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

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you all for joining us for this Energy Fuels Second Quarter 2026 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, today's session is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to President and CEO, Mr. Ross Bhappu. Welcome, sir.

Good morning, and thank you for joining our second quarter earnings call. I'm joined today by Nate Bennett, our CFO; and Nathan Longenecker, our Chief Legal Officer. After today's prepared comments, I'll be happy to take questions. Our earnings release and today's slide presentation are available on our Investor Relations website, and a replay of today's discussion will also be available on the website. Before we begin, I'd like to turn your attention to our safe harbor statements. During today's call, management may use forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are based on current assumptions and beliefs as of today. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties. And for a detailed list of such risks, please refer to our Risk Factors section within the 10-Qs and 10-Ks filed with the SEC. Energy Fuels is under no obligation to publicly update forward-looking statements after the date of this call, except as otherwise required by applicable legislation. Well, it's been exactly a year since I joined Energy Fuels as President and just over 100 days since I became the CEO. Before we get into this quarter's results, I want to take a little bit of time to first share my reflections on the last 12 months. I joined this company because of its unique position with the industry. Energy Fuels has a deep history and foundational strength within uranium. And in the U.S., we're the largest producer of uranium, and we own the only permitted fully operational uranium processing facility, our White Mesa Mill in Blanding, Utah. Over the course of our history, the company has also discovered the ability to process both light and heavy rare earth elements. The company has identified and acquired as well as partnered on projects that will supply rare earths to the White Mesa Mill for processing. These projects, the Vara Mada Project, the Bahia Project and the Donald Project, along with our agreements with Chemours were hand selected as the most complementary feedstock sources to the future of commercial expansion of the mill. That was the stage when I joined the company last year, a great portfolio of assets ready for the next phase of growth. I spent significant time with the team to determine how best to deliver on our ambitions from a view both of operational feasibility and the value creation. As part of our strategic planning process, the picture became quite clear. Rare earth elements are paramount to the future of industry and defense. We have access and ability to mine these critical materials and industry-leading ability to process them into oxides. A major squeeze point in the rare earth magnet manufacturing value chain has long been midstream metallization and alloy making. So we took a hard look at the opportunity set. And in January, we announced the acquisition of Australian Strategic Materials, ASM as it's called, a deal that's advancing well, and we expect to close late this month, only a few weeks away. ASM is a fully operational producer of metals and alloys that will be supplied by our rare earth oxides. Combining these capabilities solves a critical step and a significant pinch point in the value chain, allowing for full integration, which leads to significantly improved economics. In addition, across the geopolitical landscape, it's become quite clear that the West is very limited in its ability to produce rare earth magnets required for rapidly growing industries, including automotive, data centers, robotics and defense. In fact, there are very few companies with this capability that can do so at scale. The largest Western company with these capabilities is Vacuumschmelze, more commonly referred to simply as VAC. Our due diligence quickly revealed that VAC's robust capabilities and 100-year history of operations, which accentuated the long-term potential when combined with Energy Fuels and ASM. The company has been producing rare earth permanent magnets for over 40 years and in the past decade has produced over 1 billion magnets. Let me repeat that. It's produced over 1 billion magnets in the last 10 years. Keep in mind that these magnets are not what you experimented with in your science or chemistry class. Rather, these are highly engineered and uniquely made for each customer for each specific application like electric vehicle drive motors, actuators for airplane aileron deployment, smartphones, earbuds, and the list goes on and on. These are prolific in our everyday lives and VAC has over 1,000 current customers producing over 2,000 individual parts. When we look at where we are and where we want to be in 5 years' time, this acquisition made incredible sense and our respective growth profiles fit like a hand in glove to create a fully integrated mine-to-magnet platform. We expect the VAC transaction to close in early '27, subject to customary regulatory approvals. When that happens, we'll have all the pieces of the puzzle to make us completely vertically integrated, resources, processing, separation, metallization and alloy making and now magnet manufacturing. As we move through the approval and closing processes of these 2 incredible organizations, we are readying ourselves to put these pieces together and realize significant value creation across the supply chain. Now our story is about execution. As a first step, we announced the commencement of construction on our Phase 1B and 1C expansion at the White Mesa Mill and the addition of a rare earth MREC processing circuit. MREC is mixed rare earth carbonates. Upon completion, the mill will be equipped to process uranium and rare earth simultaneously and at commercial scale. This alleviates the decision point that we currently have today, processing either uranium or rare earth minerals. But importantly, it allows us to readily supply our midstream operations at the ASM facility who will ultimately supply that for its magnet manufacturing needs. We have a lot to do, but the path is quite clear, and my job is to make sure we continue to execute. We have a tremendously experienced leadership team at Energy Fuels, and we will be joined with an equally talented leaders -- equally talented leaders from both ASM and VAC with the required expertise for operating these key facilities. Mine-to-magnets is a term that gets used quite frequently in our industry. We view ourselves as not just a mine-to-magnets player, but rather a mine-to-engineered solutions provider. I can confidently say that we're on a clear path, and we will be the first company in the West and certainly North America to have operational and commercial scale facilities that will make us truly vertically integrated from mines to magnets. I will continue to update you on our progress in future calls, but now let's turn to our second quarter results. Q2 2026 was a strong operational quarter for Energy Fuels. To highlight, we announced support from the U.S. government with a conditional $725 million loan from the Office of Strategic Capital. We announced a transformative acquisition of VAC. We progressed on the ASM acquisition, which we anticipate closing at the end of August, subject to formal closing procedures. With the closures of these acquisitions, we'll be the West's leading mine-to-magnet provider. We mined 365,000 pounds of uranium and produced more than 860,000 pounds. We ended the quarter with 2.27 million pounds of uranium in inventory. From a financial perspective, we have a robust balance sheet with nearly $1 billion of liquidity. And during the quarter, we recorded $25 million of revenue from a combination of contract and spot sales. We achieved an industry low production cost of $23 per pound of uranium. This quarter's financial results were weighed by a few heavy onetime items attributable to transaction-related costs that Nate is going to walk you through momentarily. I spoke briefly about the clear path that Energy Fuels has ahead of us. As you can see, it's certainly ambitious. However, it's thoughtful and calculated. And as Mark Chalmers, our previous CEO, would say, we're ambitious but not reckless. As we progress through the remainder of 2026 and into the years ahead, we've staged our capacity and production growth across feedstock, processing and separation and magnet manufacturing to ensure our ability to seamlessly integrate our upstream, midstream and downstream capabilities. When we enter 2028 with a completed Phase 1B and 1C expansion of the White Mesa Mill, we'll be able to source 100% of our feedstock for processing to rare earth oxides. That capacity will be sufficient for 70% of the capacity for use at ASM's metallization and alloy making facilities, which will supply sufficient magnet alloy for over 100% of VAC's 2,000 tons of magnet capacity at their manufacturing facility in Sumter, South Carolina, the largest rare earth permanent magnet facility in the United States. To put it in perspective, this volume will provide magnets needed for 800,000 electric vehicles or 4 million conventional vehicles or 1 billion smartphones. These are just amazing levels of production. We anticipate increasing our magnet making capacity at Sumter sixfold through 2031 to 12,000 tons per annum, by far the largest planned facility in the West. As we execute our expansions across each of the pillars of our supply chain, including activating rare earth mining projects that are currently in development and additional expansion of the White Mesa Mill, we expect the ability to supply over 100% of our facilities within our fully integrated mine-to-magnet supply chain. This is a capital-intensive plan, and we're not shy about that. We've put considerable thought into not only what we intend to do, but also how we can achieve these important milestones. Importantly, our plan is strategically staged and disperses our capital across the next 5 years. We're also starting from a position of strength within our balance sheet with our balance sheet at quarter end of nearly $1 billion in liquidity, as mentioned previously. In addition to our own balance sheet, we have access to multiple government funding sources as well as a term loan facility from Goldman Sachs. This allows us to be tactical in our capital deployment strategy with multiple levers to pull as we assess the financing of each project. Lastly, a plan is only as good as the team that's leading it. In the past year and also through the ASM and VAC acquisitions, we are assembling a team with deep operational and execution-based experience. This group possesses not only the required technical expertise, but have also been the drivers of transformative projects and acquisitions across our value chain. I'm confident that we have the right people in place to deliver on our ambitious plans. As I turn the call over to Nate to cover our financials, I'd like to leave you with a couple of thoughts. Before an EV and electric vehicle can move, there's a rare earth magnet. Before a reactor can produce power, there's uranium. Before stronger steel can carry greater loads, there's vanadium and before robotics and advanced technologies, there are rare earth minerals. The world talks about what comes next. Energy Fuels works to deliver on what comes first. Now I'll hand it over to Nate Bennett.

