 Well, good morning or afternoon whatever it is where you are. I'm Jack Lipton and I'm speaking with Jeff Glenda and I'm chairman and CEO of your energy Okay, thank you for taking the time to speak with me this morning my place and I I looked at your Company presentation on the internet and I was very impressed. I Think you're a real company. You have product sales revenues and profits this this is Amazing to me, especially since You're in one of the key critical materials for the 20th 21st century Which is uranium and not what's standing when anybody's emotions have to do with this The United States has about 25% of the world's nuclear energy generating capacity and we really depend on I'm in Detroit where we have Michigan has three or four nuclear plants and this is a big industrial state. That's not a coincidence. So I Also know because I've been involved in uranium for some time That the United States imports 95% or so of our uranium Even though our neighbor Canada For example, is the produce that I believe the world's third largest producer of uranium at this point. That's correct Hey, and and and I would assume that The largest today is are the Kazakhs is Kazakhstan about 40% of global primary production okay, and You are competing then with material imported from Kazakhstan Canada and and other African-American producers Are you competitive? Well, we are and and I think that one of the things that needs to be stated here is that Last year, of course, actually in January of 2018 we submitted a section 232 petition which was a section under the trade expansion Act of 1962 and we felt compelled to do so and and this was immediately after a face-to-face meeting with the secretary of energy Rick Perry and One of the things that we went in and we were speaking to him about was our concerns At the idea that at that time your numbers are correct We were roughly producing about 5% of our own needs here in the United States and the other 95% was coming from outside the country Almost 50% of that coming from Russia Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. So we found ourselves in a position where although nuclear energy Provides 20% of our base load in the United States. We were allowing ourselves to become dangerously dependent on well Let's call them geostrategic rivals and I think that at best you can say that that is just dangerous national security policy and we felt that the section 232 would be the best Avenue that we could go to address that problem for the nation I understand that our agreement to limit supplies from the Russians expires this year. That's correct and What is your what have you been told about what's going to happen next? Keep in mind now That's a different animal that is the Russian suspension agreement and that was put in place in 1992 as a result of an Anti-dumping action that was taken by the uranium producers in the United States at that time And I'll go so far as to say that it would in 1992 was a good idea. Remember this was right after the fall of the Berlin Wall Material was disappearing and rich material was disappearing Scientists were disappearing bombs were disappearing and we had to do something about it So we felt that buying their material under the Russian suspension agreement Would be something that would take some of that material out of the market give them some of the cash and capital that they needed And so it was I think done for the right reasons at the right time But you move forward and you put Vladimir Putin in a position of power then in the United States and now all of a sudden Kazakhstan gets removed from the suspension agreement the Russians ramp up their own production And of course the Kazakhs begin to really ramp up production and both of these do it as state-owned enterprises So you asked earlier are we competitive the answer is is that yes We're the lowest-cost producer outside of Kazakhstan in the world But one of the reasons why this has become such a problem is because the Kazakhs as a state-owned enterprise They not only receive subsidies from their government which offset their base cost But in addition to that they've devalued their currency by 85 90 percent over the last five years They have virtually no environmental restrictions, and they've got virtual slave labor Why I would submit to you that anybody can look like an economic miracle under those circumstances Well, you know, you know, you're you're talking an analog of the work market, aren't you? You know Jack you're absolutely right and I'll tell you something as we have met with members of the president's working group Two of them both the Department of Energy and Department of Defense has have gone so far as to literally say to us We cannot let the fuel cycle go the way of rare earth So it's a very good analogy. Oh, and I for my experience recently in Government US government. I think that's exactly what the thinking is right now and I've been involved in uranium mining and processing for quite a while and I didn't think anything was going to happen, but I really do think that the the rare earth Interests so to speak it has has like catalyzed a look at other things And one of one of the other critical supply chains is uranium and and the thing is unlike Unlike where it's with the public doesn't really understand where where it's are used It's no secret where uranium is used and so the idea that we would be dependent on The power that is most reviled by our people in Washington is Incredible to me and I think that as in this year, especially this is going this is going to become a political discussion Well, the thing is that you you You are such a logical investment that I can't imagine that people aren't aren't beating a path to your door because It looks to me from reading the material that's publicly available That as you ramp up you're you're increasing revenues and profits It's not like you're going to ramp up and suddenly have a squeeze on profits you know and so so I don't I To be honest with you I have not know much about your company until about a few weeks ago, but it's quite to be honest It's an