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Westwater Resources, Inc. (WWR)

Q4 2014 Earnings Call· Thu, Mar 19, 2015

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Thank you for standing by. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome to the Uranium Resources Fourth Quarter Financial Results 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] At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Wendy Yang, Investor Relations for Uranium Resources. Please go ahead.

Wendy Yang

Analyst

Thanks, Joe. Welcome everyone to Uranium Resources 2014 financial results conference call. I’m Wendy Yang, Investor Relations for Uranium Resources. You will find our company listed as URRE on the NASDAQ. This call is being webcast on our Web site at uraniumresources.com where we have posted slides to accompany our remarks. Telephonic replay of the call will be available from our Web site for three weeks following today’s call. We will be discussing some forward-looking information today and we caution our audience that such statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from projections. Please review our cautionary statement on slides 2 and 3 and review the risk factors including some that are specific to our industry described in the latest annual and quarterly financial reports filed with the U.S. SEC. We have a brief presentation before the question-and-answer portion of today’s call. Our presenters are Chris Jones, President, Chief Executive Officer and Director; and Jeff Vigil, Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Finance. Chris, please go head.

Chris Jones

Analyst · ROTH Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Thanks, Wendy. Welcome and thank you all for joining us today. Let's turn to Slide 4. We reinforced our pipeline of projects around our two licensed 8,000 pound per year processing plants in South Texas with a strategic non-cash land exchange in November of 2014. With that we increased our land position in the South Texas uranium province by two-fold to approximately 17,000 acres. Adding the Alta Mesa Este, Butler Ranch and Sejita Dome projects to enhance our mid-term path to production. These projects add to our asset base and may serve as future satellite operations feeding our processing facilities. All the new properties are located within 75 miles of our processing plants, presently on standby for a production restart when there is sufficient and sustained uranium price recovery. Two weeks ago we successfully raised $5.4 million in dollars in net proceeds from a registered direct offering of securities. We appreciate the support of our shareholders in our efforts to move URI forward in a continuing difficult market environment. While the uranium spot price has shown improvement in recent months to as of this morning over $40 per pound, we remain focused on building our business to ensure growth for the future. We are excited about the year ahead and our expanded scope of business activities including an $800,000 exploration drilling program in South Texas even as we anticipate further reducing the company's cash expenditures to $9 million in 2015. 2014 was about cost optimization in our financial, operational and general and administrative functions for a streamlined and more agile organization. Our team's vigilant and relentless improvement had dramatically reduced our annual cash expenditure. Our targeted cash expenditure for 2015 is about a quarter less than the $11.6 million expended in 2013 and just over half the cash expenditures in…

Jeff Vigil

Analyst · ROTH Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Thank you, Chris. Good morning everyone. The [data] [ph] shown here reflects the closing of the registered direct financing on March 6, 2015. The [offering] [ph] was for the sale of 4 million units realizing gross proceeds of $6 million. Each unit consisting of one share and one warrant for 0.55 of one share, sold for $1.50 per share. The warrants have a strike price of $2 and are exercisable for a period of 5 years commencing on September 6, 2015. Upon closing of the financing, or cash balance was $8.9 million. As Chris stated earlier, our current cash and the availability of our At-The-Market sales facility are expected to fund our 2015 plans including the exploration drilling program and our working capital needs well into 2016. As of today, we have 29.6 million shares outstanding and 35.7 million fully diluted shares. Moving to the balance sheet on Slide 7. Our year-end 2014 working capital was $3.8 million, an increase of $5 million from a working capital debt of $1.2 million at the end of 2013. In regards to our At-The-Market sales agreement, we raised gross proceeds of approximately $3 million in 2014 and through the end of February 2015. Our convertible loan outstanding with our largest shareholder, Resource Capital Funds, remains unchanged at $8 million. RCF has been taking their interest payments which is based on a 10% coupon in common stock. The convertible loan matures at the end of 2016 and maybe converted into common stock at a price of $2.60 per share. On slide 8, net cash used in operations was $12 million in 2014, an improvement of 22% from $15.3 million in 2013. This was a result of our cost reductions companywide which include lower mineral property expenses, land holding cost and general and administrative expenses. Mineral property expenses at $3.5 million in 2014 were 33% lower than in 2013. General and administrative expenses dropped by 6% as shown on the slide. In regard to G&A, when we exclude non-cash stock compensation over the same period, cash expenses for G&A decreased by $1.2 million or 13%. Our net loss of $10.7 million or $0.44 per share in 2014 is compared with a net loss of $20.3 million or $1.06 per share in 2013. The lower net loss was due primarily to a non-cash market -- excuse me, mark-to-market gain of $2.9 million and derivative accounting treatment related to the convertible loan, a non-cash gain of $2.3 million for the land asset exchange, a reduction of $3.9 million in impairment cost from the prior year and a reduction in mineral property expenses. Back to you Chris?

