Energy Fuels Inc. (EFR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Michelle, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Energy Fuels Fiscal Year 2021 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Mark Chalmers, President and CEO. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Michelle, and good morning or good afternoon, wherever you're joining this call from. We're very excited today to talk about our 2021 achievements, and also a number of achievements that we've made early in 2022. There is a lot to talk about. For those that cannot join the call today, we'll have replays available for 2 weeks on our website and those should be up either later today or tomorrow. I like -- I'm really happy to report that we continue to make extraordinary progress on many fronts, and Energy Fuels has absolutely emerged as the clear leader in U.S. critical mineral production at a time when this has never been more important. Today, I will break this down in 2 parts. First, I'll talk about the highlights that are included in our press release for 2021 results. and then I'll follow that up with an updated corporate presentation. So let's get started with the highlights. Firstly, we were very pleased to be able to report net income of $1.5 million for 2021. I don't believe there is any other of our peers that will report net income in 2021. And I think it's an extraordinary accomplishment in these what were difficult circumstances I also -- and certainly, a lot of that was attributable to the monetization of some of our noncore assets. But again, a win is a win and we'll take it. Second, at the end of December 31, 2021, we reported a very robust balance sheet of approximately $143 million of working capital including $113 million in cash and marketable securities and $31 million of inventory, plus no short-term or long-term debt. if you look at what those inventories are worth today at current prices, the inventories are up to $60 million and perhaps north of that. So we've gotten a very nice bounce off of increased uranium and vanadium values. Our working capital that reported at the end of 2021 also does not include the value of the shares that we hold in consolidated uranium, which are restricted shares at this time. So if you take into account what we reported for year-end, look at the increased current metal prices and the value of consolidated uranium shares, you can see we're being very conservative and actually have in the order of around $200 million if you combine those all together. Everything that energy fuels produces or has the ability to produce is going up rapidly. At the end of 2021, uranium prices had increased by 38%. And the neodymium and praseodymium NdPr had increased at the end of 2021, 112%. Vanadium was up 62%. And that trend just continues into 2022, particularly with the developments in Russia with the invasion of Ukraine, and Russia being a major supplier of nuclear fuel to the United States of America. We didn't any uranium in 2021, but we are now actively engaged and pursuing selective long-term uranium sales contracts like we haven't seen for many, many years. Last year, we produced 270 metric tons of rare earth carbonate, which contained about 120 metric tons of total rare earth oxide. Energy Fuels is more advanced than any other company in North America when it comes to producing rare earth material. We are also continuing with numerous active discussions with several sources of natural monazite sands around the world. And I hope that we can be able to report with some updates on that in the not-too-distant future, but certainly during 2022 is my goal. At the beginning of 2022 in the first quarter, the company began commercially separating lanthanum and cerium at a small scale, but commercial scale with our rare earth carbonate, using an existing solvent extraction circuit at the mill. This represents the first commercial separation of rare earth carbonate that has occurred in the United States for many years. We're still are planning to install full separation circuit at the White Mesa Mill to produce both lights and heavies in the coming years, and we're focusing on advancing that as quickly as possible. We also have hired Carester for a full scoping study for the White Mason Mill through separated oxides. We had done some work with Carester initially. It was sort of a small scoping study, but now we're moving into full scoping study with Carester. We believe and hope that the materials that we received from Carester from the full scoping study will be adequate to advance our permitting initiatives at the mill. Late in 2021, we announced a strategic venture with nanoscale powders, and this is looking at novel technology for the production of rare earth metals, still early days, but we're looking beyond separation of the oxides. The company sold a small amount of vanadium in 2021 but we expect to sell more vanadium as the price of vanadium increases, and we may well go back into vanadium production by extracting vanadium out of our tailing sales in the next year or 2, but it will depend on market conditions and some of the other activities we have. Also in 2021 and about the middle of 2021 we announced the execution of a strategic alliance with RadTran LLC for potential recovery of thorium and Radium for the production of medical isotopes for cancer therapies. We're very excited about that. It's early days but this is something that we can potentially capitalize on because we have the Radium and the thorium at the White Mason mill in September 2021. And this is a long list here. So I'm going to get through it and move on to the corporate presentation, but we're very proud of these highlights. We set up the San Juan County, Clean Energy Foundation specifically designed to contribute to the communities surrounding the mill in San Juan County, one of the poorest counties -- the poorest county in Utah, one of the poorest counties in all of the United States. Approximately half of those people or native Americans. The poverty level is like 