In a letter to shareholders issued today, Energy Fuels’ (NYSE MKT:UUUU) (TSE:EFR) chief executive officer, Stephen P. Antony, told shareholders that the company completed the acquisition of Uranerz Energy Corporation on June 18, 2015, and that the acquisition is already off to a great start:
“By adding Uranerz to our corporate family, we believe Energy Fuels has clearly emerged as the leading uranium production company focused on the U.S. This is an exciting time to be a shareholder of Energy Fuels as we work toward achieving our goal of becoming the largest uranium producer in the largest uranium market: the United States,” Antony said.
Following the Company's acquisition of Uranerz Energy, Energy Fuels can now rely on two uranium production centers, including ISR uranium production in Wyoming and conventional uranium production in Utah, with an annual combined licensed capacity of 10 million pounds of U3O8 production per year.
Indeed, it is now the only company with both ISR and conventional uranium production in the United States, and one of only three publicly-traded companies in the World with current ISR and conventional uranium production, the others being Cameco and Areva.
Energy Fuels operates the only operating conventional uranium mill in the U.S and the boasts largest NI 43-101 uranium resource portfolio in the U.S. among producers. Energy Fuels is also one of only a few companies with uranium reserves in its portfolio. It is currently the second largest uranium producer in the U.S.; only Cameco produces more. The acquisition of Uranerz significantly expands the Company’s production scalability potential.
The new Energy Fuels has become stronger by lowering costs and expanding its uranium sales contract portfolio, making the combined entity more competitive on the U.S. and global uranium sales marketplace “with over 2 million pounds of deliveries through 2020”, noted Antony.
Even as liquidity in its stock has increased, Antony expects Energy Fuels to increase its exposure to institutional and retail investors around the world thanks to its inclusion onto the Russell 2000, Russell 3000, Russell Global and Russell Microcap Indexes.
The Russell 3000 index, part of global index provider FTSE Russell, measures the performance of the largest three-thousand companies in the U.S. equity market.
As a member, Energy Fuels has also been added to the Russell 2000 index, which measures the performance of the small-cap segment of the U.S. equity universe. Approximately $5.7 trillion in assets are benchmarked to the Russell’s U.S. indexes, which are part of FTSE Russell, a leading global index provider.
Antony is optimistic about the future of nuclear energy in the United States and around the World. He said that the US remains the world’s largest consumer of uranium with 99 nuclear reactors in operation, five under construction, and several more in the planning stages.
The CEO sees opportunities for growth because, while the US is the World’s dominant consumer of uranium, it is “heavily reliant on imported uranium to fuel our reactor fleet. Right now, Energy Fuels is well-positioned as the 2nd largest supplier of uranium within the U.S. With our recent acquisition of Uranerz, our annual licensed production capacity has increased to 10 million pounds of U3O8 from our two production centers, the White Mesa conventional uranium mill and the Nichols Ranch ISR mine and plant.”
But, Antony also sees growth potential beyond the United States, fueled by environmental concerns: “the nuclear industry, which has a very small carbon footprint, could experience strong growth – and uranium producers like Energy Fuels would be expected to benefit….We expect Japan to return to the nuclear family and restart a majority of their operable reactors. As a result of all of this, we believe Energy Fuels offers shareholders like you and me sector-leading leverage to improving nuclear markets and rising uranium prices” he writes.
Ultimately, Energy Fuels said that for the long-term, the company continues to believe that the fundamentals of the nuclear energy sector are as strong as ever, resulting in uranium demand surpassing supply in the future.