Westwater Resources, Inc.
Q3 2008 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 10 Nov 2008

[Operator:]

Greetings and welcome to the Uranium Resources, Inc. third quarter 2008 earnings conference call. (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:]

Thank you, Doug, and good morning everyone. We certainly appreciate your time today and your interest in Uranium Resources. On today’s call we have President and CEO, David Clark; Rick Van Horn, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer; and Tom Ehrlich, Chief Financial Officer. Dave is going to cover some comments regarding the release and the company’s outlook , and Tom Ehrlich will do a brief review of the financials. The we will open it up it for Q&A. If you do not have the release, it can be found at our website which is uraniumresources.com As you are aware, we may make some forward-looking 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 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 and at the SEC’s website, sec.gov. So please review our forward-looking statements in conjunction with these precautionary factors. With that, let me turn it over to Dave to begin the discussion. Dave?

[David Clark:]

Thanks, Debbie. Given all that has happened in the world in the last few weeks, months, not just the world but the uranium market in particular, I’m just going to try to give every of what we have been doing in the past few months and more importantly where we go from here. As I said on the August call I believe we need to make do with what we have and that includes our cash, our production, out people and our assets. We also said at that time we would only be investing in new wellfields or putting money in the ground if we get (inaudible 00

[Tom Ehrlich:]

Thank you, Dave. In going our third quarter 2008 production costs and financial statement information, I will begin with production. We produced 62,700 pounds in the third quarter. The majority of that was produced from the Kingsville Dome project, which is about 45, 200 pounds. We also had just under 10,000 pounds from Vasquez and just under 8000 produced during the quarter from our Rosita project. Our production costs during the quarter were $68.52 a pound. Operating costs and the G&A were roughly split equally between that. Our operating costs were $34.78 a pound. Our depreciation and depletion were in the $33.74 a pound range. At the end of the quarter we had 33,600 pounds of inventory. The average cost of that inventory on the books at September 30th was $57.35. Our sales revenue for the third quarter of ’08 was $4 million on 66,300 pounds. The average sales price of $60.70. As Dave said our most recent sales, we have had sales in the month of October, an average price on those sales was $56.00 in 76 pounds (ph 00

[David Clark:]

I think we are ready for questions.

[Operator:]

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time we will be conducting a question and answer session. (Operator instructions) Our first question comes from the line of David Talbot with Dundee Securities. Please proceed with your question.

[David Talbot:]

Good morning gentlemen. I am just wondering what sort of arrangements you’ve made as far as delivering into contracts at this point?

[David Clark:]

We have what are basically production based contracts so what we produce, we deliver in a full, there is not a production quantity, limitation or obligation. It is simply whatever we produce is sold.

[David Talbot:]

Okay and you talked about monetizing non-core assets, do you have a breakdown of what you would consider a core and non-core asset at this point or are you going to try to keep that close at hand?

[David Clark:]

I think it’s close at hand. There are multiple, it’s not just from a negotiating standpoint, there’s multiple considerations in there as we constantly monitor the environment moving forward, you know, which was do we want to go. There is going to be certain strategic decisions based on how we want to move forward.

[David Talbot:]

Okay. I guess as far as potentially starting up operations again, is there a certain threshold that you are looking for? I imagine you are not going to stir it up again just to break even but you’ll be hoping for significantly higher prices going forward. Can you perhaps comment on that?

[David Clark:]

I think as mentioned earlier the breakdown of our existing contracts, obviously one is very favorable and one is very not and part of what we need to do I think is get a better contract mix. That is part of it so that we don’t have to produce again for half our production in the substantial discounts of the stock market, so that is a consideration, you know, what to realize prices and this also affects us as far as leasing and buying reserves because generally royalties are based on what your sales contract is. So one of the things we would like to get done in this period is just better our contract base and basically marketing has not been a major factor in this company. It is simply unhedged. It’s gotten to these contracts to negotiate out of (inaudible 00

[David Talbot:]

Okay, and I guess just this last question, taking a look at Rosita, I guess this is a leach issue thing you’re having and what do you see that you could do to turn that around should you bring it back into production?

[David Clark:]

Rick would you like to handle that one?

[Rick Van Horn:]

Yes. We have several things we could do. We tested as we’ve said liquid based oxygens. They work; however, they are more expensive. We have looked at well spacing. Obviously, put more wells in to cut the spacing down, that’s going to be an increase in cost, and as Dave mentioned we have the possibility of artificially increasing the water level in the aquifer which will increase the amount of oxygen that could be dissolved in the water, thus increasing the mining rate. All of these take money and increase the costs somewhat.

[David Talbot:]

Right. Okay, thank you very much gentlemen. Tough times, hang in there.

[David Clark:]

Just to add to that, it’s not a question of are the reserves there. It’s a couple hundred thousand pounds or body reserve in the ground and we expect that it’s not that it’s not there. We just have to be able to put it in solution and get it serviced.

[David Talbot:]

Right. Okay, great, thank you very much.

[Operator:]

Now our next question comes from the line of Paul Strauss, Rice-Voelker. Please proceed with your question.

[Paul Stouse:]

Good morning, guys, Mr. Stouse, I’ll correct the pronunciation.

[Operator:]

Thank you very much.

[Paul Stouse:]

I was wondering, can you guys comment on any developments that there are at Ambrosia Lake? I guess last I recall, you guys were waiting on an exploration permit there and given that you do get that permit, is that something that you will proceed with, given the capital constraints and given what you know about the geology there?

