URG Q3 2026 earnings call transcript, November 10, 2026

Thank you for the question, Sundaria. Appreciate it. Expected a question from Sundaria. So, look, I'm going to kind of answer it in two different ways, looking at each of the different properties. So, when we talk about Lost Creek, we are laying the groundwork for a plant that can be expanded to progress the output of multiple mines as we go beyond the two that we currently have in production. This year continues our successful track record as we continue to see larger year-over-year increases in production and efficiency. And we talked about it in the call. Some of the things we're doing at Lost Creek to improve the flow rates and to improve our wastewater treatment capacity. And to just continue the very successful ramp-up at Lost Creek. At Shirley Basin, we're in the early phases of ramp-up. During this time, we've been optimizing our processes, including the resin transfer system, elution and ion exchange systems at Lost Creek, well-performance in our first two header houses, and Luxivian chemistry. And we have seen very positive results since the end of the quarter. So each of the properties, we're in ramp-up. We're continuing that ramp-up. It's going very well. Oh, it's going very successful. Steve, did you have any other color to add to that? No, I think the main thing that Matt and the rest of the team are doing is we are focusing on optimizing the main components of production, which are always flow and gray.

And we work daily to increase those, and that's where we see ourselves going in 2017. But it's really exciting. And I can't be more thrilled with the progress. When I look at Lost Creek, our flow rates have increased substantially. And like Steve said, it's flowing great. The flow rates at Lost Creek are really coming up. They come up every single day this month. Couldn't be more thrilled. And it's really based on that optimization of the Lexivian chemistry is absolutely demonstrating itself with significant improvements in the grade that we received from the wealthy. So both properties are advancing through startup, advancing through ramp-up. Couldn't be more thrilled with the progress. And that's the color I've got there, Sundari. Does that answer your question? Yes, Matt. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Sindarin.

Thanks.

Great question, Anthony. You know, ramp-up is not always a straight line.

The key driver at Lost Creek is the flow. So, right now, we're in the grade environment that we're in. As we progress into my unit five, we'll get into a new environment with different grades. Really, the target of our initiatives at Lost Creek right now are the increase in flow. And the flow is going up. And production is flow times grade. So, we have flow going up and grade holding constant, which implies an increase in production. Steve? Any more color on Lost Creek and, you know, how we're progressing through the rest of this year? Sure. Look, we continue on a daily basis to look for nuggets that we can assist in increasing that grade. As Matt said, our primary focus there has been grade and flow. And with respect to flow, we have seen the increases. We have seen productivity. I've seen optimization due to the sand filters that we installed, and we are very much looking forward to that wastewater facility coming on early next year. The areas that we're working on right now, we are going back pattern by pattern, trying to find areas where we can make small increases in grade. But your assertion that the grade is what it is for the remainder of this year is closer to the reality that we face. in the later stages of mining in any pattern in any ISR facility. And it's important to note that we have, we've moved out of Mining Unit 2. We've moved into the second phase of Mining Unit 1.

So we've moved into the second phase of Mining Unit 1, and then we will then progress into Mining Unit 5. So we're always advancing through our Mining Units as we go. We do not have any permitting delays. We're just advancing through our Mining Units. Right now, we're in a... in a phase of relative...of lower grades. But grades can and do fluctuate in ISR. It has exceeded our estimates. And we expect the end of the decline curve in Mining...as we approach the end of the decline curve in Mining Unit 2, we are already in the process of... Okay, great. It's flow. That's helpful. It's the flow. That's what we focus on. It's flow. In law of streak, it's flow. And... I couldn't... I wish... I couldn't be more thrilled with the progress we're making on maximizing flow and in understanding how to operate the new filtration system. Okay, great. That's super helpful. Thank you for that. Maybe just as a follow-up on the contracting front. So, you know, we saw one of your U.S. peers recently. They signed two market reference contracts with no floors and ceilings. So, you know, indexed 100% of the spot price at the time. Delivery. Are you guys also seeing some of these contracts available? And, you know, would that be a preferred structure moving forward? Answering this to my favorite question. All right. We absolutely – see, we all get the same – we all get the same interactions with the utilities. We're all in the same environment. And we are absolutely in a state of transition, in my opinion, in a state of transition with how uranium is contracted.

What you are seeing, I believe – I'm being careful with my wording – what I believe you are seeing is absolutely a shift from pricing security to security of supply. Customers want security of supply. I know this because the term price is $10 more than the spot price. So I don't have to read between the lines. I just read the lines. And it says, that utilities are concerned about future supply. I see this as an opportunity. And I see this absolutely as a chance. I don't want spot price. I want a premium spot price going forward. And I see, you know, we're poised for a real change in how this works. And our interactions with our customers are becoming very different. And, again, they're very much focused on security of supply. That implies a premium. Does that answer your question, Anthony? It does.

Thanks, Matt.

I'll pass it on.

Yeah. So the aquifer testing is done. We're now just compiling the technical report. The absolute catalyst, the milestone, is going to be this publication of the technical report at the end of this year. Very excited about being able to share our analysis of lost soldier and then moving into a construction decision in 2027. The catalyst you're looking for is the publication of that technical report. Perfect. Appreciate it a lot. I'll hop back into Q. Thanks. You're next. Question is coming from Jeff Gramp with Northland Capital Markets. Please pose your question. Your line is live.

Hey, good morning, Matt.

Thanks, Jeff.

I'll pass over to Steve to give a little bit of color.

