This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the VP of Marketing and Corporate Development for Energy Fuels, Mr. Curtis Moore.
Gerardo Del Real: Thank you for coming back on. We touched base publicly a couple of months ago, and it seems like it's a different world, so I'm glad to hear that everyone on your end is healthy. You just had a very, very interesting conference call yesterday. I got a lot of questions, some that we'll touch on, regarding Energy Fuels' entry into the rare earth element sector. So I want to get to that. But first and foremost, I want to give you the floor and give you the opportunity to make crystal clear that Energy Fuels' focus is exactly where?
Curtis Moore: "It's uranium. Of course., I don't want anybody to think that we're jumping ship from uranium and trying to move over into some sort of other mineral. We always have been and we always will be a uranium miner, uranium producer, the biggest producer in the United States with more capacity, more resources, more production than anybody else. However, if we have other ways to generate revenue in businesses that are related to uranium, we're always going to look at that. Rare earths is actually one of those possibilities right now."
Gerardo Del Real: "Let's get right into the rare earths aspect, and then I want to have an in-depth discussion about the uranium upside. Obviously, we're at 4-year highs. There is momentum in the space, cuts left and right, and I want to talk about how Energy Fuels is positioned to benefit from that. But let's get into the rare earths aspect of it. Where do you see that going?"
Curtis Moore: "Well, this is very early in the process for us. Over the last year or so we've been approached by a number of entities, private entities that are in the rare earth space, but also the US government, who's looking for ways to bring the rare earth business back to the United States. The reason that they've approached us is because we have the White Mesa Mill. The White Mesa Mill is, again, the only conventional uranium mill in the United States. It's also the only conventional vanadium mill.
It has a 40-year history of handling and processing and recycling basically low-level radioactive materials. A lot of rare earth ores have low levels of radioactivity associated with them, including uranium and thorium. So folks have started to inquire about what our capabilities might be out there. The more we started looking at it, the more we started testing some materials in our labs and all that, we started thinking, "Man, we think we could actually play a role in this."
I want to be clear. We're not looking to run out and become rare earth miners. However, we think that our facility could be used for a lot of different types of rare earth processing. And so, again, it's early days, but we're excited about where this might be able to go."
Gerardo Del Real: "Let's talk uranium. I reached out to some of my Twitter followers and friends, and they had some questions and I wanted to make sure I got them in there. One was people want you to discuss the ISR projects. How quickly can you get those producing in a favorable environment, one I think we're coming into, and what uranium price do you need for that to be an option?"
Curtis Moore: "Yes, ISR needs probably north of $50 per pound. That's really just what it costs in the United States. Again, that's all-in cost. That's a sales price, $50. So our cost is, of course, lower than that. But if you want to cover your operating costs, your capital costs, your sustaining capital, and, of course, the company that supports that production, you really need $50 a pound. North of that, actually. If you look at our projects, we have two ISR facilities. One is the Nichols Ranch facility up in Wyoming. And we also have the Alta Mesa project down in South Texas. Both good facilities. They're both proven. Nichols Ranch has produced about 1.2 million pounds during its history. Alta Mesa has produced almost 5 million pounds during its history.
Nichols Ranch, it was in operation until just this past March. So it's in good shape to ramp up. We did place it on standby just in the last couple weeks, but it could ramp up production very quickly. We basically just need to go out and hire some workforce and install some well fields. We'd see increased production probably just within a few months' time. But to really get some momentum to get production levels up to the higher levels that need to be, it'd probably take about a year to get there because we'd have to install a few well fields and that sort of thing.
Alta Mesa, it would be right behind that. It's been sitting on standby since about 2013, so there's a little bit of refurbishment that needs to go on. We need to do a little bit more exploration to get some more resources out ahead of us and design some more wellfields. But, again, it could be up and running really quickly. Again, just hire some workforce, put in some well fields, again, within say 6 to 12 months. It's a pretty short period of time. I don't think anybody else, maybe Ur-Energy, but I don't know if anybody else can claim to be able to bring things back that quick."
Gerardo Del Real: "Let me ask you about the NFWG, and I have other acronyms because I'm tired of waiting on the recommendations. Any feedback there? I know you have your finger on the pulse, obviously. Have you heard anything?"
Curtis Moore: "The only thing we are hearing, we continue to hear, it's coming out any day. But we've been hearing that now for 6 months."
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