Chris Jones

Analyst · ROTH Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Thanks, Jeff. We have enhanced our pipeline of projects as shown here on Slide 9 with the additions of five new Texas projects from our cashless asset exchange. We added Alta Mesa Este, Butler Ranch and Sejita Dome in South Texas to Churchrock in our mid-term production projects. The other two Texas properties, Jack Pump and Nell are considered prospective early stage exploration projects with indications of uranium mineralization that may be amenable to ISR methods. This is a simple land swap. We exchanged our long-lead conventional properties in New Mexico for nearer term potential ISR projects in South Texas close our processing infrastructure. In effect, we bought pounds forward in time. It is important to know that we retain some leases mining claims and fee-owned mineral interest which we continue to refer to as our Roca Honda project. To fill out our path to production in the near term, we have two currently idled South Texas processing plants which have ISR deposits with 674,000 in-place pounds of uranium in 419,000 tons at an average grade of 0.08%. And in our long-term portfolio are the Cebolleta, Crownpoint, Juan Tafoya and Roca Honda projects in New Mexico. We have almost 51 million pounds in in-place uranium in mineralized material with these four projects. Cebolleta is the leading project in the long-term portion of our pipeline. The Canada National Instrument 43-101 complaint technical report for Cebolleta competed in April of 2014 recommends that we advance this to a preliminary economic assessment. Another recommendation was to drill and develop an initial resource model and mineralized material estimate for the historic Saint Anthony mine area. We are evaluating the path forward on Cebolleta while concentrating on our current efforts in Texas. Slide 10 shows the location of our South Texas projects with our Rosita…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The first question today comes from Joseph Reagor of ROTH Capital Partners. Please go ahead.

Joseph Reagor

Analyst · ROTH Capital Partners. Please go ahead

So three kind of quick questions. First one, what is remaining on the ATM?

Jeff Vigil

Analyst · ROTH Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Total capacity on the ATM? It's $6 million of that, Joe.

Joseph Reagor

Analyst · ROTH Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Okay. Then on the drilling program, maybe I missed this, but what's the total cost you guys are assigning to that drilling program for this year?

Jeff Vigil

Analyst · ROTH Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Our total estimated spend is $800,000 for this year and that includes both Butler Ranch and Alta Mesa Este drilling for the year.

Joseph Reagor

Analyst · ROTH Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Okay. And then with uranium recovering, we now just ticked over $40 for spot and it looks like long-term contracts can be signed in the $50 range. How far do you think you guys are away from putting one of the one of the Texas projects into production?

Chris Jones

Analyst · ROTH Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Thanks for that Joe. I think, first of all remember that all of our Texas pounds are currently under contract at a discount to both long-term and short-term pricing. For us, we really look for spot prices to one, be in the $48 or so range and with a trend to support that price before we'll make that critical decision to restart production in Texas. We really want 10% margin on our pounds for safety so when we start up it's a right thing to do and is continuous.

