Silex Systems Limited (SLX) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Silex Systems Limited 2026 Annual General Meeting. I'm Julie Russell, Silex's CFO and Company Secretary. And I'm pleased to advise that we have a forum present here at Dentons in Sydney. I declare that our 2026 AGM is now open. We also welcome those shareholders who are joining us virtually today and encourage you to participate in the meeting from a [indiscernible]. The online platform that we are using today allows shareholders, proxies and guests to watch the live webcast of the meeting and able attendees and vote in real time. The minutes of last year's AGM held here at Dentons on the 17th of October are also tabled and are available for inspection by shareholders at the conclusion of the meeting. We'll take this [indiscernible]. Our Notice of Meeting has also been distributed, and we will also take that as having been read. I'd now like to introduce your Board to you. Here, we've got Craig Roy, our Chair. To his left, we've got our Founder and CEO and Managing Director; Dr. Michael Goldsworthy; and our Non-Executive Directors, Chris Wilks; and Susan Colette. As per our Notice Meeting, Craig is standing for reelection today. [indiscernible] will be provided is opening address and following that, Michael will provide a presentation reviewing our highlights for the media together with a business update. Shareholders joining virtually have been provided with instructions on how to participate and vote in today's meeting with details available in the Notice of Meeting. Michael's presentation, Craig's address and the Notice of Meeting are all available on our website. So with regard to questions, we have received a good number of questions in advance of today's meeting. And Craig and Michael have attempted to address these in their respective remarks and presentation. Questions can also now be submitted online at any time. Just some a written question, select the Q&A icon and select the topic to which your question release from the down -- the drop-down list, type your question in the text box and press Send. Subject to the time available, the questions that we receive will be addressed later in the meeting and after Michael's presentation [indiscernible] necessary to avoid repetition or in interest of time. Should you wish to ask a verbal question, please follow the instructions below the broadcast window. For those of you in the room today, you'll also have the opportunity to ask questions following Michael's presentation. So for online attendees in a [indiscernible] so all items of business today will be decided by a poll. Online attendees, if you correctly registered for the meeting and are eligible to vote the Vote icon will shortly appear on the screen. Selecting this icon will bring up the list of resolutions and present you with voting options. To cast your vote, simply select 1 of the options, no need to hit submit or enter, the vote is automatically recorded, and you can change your vote right up until the time that Craig declares voting [indiscernible]. Shareholders, proxy holders and corporate representatives attending in posting today and who are eligible to vote have received a blue voting card on their turn. We now declare voting open on all items of business. For those shareholders attending virtually all icon will soon appear, please submit your votes at any time. Craig will give you a warning before moving to close [indiscernible]. [Voting]

So with that, I'm now very pleased to welcome your Chair, Craig Roy, to provide his opening remarks.

