on Slide 6. Our recent share price of $0.17 and was approximately 74.4 million shares outstanding. Our market capitalization stands at $12.9 million. During 2018, our stock performance was influenced largely by continued pressure on the mental space along with their mining and exploration license being revoked for our Temrezli and Sefaatli projects in June 2018. Fundamentally, our business is strong and we believe our current asset diversification strategy expanding into the battery material supply chain sector and other factors provide significant upside potential for the company in the long-term. Please turn to Slide 7, our financial summary for the year ended December 31, 2018. Net cash used in operating activities was $11.7 million in 2018 compared to $11.6 million in 2017. The increase of $0.1 million reflected an increase in cash used for prepaid and accounts payable of $1.1 million, which was mostly offset by a decrease in operating expenses of $1 million. Mineral property expenses for the year ended December 31, 2018 were $3.5 million as compared to $4.6 million for the year ended December 31, '17. The decrease was primarily due to a reduction in exploration activity in our lithium projects in Utah and New Mexico and a reduction of land holding costs for the Cebolleta and Juan Tafoya uranium properties of $0.4 million. General and administrative expense increased by $0.7 million for the fiscal year 2018 compared with fiscal year 2017. The increase of $0.7 million in 2018 was due to increases in salaries and payroll burden of $0.3 million, largely due to a higher head count and consulting and professional expenses of $0.4 million, which was primarily related to the post-acquisition Alabama Graphite operations. Additionally, stock compensation expense increased by $0.2 million as compared to the corresponding period in 2017. These increases were partially offset by a decrease in legal, accounting and public company expenses of $0.1 million and office expenses of $0.1 million. Our consolidated net loss for the year ended December 31, 2018 was $35.7 million or $0.77 per share as compared to a loss of $19.3 million or $0.78 per share for the same period in 2018. The increase in our consolidated net loss for the prior year was primarily due to the result of larger impairment charges on our uranium properties in 2018. And the increase in general and administrative expenses of $0.7 million and the gain recorded in 2017 of $4.9 million from the sale of our Churchrock and Crownpoint uranium properties to Laramide Resources. These increases were mostly offset by a decrease in mineral property expenses of $1 million. As of December 31, 2018, company's cash balance was $1.6 million and the company had a working capital balance of $1 million. With that I'll turn it back to you, Chris.

Christopher Jones

Analyst

Thanks Jeff. Turning to Slide 8, you can see our Green-Energy asset portfolio on this slide. Westwater's portfolio includes our Coosa Graphite Project and our lithium and uranium assets. Note that all three of these minerals have been identified as critical to national security and economic prosperity by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior. Turning to Slide 9. The Coosa Graphite Project is located close to Sylacauga, Alabama of about 50 miles southeast of Birmingham. The graphite mining area is part of a geologic trend that spans tens of thousands of acres known as the Alabama Graphite belt. Alabama is a business friendly state and recently secured a billion dollar commitment for Mercedes Benz to build a lithium ion battery factory near their automobile assembly plant in Alabama. This plant will be one of six global factories providing batteries for Mercedes electric cars in the future. Several other auto manufacturers also have production facilities in Alabama. On Slide 10, you can see that the Coosa Graphite Project increases our leverage in the rapidly growing energy minerals end markets, and substantially increases revenue and cash flow opportunities. This project is the only battery grade graphite project in the contiguous United States. Current global graphite production is controlled by China, utilizing an unsustainable environmental footprint. Having a sustainable United States supply with graphite provides improved operational efficiency while not compromising on the required quality. The U.S. is currently 100% import dependent on graphite. We are involved in negotiations with officials in Alabama and Coosa County to cite and permit the full scale processing facility, as well as exploring mutually beneficial business practice. On Slide 11, this illustrates the three graphite materials with enhanced conductivity performance that are used by battery manufacturers; Purified Micronized Graphite or PMG; Delaminated Expanded Graphite, DEXDG; and Coated…

Operator

Operator

Thank you [Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from Debra Fiakas of Crystal Equity Research.

Debra Fiakas

Analyst

Thank you. Congratulations on your safety and health record, that's actually quite exceptional given the fact that perhaps a good share of your employees are out there in the field and mixing it up with the elements. I have a couple of questions. And I think maybe I'll get the housekeeping questions out of the way first, and these are mostly for Jeff. The budget is $42 million for plant construction and the pilot plant, and then there is a net present value of $400 million and $500 hundred million. I assume that those numbers are not -- and I just want to clarify that those numbers do not include then the vanadium opportunity that we might see a change in these numbers once you get the next round of testing completed.