[David Clark:]

I’ll give you an update because I just got the e-mail that we just got the permit this morning. We are heading into the winter months and in New Mexico, it’s already there so it’s something that would be deferred until spring anyway, since we don’t want to be drilling in the snow. It’s difficult enough. So, I think we need to see what the environment is at that point in time, but again it is something that we’d like, there were several reasons to go after this permit, one because we think it could be ISR amenable so we need to test that. It is on non-Indian countries, that would certainly help. But it’s also an environment where we want to improve the state and work with the state to get this permit. Other companies have applied for permits and not got them. We’ve had a very good relationship with the state so it’s as much an effort to work with the state and educate them, the regulators as well, to move forward on this so it took considerably longer than we were planning. If it happened sooner, we probably would have drilled it before the onset of winter, but the decision we made was fine.

[Paul Stouse:]

Is it a project that you guys would proceed with on your own or would you seek to attract partners to develop it, or to explore it actually, and test it, assuming that you do get that (inaudible 00

[David Clark:]

It’s something that, it’s not a project that is big enough to bring on its own. It’s one to test ISR amenability on non-Indian country land, so we go into different sections of Ambrosia Lake. It was always seen as a pilot, somehow tied to the Crown Point license. Again, all options are on the table. We need to make an assessment of that is where we want to apply our capital.

[Paul Stouse:]

Very good, thank you very much.

[David Clark:]

Frankly in New Mexico right now, again the speculation in New Mexico is will, Governor Richardson is there, will he go with the Obama administration if he goes? He has not been a vocal opponent of Uranium mining but he has not come out in support of it either, so it’s basically been a we are going to do nothing approach and we, that gets us nowhere so the changing political environment will also help us in our change in how we might be able to do business in New Mexico.

[Paul Stouse:]

Alright, very good. Thanks a lot and good luck with things.

[Operator:]

Our next question comes from the line of Peter Homans with Parkman. Please proceed with your question.

[Peter Homans:]

Hello David and Deborah. I know it’s sort of a rough environment. I think you are doing exactly the right thing to make sure that when the market recovers as it 100% will, everybody is going to stop using 199 pounds of uranium a year so I think you are doing a great job. I have three questions. One, was the cash usage this quarter reflective of what it is likely to be in the coming quarter or were you still in the process of cutting so this quarter will be perhaps a half million to a million size less? That’s one question. Second question is if you wait until spring with Ambrosia, does spring mean, I’ve been in Santa Fe in March, are we talking spring March or are we talking spring May? And from the moment you sort of fit into the ground, how long do you think conservatively it takes your engineers to assess the amenability of that property to (inaudible 00

[David Clark:]

I’ll go in reverse order here. What I’ve heard from UX and other suppliers who mine far closer than I do, you start getting substantial uncover demand in year 2010, 2011. There’s another caveat to that, a lot of what utilities think is cover demand could be with suppliers who will not be bringing on those mines. So, as part of BHP’s announcement, they said that they are signing ten supply contracts, mostly with European but some U.S. utilities for the initial Phase I expansion of Olympic dams. Since that is delayed then utility thinks they have a supply base and they actually don’t because it’s going to be tied to production. So, there are those kind of considerations but I think certainly all I’ve seen when you get to 2010, 2011, the uncovered supply base is significantly improved. As far as Chicago and utilities, I’ve been in this business for 31 years and it’s always been the doors opening for one is a slamming in the face of another and what I sense in this industry now is the price is down and I hear a lot of money companies saying if you don’t help us, we are not going to be around for you. That argument just never has worked for me. I think we need to be working together and I sense real supply concerns amongst utilities. We don’t need to tell them. That we don’t need to whine. There are a number of utilities including some with a larger U.S. utility whose interest and they’ve demonstrated this interest, is to do whatever they can to increase the supply base and that’s an enrichment where you had three utilities step in and get LEX or three or four utilities step in and get LEX off the line to increase the enrichment. I see the same desire in the uranium side of the business so they have the need, they have the money. I think you will see more utility involvement. Obviously, I don’t think it’s the same degree as fell in the 70s when they were buying up properties and they took on all kinds of risks in a business that wasn’t their core business. I think there are business solutions that satisfy their needs and help us bring them the supplies that they need. I guess from URI standpoints, New Mexico has six to seven million pounds less and it has a great exploration potential still. It has the largest supply base, the largest uranium consuming country in the world. I think it’s in utilities’ interest to get that online, and that is certainly something that we are chasing down. As far as your second, how long does it, take I can let Rick comment on that. That’s basically the process is the permit is to drill up to 10 holes. We probably won’t need all those holes. You then take core samples, send them to the labs and however long that takes. Rick?

[Rick Van Horn:]

As Dave said, we have a ten hole permit program. It may take less holes than that to do it. We are going to core the holes, send the core to labs and have leech tested (inaudible 00

[David Clark:]

As far as your first question, how does the fourth quarter relate to the first, that’s the third quarter, in the third quarter we were still making investments in Rosita, we were still bringing on a couple of oil fields, so we were putting capital in the ground. At this point we are not spending anything as far as new oil field developments and certainly the cost cutting we are doing is going to be more significant in the fourth quarter than in the third because it will be over three months versus a work in progress over the previous three months.

[Peter Homans:]

Okay, thanks very much. I apologize for the music. I’m in a Starbucks and I can’t get them to turn the music down, but anyway I think you are doing a great job and making the right decisions.

[Operator:]

(Operator Instructions). There are no further questions in the queue at this time.

[Deborah Pawlowski:]

Dave, do you want to wrap it up?

[David Clark:]

Thanks for everybody’s interest and listening in this morning. Again, I think that it has been a very challenging year; to be sure in the last three months. We are trying to do everything we can to recognize the value of this company, as too many assets and too many good people do not get it right and as I said earlier uranium mining is not easy but hopefully on the right track and we do appreciate the feedback that we do and we got some investors and the projections they make and hopefully we will continue to have faith in what we do. Thank you very much and hope you have a good day.

[Operator:]

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today’s teleconference. Thank you for your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time.