30% or 40%. So we're very excited about the foundation. In October, we completed the sale of certain noncore uranium assets to consolidated uranium. And that had -- and that's what we were able to report a gain in value of that transaction of approximately $35 million. We look forward to working with consolidated uranium as they progress their plans to further define the resources there and also continue to go back into uranium production, which will be milled at the White Mason mill. Early this year, we're very proud that we were able to appoint Ivy Estabrooke as a Director of Energy Fuels. She -- Ivy holds a doctorate and she also has extensive experience in biotech, research and development, program leadership and technology solutions. So we're very proud to have Ivy joined the Board of Energy Fuels. Now lastly, it wasn't included as a highlight, but it's still core to Energy Fuels, but we continue to focus on our industry-leading recycling programs for uranium and vanadium. This is a remarkable thing that we do at Energy Fuels when it comes to recycling natural uranium and vanadium to reduce carbon emissions. So now I'll move to the corporate presentation. And the corporate presentation, I just want to remind all of you that you will be controlling the slides, so you'll have to advance your slides on your own. I'll try to remind you when to advance them. If for some reason, I forget, I apologize in advance. And at the end of the presentation, the corporate presentation, Dave Friedland will join me to answer any questions that I might not be able to answer. So anyways, let's move on to the corporate presentation. Now the first slide should be the slide of the White Mesa Mill, where it says America's leading producer of critical minerals. Next slide. I may be making some forward looking statements. Those are included at the back of the presentation. Next slide. Energy Fuels. I tell people that there really is no investment like energy fuels. Typically, if you want to invest in the uranium industry, you invest in 100% uranium-focused company or if you want to invest in rare earth, you invest in 100% rare earth focused company. With Energy Fuels, you get both. Matter of fact, you get both in a bonus called vanadium. So basically, all the things we do, if you look at the uranium, the rare earths, vanadium, the medical isotopes recycling, the common denominator is one thing. It's radioactivity and the ability to recover uranium and the ability to recycle and produce a number of the critical elements required for decarbonization and electrification, and we're very proud of this. This is a good news story. Lastly, and I'll talk about it more is our substantial financial strength and zero debt. Next slide. And I already mentioned it, but the establishment of the San Juan County, Clean Energy foundation. This is a very significant initiative for the company. We are very focused on ESG. We're very focused on sustainability, and we're very excited about the foundation because we deposited $1 million into the foundation last year, and we plan to fund the foundation going forward with 1% of the annual revenues from the White Mesa mill. So this could and should be a very substantial source of funds for the foundation going forward that can make a material difference in a very poor region. Next slide. Most of you have seen this slide many times, but our footprint is large from Wyoming down to Texas and White Mesa mill is the blue star in the Four Corners region. Nichols Ranch and [indiscernible] on standby, but could be starting up soon because of the price of uranium. And then we have a number of permitted assets throughout the Western United States. The focus on nuclear power is increasing by the day to reduce carbon emissions. So it's a very, very interesting time to be in the uranium business, but also in the rare earth business and the vanadium businesses as well. Next slide. Again, many of you have seen this picture, but it shows the 3 fully paid for producing assets to 2 in situ recovery assets in Texas and Wyoming. The White Mesa Mill and White Mesa is where we produce uranium, vanadium and the rare earths and do the recycling and then, of course, the Pinyon Plain mine in Arizona, which I built back in the late '80s and it is the highest grade conventional underground mine in the United States. Next slide. So this slide should be a picture of uranium production in the United States over the last 15 years, and this is a very important slide because it shows who has produced uranium in the United States at significant levels over a long period of time. So when you look at this slide, you can see in sort of the light blue 25 million, that is Cameco's production from their U.S. assets. When you look at the darker blue, the 15.6 million, that is uranium that was reduced from Energy Fuels assets. So between Cameco and Energy Fuels, 86% of the uranium produced in the United States over 15 years was produced by 2 companies. Number 3 on that list, if you add up all the production, energy fuels was 5x #3. So we definitely stand out amongst the crowds when you look at the amount we have produced in the past and the uranium we will produce in the future. Next slide. This next slide just shows kind of where we sit in our peer group, and we are in the middle, but as I just mentioned, we have a very long history of producing uranium and will produce a lot more uranium in the future. I want to point out a couple of things that when you look at the cash working capital inventories, that 144 that I mentioned, which I believe, very conservative for the reasons I pointed out earlier in the highlights, we're in a very strong financial position to carry out all our activities. Going forward, rapidly without any worry that we're not going to be able to fund our activities. I also want to point out that we have about 700,000 pounds of finished uranium that we produced, we didn't buy. Most people on the list have purchased uranium. And that was a good plan because a lot of people purchase it at low prices, but