Sure. How are you doing, Jeff? I think during the end of the previous period, we had seen some activities related to bringing the sand filters online. Again, flow, great. I beat the same day. I beat the horse all the time as well. We know that great is fairly constant at this phase of mining in the mining that we have, so our whole focus was on flow, and during the end of the previous quarter, we had some maintenance activities that drove a lot of that flow, and we were also really learning how to optimize the use of our sand filter system. I can really say confidently that we have done a great job doing that, and we are seeing growth on a routine basis now. Yeah.

Jeff, that's the color I've got. It's about increasing flow at Lost Creek. As Steve pointed out, we did some maintenance to the ion exchange columns in the third quarter. That impacts your ability to take flow from the wellfield, and the sand filters have just completely changed the environment there and really played these with their performance. All right. Great. I appreciate those details. And for my follow-up on North Hadsall, given the positive results earlier this year, can you update us on potential timing for additional work there? Is that something that could happen next year or just any commentary on next steps would be great? Thanks.

Thanks, Jeff.

Thanks for the time, guys.

Thank you, Jeff.

Okay, thanks. Yeah, definitely. Just one follow-up. It looks like pounds captured were up 50,000 pounds quarter over quarter. Pounds drums were down roughly 35,000 pounds quarter over quarter. Can you just talk about, you know, which metric do you think is more important and why they might have differed in Q3? Okay, great question. You're very astute and you've looked at the data carefully. Look, they both matter because they both are really measuring the same things. We get paid on pounds drums. So, I tend to look at pounds drums. But pounds capture just gives you an indication that there are, that there's pounds coming into the system. When you have, when you're doing maintenance at the plant, sometimes you get into a position where you build up plant inventory. At Shirley Basin, we're absolutely. Absolutely building up captured pounds in inventory is just as you build that dead load, not the dead load, but the uranium load within your resin exchange columns. So it takes time and we start off with 0% resin and now we're building that up. And the other part of it too is that we just in the third quarter did an inventory adjustment in that we were drumming significantly more pounds than we were capturing, which is not physically possible. It just indicated to us that we were underestimating our pounds captured. Pounds captured is a calculated number. Pounds drum is measured, and that's gospel. So we just adjusted our capture to reflect what we were showing in our drums.

Okay, that makes a lot of sense.

Thanks, guys.

Yeah, thanks, Matthew.

Hi, Matt.

associated with employment in that, you know, Wyoming is a state with essentially no unemployment. But it's just the normal inflationary. There's no other drivers in Wyoming that are leading to an inflation on labor that's any different than just the overall inflation rate. Got it. Okay. Give the color, Matt. That's helpful. Yes. All right. I appreciate the sound.

Thank you, operator.

Well, I'm very pleased with the ramp up as it continues at Lost Creek and Shirley Basin and very energized by our growth strategy and the opportunities we see across our assets as we continue to build America's premier uranium powerhouse across the state of Wyoming.

Thank you, everybody, for participating in today's calls and thank you to my team for all the hard work that you do every day.

Thank you, operator.

It's constant at Shirley and at Lost Creek as well. We don't operate under campaigns. We don't bring in groups of drills and drill a bunch of wells and then have them leave. We just maintain a steady production of 25 or so rigs across the company and march our development forward. Our development is our money and we're always preparing for moving into the next environment. And we install eight to ten header houses of each mine each year and we're just going to continue to do that for the next decade. So our cash burn is relatively consistent. We did touch on finishing up the capital projects. Shirley Basin will finish off this year with another $8 million projected for next year and finish off the wastewater treatment plant there. And we're fine. Finalizing the wastewater treatment plant at Lost Creek. Does that give you color? No, absolutely. I appreciate the answer. And if I could just follow up with one more regarding Lost Soldier, are there any other critical milestones you think we should be paying close attention to before a construction decision beyond the aquifer test and technical report, which I assume the latter is coming next month? Yeah, so the aquifer testing is done. We're now just compiling the technical report. The absolute catalyst, the milestone is going to be this publication of the technical report at the end of this year. Very excited about being able to share our analysis of Lost Soldier and then moving into a construction decision in 2027.

Perfect. Appreciate it a lot. I'll hop back into Q. Thanks.

Thanks, Jeff.

I'll pass over to Steve to give a little

bit of color. Sure. How are you doing, Jeff? I think during the end of the previous period, we had seen some activities related to bringing the sand filters online. Again, flow, great. I beat the same dead horse all the time as well. We know that great. It is fairly constant at this phase of mining in the minions that we have, so our whole focus was on flow. And during the end of the previous quarter, we had some maintenance activities that drove a lot of that flow, and we were also really learning how to optimize the use of our sand filter system. I can really say confidently that we have done a great job doing that, and we are seeing growth.

Thanks, Jeff.

Thanks, Jeff.

Yeah, thanks, Matthew.

Hi, Matt.

Okay. Thank you. Give the color, Matt. That's helpful. Yes. All right. I appreciate it. Thank you. We have reached the end of the question and answer session. I would now like to invite the CEO, Matt Gilley, to provide any closing remarks.

Thank you, operator.

Look, I'm very pleased with the ramp-up as it continues at Lost Creek and Shirley Basin and very energized by our growth strategy and the opportunities we see across our assets as we continue to build America's premier uranium powerhouse across the state of Wyoming.

Thank you, everybody, for participating in today's calls and thank you to my team.

Thank you for all the hard work that you do every day.

Thank you, Operator.