Ur-Energy Inc. said Friday that it’s raising $60 million in a public offering of stock to help pay for possible acquisitions of mining claims in the fragmented uranium industry and to ramp up development of mining projects.
Much of the U.S. uranium boom is happening in Wyoming.
“We are preparing our war chest so that we are ready for any opportunities. There is nothing that we can discuss publicly,” said John Cash, chairman, CEO and president of Casper-based Ur-Energy.
“There certainly is room for consolidation and efficiencies at the mine and at the corporate level,” Cash told Cowboy State Daily. “We think there are some strong possibilities for consolidation in the industry.”
The chief executive declined to discuss potential takeover targets or say whether his company had been approached with an offer.
“To be clear, we have no direct line or sight on anything. We are just being prepared in case anything becomes available,” Cash said.
In a filing made Friday, the company mentioned that it “frequently evaluates” acquisition opportunities to expand its portfolio of uranium projects.
“We are currently bidding on an acquisition opportunity involving a significant nonproducing uranium asset in the United States, although there is no certainty that we will continue to pursue that bid or be successful in acquiring the asset,” the filing stated.
No other details were made available.
Consolidation Picks Up
Evidence of consolidation in the uranium space in Wyoming and globally is beginning to emerge.
For instance, Australian-based Paladin Energy Ltd.’s $1.14 billion all-stock takeover of Canada’s Fission Uranium Corp. would make the combined entity the third largest publicly traded uranium producer in the world.
The combination, which was announced last month, is expected to close in the fall.
The business would rank the combined Paladin and Fission Uranium as third in output behind top producer Kazatomprom, which is controlled by the government of Kazakhstan, and Canada’s Cameco Corp., which has uranium positions throughout Wyoming and in the eastern neighboring state of Nebraska.
Kazatomprom is the world’s largest producer and seller of uranium.
Cameco’s facilities include the Smith Ranch-Highland in situ uranium mine near Glenrock and a satellite in situ uranium mine near Wright, as well as the Crow Butte in situ uranium mine near Crawford, Nebraska.
In-situ mining involves drilling with water derricks that can go down a few hundred feet into a bed of porous sandstone where there’s a very thick layer of uranium deposits to tap.
Cameco also operates uranium processing factories at Smith Ranch-Highland and Crow Butte where they can produce up to 7.5 million pounds of uranium yellowcake each year that, after further processing elsewhere, becomes fuel for nuclear reactors.
Besides the Paladin and Fission Uranium deal, two smaller uranium mining companies based in Canada merged in recent months.
ATHA Energy and Latitude Uranium completed their merger in March while IsoEnergy combined with Consolidated Uranium in December.
‘Little On The Larger Size'
Cash told Cowboy State Daily that his company’s $60 million stock offering is “a little on the larger size,” but there are larger mining companies that have raised several hundreds of millions of dollars in the uranium space.
Though smaller than Ur-Energy’s raise, Canadian Global Atomic Corp. made a $14.5 million (U.S.) stock sale to a group of private investors earlier this week.
The money is needed for a uranium project in the Republic of the Niger.
Over the past year, there has been a boom of uranium mining companies rushing to Wyoming to open mining and production facilities as the U.S. government has stepped in to embrace the industry’s strategic importance and push a “green revolution” agenda, according to Ur-Energy.
Ur-Energy anticipates using some of the proceeds from the public offering of 57.2 million shares to supplement working capital for the continued ramp-up at its Lost Creek mining and production site in Wyoming’s Red Desert and development at its Shirley Basin mine in central Wyoming.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, uranium companies rushed to Wyoming while others took their dormant operations out of caretaker status as part of a broader effort in the industry to develop an alternative enriched domestic uranium fuel supply.
The invasion of Ukraine led to growing nervousness in the U.S that the nation was relying too heavily on foreign sources, especially since Russia already was a major fuel supplier.
The U.S. took steps to alleviate over-dependence on Russia should the fuel supply line get cut.
Wyoming’s senior Sen. John Barrasso spearheaded an effort to ban Russian uranium imports that was signed into law by President Joe Biden in May.
Companies like Ur-Energy are being closely watched to see what kind of impact the resurgence in the industry might have on their bottom lines.
Pat Maio can be reached at pat@cowboystatedaily.com.