we produced our uranium. And we have the ability looking out over the next few months or the next 6 months to a year of producing more uranium probably quicker, faster than anybody else because we have uranium stockpiles and alternate feed material that we can run through the mill in very short course of action when we decided to process that. But the main thing on this slide that I want to point out is when you look at our peer group in the uranium space. All of this are focused on uranium, but no one on that list except for Energy Fuels has and is producing rare earths. Nobody on that list has a vanadium circuit and has and can produce vanadium or the medical isotopes or has the ability to do the recycling. So we really are in a class of our own. There is really no peer group for energy fuels. Next slide. I've talked about how uranium and rare earths fit perfectly together because the best rare earths contain uranium, and we have the ability to recover the uranium at the White Mesa mill. Certainly, the focus on electrification is going in leaps and bounds and the forecasts are saying up to fivefold increase in the next 10 years. Consulting [indiscernible] which I've mentioned a number of times, continues to say that energy fuels could be the missing link for rare earth production, not just in the United States, but in the world. So we did enter commercial production last year. And as I said earlier, nobody else as advanced as we are with the way we can process at the right Mason mill of these rare earth carbonates, and the first stages of separation. So we are still absolutely focused on full integration at the White Mesa in the next few years, and we're going to be focused to get to the separated oxides, as I mentioned, lights and heavies in due course and potentially metals and alloys. Next slide. So our main focus continues to be on monazite and particularly monazite sands and we're focused on that because it is a byproduct of heavy mineral sand production around the world. It's very high grade. It has great distributions of the total rare earths and high-end oxides and the neodymium the praseodymium and the heavies the dispose and the [indiscernible], it's much higher grade and has better distributions than other sources of monazite like basanite, which is also a good source, but not nearly as going to source as monazite. So watch this space and again, we think that it fits perfectly into our capabilities because of the fact that we can monetize uranium and potentially thorium in due course. Next slide. So just a picture of the mill. And again, I've shown this slide a number of times, the production of rare earths will just take up a fraction of the capacity of the mill because the mill is licensed to produce or to process 720,000 tons of ore per year. And even if we achieve the likes of [indiscernible] capacity in due course while securing adequate sources of monazite, you're only talking a few percent of the capacity, maybe 3%, 4%, 5%, 6%. So we have ample capacity to ramp up the rare earth and also produce significant quantity of uranium and vanadium. Next slide. In 2021, we launched this U.S. European supply chain. We are securing material from Chemours. We're looking at other sources of supply that will be many times greater than what we're currently receiving from Chemours. We're making the carbonate, and we're shipping that material to Neo at their Silmet facility in Estonia because there is no separation in North America. So that's a plan that got us to market very quickly. It impressed a lot of people because we creatively bolted together 3 companies to get to integration at least through separated oxides. Our long term will still and will continue to be U.S. centric, we'll have full integration. I already mentioned the fact that we have started a more extensive collaboration with Carester. Carester is the world leaders in processing, in cracking and leaching and separating monazite. We're very excited about that. And as I said, going into full scoping as we speak, advancing the nanoscale powders. And then lastly, we have a long history of dealing with solvent extraction at the White Mason mill. And so we're very well equipped. We have the experience to move to separated oxides because of the fact of our long history of solvent extraction, we understand it very well. Next slide. This slide just shows what we've accomplished in the last couple of years because we've only been actively advancing the rare earth business in the last 2 years. You can see the top line existing where we've got Chemours. We've got our cracking and leaching at White Mesa Mill, shipping that to Estonia, to Silmet and Neo. And then they have the ability to value add going down the chain. We also have a relationship, I'd like to mention with Hyperion. They change their name in Tennessee. We believe that in due course, they're going to also have material quantities of monazite sands to feed to White Mesa. But looking down below the line of existing, the planned area, we're looking and talking to people all over the world, North America, South Africa, Madagascar, Australia, New Zealand and South America. So we believe that this year will be a very important year where we show that we have substantially increasing supplies of monazite sands to ramp up production at the mill. If we had that money right now, we could probably produce 10,000 tons a year of monazite or greater right now if we had it. So it's quite important that we're able to secure material sources of monazite going forward, and then it all fits together from there. I am certain that we're going to get there. I don't know exactly the date or the quantity, but I can tell you, there are a lot of people interested in what we're doing around the world. Next slide. So this shows some pictures of the carbonate heading off to Estonia in the bulky bags. It also shows some of the pictures of the lab, the [indiscernible] leach in the internal of the mill, and then at the lower right-hand corner, we are doing separations at lab scale, 