investment I would make because I think you're a winner So tell me why tell me why I shouldn't do that. Is there anything wrong with my analysis? I really think that your company is a producer the lowest-cost producer you have revenues and profits right now What's there's nothing wrong with that picture? No, there isn't and look I think that What's happening is that there's a great deal of uncertainty unfortunately in the uranium space and you hit on it earlier With the intended to or not, but there is no question that uranium is far and away The most highly politicized commodity in the world There's no question about it And so a lot of emotion does come into the analysis and while on paper fundamentally, yes I wouldn't trade places with anybody Our lost Creek facility that we brought into production has just turned into a beast and the lowest cost producer as I said Outside Kazakhstan and I gave the reasons why their costs are lower But one of the things that we did and then and I took a lot of heat for this was back after Fukushima in 2011 and Of course, that was a watershed event for our industry We went ahead and we decided that we needed to have long-term contracts in place to protect ourselves and to protect our shareholders So we put those long-term contracts in place extending all the way out to 2021 to cover the entire decade and at the time I was criticized because some of our investors felt as though I was giving away their blue sky and the turnaround was always just a couple of quarters away Well, the reality is is that? Inventories are a great unknown in our industry because governments treat them as national security Secrets and big companies and utilities treat them as proprietary information that they simply won't divulge in the marketplace So that's always been kind of an X factor for us So when we brought section 232 for example It was to not only make sure that we had we were sustaining a viable industry For our own company and for our shareholders, but absolutely on a national security level as well But no your analysis is correct Fundamentally, we are a strong if not stronger than any other company out there I wouldn't trade places with any other company and by the way, there were about 585 companies in the uranium space as of 2007 today. There are less than 40 and of those I don't think there are 10 that anybody should consider putting any money in there. They're just small Exploration companies, okay, I'll be you're you're aware of or involved in the working Washington President's working group on your on uranium. Can you tell us what what the latest is on that? Well, we are very much so and and I think that first let me make just a couple of Precedent statements here one would be that of course section 232 timed out on July 12th of 2019 At that time the president decided that there was to be no action taken What he did instead was by presidential memorandum He put in place the United States nuclear fuel working group Which is comprised of seven members of his cabinet seven agencies of his cabinet two scientific groups two other groups of federal Energy regulatory commission and the nuclear budget regulatory commission and Larry Kudlow and John Bolton were co-chairs of the working group Now what he gave them was 90 days to present recommendations to him, which would have been honor about say October 12th I felt that that was a tall order. Let's face it the the the nuclear fuel cycle Whether you're starting with just uranium production going to conversion Enrichment and then on to fabrication is complex and it involves a lot of different players So coming up with recommendations as to how you're going to fix that Quite broken cycle in 90 days was a tall order. They asked for a 30-day extension and they got it So what happened was is that the recommendations came from the working group and were delivered to the White House on November 14th Now it's important to understand that they were delivered to the White House. That does not mean they were delivered to the president They were actually delivered to the chairman of the working group. That's Larry Kudlow so in all there were 66 recommendations that were made and At this time now still after a little more than two months Those recommendations still sit with Larry Kudlow now members of our group We formed a small group ourself called the industry core working group that represented ourselves the only other producer in the United States energy fuels and The only converter in the United States Converdyne and one of the remaining enrichers Centres so it put us in a position where we made our own recommendations to the working group But Larry Kudlow and we've been able to meet with him And he has made it clear that he will not present their recommendations to the president until he feels that they are Absolutely absolutely ready to to submit them. I think it's also important that what they want to do They have they I think in Larry Kudlow and in President Trump You have two people that understand the how critical the situation is with the nuclear fuel cycle in the United States and Retaining our seat at the table when it comes to all things nuclear not just nuclear weapons, but our commercial capability as well And so what you have there is I think that they'll get it over to them I think it'll be in the first quarter here and I'm going to the nuclear energy Institute conference Which is going to be held on Wednesday of this week We will get an update from The working group or on the working group at that conference along no much more later in the week But at this point in time, it's still rests with Larry Kudlow and has not yet gone to the president Thank you very much for joining us and spending the time to tell us what you're doing And we're going to we're going to keep our eye on your company and and perhaps in a month or so We'll come back and you can tell us what progress you've made Well, it's it's been my pleasure and please do because 2020 promises to be a very eventful year, so we're gonna have a lot happening this year. Thank you so much for having me Thank you