Thanks, Julie. So a little bit different sitting upfront. You might remember, we're here for those last year, to the right is break to welcome you all to the meeting was great to have a chance to speak to a few of you before the meeting and we look forward to doing that with others following the discussion today. So can I welcome you as Julie did the Silex Systems Limited '26 AGM. I think it's very fair to say that year ending June '26 was another important year in the commercialization of our Silex technology and saw solid progress made together with our U.S. exclusive license and joint venture, which we own 51% of the joint venture Global Laser Enrichment. I'll do that to GLE for the rest of the presentation. So GLE's progress has been remained across the last financial year in the commercialization of the technology plan through the technology maturation, siting site clearing say a little bit more about these as we go through decent U.S.-centric supply chain for the technology, in-house world-class fabrication facility and securing U.S. government funding at some quite material economic incentives from the [indiscernible] of taking and also the look account cost which in the last 12 months. All of us on the table here have visited and serrated both Kentucky and [indiscernible] delegates. Progress on these matters support the commercialization of the technology, and I'm very proud of the work that both Silex and GLE teams have done over the course of that year. As I said last year, and I'll repeat again this year, very pleased to be working alongside Cameco Corporation. They're our joint venture partner. As many of you would know, we own 51% of the JV chemical on for 49% of the JV. You probably also know they're 1 of the largest global providers of uranium and nuclear fuel, and they've now invested in Westinghouse. Westinghouse electricity company, the 49% owners of Westinghouse, which adds more value to their whole supply chain across the nuclear power reactors. I think 1 of the most significant technology milestones over the course of the year, it seems a long time ago, back in October 2025 now, but that was the achievement of TRL6. This was the first time a third-generation laser enrichment technology being demonstrated at large scale, pilot plant level and full independent foundation by a top-tier third-party engineering consultancy. So we and half income very important to get that third-party validation from the top-tier engineering company. That represents a key derisking event and set Silex and GLE on solid path to commercial deployment at the plan Paducah Base Richmond facilities. We refer to that as the PLEF, and that's how I refer to it for the rest of the discussion. That's in Kentucky and by 2030. So the PLEF offers a unique single site solution for U.S. domestic production of uranium conversion most in portfolio equally importantly, and enrichment services with significantly higher efficiency and orders of magnitude increase in process throughput. The Silex technology potentially places GLE in a strong position to help satisfy in the global growing demand for fuel. GLE remains on track with the time lines we put out around the NRC license, and we anticipate that in CY '27. GLE owners, Silex and Cameco continue to support activities focused on 2 key areas: final design, detailed sign demonstration of Silex technology at full scale commercial system performance on the plant like conditions. That's what we refer to as TRL7. So it's a step-up, obviously, in TRL6 and planning for disciplined commercial deployment of the plant and that obviously has a subject to the feasibility assessment and final investment decisions which were outlet was. Since the end of the year, and you would have seen a market announcement around this recently, GLEs achieved another milestone signing an offtake agreement with Cameco to purchase all future nuclear fuel production from the plate. And I should add the main of the partnership is from but Silex was very comfortable with the arrangements when we're a party to bringing that transaction together. We're now keenly focused on the final design, detailed design and demonstration of full-scale commercial performance of the Silex technology and preparations for feasibility and assessment of the pet, which I mentioned before. Let me go back a minute to the offtake agreement because it's been a little bit of chatter on this. I just want to clear that up. The agreement provides a key commercial support future FID. It's something we need to have a place before for an investment decision and is structured to ensure that GLE benefits from Cameco's future contracting efforts, future contracting efforts probably underlying there and what we believe to be a tightening market. During the business during the year, we also continued to strengthen, diversify the business and some of Silex technology, including the recent completion of construction of the world's first laser-based enrichment plan for commercial production of Quantum silicon at the company's Sydney facility out of [indiscernible]. We are continuing to see great interest in our part to supply a key enabling material for silicon quantum computing and look forward to commencing commercial production [indiscernible]. I know when I was circling the floor before, there's a number of questions around that. And if you had any further questions, then pick them up speaking discussion [indiscernible]. To supply our achievements over the last year and the unprecedented positive fundamentals for the global nuclear fuel industry, we believe our share price has not reflected the enormous potential value of the company, particularly in recent months. We see big swings across the whole sector, day-to-day, some days up 5%, some days down 5-plus percent. It moves around. What we do as a company as we focus on what we can control. We control the work that I've outlined before in terms of building the best capability in the world to deploy uranium enrichment and conversion services to the U.S. market stuff that's happening around us, yes, disappointing, but it's not something we can do. After 3 decades of decline at the newer industry, the U.S. has moved decisively to reverse this trend and reestablish itself as the global leader in civilian nuclear power, U.S.-based GLE and it is U.S. based for an important reason, is positioning itself to be a leading enrichment company to operate in a sector with very strong tailwinds and are set to be with us for the foreseeable future as clean energy demands continue to grow, and the world inevitably transitions towards Net Zero. This megatrend is not dissipating, and we're a potential beneficiary of this trend. We continue to work diligently with GLE towards deployment of this very unique technology that potentially offers significant benefits to you, our shareholders. Our growth and opportunities remain possible by the utility of the technology, our strategic investment in and the further exploitation of our core strengths in building the world's first laser-based enrichment plan for Quantum specific on, as I mentioned. Our progress towards commercialization in these projects has been underpinned by [indiscernible] talented Silex and GLE team members, which are a core of activities and achievements. We entirely work to maximize our units enabled today. I must say whenever the Board -- and again, we've all visited we've been to the Paducah site. As I mentioned, we've spoken to the folks in Kentucky and also the Paducah accounts. We've also been in the Wilmington site in the last 12 months and just the level of energy in that side and what's bothers 2 sites there and what's been built up on that -- on those 2 sites is just as on the energy of the staff there is sort powerful. They are focused on our mission of getting this technology to market, so it's actually producing enriched product, baseline uranium product and tapping the conversion services. And equally, when we visit Lucas Heights, we get the same mood and approach from Lucas Heights at the expertise of the staff and passion staff to make the Silex vision of reality. I'm going to move to governance briefly. That's terrific working with this Board, highly committed, focused work to ensure we continually try to drive high levels of governance performance with the right breadth of skills and competencies, including having the expertise to evaluate and respond to the various opportunities and risks that confront us from day to day, week to week. It's not necessarily a straightforward company, we operate in a classified space. As many of you know, metrocross-borders. We operate in deep technology first of a fine but the board's been very, very diligent in approaching all of those. Now before handing over to Michael, I'd like to thank my fellow directors, Chris, Sue, obviously, our Managing Director, Mike as well too and the whole talented Silex team. I'd also like to acknowledge, I don't know how many you met [indiscernible] Steve Lane, our CEO of GLE, but Steve's outstanding, and I'd like to thank him. He comes out of the GLE Hitachi, he was there while they were still as partial owners of previous nuclear submarine is doing a great job, leading the operations on the ground with approximately 120 staff in the U.S., representing our interest in representing the interest of Cameco were very visible but he's doing a great job. I just want to acknowledge that. In closing, obviously, our shareholders, I would like to thank you very -- a number of very, very patient shareholders and Silex, which were all very great for your continued loyalty and support imposing and then a [indiscernible] Julie mentioned. I'm standing for reelection today with the support of my fellow directors. I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't passed, I am very passionate about the going well over the last or 7 years, many of you on the German [indiscernible], all of us at this table are healthy income company to wherever it's attention to take us. So I'm now going to hand over to Michael. Yes, we're going to move to seats that we're not to the back of the pressure.

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the AGM. My voice is a little foamy, come off a big trip and order but the end of it to 99% back on trucking out. So hopefully, my voice holds up. Forward-looking statements to read at your own leisure. But I'm here to update you on progress that we had last year. And I like what will happen over the next 12 or so months. As you're all aware, we're focused on commercializing our innovative Silex laser enrichment technology the leading third-generation laser technology for uranium and Richmond in the world now at the final stage of engineering, which is a very important point that I want to emphasize today, TRL7 is the long passage of engineering. I'll talk about that in a little more detail shortly. But our primary focus is on uranium enrichment with GLE as Craig has just detailed. And our secondary focus is on silicon enrichment firstly, for silicon quantum computing and secondly, an emerging application in conventional chips for thermal management on those big GPUs and TPUs that are now housing our massive data centers around the world. We have a third program in early stages for additional semiconductor isotopes and medical isotopes. And hopefully, we can bring some more information and news on that project as we move forward over the next 12 months. So investment highlights. Unique third-generation laser enrichment technology being commercialized in the U.S. under the auspices of a treaty government, government treaty between the Australian and U.S. governments which was signed in 2000 by President Clinton and Prime Minister Howard, that still provides the overarching framework for the cooperation between here -- us here in Australia with our Australian team and Julie's team in Wilmington, North Carolina and Paducah with the U.S. citizens working on the project. As Craig pointed out, we have unprecedented positive tailwinds in the nuclear industry. And I was just looking at our report from Andrew Hines from [indiscernible] Partners that was released only half an hour ago. He's probably a world authority on all things in nuclear, particularly the uranium industry. And he's pointing out how perilous the uranium supply situation is going forward over the next 5 to 10 years with expansion of nuclear around the world and not enough uranium being produced today or in the pipeline resources being developed. So there is enormous momentum in nuclear around the world today, but not enough fuel is being made or can be made in the near future if the industry does not pick up its game. And Craig detailed our JV with Cameco, Global Laser Enrichment, 39% owned by Silex, 49% by Cameco. But apart from our equity ownership, we also have a very attractive royalty through our technology license to GLE, which I'll come to shortly. We did complete TRL6 this time last year. We're now charging ahead with TRL7, which is the full-scale demonstration of commercial scaling equipment. So we'll be operating that new pilot plant in Wilmington, North Carolina under plant like conditions in about a year from now. The path forward with GLE is underpinned by a very important agreement between GLE and the Department of Energy, which was signed in 2016 and amended in 2020. And that gives GLE access to 30 years of feedstock for our first project, come to that shortly, but we call that the world's largest above-ground uranium mine, because that project will produce huge amounts of natural grade uranium for the nuclear industry. From a feed stock, which is not in the ground, it's above ground store in cylinders. And also, as Craig just mentioned, we have recently signed an offtake agreement between GLE and Cameco that will see all of GLE's products purchased by Cameco going forward at Cameco's average realized price, less cost. So that's a very important pillar for FID, final investment decision, which we will be focusing on more so towards the end of next year. So our 2 distinct value propositions. Firstly, our equity in Global Laser Enrichment, 51%. When we restructured GLE back in the late teens, Cameco recommenced the option to acquire an additional 26% to take their stake to 75%, and we've dropped to 25% and that would be transacted at what we call fair market value. So that would be a negotiated fair market value. Hopefully, if Cameco exercised that option, we can agree on that, but there's some term arbitration if we can't. That option is open at Cameco's call until April 2028. So that's not ROA, if more than a year. The second part of our value proposition is our royalty, minimum 7% on GLE's and Richmond's revenues. So we have plans to have a multipurpose plant, single-site multipurpose plant to produce natural grade uranium LAU that's reactive grade, enriched uranium, LAU plus and ultimately, potentially [indiscernible], and for small modular reactors. But any of those activities using our technology, our laser enrichment technology would result in a calculation being done at the end of each year's operations of the SME revenues and then a 7% royalty applied, and that's perpetual because our technology has been classified by the U.S. and Australian governments for many years now. And we cannot publish payments. So the technology is held in trade secret with military grade security in perpetuity. So as long as GLE is using our technology, there's no sunset on the IP because patents will not drop off. And so the license is perpetual and the royalty is potentially perpetual. But I think there's many royalties at a 7% rate. In any case, it's [indiscernible] by royalty rate. But we have the chance to lift that up to a cap of 12%, and that is leveraged to reducing capital costs over time as we build out expansion of capacity at our Paducah site. Right now, we're at autumn in, as you would expect, with first-of-kind technology. But our repeat 7% is a very good royalty rate in anyone's language. The license that GLE is applying for is for 8 million slews of operations. So we give an example based on 8 million slews of operations at today's enrichment price around $180 a unit, that would equate to a royalty each year of USD 100 million coming back from Julie to Silex. So that's something to look forward to. So recent highlights, the offtake agreement that we've talked about on all of GLEs products to be purchased by Cameco, this does underpin FID and allows Julie to avoid the cost of starting up a full sales and marketing team and all the resources that go with that. So this is a really good agreement for Julie and for Silex. We're very happy to have Cameco handling sulfur marketing for GLE because ultimately, GLEs customers are already Cameco's customers. Technology demonstration, finishing TRL6 last year, now well and truly charging ahead with U.S. government funding we received $28.5 million package, of which I think around $10 million has already been received by GLE and also a very attractive package from Kentucky State and McCracken County of nearly USD 100 million that will come into play through construction and into operations. Not long ago, November 24, GLE bought 700 acres right next to the top of energy first-generation gas diffusion site, which we'll see shortly. So that is why we are in Kentucky because our feedstock is located right next door to our future plan. TRL7, as we've said, is a full-scale 100% full-scale demonstration of commercial-ready equipment. So right now, GLE and Silex taking components to full scale building full-scale equipment, optimizing equipment, GLE due to starts and preliminary testing in the next few weeks, and that will continue into the new year. And then we will be undertaking the construction of the final full-scale equipment during next year, and we hope to be able to test that because more the end of next year, and hopefully, finishing TRL7 by the end of next year, calendar year 2027. In parallel, there is a whole range of activities that relate to manufacturing. And this is the twin CRL7 manufacturing readiness level, MRL7. So this focuses on in-house and external manufacturing of full-scale equipment. And right now, GLe's in-house fabrication facility, show you some pictures shortly, in very busy building our TRL7 equipment. So it's a fantastic resource that GLE has in-house. But we'll need health contract manufacturers for things like various laser systems and components and some of the tail equipment and of course, the gas handling systems, which are pretty similar to the gas handling systems that you find in a centrifuge plan. And in addition, establishing a fully U.S. domesticated supply chain. So for example, some of the gas handling equipment companies moved offshore from the U.S. in the 2000 and 2010s. So right now, GLE is busy working with those gas handling system manufacturers currently based in Europe to set up operations again in the U.S. The NRC license for the PLEF is in its final stages. Right now the U.S. NRC is undertaking its final legal review, slightly delayed by 2 or 3 weeks, but we expect the environmental impact statement, that's the first half of the license 2 reports. That's the first one to be released in the next 2 or 3 weeks. And then the second part of the license, the safety evaluation report to be released in the weeks following that certainly before the end of the year. And there's a 45-day period for final examination and assessment. And after that, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission actually stamps the approved and releases the license to GLE. So we anticipate that to happen in the first quarter of next year 2027. There are some ongoing marketing and feasibility activities that will increase through next year 2027. But of course, Cameco will take charge of offtake arrangements with customers. So looking at the technology. First generation gas diffusion last plan to operate was in Paducah, Kentucky, operated by Department of Energy and in its later years use. So this is a very inefficient technology, very costly, massive energy consumption and is obsolete today. But what came out the backdoor of that plant is what dually has under the agreement with the Department of Energy for 2016, and I'll come to explain that in a few minutes. Diffusion has been replaced completely by gas centrifuge, there's some very large gas centrifuge plants operating in Europe by Uranco and Orano and also in Russia by in. And there's 1 plant in the best operated by Urenco and owned by Erenco. Centrifuge is higher efficiency than diffusion, but still more and comes with very high capital costs. In comparison, Silex laser technology has a much higher enrichment efficiency. It's a multiple of the recent efficiency of centrifuge technology. So that means we have less steps in our cascades, our enrichment cascades. But perhaps the biggest difference is the throughput through our machinery. The throughput through a centrifuge machine is extremely low. It's less than 10 mills. It's nilly vacuum. That's the nature of centrifuge. You can't overload with gas. So centrifuge players typically have hundreds of parallel cash gains to get the pay capacity on. Well, in the case of Silex, our machinery has throughput around 3 orders of magnitude 1,000x throughput of Centrifuge technology. So we will have far fewer parallel cash guide to achieve the same capacity as a centrifuge plan. So all in all, with less stages and less cascades, we have a much smaller footprint, a much lower CapEx and lower OpEx and we believe that we will be in a good position to compete in the market when our first plant becomes operational. The nuclear fuel supply chain shown here starts with uranium production traditionally from mining operations around the world, a fact of the age of the universe that all uranium in its natural state has about 0.7% assay of uranium 235, the active isotope and 99.3% uranium 238. First, next step in making fuel is conversion from the lock side that the mine is produced to the fluoride that is required for enrichment. That's a separate industry that trades under kilograms. Of course, most of you know, uranium is traded as pants, why they use different units, nobody really knows, but that's how it trades. Today, the uranium price is around $100 a pound, conversions around $50, $60 a kilogram. That in itself is a valuable market, and then enrichment is undertaken by the huge companies that I just mentioned around the world, and that takes it from natural assay up to low enriched uranium grade, which is the grade of most reactor is today. Some are starting to use a slightly higher grade on the LU plus and then for future reactors, small modular actors, there will be a need for as up to 20% of uranium 235. So our enrichment is the critical step in making nuclear fuel, but you do need the uranium to start with and they convert it hexafluoride. And interestingly, Cameco now with 49% of Westinghouse major players in the last 2 steps, fuel fabrication and nuclear power plants. Of course, Westinghouse is the global leader in nuclear power plant technology with the AP1000, and I have extensive fuel fabrication facilities in the U.S. So our partner, Cameco, has the whole nuclear fuel supply chain covered, except for enrichment today, which is hopefully where guy will fill that gap in a few years' time. This supply chain has been disrupted since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. There are -- there is an act of Congress in the U.S. that will ban the import of Russian-produced uranium conversion and enrichment from the first of January 2028. And we will see a lot of effort to replace that imported fuel. I'll come to that shortly. But I want to finish on our summary of GLE. GLE operates in 2 places now, 2 locations in the U.S. Moving to North Carolina on the East Coast, great, very nice the gray spot. And that's where we have our ale facility, the test loop and the headquarters and the manufacturing facility and then a 700-acre site in Paducah in the heartland of America where we will hopefully build our aboveground uranium mine in the next few years. Well, we're not just talking about producing natural grade uranium at this site in Paducah. We've got a triple opportunity. So on the left, First project will produce natural grade uranium from the Department of Energy's depleted tails under the 2016 agreement. There's over 200,000 tonnes of this material and we will use our laser technology to right from the low natural back up to natural growth, the same rate the mines produced at a rate of around a mine producing 5 million pounds of uranium a year for 30 years. So this is a huge project. It's very strategically important I'll come to it in a moment, but U.S. does not have great rating reserves. The second opportunity is to produce the low and risked uranium with uranium 235 SIs of around 35% and LUPs of 5% to 10%. Some of the utilities in the U.S. are now trialing LEU plus because it gives them better economics. So that all requires more enrichment capacity. The amount of enrichment we would need to take DOE tails material from natural grade to LEU grade is about 2 million units of enrichment. So if you look at the total potential revenues from that Department of Energy Materials, we have the revenue potential from the uranium revenue potential from the conversion because our feedstock is already converted. And as I mentioned, that trades for $50 a kilogram. And thirdly, we have our potential revenue from enrichment to LEU Grade. And if you add all that up at today's prices, market prices, it's in the order of dollars of revenue just from the Department of Energy Tails material. But the important point here is we have a single site solution to produce all these different grades of uranium, which is quite unique in the wood. So hopefully, we can realize that in a few short years. I won't spend much time on this chart. We've already talked about what we're doing in TRL7. But we're making great progress. Team in GLE as I mentioned, are about to start some important preliminary trials, so that will take us into the new year before we start building the final or finish building the final full-scale equipment and commission that for the full-scale demonstration. Once that production module has been demonstrated and finalized, there's no more engineering, no more tinkering, no more adjustments, maybe a little bit of optimization over the coming year years. but the engineering is essentially finished in TRL7. And then we would turn our attention to the Paducah plant, and we would replicate those margins and build out a full production case, which would be installed in our first plant in Paducah, Kentucky. And that plant would represent the activities of TRL8, first production cascade. And then when that plant is up and running, TRL9 has essentially been reached with commercial production. So looking at that first project, this is the gas diffusion plant that is operated by the Department of Energy from 1952 to 2013. We still got a lot of questions about what this uranium, aboveground uranium mine is all about? What are the fleeted tails? Well, try to explain in this picture, the operations at this plant over those decades was fed natural grade uranium that was produced by miners and converted by the conversion companies and produced LEU assays at 3% to 5%. But because of the inefficiency and the abundance of uranium those days, they did not fully deplete. So there's still appreciable assays of uranium-235 in what came out the back door of this plan and we call that assay depleted tires. It's a bit of a mouthful, but it's high-value material became out the back door of this plant in Paducah. So that's material that is a subject of the typical agreement between the DOE and GLE. Our first plant, shown here in blue, will take those tails material finder by cylinder. They're stored in the yards around that plant around the buildings, which you see at the top left at 25,000 cylinders of depleted tails will be taken 1 by 1 to the plant and process using our laser enrichment technology to produce natural grade uranium and if utilities want that taken up to reactor grade, then we could do that next door in the gray building. Again, with the same laser niche technology and reaching it from natural grade to LEU grade -- reacted grade. And as I mentioned, there's capacity for expansion across this site, this is only about 150 acres of a 700-acre site. So we have shown here some expansion in LEU on the left-hand side to the right-hand side and ultimately, some hell capacity if that market emerges in the green building there. So flow diagrams on the right, hopefully be clarified what we are doing in the blue building and then the grade building with that material. As I mentioned, the revenue potential just from the DOE material. At full scale, full operation would be around a bit of idle on today's market prices. We have done some economics of our technologies, pretty good numbers for CapEx and OpEx now. They're continually revised and reviewed by independent experts. We've had a review the year before last. Right now, we believe our costs are reducing the uranium in that first PLEF plant is less than $30 a pound here to mining costs. So this is like a Tier 1 uranium resource. Not many resources coming online to the at less than $30 a pound. In fact, the Kazakhstan recently announced that they're coming to the end of their CPE rating. Their costs were even less than maybe $20. But that's all coming to an end, uranium will get more expensive as less quality resources are brought online. And so the price must go up, uranium price has to go up to incentivize new production around the world. But the good news is this is an extremely valuable uranium resource in the U.S. It's the largest uranium resource in the U.S. by our [indiscernible]. We did mention the offtake agreement. And I just like to add that the pricing is determined by average realized price on a forward going basis from start of construction of the commercial plant. So the ARP that will be used to assess the pricing on GLEs product will not include legacy contracts that Cameco is still playing out. And of course, one of the most important aspects of this agreement is that GLE now has completely finished with sales and marketing and this is a very important pillar for a final investment decision as we move closer to that point. Time line, TRL7, hopefully, finishing by the end of next year, calendar year. And then our tent turns to the commercial plan. Before we start constructing the commercial plant, we hopefully will have the NRC license in and the first half of next year, possibly the first quarter. I mentioned that we encompass commercial plan of up to 8 million so and up to 8% in Richmond. So with TRL7 finished and the NRC license in hand, we can then undertake a feasibility assessment for the PLEF, Richmond facility and be in a position to make a final investment decision, if not lateness due than first half 2020, early 2028. It's not far away. It's nearly 15, 16 months away. So we are getting to the point end. And after that, the focus would switch to engineering, procure extraction of the first plant at PLEF for the processing of the tails. And hopefully, commencing commercial operations before the end of 2030. So we are on track, a lot to do. very busy times in the U.S. and here in Sydney, but we are in pretty good shape right now. This is the site that GLE has purchased next to the gas infusion plan undergoing some preliminary clearing activities. And this is the headquarter site in Wilmington, North Carolina, where July has its offices and a very large manufacturing facility at the rear of this building, taking up the majority of the 70,000 square feet. So this manufacturing facility, as I mentioned, is very busily operating to construct the TRL7 equipment today. It's quite a sight every time we go there. Lots more bank stood up and ready for operations figure I'd like to pause on here is the LCO levelized cost of electricity ratio. It's only $48 a megawatt hour. And that's why they're bringing some of the decommission plants back online because they're producing expansion around the rest of the world, nuclear power plant and construction is well and truly expanding in not just existing countries, but new countries adopting net power for their power requirements. There's 80 odd nuclear power plants currently under construction, another 120 odd be planned in planning phase and 100s proposed. So around 1,000 nuclear reactors just on current plans without the pending expansion of vehicles around the world. And the WNA or Nuclear Association sets that to hit 2050 Net Zero will need thousands of reactors. The situation in the U.S. where GLE is located is quite dire. As I mentioned, they do not have any reserves they only provide 1% of their own uranium requirements. So a lot of that was coming from Russia and the rest of the world, including Australia and Canada. So to put that in perspective, GLE's uranium-producing project will provide about 10x what it produces today in the U.S. that provide about 10% of current U.S. requirements, not the future, which will be larger, but just current. Conversion, the U.S. only supplies about 1/3 of its on conversion. We're going to bring 2 million kilograms of conversion capacity to the market from that first project, because remember, our feed is already converted. So that's a significant addition to the 19,000 tonnes of conversion or 19 million unit kilograms we're bringing 2 million, about another 10% conversion capacity to the U.S. market and enrichment, similar story, 30% supplied by the 1 plant in New Mexico run by Urenco. About 25% to 30% being supplied by Russia today under waiver but the waivers will finish in first of January '28, and so there will be a need for new enrichment capacity onwards. This slide simply notes how much of the market is still available or uncommitted demand. And in terms of uranium, 25 million pounds annually from early 2030s. And in terms of enrichment, 10 million units of enrichment required from the mid-2030s. So the potential for GLE in the U.S. alone is quite huge. We've seen uranium conversion at enrichment prices rise but not enough to incentivize further expansion. So I think we will see these prices rise further over the coming years. But the situation is extremely healthy. The prices are at new record levels of all 3 commodities, uranium conversion and enrichment. And so we anticipate this situation to get even stronger over the coming years. So that is our review of the uranium project, uranium enrichment technology. I'd just like to spend a couple of minutes talking about our silicon project. We're finished construction of the world's first laser enrichment plant for silicon arm, June this year and they have been busy commissioning and integrating the equipment, the plant. And we anticipate first production later this year and into the first half of next year, we'll be producing samples for our potential customers. So this material will first be going to quantum computer developers onto chip developers, and they will not allow a new material in the fabrication plant and that's just gone through exhaustive testing. So we're all producing initially samples for our potential customers. to take to their plans and test in their devices. Our first plant module, as we call it, the modular technology like as is in uranium. We'll be able to produce up to 20 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, that's probably around half or a bit less of the current loan market, not a big market yet, but we expect that market to grow rapidly over the coming 5 to 7 years. producing 2 types of product, 1 gaseous silane and another solid for different customers. The current project has been supported by the federal government's defense trial laser program, the tune of $5.1 million. There's actually another $1.6 million coming through under that program. So that's quite a sizable contribution from the federal government and over $4 million from our offtake partner, first offtake partner, silicon potent computing, who are 1 of the world leaders in developing silicon quantum chips. And as I mentioned at the beginning of the presentation, there is another emerging application to use enrich silicon in conventional chips the very large chips, the GPUs and the TPUs that are being used and developed today with data centers and [indiscernible] they're running into heat dissipation problems. There's over 1 billion transistors on a small piece of silicon. And [indiscernible] heat much more efficiently. So [indiscernible] at this plant up and running. Over the next few weeks, we're going to go live with real silicon enrichment. We're doing dry commissioning at the moment, but we'll be actually processing our first samples in the next few weeks. So in summary, we have a unique leverage into the nuclear [indiscernible] very attractive royalty under the Silex technology [indiscernible] progress we are making in the uranium enrichment project, I think this is a very exciting time for this company and for GLE. We're well positioned with over $180 million in the bank at June 30 and no debt. So that brings to the end of my presentation. I hope that gives you a good sense of what we've achieved and where we're heading over the next 12 months. But again, just to say I'm -- I couldn't be more excited about our future. It's disappointing to see what's happening in the market today, but that's beyond our control. We just work on what we can control. And between our team here in Sydney and the team at GLE in the U.S., we are making great progress in controlling our destiny. Thank you very much. It's time to open the floor for questions or -- if Julie, there's any come on once. If any have come online.

We've got a couple online, but it's [indiscernible] from the floor first.

Just a question, another misinformation out in the marketplace. How long does it actually take to build a nuclear power plant from when physically start earthworks until operational roughly.

That's the next question. If you make them it's every year, it's going to be less time than if you make on every 10 average lines are making them in 4 to 5 years. So China's feed is 4 to 5 years. I don't know if the West can achieve that, maybe 7 or 8 years is my guess, starting from earthworks. Not on post license. But that's -- I'm not an expert on power plant constructed, but that's my guess. It's a lot less than what some of our politicians decide here, and it's probably a lot less than snowing too.

Just a question around the CapEx implied for the also at enrichment facility. The Kentucky governor's office publicly referenced at $1.76 billion investment. Have you any comments about how that number was coupled together? And does that represent what investment needs to be?

Yes. So that number is -- it's been flexed up to include some infrastructure for future potential expansion. The plant itself shown in blue in that slide. Our current estimate is around $1.3 billion plus or minus stand-alone. But the agreement with Kentucky and the counties scoped out beyond it. So anticipating an expansion.

With the plant, the construction of the plant, will that be anything happening there in the next 12 months, like we've been clearing the site near 12 months or so. Is there any concrete going to be for? Are we going to work in parallel with the other stuff? Or is that not a critical item?

We need the license before we start pouring concrete.

You need the license.

Yes, mainly if you start pouring concrete before you have an NRC license then you're taking a big risk. So we should get the license beginning of next year. Then there was the first half of next year, hopefully, the first quarter and we can then expect some well.

Physical work.

Well, the next step will be a feasibility study, finishing TRL7. And then ultimately, with license, TRL7 and feasibility, I until we get FID, we're here. Yes, we're not there. We're here. But there's a few steps to undertake before we actually start engineering instruction, but that's a discussion that will ramp up next year internally with our partners, Cameco. There may be some things we can do at risk with license in hand I think there will be some activities happening next year. But certainly, until we get those key steps, finished and FID completed, then there won't be large scale [indiscernible].

So selling this at Paducah why old U.S. is pretty dusty, you're happy to sampling as you'll be okay with them.

Yes. So you're referring to the legacy materials stored around this plant. We know what's in every cylinder. And when the agreement was being negotiated, there were samples taken to check the purity. Ultimately, over time, impurities form, but there will be a process to make sure that the purity of the feed is at the required standard ASTM standard and that can be cleaned up if needed. But generally speaking, they found the material was in very good shape.

Where will you be getting your silicon from? You talked about where you're getting uranium depleted tails, et cetera, silicon in Australia, right, and where would your plan be at Lucas Heights or somewhere else?

So the silicon can come from any chemical company. There's quite a few that produce silicon gas, ought to remember there's a very large industry already in existence for decades now to produce silicon chips that are in all of our devices. So the silicon gas industry is very mature, and it's fast. It produces hundreds of thousands of tons a year. So what we need for our process comes from companies that supply those gases, we tweak it so that it matches what our lasers can do but that's all done on the content of our process in-house. And then that's what we use to produce average to ligand. In terms of where we do it, we have our first production module at Lucas Heights, so that will be operating very shortly, producing commercial enrich silicon. As for expansion, if that market grows and we start building a contract book with customers, we'll need to expand. I don't think it will be at Lucas Heights. There's a bit of an issue there with space. But we are looking at that potential expansion already, and it could be in Australia, it could even be in the U.S. But that's about all I can say at this point in time.

I say it says University of Adelaide working with New South Wales.

Yes, that's the defense trial laser program. So that's the funding that the federal government gave us to help build that plan. And that program is administered by the University of Adelaide and UNSW.

Back on the capital plans for this Paducah facility. It's a fair bit of money to come up with. Is Silex still looking at accessing government loan facilities to finance that or grow? Something else?

Well, it's early days from a Silex point of view, I think all options are on the table. There's traditional commercial debt, the project finance will be at the GMV level. So there'll be a debt facility of some sort, I believe. There is a facility that is offered by the U.S. Department of Energy that just we called the loan program office. It's now called [indiscernible] financing office. They have a $2 billion debt facility specifically for new technology on the front end of the nuclear industry like laser enrichment, solicitation document actually called out laser enrichment. So $2 billion will be available under that program, and we wouldn't need it to $2 billion for the first plant in debt 3, 70%. We wouldn't even use half of that. But look, that's just 1 option, but many. We need to talk that through next year with our partners, Cameco. They probably have different options to us, especially in terms of the equity, but it's early days. And all I could say is I wouldn't think anything is off the table at this point in time.

Do you want to say a question? Yes. So we've got it still and then we'll go to the back.

Yes, there's 1 particular new entrant who is going to be our neighbor at Paducah who has been making a lot of noise and making some well seem to be quite outlandish statements about what their capabilities are going to be saying that they will have -- be creating enough fuel to take care of all of the required LEU [indiscernible] that the U.S. would need into the future and beyond and also be the lowest cost producer and be up and running by 2029, 2030 recently also asked for the DOE and the NRC to allow them to begin I think pouring concrete laying foundation is now well ahead of even I think they've only just launched their license. What is our position on that known that they are our neighbor, do we have any insight to what their technology is? And do you have any perspective on their aggressive stance?

It's an interesting question to say the least. General Matter is what we're talking about. General Matter is backed by Founders Fund, which is [indiscernible], SpaceX, pennies, also very well connected to JD Vance funding some of these campaigns. All that aside, nobody knows what technology they're going to use it. We don't believe it's laser. It's taken us over 20 years to get here. Centrifuge is probably the most likely. It's a room that they might use an old Department of Energy Centrifuge design. I can't comment on that really. In terms of investing at risk with concrete or a boat, that's up to them. They are very aggressive. But and they're very noisy. So I would be -- I'd be interested to see what happens in reality rather than what they say in words. This is a very highly regulated industry. And you cannot get ahead of the U.S. NRC on any front become very expensive. There have been cases where plans got ahead of the NRC process. Even with the license you need to keep the NRC abreast of the progress and making sure things are down the way the NRC has approved. So all I can say is that we believe we're way ahead of general matter on all fronts. And just on the license application, they cut and pasted a lot of GLE's advocation.

Yes, that was noticed.

Yes. So there beyond [indiscernible] and we'll just have to wait and see whether their actions match their words.