Thanks, Ross. Before I get into the numbers, I encourage everyone to review today's discussion alongside our Form 10-Q and other public filings as those documents provide additional detail and context around our results, risk factors and disclosures. As we continue to grow and diversify the business, it is important to remember that we manage and evaluate our operations by commodity line. Today, that primarily includes uranium, while our rare earth and heavy mineral sands metals, alloys and magnet businesses continue to advance through development activities and the pending ASM and VAC acquisitions. For uranium specifically, there are 3 key metrics we discuss each quarter, pounds mined, pounds processed and pounds sold. Those metrics do not always move together in a given quarter and understanding the distinction is important when evaluating our results. Mining reflects the amount of uranium extracted from our deposits. Processing reflects the amount converted into finished U3O8 at the White Mesa Mill. Sales reflect pounds delivered into the market under long-term contracts or spot transactions. Because we strategically build and draw inventory over time, these metrics can vary from quarter-to-quarter while still supporting our long-term operating and commercial plan. With that context, let me walk you through the quarter. Turning to our financial results. Energy Fuels remains in an exceptionally strong financial position. At June 30, 2026, we had approximately $996 million of working capital and $1.53 billion of total assets, which we believe represents one of the strongest balance sheets in the global uranium and critical minerals sector. During the second quarter, we reported a net loss of $33.6 million. As we've discussed before, quarterly earnings can be influenced by the timing of uranium sales, product mix, strategic investments and transaction-related expenses. Importantly, the fundamentals of the business remain strong. Our uranium segment generated $25 million of revenue, approximately $14 million of gross profit and a 57% gross margin during the quarter. The segment continues to generate positive operating income while supporting exploration, development and corporate costs, demonstrating that our uranium business provides a solid financial foundation for the company. The losses incurred with our rare earth elements and heavy mineral sands businesses primarily reflect planned investments to advance these projects towards future production, including engineering, permitting, infrastructure development and organizational growth. We also incurred approximately $10.7 million of acquisition and integration-related costs associated with the ASM and VAC transactions. These expenditures support our strategy of building a fully integrated critical minerals platform spanning mining, processing, separation and downstream magnet manufacturing. Overall, our financial strategy remains unchanged, maintain a strong balance sheet, generate cash flow from our uranium business, preserve commercial flexibility and invest prudently in the growth initiatives that we believe will create significant long-term shareholder value. Turning to uranium inventories and costs. One of the most encouraging trends we continue to see is the decline in uranium inventory costs, driven largely by the strong production performance and low-cost profile of Pinyon Plain. At quarter end, our finished U3O8 inventory carried an average cost of approximately $33.92 per pound, down from approximately $36 per pound at the end of the first quarter and continuing the downward trend we have seen over the past several quarters. Looking ahead, we expect inventory costs to continue declining as additional low-cost Pinyon Plain production moves through inventory. This is consistent with the operating and economic benefits we have expected from Pinyon Plain, including higher grades, increased production volumes and continued operating efficiencies. Our uranium inventory remains a significant strategic asset with approximately 2.27 million pounds of U3O8 in inventory at quarter end, we have the flexibility to support long-term contract deliveries, pursue spot market opportunities when market conditions warrant and manage production and sales activities to maximize value. Overall, we believe our declining inventory costs, future production base and substantial inventory position continue to strengthen the profitability and strategic flexibility of our uranium business. Looking at operations moving forward. The White Mesa Mill successfully completed the current uranium processing campaign during the second quarter, producing approximately 1.7 million pounds of finished U3O8 during the first half of 2026 and achieving our annual process production guidance range ahead of schedule. The mill has now transitioned into a planned maintenance period with uranium processing expected to resume in the fourth quarter of 2026 or early 2027. Pinyon Plain continues to perform exceptionally well and is delivering the low-cost production profile we anticipated. During the campaign, our average mining and transportation costs were approximately $14 per pound of recovered U3O8, while mill processing costs averaged approximately $9 per pound. Combined, those costs resulted in a total weighted average production cost of approximately $23 per pound of recovered U3O8, which was at the bottom end of our previously communicated cost range of $23 to $30 per pound. We believe these results demonstrate both the high-grade nature of the Pinyon Plain deposit and the efficiency of our integrated mining and milling platform. Our priority remains consistent, convert low-cost ore into reliable uranium pounds, continue to improve efficiency across the system and do so without compromising safety or compliance. Turning to our guidance. Our uranium production performance through the first half of 2026 positions us very well relative to our full year outlook, and we are maintaining our 2026 guidance. Having processed approximately 1.7 million pounds of finished U3O8 during the first 6 months of the year, we have already achieved production within our full year finished uranium production guidance range of 1.5 million to 2.5 million pounds of U3O8. We also remain on track to achieve our 2026 uranium sales guidance. Consistent with our commercial strategy, we expect a combination of opportunistic spot market sales and deliveries under our remaining long-term contractual commitments to drive sales during the remainder of the year. Planned maintenance at the White Mesa Mill during the second half of 2026 provides an opportunity to complete improvements that support future uranium operations, continued rare earth element initiatives, including beginning construction to expand our Phase 1 circuits and overall long-term operating efficiency. We currently expect uranium processing to resume in the fourth quarter of 2026 or early 2027. This operational flexibility remains a significant advantage at the White Mesa Mill. While the mill undergoes planned maintenance, our mining operations remain fully active, and we continue to expect to mine more than 2 million pounds of contained U3O8 in 2026 while maintaining our focus on safe, disciplined execution. We also expect uranium grades to improve during the second half of 2026 as mining advances into higher grade zones at Pinyon Plain. As we have noted previously, grade variability is a normal characteristic of underground mining operations, it is fully reflected in our mine plans, production forecast and annual guidance expectations. Overall, we believe the combination of strong first half production, low-cost performance, continued mining activity and improving grade positions us well to execute on our strategy and create long-term value for our shareholders. With that, I'll turn it back to Ross.