24/7 with the chloride route, and we're also building out a full-scale separation plan, it's pilot scale for nitrate approach to separations. And again, running 24/7. So we are doing it right now, and we have the ability to do it right now because we have the people that know how to do it. And at the same time, we have the facilities to do it at our own pace which is most people don't have. Next slide. So this slide just shows additional pictures in the mill, lower left-hand corner is a picture of [indiscernible]. On the far right, Logan Shumway, the mill manager and myself at the packaging facility for the rare carbonate. Next slide. So I already touched on the collaboration with nanoscale powders. It's early days. But again, we're very excited about potentially advancing a revolutionary technology that will produce less greenhouse gas, require less energy and it could be significant to the metals making a step of the process using this new technology. Next slide. Why will Energy Fuel succeed when others have failed? Well, number one, we have the permits. The permits to recover the uranium and deal with the radio [indiscernible] are very, very difficult to get now in the United States or anywhere else in the world. We're focused on the monazite, which I mentioned, has the great distributions, very high grade. It is mined around the world. And it's a byproduct. It is -- the process in the monazite is straightforward. If you have the ability to deal to radionuclides, it's very low capital and operating costs relative to other feeds of rare earth. We have the history, as I mentioned, with solvent extraction technology, and we're moving forward with separation technologies using SX, which we really are well understood by us. And lastly, Utah is a great place to do business. and we look forward to making Utah a very, very significant world-scale jurisdiction for rare earth production globally. Next slide. So this slide just kind of shows sort of like the slide I had on the -- our uranium peer group, kind of where we fit in with the rare earth peer group where Energy Fuels fits in you can see that the likes of minus and MP have market caps from $7 billion to $8 billion. You can see that Linus or MP is focused on basanite, which is a lower basket value than the monazite that you can see that Linus and [indiscernible] and us and particularly with the current prices, the rare oxides. The monazite has a very high basket value, which helps in the economics and reduces processing costs. Next slide. Vanadium. And as I said, uranium, rare earth and vanadiums a bonus. Vanadium prices have gone up dramatically in current prices of around $12.25 we have around $20 million of vanadium in inventory. So we're looking at how to best to play the vanadium card. I mentioned that we may potentially go back into vanadium production. When the time is right, and we can go back and produce at substantial profits based on current pricing with the recovery of vanadium from our tailings facility. Next slide, Again, I mentioned in the highlights of medical isotopes and the agreement with RadTran, again, watch this space. This could be a very substantial add-on to energy fuels and White Mesa is the perfect place to harvest the radium and the thorium for treatments to treat cancer. We had 1 [indiscernible]. It's not about treating cancer, it's about curing cancer. So watch this space. It's still early days. We're very excited about it. Next slide. Uranium recycling has always been a very important part of our business plan, and it's done so much when it comes to reducing carbon emissions, and it will continue to be a core part of our business because it is -- it really fits into these ESG requirements and the world needs more uranium and they certainly need more recycling. Next slide. We're still continuing to try to advance the addressing of these [indiscernible] legacy uranium mines that were either not reclaimed or poorly reclaimed. We still are cleaning up the project that's over by Grants, New Mexico from a private party. We've taken about 60,000 tons of cleanup material, low-grade ore to the mill. We basically get the uranium from that cleanup project for free. We get paid a fee, it gets transported and delivered to the mill. This is the lowest cost uranium production probably in the world because it's basically for free. So we look forward to doing more of that, and we can do it on the [indiscernible], and we can do it right now. if the EPA and the [indiscernible] nation decides that you actually want to get the cleanest going, we can do it right now. Next slide. my slides mixed up here. Now on our financial strength. And when I talked about this working capital that like $144 million. That is with uranium on our books at $23.79 and vanadium on our books at $5.11. Current prices for uranium are almost $60 a pound and vanadium is north of $12 a pound. So the price of vanadium from book value has gone up 146% for uranium and 140% for vanadium. So when you make adjustments for current values, you can see that, again, we're being pretty conservative when it comes to our cash and working capital. And also, as I mentioned, those numbers do not include the value of the CUR shares when we divested the noncore assets. Next slide. So really, this is my last slide, and then I'll open it up for questions. There really is no peer group like Energy Fuels. We have and provide our investors exposure to several critical minerals which again, as I said, are becoming more important by the hour now with all the instability in the world, we have the uranium, and we have substantial ability to increase that very quickly. The rare earth we are making progress in leaps and bounds and several people say that we make more progress in 1 year than most people make in 10 years. Vanadium prices are up, and we're able to capitalize on that as we speak. I talked about the medical isotopes in recycling and our substantial financial strength going forward. So that's the end of the presentation. I'd now like to open it up for questions.

