Laramide Resources Positions for Uranium Resurgence With Assets in Key Jurisdictions

• Laramide Resources is a uranium development company with projects in the US and Australia.
• The company believes the uranium market is experiencing a resurgence due to increased demand and supply shortfalls.
• Laramide's flagship project is the ISR Churchrock project in New Mexico, which has permits in place and could be in production within 12-18 months.
• The company also owns the large-scale Westmoreland project in Australia, which requires a change in government policy to move forward.
• Laramide aims to become a major supplier to nuclear utilities and scale up production through its portfolio of assets.

Near-Term Producer with Transformational Asset Exposure

With growing recognition of nuclear power's role in energy transitions and decarbonization goals, the uranium market is seeing substantial renewed interest. Supply shortages, rising demand, and geopolitical developments position uranium as an attractive sector for investors. Laramide Resources, a uranium development company with advanced and large-scale assets in the United States and Australia, represents a compelling investment opportunity within this wider thematic.

The Fundamentals Behind Surging Uranium Prices

After languishing for over a decade following the 2011 Fukushima disaster, uranium prices have staged a major rally over the past two years. From a low of $18 per pound in 2016, the spot price soared to a peak of $60 per pound in late 2023. While prices have pulled back modestly in early 2024, most analysts see further upside as structural supply deficits become more acute.

On the demand side, the uranium market is undergoing a paradigm shift. With the European Union and major economies including the U.S. and Japan setting ambitious carbon neutrality targets by 2050, nuclear is being championed as the only scalable zero-emission baseload power source. This is dramatically changing prevailing negative attitudes toward nuclear in countries like Germany. With 55 reactors under construction globally, equivalent to over 50 million pounds of annual uranium demand once operational, baseline growth projections are robust.

However, the more pressing catalyst stems from supply curtailments over the past decade. Years of low prices forced high-cost mines to halt production, with peak supply plunging 40% from 2016 levels last year. Stockpiles have been rapidly drawn down to bridge the shortfall, but are becoming increasingly inadequate. A wave of restarts is underway, but new projects face long lead times, suggesting structurally higher prices will be required to incentivize sufficient investment.

With demand steadily rising amid this backdrop of profound supply destruction, a growing chorus of forecasters predict triple-digit uranium prices will be sustained for years. This sets the stage for substantial capital inflows toward mining companies with undeveloped resources that can be brought online over the next several years to meet projected shortages.

Interview with President & CEO, Marc Henderson

Imminent U.S. Production to Catalyze Growth

A key component of Laramide’s investment appeal lies in its portfolio of low-cost, scalable U.S. assets. As CEO Marc Henderson explains, the U.S. will likely only be capable of supplying 10-15 million pounds per year at most even in an aggressive development scenario given geological constraints. However, in the context of domestic reactor demand of 50 million pounds, even relatively small domestic operations provide important strategic value and upside.

Laramide’s flagship project, the Churchrock ISR deposit in New Mexico, is poised to be one of the first new domestic uranium facilities to enter production in over a decade, perhaps as soon as 12-18 months pending final permits.

“We have initiated that process now and when that's concluded which we hope is a timeline like 12 to 18 months. We'll effectively be shovel-ready at that point. We would build what we effectively said in the PEA, which is the initial wellfield and a process recovery plant, build resin recovery plants and then truck the resin to the final recovery site." said Henderson.

Churchrock hosts 31 million pounds of proven and probable reserves amenable to low-cost ISR extraction. The project requires less than $50 million in initial capex to commence production at a million pounds per year, allowing for quick paybacks even if uranium prices pull back from current levels. Importantly, the infrastructure and permits are in place to double capacity when market conditions allow.

In addition to Churchrock, Laramide has a pipeline of other properties at varying stages that collectively could support 6-8 million pounds per year of U.S. output once fully permitted and built. While the company could look to acquisitions to add scale, the next strategic steps are focused on delivering initial production from Churchrock, establishing a track record of execution, and organically expanding resources through ongoing exploration drilling.

Transformational Australian Asset in Politically Favorable Environment

While the U.S. assets provide nearer-term catalysts, Laramide’s largest and likely most economically impactful project is the world-class Westmoreland deposit in Queensland, Australia. Westmoreland currently hosts a mineral resource of 51 million pounds with substantial expansion potential through current drilling aimed at delineating over 70 million pounds. Over a 16-year projected mine life, the project could produce over 5 million pounds per year from traditional open-pit mining. This positions Westmoreland among the largest undeveloped uranium deposits globally, with quartile cost positioning.

The project is essentially construction-ready, with the main impediment being uranium mining policy opposition from the current Queensland state government. However, political winds appear to be shifting more positively for nuclear, presenting a potential major catalyst for Westmoreland should elections later this year install more friendly leadership.

“Everybody then assumes Australia is not in favor of nuclear. There's a debate about nuclear energy in Australia and there is legislation nationally in Australia that says they can't build nuclear power plants. So if a new government of a different stripe got in, they would have to jump through some hoops to make it so that they could build nuclear reactors but that's some ways off,” Henderson clarified.

“They have drunk the Green New Deal Kool-Aid in a massive way there...like probably akin to what Germany did. They had very very cheap power and now they have very very expensive power because big Renewables have come in and it's a debate going on in the Australian media literally as we speak. It's going to be a featured issue in the next federal election in Australia," he continued.

In recent years, Laramide has expanded its land package to control most of the district’s known uranium mineralization. An extensive drilling campaign is underway to both expand resources at Westmoreland and delineate satellite deposits that could feed into a central processing facility. With much of the preliminary permitting and engineering studies completed during previous periods of favorable policy, Westmoreland could theoretically be ready for development soon after the election if the expected change in government occurs.

This provides enormous optionality. Based on the capital costs, size, and grade, Westmoreland could be valued at over $1 billion in an elevated uranium pricing environment where development is sanctioned. From the current sub-$100 million Enterprise Value, the deposit alone makes Laramide an appealing speculation on a return to pro-nuclear advocacy in Australia.

Investment Thesis

• Laramide offers investors exposure to both near-term U.S. production potential and large-scale project upside tied to the Australian political cycle. The company is primed to benefit from strengthening uranium fundamentals.
• Initial low-cost output from Church Rock within 12-18 months provides shareholders with commodity price leverage and peer valuation re-rated potential if executed smoothly. Production growth to 3 million pounds per year can be funded through internal cash flows.
• A shift in Queensland's government would be a game-changer, with Westmoreland representing one of the largest and highest quality undeveloped uranium deposits remaining globally. Laramide offers an asymmetric upside if policy changes eventuate.
• Exploration drilling offers substantial resource expansion potential to improve already attractive economics. Investors essentially gain a long-dated call option on discovery success and uranium prices above $60 sustaining sector momentum.
• Capital costs are comparatively low, with the portfolio requiring under $700 million combined to reach peak production levels. This is achievable for a company with Laramide's profile in a supportive commodity backdrop.

In summary, favorable uranium and nuclear power dynamics provide a tailwind for miners progressing assets up the development curve into production. Laramide Resources represents an intriguing option on this trajectory in a North American context, augmented by more speculative but highly prospective Australian upside potential. The coming years promise to be transformative as this multi-pronged value-creation strategy advances.

The global nuclear renaissance is perhaps the most profound energy transition mega-trend that scarcely features in mainstream discourse. Yet nuclear power already supplies 10% of world electricity needs from an aging fleet centered in developed economies. With usuage declining post-Fukushima, over 210 operable civil reactors still require reliable fuel access to function, underpinning baseline demand.

However, spectacular growth in Asia underscores nuclear's increasing strategic role. China has 17 reactors under construction alone as part of an audacious plan to build over 150 new plants by mid-century to meet soaring electricity demand without smothering cities in smog. Even more strikingly, the geopolitical and economic realignments from Russia's invasion of Ukraine has suddenly put nuclear cooperation with the West in question. Yet dozens of Russian-designed reactors are still scheduled for completion from Armenia to Bangladesh, financed and perhaps fueled by Moscow going forward.

This bifurcation between Western and Eastern nuclear spheres has destroyed the dynamics of the 1990s and 2000s commodity super-cycle, where mines developed anywhere could seamlessly supply users worldwide. With primary production cratering just as reactors proliferate outside the OECD umbrella, structurally higher prices are necessary to spur investment in politically stable jurisdictions. From this lens, assets in Australia and the United States government offers stable oversight and stand to benefit enormously. The odds of the nominal price again sustaining below the $40 to $50 threshold required for most new projects now seem remote amidst irreversible geostrategic shifts. The market realization makes uranium among the most compelling yet esoteric commodity opportunities in existence.

"There were a handful of companies that have charged ahead a bit...to be early into production and I think those projects latter half of this year deliverable and we'll see how those go There's another whole in situ developers that have projects and we would be in that group." said Marc Henderson on positioning Laramide amongst uranium developers.