Joseph Reagor

Analyst · ROTH Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Is there any clause on your contracts that would allow you to -- since they are spot minus, is there a clause where you can buy them back?

Chris Jones

Analyst · ROTH Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Not to my knowledge. Not in my knowledge, Joe.

Operator

Operator

Next question is from Dan Scott with Cowen & Company. Please go ahead.

Dan Scott

Analyst · Cowen & Company. Please go ahead

Two questions for me. First is, with the recent deal between Energy Fuels and Uranerz, how do you think about the landscape for U.S. based producers right now? Does this change your business approach? What are your thoughts on M&A?

Chris Jones

Analyst · Cowen & Company. Please go ahead

Actually it reinforces the story and our thinking over the last couple of years. The space is ripe for consolidation and it needs to be done and EFR has taken a first, an important first step in their work with Uranerz.

Dan Scott

Analyst · Cowen & Company. Please go ahead

Okay. And then second, when I look at your pipeline of projects slide and with the land swap that you guys did, you now have the three Texas properties and Churchrock listed in your mid-term. Has Churchrock slipped a little bit or would you kind of handicap them all parallel or is there any preference at this point, one project over another.

Chris Jones

Analyst · Cowen & Company. Please go ahead

We still look upon Churchrock as being in that three to five year timeframe based on our discussions and what our future discussions we have with Navajo Nation. What we have done by adding our Sejita Dome, Butler Ranch and Alta Mesa Este projects is done two things. We have de-risked that three to five year timeframe and we have put important low-cost pounds into the program for our future restart. As you well know, the permitting timelines in Texas are quite a bit favorable to our business. Instead of the five to eight year timeframes that we look upon in other locations in United States, Texas is a two to three-year timeframe on permitting operations of our type. Add a year of exploration and development to that, we can see production in South Texas on those three properties as soon as three and certainly within that three to five year timeframe.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from Michael Legg with Midtown Partners. Please go ahead.

Michael Legg

Analyst · Midtown Partners. Please go ahead

Two questions. First, what was your cost of ISR production? What's your estimated cost?

Chris Jones

Analyst · Midtown Partners. Please go ahead

First of all, let me preface our answer our by, typically we use an all-in sustaining cost of production that includes all the capital required to develop the well field, complete the wells, operate the plant and the well fields and reclaim. And on that basis, our all-in sustaining cost in Texas is around $48 a pound, subject to aggressive revision as we get closer and closer to production and as we further reduce our costs elsewhere in the organization. Secondly, if you were to look at a cash cost of production, similar to what some of other uranium companies in the United States report, we would be in that low 30s.

Michael Legg

Analyst · Midtown Partners. Please go ahead

Okay. And then when you look at your cost of equity these days with the stock price where it is, is there any way that your major shareholder would increase the debt capacity they have with you as opposed to going to the ATM to obviously continue the cost of capital with equity?

Chris Jones

Analyst · Midtown Partners. Please go ahead

We have not yet entered into any discussions with RCF about any changes to our current debt facility. So it's a little premature for us to answer it at this time.

Operator

Operator

Next question is from Rob Chang with Cantor Fitzgerald. Please go ahead.

Rob Chang

Analyst · Cantor Fitzgerald. Please go ahead

Just a follow up on the question that was asked just a touch earlier. The all-in sustaining cost you mentioned is $48 and you did mention you wanted a 10% margin. So is it safe to assume the magic number, so to speak, is around $53?

Chris Jones

Analyst · Cantor Fitzgerald. Please go ahead

Actually, given our contracts and the way they are set up, spot price around $48 gives us that 10% margin when we start up.

Operator

Operator

There are no more questions at this time. I will turn the conference back over to Mr. Chris Jones for closing remarks.

Chris Jones

Analyst · ROTH Capital Partners. Please go ahead

Ladies and gentlemen, we want to thank you for allowing us to provide you with an update on Uranium Resources. Have a great day.

Operator

Operator

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