JeffVigil

Analyst

No, they do not include the vanadium economics at all. So we’re too early stages in that the vanadium exploration opportunity.

Debra Fiakas

Analyst

And then maybe you could just give us a hint as to the timeline. These first tests were completed pretty fast and the next round of testing is intended to give you a little bit more clarity on the numbers. When do you anticipate that you'll have a better graph of how the cost -- what the cost might be of adding that vanadium processing to the mix and also then what impact that might have on your revenue and earnings?

Christopher Jones

Analyst

Debra, this is Chris. And by the way, thanks for that compliment on our safety and health. That is the hard work of our guys down in Texas, primarily in doing all the right stuff. We're very proud of that. With regard to the vanadium. Yes, it has been very short cycle from October through a sampling of our existing drill holes in December. We have been able to report now results from those 1,900 plus samples. I want to say that the vanadium is far more widespread than we thought, which is a good news story. And the grades are ranging from about 0.12% up to 0.4%, we're very excited about the possibilities there. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be designing an exploration plan in order to fully explore and quantify that vanadium story. And as you know, once we execute the exploration story, some modeling is involved and an upgrade to our resource model should take place. You should plan for result certainly by the end of this year, if not before.

Debra Fiakas

Analyst

And then the other housekeeping question for you Jeff is in regard to the line item related to the impairment of the uranium properties. And of course this relates to the Turkey project. But I noticed that there was a significant increase in the year-end report versus the year-to-date figure in the third quarter. And I wondered if you could perhaps just provide me with a little bit of education on why that number should increase?

JeffVigil

Analyst

Through September 30th, Debra, the impairment that we recorded and actually it was in June was related to Temrezli and Sefaatli that’s about $18 million. And through the course of the -- and I think in our past discussions, we've mentioned that we plan to use our Rosita uranium processing facility as part of the infrastructure in Turkey. So along with the verification of those licenses, the opportunity average really utilizes Rosita equipment went away as well. So we've looked at alternative operating plans relative to the mill at Rosita and determined that at this point in time, it's purely a valuation and an impairment type of an approach to evaluation. We looked at it we didn't have a current operating plan otherwise to put that facility into. And so from an valuation standpoint, the best use of the facility from a valuation standpoint is its sales value. So we did an impairment analysis on the net realizable sales value of equipment and that resulted in about close to $6 million impairment entry that we made. The facility is still there, still in good shape and certainly it's an opportunity to utilize that, it's available and ready to be put into the business plan. So it was Rosita facility and some of that equipment in Texas that resulted in the second charge that we recorded in the fourth quarter.

Debra Fiakas

Analyst

And if I am still allowed, if I can ask just one more question and this is in regard to the graphite market, I wondered and the process is for you Chris. Just clarify what's in the presentation and what is in your remarks. The presentation suggests revenues from the graphic project in 2021 with positive cash flow into 2022. But in your prepared remarks I thought I heard both of those two actually in 2020 and 2021. If you could just clarify that the revenues are coming along in 2020?

Christopher Jones

Analyst

The plant is designed for startup in 2020 and with revenues soon to follow. So it is a fourth quarter '20 and 2021 revenue…

Debra Fiakas

Analyst

And then again on -- in regard to the graphite market, it's great that you've got a couple dozen NDAs out there and that there are prospects that are testing it. I just wondered if maybe you could -- I know, you really tried to adhere very carefully to their privacy and to your competitive position. But if you can maybe just give us a little bit of color on your potential relationships with these prospects? Are they mostly coming to you and talking to you about meeting and further criteria? Or they bring even early enough that you can get involved with actually helping to design a material or helping to design a project? I'm just trying to get an idea of how collaborative these relationships might be.

Christopher Jones

Analyst

Debra, it's a little bit of both. Companies that have been making for instance alkaline power cells are in the United States for years, already have a predefined set of criteria. And our products need to conform to that, so that's the design of their testing. Other customers that are exploring enhanced performing materials for batteries that due to our NDA, we do need to keep confidential. They're exploring many uses in the battery spaces, and it is very exciting for us to work collaboratively with folks like that. We've had one relationship that it's been ongoing for two years and develop some battery materials, so it spans both spectrums.