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now conduct the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Robert Carlson of Janney Montgomery.

Yes. Thanks for the time to do this. But could you just put a little color on the current status of the utility industry in Europe, I guess there is some possibility that they're going to bring back your uranium into some of these utilities?

So you're saying that the current status of utilities, mainly in Europe, is that what you're saying?

Yes.

Okay. Well, look, certainly, the war in Ukraine and the aggression from the Russians has really shook up everybody, including the utilities. And unfortunately, they're in a pickle because a lot of these utilities over the last few decades, they become very dependent on uranium and nuclear products from Russia and Kazakhstan. So I don't know exactly where it all shakes out here, but I think it's certainly highlighted to the utilities and to the public that we become overly dependent on some of these countries that are geopolitical folds. And I think that you're -- we're seeing right now, particularly with the U.S. utilities, that there seems to be a willingness to go back in looking at long-term contracts. And our company wants to be there to work with utilities to provide a transition mechanism. We understand, as I said, they're in a pickle and we want to be there to work with them to provide more production from the United States of America and other developed countries that are allies, not our folks.

Your next question comes from Heiko Ihle of H.C. Wainwright.

You were talking about the medical isotopes earlier. I mean, I just went through your release from last July again and I'm somehow getting even more excited now than I was last summer. I mean obviously, the world as we know it has changed in the last 15 months. Can you provide some color on total market size, potential exposure, et cetera? And also in your release, you mentioned that you require a receipt of any required licenses, permits and regulatory approvals. What exactly is it you need? And do you want to just maybe give some detail on your progress in receiving all of that stuff thus far?

Yes. Look, Heiko, I can tell you that the medical isotope business is probably in the order of $1 billion a year based on what we've discovered as we've gone further into this sector. When it comes to what required licenses, we need Dave Frydenlund is on the call here, Dave, can you chirp in here and give a little bit of an explanation on where we are there?

Yes. Our focus is to evaluate recovering thorium and radium from our existing thorium and radium at the mill. We have a lot of thorium and radium in our natural uranium ores. We're just evaluating concentrating it to the purities required for used by pharmaceutical companies to make medical isotopes. So the step from going from handling large quantities of radium or thorium to be concentrating it requires some permitting at the mill. But it's within our general environmental footprint. It's a question of going through the -- making sure that we get the proper approvals for the concentration because if these [indiscernible] of nuclides have got certain characteristics that require regulatory approvals.

That's there. Thank you. Also, I'd say, I think, very informative and something worth pointing out. Speaking of the geopolitical risk factors in the world, are you seeing an increased focus from U.S. farms looking for supply from more geopolitically safe areas. I assume there is already a premium assigned to a steady and safe supply, but what are you seeing both in uranium and also to a [indiscernible] because it's less relevant to extend in the vanadium marketplace?