Thank you, Nate. With that, I'd like to conclude with a few comments and summary about where we are in 2026. First of all, we remain the U.S. largest producer of uranium, a position we intend to hold for an extended period. Importantly, with rare earths, we've piloted both dysprosium and terbium, and that work is complete, and now we've moved on to gadolinium and potentially other heavy rare earth oxides. The Phase 1 rare earth expansion at the mill is underway, and we expect to commercially produce heavy rare earth oxides in late 2027, and that's going to include both terbium and dysprosium. The Phase 2 expansion at the mill is advancing. As you recall, we released our feasibility study results earlier this year and demonstrated a total capacity of up to over 6,000 tons of NdPr, about 300 tons per annum of dysprosium and 80 tons per annum of terbium oxides. Permitting is underway, and we plan on commissioning this facility in late 2029. The Donald Project FID is expected as early as Q3 2026, so here in just the next few months, including potential offtake in sales and financing options. We continue to pursue permits and government approvals and suitable stability agreements with the Government of Madagascar to support an FID on the Vara Mada Project in the near future. And finally, we've obtained exploration permits in 2025 for our Bahia Project that has allowed us to restart drilling. We hope to have a resource estimate later this year or in early 2027. So with that, I'd like to thank you for joining the call today. I appreciate your interest, and I appreciate your support of Energy Fuels. And we will now take questions from the audience. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Brian Lee with Goldman Sachs.

And maybe this is semantics, but it sounded like on the Donald FID timing, you mentioned as early as Q3, which is in the next couple of months. In the past, I thought you had kind of characterized it as by Q3. So wondering if there is an update, any incremental visibility on what's happening there in terms of Donald. And then to the extent that Donald doesn't come online as quickly as you'd like, can you give us a sense of what the strategy would be in terms of sourcing monazite and feedstock outside of internal sources?

First of all, Brian, thanks for joining us and always appreciate your questions. So yes, Donald FID has been delayed a bit this year, unfortunately, but I think we're making very good progress. The key for us is financing -- sorry, finalizing our financing program. And I think we've made great progress on that. We continue to work with the financing alternatives that we have there. We're focused on financing it in Australia. I'll be heading to Australia a week after next to hopefully progress that and see what we can do to get it finalized and get that FID off as quick as we can. If there are delays and we do have backup plans. I would point you to the fact that we have an existing agreement with Chemours, where we are taking monazite from Chemours. And those come from Florida and Georgia, their operations there. So that will continue. We've also announced that we're putting in an MREC facility. That was the announcement we made just last week, I think it was. And that MREC facility will allow us to take feedstock from ionic clay producers. And there's a number of them in Brazil, in different parts of Asia, different parts of the world. So we will source MREC, which is a mixed rare earth carbonate. We'll source that MREC to feed that facility, and that should be operational late next year or early 2028. So we do have backup plans. In addition, we've had a lot of discussions with different heavy mineral sands producers that have historically either put their monazite in waste dumps or they send it to China because they don't have other options. And again, we have the ability to process that. So we do have backup plans, but we're very hopeful and very confident that we'll be able to finalize our financing and get the FID made here in the next couple of months. So yes, very, very active on that right now.

Yes, that's great. Helpful context. And then maybe just a question on the operations. Cost improved nicely, kudos there. I would be curious, as you near your next processing campaign, is this the sort of cadence we should expect from a cost perspective, process pound increasing quarter-to-quarter and then cost starting out a little higher, but then coming down sequentially? Or is this the new cost level that we should expect kind of into 4Q end of year?

Yes. Thank you again, Brian. Look, our cost base is simple. We're working out higher cost inventory. So our overall cost of sales, cost of goods sold is reducing because we're kind of catching up with the current cost. So the costs have been dropping. I think they will equalize or equilibrate here over the next couple of quarters. We've been very fortunate with the Pinyon Plain mine that we're mining high grades and those result in low-cost operations. So we're confident that at least in the near term, we're going to continue seeing costs sort of in the neighborhood of where we've been experiencing. So yes, it's really a function of very good grades at that mine. And as long as those continue, we'll be -- we'll maintain a low-cost profile. Look, just one other thing on that is the White Mesa Mill continues to operate very effectively and efficiently. I would just remind our listeners that the White Mesa Mill has a higher capacity than our mines do. So that's why we campaign it. And that's why, as Nate mentioned, we ran the mill for the first half of the year. We're now replenishing our stockpile for the mill, and that's why we're going to start it up again later in Q4. So hopefully, that answers your question, Brian.

Your next question comes from Nick Giles with B. Riley Securities.

Maybe just my first one on the OSC facility, what are the kind of remaining conditions to close? And when would you expect that first disbursement? Just curious on what kind of some of those steps are between now and then.

Yes. First of all, Nick, thanks for joining us. Thanks for the question. We -- I'm not sure exactly what we've disclosed, but there are a number of conditions precedent to drawing down on that facility. We're in the middle of legal work, legal documentation, but there are a few conditions precedent that we've also been focused on. Advancing some of the projects is part of that. I think there's a few different steps that we have. Recall that the OSC financing is meant for the White Mesa Mill expansion that we just announced, so the Phase 1B and C is included as part of that. The Phase 2 expansion, which we're working on our permitting for that. So we wouldn't draw money down on that until we're further advanced on permitting. And then the third category of use of those funds is the construction of the American Metals Plant, which is effectively replicating what we have in South Korea and building a sister plant here in the U.S. to process metals and alloys. So we need to advance on that as well. So the drawdown of the funds in the near term or the nearer term would be for the Phase 1B and C, which, again, we announced last week, and we'll be progressing on that construction over the course of the rest of this year and through 2027. So to be honest, we don't need the funds probably until early in 2027 when we would hope to be able to draw down on them.

Understood. And maybe just a follow-up. It was good to see the announcement the other day of construction commencing. Have you disclosed just how much capital will be spent across the balance of 2026 versus what would be left in 2027?

No, I don't believe we've provided that. And I'm just trying to think through. Nate, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't believe we've provided cash flows or capital expenditures.

No, we haven't. But just kind of thinking how you spread it out over the construction period, I mean, it's $104 million. We probably expect about 1/4 of that through 2026 and the remaining amount of that during 2027 as you plan out the project and spend over the construction phase.

Got it. Okay. And then maybe switching gears, if I could. You've talked about the path to roughly 5 million pounds of uranium production. So if we see term prices continue to strengthen, what would it take to bring Whirlwind and Nichols Ranch back both from a kind of capital perspective and then what kind of the timing of that decision would look like?

Yes. So Nichols Ranch, for example, is fully permitted. It's fully constructed. It's sitting really on care and maintenance on standby. To be honest, it will take probably 4 to 6 months once we make the decision to restart that operation. The CapEx requirements are going to be fairly low. I think the bigger issue is getting the crews in place and getting the team in place to get it operational. Whirlwind, I think, is -- it would be a bit longer. So look, I think we're in very good shape if prices start to increase or increase a fair bit, which we anticipate they'll do over the course of the next couple of years, we would bring those back into production fairly quickly. CapEx requirements, again, pretty minimal for Nichols Ranch. We're talking a fairly low amount, to be honest with you. I don't have an exact number, and I hate to throw one out without having the hard data in front of me. But suffice it to say, it's a fully built ready-to-go project. Of course, it's an ISR project. So as you advance that, you would do further production and recovery wells. So there's a bit of drilling expenses involved with it. But Nichols Ranch in particular, is effectively ready to go once we make the decision to restart it.

Your next question comes from Joseph Reagor with ROTH Capital Partners.

Also, it was very helpful to have the breakout in the slide deck on CapEx spend and timing. As you guys think about all the tools that you guys have to fund the small gaps that exist, what is your preference as far as forms of capital raising as you look out, both the near-term aspect and the long-term ones?

Yes. First of all, thank you, Joe. Great to talk to you, and thanks for the question. So first of all, I think we're sitting on a very healthy balance sheet, $996 million, call it, $1 billion of liquidity, effectively cash for the most part. That puts us in a very healthy position there. And of course, we will be using a good chunk of that for closing the VAC acquisition, which will be later next year -- sorry, early next year. And then we did put in place a term loan facility from Goldman Sachs for $250 million. And that's really there is almost a standby facility for us to use if needed. And we're not sure we're going to need it, but it's nice to have sort of in our back pocket. As we look forward, I mean, I think there's a whole host of ways that we could look at raising additional money. My goal, Joe, is to minimize dilution to the extent possible. So any time we go back and have to raise money, I'm going to explore every option that I have available without dilution. Now just on that, my view on dilution is maybe a bit different. I mean if it's accretive, I hate to think of it as dilution and think of it more as accretion. But if we do come back to the equity markets, it will be accretive to our balance sheet and developing and progressing on our business plan. But again, I'm exploring all sorts of options that we have available to us to raise money, and we'll continue to explore those. But look, I think we're in a very good financial position today and very confident with where we are. And keep -- sorry, one other thing I just mentioned, keep in mind that we will generate cash flow from the VAC acquisition and from the ASM acquisition as well. So those all get weighed into the equation.

Okay. Fair enough. And then the other question I have is, as you look across the landscape of rare earth projects in the world, do you see alternative potential sources out there if any one of the projects were to be delayed? Obviously, Donald has been pushed back a little bit, but not meaningfully. But are there other potential sources you guys are seeing come forward that might be interest or ways to partner with people to get a portion of a project that say isn't 100% of rare earth project?

Yes. Yes, it's a really good point and something that we think about all the time. Once we make the commitment for Phase 2, we need to make sure we have feed to fill that 50,000 tons or 60,000 tons of monazite per year that we'll be capable of processing. So that is front and center in what we're thinking about. First of all, let me just say, I think we're very confident in our FID for the Donald Project being made. In the near term Vara Mada continues to advance, and we're confident that we'll have -- be in a position to sign an investment agreement and move that project forward here in the near term. But should those be delayed, should the Bahia Project in Brazil be delayed, we are looking at alternatives. There's a number of heavy mineral sands producers out there that are either not extracting, not processing their monazite, both going into tailings or they're processing -- producing monazite and sending it to China. We would be a much better alternative for those sources of feed. And we're having discussions with a number of those different groups. And look, we'll continue to have discussions, and we want to have access to that offtake. And then the third source of feed is MREC, the mixed rare earth carbonates. And there's a number of producers of MREC that are out there that are looking for a home. One of the key differentiators is we have the ability to process radionuclides that are always contained in MREC really in any rare earth feed. And so it's a differentiator for us. It gives us a tremendous sort of leg up and competitive advantage as a buyer of those monazite and MREC feeds. So we'll have the ability to process MREC as early as the end of next year. And again, I think there's a number of interesting sources of that out there as well.

The next question comes from Heiko Ihle with H.C. Wainwright.

Most have been answered, but just a few things here. Obviously, the Australian Strategic Materials acquisition should be closing here by the end of the month. Just to clarify, what steps besides the shareholder approval are still outstanding? Or I guess asked differently, what regulatory issues are open and which court cases need to settle for this to close?

First of all, Heiko, good to talk to you, and I appreciate the question. So the ASM acquisition is advancing very well. We've -- there's a very well-defined process in Australia when you acquire the -- I might turn it over to Nathan just to mention -- to talk a little bit more in detail about it.

Yes. Thanks for the question. Yes. There are some steps that still need to take place, but -- and those are in the fairly near term actually. August 12, there's a scheme meeting that's going to take place, and that's where you receive the shareholder approval for the transaction. There's then another court date, August 18, where the court just takes a look at it to make sure that everything is in order. And then August 28 is really the implementation date where the transaction is final and the shares are trading. So that's really the process and really there aren't any -- obviously, it's all subject to the process, but there aren't any things beyond that are major that need to take place. And incidentally, if you or others are interested, you can go on the ASM website and there's the scheme book that's on there, and that has all the dates and things you need to take a look at, but it's all happening fairly imminently.