Debra Fiakas

Analyst

I do have additional questions, so I'll just step back out and we'll have someone else to ask and then come back in later. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

[Operator instructions] Our next question comes from Michael Drummond, the Private Investor.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

What is the strategy with the NASDAQ de-listing of March the 11th?

Christopher Jones

Analyst

As you would note, we put in along with our K late last week, we did put a proxy into the SEC for evaluation. In that proxy, which is public information, we do include a request for them and for our shareholders to evaluate and vote on a reverse split. The NASDAQ requires a positive action by us to remain listed. We regard that listing as very precious and important to the company. It provides access to American capital markets in a way that no subsidiary listing would. In addition, compliance with the NASDAQ and the positive parts of having a share price over $1 are important to draw critical strategic investors to our company as well. So hopefully, that answers your question, Michael.

Unidentified Analyst

Analyst

And you anticipate achieving that prior to March 11th?

Christopher Jones

Analyst

Somewhere in that timeframe, we would need to achieve that price. So the NASDAQ allows for -- if you have a positive plan of action to do something, the NASDAQ has some allowance for that. And we’ll be working with NASDAQ to explore that.

Operator

Operator

[Operator instructions] We have a follow up question from Debra Fiakas of Crystal Equity Research.

Debra Fiakas

Analyst

This question actually is a new topic of discussion. I wanted to ask a little bit about your efforts to go to arbitration with the Turkey mining authority. And I wondered if you might be able to tell us what the next step is. Are you are you waiting for some date, or you now expect it to respond in some way? And I wondered if you could tell us whether or not the panel, the arbitration panel has actually been ceded?

Christopher Jones

Analyst

So unlike American trial procedures and practices, exit works confidentially for most of its actions. So there's not a lot of we can talk about. So whether or not the panel has been impaneled or charged it's something that resides within exits purview right now. We can say that our next point of process with the International Court is a hearing that we expect sometime mid-summer or earlier to establish the procedures and the go forward plan for the trial. But anything apart from that, we’re really not at liberty to talk about except to say that we are aggressively pursuing our rights and compensation from the Republic of Turkey.

Debra Fiakas

Analyst

And then my very last question would be in regard again to the graphite market. I heard you mentioned in your prepared remarks that you're starting to do a little bit of negotiation in terms of site permitting. And I just wondered what concerns or what things that you might be working on at this early date for the site permitting in the graphite projects in Alabama?

Christopher Jones

Analyst

So there's a number of aspects to site permitting, they're a little bit counterintuitive. One is we are a considerable consumer of electricity. So working with Alabama Power for instance is paramount in our site selection. We want to be near their distribution lines to take full advantage of the right structures they can put in place versus people to buy power from unlike other co ops. Secondly, we want to make sure that the site is located near enough the mineral property, so the transportation factors all turn into a larger component than they need to. So citing the facility within 10 or 20 miles is certainly a great idea. And thirdly, there are counties like Coosa County in Alabama that, because of their economic circumstance, provide an avenue for some fantastic economic incentives for us to site there. So we're evaluating all three of those aspects as we look for a place to cite the facility.

Debra Fiakas

Analyst

And I guess and perhaps given the fact that Amazon has been very publicly booted out of Long Island City here in my hometown of New York. Perhaps, I should be also asking you whether or not you have reached out to various or have plans to reach out to the various local government groups or community groups to make them aware of your plans and to include them in some dialogs that will ensure that you are a welcome addition to the community?

Christopher Jones

Analyst

Well, I'm not in a position to comment on the Amazon's exit from Long Islands…

Debra Fiakas

Analyst

I don't need that. I just need to know how things are going into Alabama.

Christopher Jones

Analyst

The local politicians and civic leaders in Coosa and surrounding counties are pretty excited about having these jobs and our retails have been greeted over not just this year as we've own the property but prior managements reach out, have been greeted with considerable enthusiasm by the locals. So, I don't think we have the same worries as Amazon.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] This concludes the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Christopher Jones for any closing remarks.

Christopher Jones

Analyst

Thank you, Ariel. And thank to all of you for attending the call and a special thanks to those that participated in by asking questions. We appreciate it and we want to wish you all a great day and a good week. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.