Well, Heiko, as I said, we're definitely seeing increased interest from utilities to looking at signing contracts with U.S. companies. And so if you go back a few years ago, there wasn't that level of activity. But also, I want to point out that if you go back a few years ago, the price of uranium was $20 or $25, and the industry was saying they needed north of 50, probably closer to 60 to go back in production, not just in the United States but around the world, including in Canada. So right now, there is not really a very significant delta between the world prices and the cost of going back in production in the United States. So I think the utilities have moved for -- the market's moved and so they moved. And certainly, the instability is concerning everyone. So I think we're getting very close to where this market has come full circle. And as I said, our goal is to work with these utilities to get the best outcomes possible under the circumstances. Unfortunately, the circumstances are not where any of us want to be. So -- but we want to be part of the solution here. Now on vanadium, same thing. With some of these sanctions that are going up and we're seeing demand for vanadium. Certainly, as I said, it's gone up dramatically since -- from our book value also since the beginning of the year, I think you're seeing the upward pressure on all forms of commodities. So -- and I think that's also typical in a highly inflationary environment as well. So there's a number of things working there that are pushing up commodities for a couple of different reasons.

Your next question comes from Colin Healey of Haywood Securities.

I see your guidance of 100,000 to 120,000 pounds of uranium production this year. But I'm just wondering if you could do so. How quickly could that be ramped up? And what would you say would be a reasonable 2022 kind of exit production rate if you maximize that effort?

Yes, Colin, it depends on how we juggle the balls here, obviously, with rare earth production, uranium production, vanadium production, right? So we'll go where we get the biggest bang for the buck for our shareholders and for the company. But to put it into context, that 100, 125, that's fairly low production, but we already have material inventories at the mill that could be around 300,000 to 400,000 pounds that if we decide to go back and uranium production, we could do that very quickly because a lot of that material is sitting in front of the mill, all right? There are other sources that we could also add to that. We've got, I don't know, numerous mines as you're aware of throughout the Western U.S. We're currently looking at plans on how to ramp up and where to ramp up as is prudent. So yes, I mean the 100 million, 125 million, I think, is on the low end. It could certainly be much quicker than that, much greater pounds than that, depending on how this all unfolds. We would really like to get another -- few contracts to that kind of underpins our production efforts so that we know that it's going to go for multiple years, not just for a flash in the pan.

Sure. That makes sense. And on the rare earths, the 270 metric tons of [ recovenant ] for the 120 metric tons of reoxides contained in that, can you give us some color on what those are worth what they cost you and what you can -- what you're selling them or transferring them for? Just trying to get an idea of margins on that.

Yes. I mean if you look at -- and it gets a little complicated, but if you look at a ton of monazite sand today, the contained value recovered, the basket value of the lights and the heavies today is about $30,000 per ton. If you look at like the material that we get from [indiscernible], okay? So if you take -- just do the math on that, and I'm bringing up my calculator because I have a hard time of doing math and talking at the same time. But say you got 1,000 tons of monazite sands at 30,000 a ton, that's $30 million for [indiscernible] times if you could separate to the lights and you separate to the heavies, okay? So you're looking at very valuable feet, very valuable feet. So I'm not going to get into what we're paying for the monazite, but I can tell you there is a very significant margin when you can get through full lease separated lights and heavy oxides. Now the current agreement that we have with Neo is that basically, we have like we get a percentage of what we ship to them based on sort of the fluctuation of the prices of neodymium, the praseodymium and some of the other elements. And so we don't get the $30,000 per ton. Neo doesn't separate the heavies. They make a concentrate that they ship to China. So it gets a little bit more complicated. But I can tell you, Colin, the margins are significant, we need more scale, though, to really fully capitalize on those margins. But Dave, do you want to say anything else in that regard?

No, I think you captured it pretty well. We believe that current rare earth prices that when we're at full scale production, we will achieve the margins that we expect. We're in the ramp-up phase right now. It's kind of hard to quantify anything right now, but we're very satisfied with the quality of the carbonate we're making on a commercial scale. And as Mark said, if we had more [indiscernible] we can increase our production immediately and increase our scale. So that's about all I'd add to that.

But I can say this, Colin, that a few thousand tons of monazite, we could achieve profitability on that alone just making the carbonate in this market.

Right. Okay. That's helpful. I know it's early days, and I'm always trying to get a little bit more color about what it means to valuation. Just a follow-up on the SX circuit and the processing and separation that you're doing. You mentioned it on a commercial scale. I'm just wondering how much you've fed through that circuit so far and how much you've produced?

Well, it depends on how much material we get from Chemours. We just started feeding it through the small SX, what about a week ago, I think I believe we have currently in circuit around 300 tons that was the latest shipment from Chemours. So we processed about 300 tons last year, and now we're processing about another 300 tons. So it's still early days, but we're very excited about how it's performing. And again, I think it shows that the creativity of the guys on the ground and the substantial infrastructure we have and our knowledge of using solvent extraction how we can do things that others can't because they just don't know how to run those type of facilities. So yes, right now, I think, Colin, and I don't have the exact number, but I think we could process 10,000 tons a year of monazite sand right now with the infrastructure that we have in place. Well, I just told you that at current prices, if you could separate the lights and the heavies, that would be a lot of dollars of rare earth, right, that would be about $300 million. So I think you can see where we're going there or why we're so excited about this.

For sure. And I understood the scale of processing to carbonate. I was just more curious about the separation, but I realize that's early days as well.

But I can tell you, Colin, that the margins are significant, very significant. I'll just leave it at that.

That's good. On the thorium and radium -- radio nucleide, I'm not that familiar at all with the market for those, but I'm just wondering how significant energy fuels maybe future top line? Like how big of a part of that business or how big of a part of your business could that be? What are those worth? What's the market like? Anything you can tell us about that initiative?

Yes. The -- I kind of touched on it a little bit a few minutes ago, but we think it's -- the business is in the order of $1 billion a year business, potentially it's developing quickly because of some of these FDA approvals. There are a number of parties that want to secure sources of this material a lot of it deals with the half-life of some of these elements that we're talking about. We think it could be very material for us. And it's too early to put out numbers. But we think it could be -- I was going to say it could be as material as vanadium business or maybe even the uranium business potentially in due course. But Dave, do you want to add anything here?

Yes. It's really exciting. It's -- I mentioned earlier, we have a lot of radium, thorium at the site as a part of our normal operations. The question is, concentrating it. And so we're working on that. But then we -- then what happens is we send the concentrated radioisotopes to pharmaceutical companies and others. And then they develop short-lived alpha emitting radioisotopes, which they can actually target cancer cells. And then because these are short-lived, they basically kill the cancer cells and they kind of decay and fade out before they can hurt anything around them. And there's abilities to research is finding peptides and other types of elements that are -- these isotopes can be attached to and injected like intravenously into a body and then the peptides take the alpha part was right to the cancer cells and ignore the healthy cells. It's amazing technology, and everyone is very excited about it. So it's -- the problem is that it's very difficult to get some of the isotope. Well, we've got them all with the mills. The question is now, can we harvest them and produce them. So it's very exciting, how much this market will grow, it remains to be seen, but the test results that they're getting are pretty amazing. So we're very optimistic that this technology is really going to take off, and we're in an ideal situation to be a part of it.

[Operator Instructions] There are no more questions from the phone lines. I will turn the conference back over to Mr. Chalmers for closing remarks. Please go ahead, sir.

Yes. Thank you. And thank you for the questions, and thank you for your interest in Energy Fuels. And I -- reiterating that it's a very exciting time for our company. It's a very changing world that we live in. We plan to change with the world, because that's what you have to do nowadays. If you're looking at an investment on reducing carbon emissions and electrification, you get the one-stop shop with energy fuels. And as I said, really with the bonus of vanadium and the medical isotopes in the future potentially. So it's kind of -- it's a remarkable story. I love telling the story. And I understand that it's a bit complicated for some, but I plan to -- we plan to be aggressive but not reckless, as I've said in the past, looking through to the future and this year. And I look forward to providing further updates in the coming months that hopefully will be very exciting as we kind of build our strategy going forward. Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude your conference call for today. We would like to thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines.