'Uncertainty' in Markets Driving Major Opportunity in URANIUM For Contrarians
Summary
US Nuclear Renaissance: The guest highlights growing US focus on reshoring uranium mining, conversion, and enrichment, framing a long-term nuclear buildout backed by policy support.
Uranium Supply Deficit: A multi-year structural deficit is emphasized as inventories have been drawn down, with implications for higher uranium prices and improved equity performance.
SWU Dynamics: She stresses SWU pricing moving alongside uranium as a powerful tailwind for the cycle, urging investors to track both for equity impacts.
Jurisdictional Advantage: The importance of US-friendly jurisdictions is underscored, with New Mexico positioned as a key uranium region historically and prospectively.
Market Volatility: Uranium equities remain volatile, but the long-term outlook is constructive; investors should expect multi-year timelines for reactor buildouts and fuel-cycle processing.
Global Contracts: Recent India supply deals with Cameco and Kazatomprom are cited as evidence of rising sovereign interest and long-dated procurement.
Vera Energy Focus: The company is advancing ISR-amenable projects in New Mexico with a large proprietary data set and strong cash position, prioritizing community engagement and regulatory progress.
Transcript
Hello everybody and welcome into commodity culture where our goal is to make you a better investor in the commodity sector. My name is Jesse Day. Today is March 18th, 2026 and before we dive in, standard disclaimer. Nothing here is investment advice. Do your own due diligence. And today's guest is the CEO of Vera Energy, a company focused on the development of Insichu recovery uranium assets in New Mexico. It's Janet Lee Sheriff. Great to have you on the show. >> Thank you very much. Happy to be here. Well, I want to get started by getting your overall assessment of the uranium market at present. What are the main catalysts driving uranium that you're watching right now that you think people should be paying attention to? >> Well, I think I think we live in very interesting times and uh the situation with Iran uh is changing things quickly. uh very similar to how everything changed with the Ukraine situation. And I I think people need to be paying attention to the growing domestic need for uranium. The the growing push for a nuclear renaissance in the United States. The United States is the world's largest consumer of nuclear energy. They consume 48 million pounds a year. They produce thanks to a select group of companies that are now producing they can only produce a few million pounds a year. So they're very reliant on on on other com other countries for this source and and what I see in these changing times is an administration that's very focused on bringing mining back, bringing manufacturing back. Um but it takes time. You know, you've got you've got to change the regulatory process. you've you it takes time to build out. So I I think people need to be I think people are already paying attention to AI and the data centers you know small modular reactors yes but the US does not have the enrichment facilities that it had in the past. So you know there's a lot of work that the government needs to be doing on conversion and enrichment and extraction of uranium is there the resources are there or self self-sufficient in in the 80s we can be again um but there's regulatory change that that they need to pay attention to. >> Yeah great summary and I completely agree on deregulation of the industry that's a something that needs to happen for things to move forward. Now I want to talk about the structural supply deficit in the uranium market because we are already in a deficit in terms of the amount of uranium mined per year versus reactor demand. There was a lot of inven inventory overhang post Fukushima. Of course there was the megat tons to megawws program post cold war which also uh left a lot of pounds above ground. But now we're in a situation where the vast majority of that inventory has been depleted and we are in a def deficit. analysts forecasting a structural uranium supply deficit up ahead. How do you think this could affect the price of uranium and related equities? >> Two two separate questions. How does it affect uh the price of uranium? I I think the price of uranium is one factor. Um the the the price of SWOO, the standard work unit, is also something that's often overlooked. And when the two of them move together, that's when we're in an extremely um good environment. So SWOO for the benefit of of people that may not know is the standard work unit that uh amount of energy that's necessary to enrich uranium. And if you look back historically, you know, 04 to06, they moved together. And then for many years, you know, people kept thinking this is the time, this is the time, this is it. But it it wasn't. It was because Swoo wasn't moving. So now we saw SWOO move. Today I'm not sure where it is, but I think that's something that people should learn about and that they should pay attention to when those move that has a positive impact on on uranium equities. I think there's again we live in a very interesting time globally. there's risk in other countries that are imposing a lot of regulations or um uh taking on on projects or you know stepping into that that ownership issue. The the US has with some people been an issue that um it was too risky but what I'm seeing now is uh more of an interest in bringing it back. So I think people need to pay attention to that and that will have an impact on the equities. Um Canada has always been great about the Aabaskan basin. So I think people just need to really look at the jurisdiction. I think that's extremely important. We always look at resources but look at the jurisdiction and and you got to look at management. You know that there's been such a deficit um in the sector because there was no interest. it was always being outsourced to third world countries or countries that may or may not now be our allies and we really lost a talent pool. So I think you really need to look at who the people are behind companies and invest in the right in the right people. >> Speaking of the equities, they've been extraordinarily volatile in recent times, often rising and falling by singledigit or even doubledigit percentages in single trading days. Now, this makes it very hard to stomach for a lot of retail investors, particularly those who aren't experienced in the sector. What are your thoughts on this volatility and do you expect it to smooth out as we see more capital, perhaps institutional investment enter the space and the idea of this uranium bull market perhaps become more mainstream at some point? >> Yeah, I I I think it's been a painful few weeks for a lot of people and um and I don't think it's isolated to uranium. you know the broader market's been going through a lot of fluctuation and it has to do I think with a lot of the actors outside the sector and you know that Iran again I raised that but increasing conflict uh with other countries um an administration that you know thankfully is really wanting to focus on its sovereignty and bring back manufacturing and mining but you know we're up against um a bigger world. So, I think what you're seeing is is a lot of uncertainty in the market and a lot of variation. If you look at gold stocks, they're back to uh prices when gold was 2000. Like, it's just it's um it's a sign of the times. Um I do believe the long-term strategy for uranium and nuclear is very strong. Um, and it and it's being patient, you know, as the it you don't build out nuclear reactors in a few months. You do them in a few years. You don't take uranium uh from the the yellow cake and turn it into energy immediately. It's a two-year process. So, I I think it's it's tough for people that want to see um more immediate gains. And really it's it's a time when you have to have patience and you have to see where this is going and where this current administration the previous administration was very pro- nuclear as well but we're seeing it it it it push watch your energy bills people's energy bills are going higher. Nuclear is going to have a better impact on energy bills. um it's a cheaper uh safer cleaner energy source. So, it's going to be there, but sometimes it takes time to get these things going. >> Well, we have recently seen some big deals on the table for the uranium space recently, a 2.6 billion agreement between the Indian government and KAMO for 22 million pounds of uranium starting in 2027. We also saw a long-term uranium supply contract with India's Department of Atomic Energy and KazadMrom representing over 50% of KazadMrom's book value. Now, that is still pending shareholder approval. But are these kinds of deals signs that countries, governments are starting to wake up to the importance of uranium and nuclear energy? >> I think so, and I think you're going to see more of it. One of the things that I think people aren't really paying a lot of attention to right now and sometimes it's a bit of a sensitive topic, but the US has a need for um military purposes and uh I'll use the example of uh a nuclear sub. Um this this depletes over time. So sources have to be renewed and you can't renew them from external sources. it has to be domestically produced for military purposes. They also have an energy reserve for nuclear. Um there's there's things that I think particular to the US that people should be paying attention to and and I do think that there's going to be a lot more of these transactions going on. I you hear about companies that were sorry companies countries that were opposed to nuclear Germany that are switching their positions now. So I I and again it takes time. >> Well, let's discuss how Verddera Energy fits into the picture. You recently started trading on the TSXV under the ticker V. Can you start by giving us an overview of the company? >> So Verda Energy is focused on advancing uh its well very solid projects in New Mexico. Um we have 400 square miles of private mineral rights. These were known as the checkerboard lands with the Santa Fe railroad. So when they put in the railroads, they granted the railroads every alternating section. So that included the mineral rights. So with our acquisition from Encore, we acquired those. And we have four projects that have 88 million pounds of known and historic resources. Crown Point uh was our qualifying transaction when we went public. So, we updated the 43101 there and uh we'll be working to advance uh two of our other projects, West Largo and Ambrosia Lake through uh 43101 as well. New Mexico is extremely important to the US nuclear renaissance. The Grants uranium district produced 40% of all the uranium ever produced in the US. If New Mexico was its own country, it would be the seventh largest producing uranium district in the world. But it's often forgotten. And so we came in 10 years ago. We actually looked at going into New Mexico. We met with the Navajo Nation that it wasn't time. Uh two years ago, we decided it was time and we started doing the community engagement work necessary to to get to the place where Ver is Vera is now. The other thing that's really interesting about Bera is uh with Bill Sheriff as the chair, Bill has the largest privately held data collection in the US for all commodities, Ranchers, Union, Carbide, Getty Oil, but Verddera now has acquired and compiled the largest uranium database for the state of New Mexico. And we acquired the Kermag database, one of the largest uranium producers historically in the US. and the URI database. So, we have the data from across the state, not just our own projects, which you obviously wanted, but this is a huge value ad to the company as well. Let's talk about New Mexico for a moment here because you mentioned you were there a decade. You decided a decade ago you decided it wasn't time. Now, this is a jurisdiction that has had opposition to uranium extraction. So, what are the risks there at present? Has the situation changed? And if there are risks, how are they being managed? So yeah, really good question, Jesse. Um, New Mexico is extremely important to the US nuclear renaissance. It has the largest resources and and resources are are very thick and wide and big. So if you look at at for example Wyoming or Texas, they're more sineuous uh river like spaghetti like good resources, but New Mexico they're they're big. And in the past, New Mexico was in ' 50s to '7s, u there's a lot of uranium extraction that was done by conventional means that underground open pit um that was pre EPA and pre this very strong regulatory environment that we find ourselves in now. And it it really wasn't good for the land or or the people and there was negative impacts. So that left people with we we just don't want it. Um they what we've done to come in and address that is we're not focused on conventional at all. We're focused only on ISR immunable projects. So for the benefit of people that may not know it's wellfield technology. There's contaminated aquifers. The uraniums in it. We use wellfield technology to extract it in liquid form. We don't use chemicals. We only use water and oxygen and remove as much of the uranium as economically possible. Educating people becomes extremely important. We are not going in. We set up the clean energy association of New Mexico having a big conference in April. We've been in the communities. We've been engaging with people. We ISR addresses a lot of the issues, but we have to respect the fact that there's been fear for years. So, it's boots on the ground talking to people and trying to educate in as many ways possible so they have all the information for good decision making. This past summer, we took a group of regulators and citizens to uh Crobute to show them an ISR operation and anything we can do to help with the decision making. We're making progress. Um what we see are communities that want the jobs that that know the commodity is there and it can do a lot to benefit benefit the state. Uh but you have to be respectful of people's feelings. Well, talk to us about the team behind Vera and how you plan to leverage their expertise to advance your projects. Starting with yourself and why you're the right CEO to take the helm. So, my background, I ran a gold production, a gold company. We produce gold in the Yukon. Um, we uh used an alternate process to extract gold that was non-syanide based. I worked with numerous first nations across the north and uh entered into many different agreements, socioeconomic exploration, um won some awards for some of the projects that we were doing. Um so my background really is in community engagement and social licensing. I've been involved with communications as well through through my career, 20 years in the public markets. was the first CEO of Encore when it was Tigris uranium. Handed the reigns to Dr. Stove to take over. Uh once things started to look, we were buying assets really cheap at the time. Um so I stayed and did a lot of communications work with Encore. Um recently worked with Grants Energy, which is part of General Atomics, uh to get them set up in in New Mexico. and I was asked to come in because of that background with a real strong focus on community. Uh behind me, uh Bill Sheriff just announced that he's our executive chair and Bill started and sold Energy Metals in the past during the ' 04 to06 boom. Founder of Encore Energy. Uh brings a lot of uh good solid background in the capital markets uh to to the company. Kevin Bambro is on our board, previously was Spratu. Uh Greg Hayes was my former uh CFO and audit chair in different companies. So strong financial strength there. Two key board members that are really important in New Mexico. John Indall and Mark Pela. Mark has spent his entire career in ISR, worked 10 years in New Mexico with URI and is the lead director from Encore. And John Endall is a lawyer. He's now retired in in New Mexico. He's a senior policy adviser to the UPA, Uranium Producers of America. I got to stop using all these acronyms. Sorry, [laughter] Ter. I hate when other people do it. Now I'm doing it. Um, but but John and John knows the regulations and Mark knows the permitting and that's going to become very important as we start to look at what we want to do at Ambrosia Lake and West Larco. walk us through some highlights on your projects, resource estimates, plans moving forward, infrastructure in place, and any other pertinent details that you think investors should be aware of. >> As I mentioned, our our qualifying transaction was Crown Point Host Debute, and that has um 28 million pounds of uh indicated and inferred resources. Um that we think is our third best project. Um the nose rock project we have is our largest resource at um about 35 million pounds. It's it's deep. It's at about 3,000 ft. And that's why we're paying a lot of attention to what Grants Energy is doing because they're looking at the same formation, same depth. They're looking at horizontal drilling. So if successful and they're well into their permitting process, they've got a private project that's 170 million pounds in New Mexico. Um that's going to really change the economics of nose rock. Um West Largo is uh Mark Pel and Bill Sheriff's favorite project. It's 17 million pounds. It's all on private land. We're going to be doing an updated 43101 on that project. The thing I really need to stress was all of our projects were developed by oil and gas companies and they used very conservative numbers and they used a cut off grade of 0.5 and now what you're seeing in other jurisdictions is 0.2. So as we change as we go and update the technical reports we do expect to see some changes in the numbers. Uh we will do some additional drilling around West Largo. Um there's not it's all on private land. So we'll do some drilling around the periphery which we hope will also have a positive impact on the numbers. Um Ambrosia Lake is my favorite project. Uh it's my favorite project because it's a formerly um operated underground mine. BHP has the northern 70%. we have the southern 30% but under Rio Algam they were doing what's called stoke mining uh where they were extracting water from the underground uh shafts and running it through a remote ion exchange facility at site uh then shipping it in resin fil trucks uh to a central processing plant offsite. So, that one um I think offers some really interesting opportunities for some near-term cash flow and it's still going to take several years. Uh but we'll start with doing some baseline work. So, all of these projects plus the scoping study for the central processing plant which potentially may not even be in the state. Um we'll spend about half of our budget. As I mentioned, we have 25 million. So, we'll go through that. That should last us a couple of years. The only other project I'll mention is Treeline. Um that was the LA last project ever um developed by the oil and gas companies before 3M Island slowed everything down. There's 1.5 million pounds there. We only use an example as the type of project that we see in our database if other companies are going to be considering um coming into the state. We're going to have a lot of data to make available to them and really see the opportunities of doing some value ad um with the um uh amount of data that we have they may require for for the projects that they may be missing. >> What is the company's current cash position? How much runway does that give you? And what are your plans for raising more capital as needed moving forward? So, we have about, [clears throat] excuse me, about $25 million in the bank following our our RTO and qualifying transaction. That should last us a couple of years under the current work plan. Uh, we'll spend about half of that this year on those projects. Um, we don't have any plans for a capital raise at present, but you know, when the market's agreeable, you have to you have to look at it. Um, we do want to look into the scoping study for a central processing plant and that would obviously have changes to to our plans and capital requirements. >> And what are the main upcoming catalysts and news flow that investors can expect coming out of the company? >> We just put out uh a news yesterday about our data acquisition that gives a lot more background on who Ker McGee was and the importance of the data. Uh, I think you'll start to see information flowing about our drill programs that will permit and our baseline work at Ambrosia Lake. Um, and then we'll start to work into the scoping studies. So, I think you'll see a a good uh flow of information. Uh, we also have an upcoming conference that we've been backing. Uh, it's midappril and really to help educate people on the nuclear cycle and where we fit into it in New Mexico. And is there anything we haven't yet covered or anything you think it's important to emphasize the potential shareholders of Vera Energy should be focused on? >> No, I I I I think we've covered it all. You'll you'll start to see a lot more information flow um as we put our technical team together. Uh John Hamick's very important in in that he's our lead advisor. John was with Union Carbide with production. He was with Cotter with Reclamation. So, we're putting together a team. There's a lot of data to go through. We have um probably 120,000 drill hole logs. It's all paper, but it's it's full of gems that we've already been uncovering. And we'll be pulling together the two data sources in the next week. So, you'll start to see some information there. And and I think New Mexico's time has come. I I think it's um you know people need to pay a little bit of attention to where it fits in in the the scheme of things in the US. >> Great. Well, I'm going to put a link in the description below to the Vera Energy website as well as social media for people who want to dive into the company and follow along. Uh Janet, this has been a fantastic conversation. Thank you so much for coming on the show. >> Well, thank you and I appreciate your time and everybody else's. I know time is valuable and thank you for giving me a bit of it. Commodity Culture is a series on commodities and natural resources. If you would like to see more, be sure to subscribe and hit the bell notification so you're always up to date with the latest episodes.
'Uncertainty' in Markets Driving Major Opportunity in URANIUM For Contrarians
Summary
Transcript
Hello everybody and welcome into commodity culture where our goal is to make you a better investor in the commodity sector. My name is Jesse Day. Today is March 18th, 2026 and before we dive in, standard disclaimer. Nothing here is investment advice. Do your own due diligence. And today's guest is the CEO of Vera Energy, a company focused on the development of Insichu recovery uranium assets in New Mexico. It's Janet Lee Sheriff. Great to have you on the show. >> Thank you very much. Happy to be here. Well, I want to get started by getting your overall assessment of the uranium market at present. What are the main catalysts driving uranium that you're watching right now that you think people should be paying attention to? >> Well, I think I think we live in very interesting times and uh the situation with Iran uh is changing things quickly. uh very similar to how everything changed with the Ukraine situation. And I I think people need to be paying attention to the growing domestic need for uranium. The the growing push for a nuclear renaissance in the United States. The United States is the world's largest consumer of nuclear energy. They consume 48 million pounds a year. They produce thanks to a select group of companies that are now producing they can only produce a few million pounds a year. So they're very reliant on on on other com other countries for this source and and what I see in these changing times is an administration that's very focused on bringing mining back, bringing manufacturing back. Um but it takes time. You know, you've got you've got to change the regulatory process. you've you it takes time to build out. So I I think people need to be I think people are already paying attention to AI and the data centers you know small modular reactors yes but the US does not have the enrichment facilities that it had in the past. So you know there's a lot of work that the government needs to be doing on conversion and enrichment and extraction of uranium is there the resources are there or self self-sufficient in in the 80s we can be again um but there's regulatory change that that they need to pay attention to. >> Yeah great summary and I completely agree on deregulation of the industry that's a something that needs to happen for things to move forward. Now I want to talk about the structural supply deficit in the uranium market because we are already in a deficit in terms of the amount of uranium mined per year versus reactor demand. There was a lot of inven inventory overhang post Fukushima. Of course there was the megat tons to megawws program post cold war which also uh left a lot of pounds above ground. But now we're in a situation where the vast majority of that inventory has been depleted and we are in a def deficit. analysts forecasting a structural uranium supply deficit up ahead. How do you think this could affect the price of uranium and related equities? >> Two two separate questions. How does it affect uh the price of uranium? I I think the price of uranium is one factor. Um the the the price of SWOO, the standard work unit, is also something that's often overlooked. And when the two of them move together, that's when we're in an extremely um good environment. So SWOO for the benefit of of people that may not know is the standard work unit that uh amount of energy that's necessary to enrich uranium. And if you look back historically, you know, 04 to06, they moved together. And then for many years, you know, people kept thinking this is the time, this is the time, this is it. But it it wasn't. It was because Swoo wasn't moving. So now we saw SWOO move. Today I'm not sure where it is, but I think that's something that people should learn about and that they should pay attention to when those move that has a positive impact on on uranium equities. I think there's again we live in a very interesting time globally. there's risk in other countries that are imposing a lot of regulations or um uh taking on on projects or you know stepping into that that ownership issue. The the US has with some people been an issue that um it was too risky but what I'm seeing now is uh more of an interest in bringing it back. So I think people need to pay attention to that and that will have an impact on the equities. Um Canada has always been great about the Aabaskan basin. So I think people just need to really look at the jurisdiction. I think that's extremely important. We always look at resources but look at the jurisdiction and and you got to look at management. You know that there's been such a deficit um in the sector because there was no interest. it was always being outsourced to third world countries or countries that may or may not now be our allies and we really lost a talent pool. So I think you really need to look at who the people are behind companies and invest in the right in the right people. >> Speaking of the equities, they've been extraordinarily volatile in recent times, often rising and falling by singledigit or even doubledigit percentages in single trading days. Now, this makes it very hard to stomach for a lot of retail investors, particularly those who aren't experienced in the sector. What are your thoughts on this volatility and do you expect it to smooth out as we see more capital, perhaps institutional investment enter the space and the idea of this uranium bull market perhaps become more mainstream at some point? >> Yeah, I I I think it's been a painful few weeks for a lot of people and um and I don't think it's isolated to uranium. you know the broader market's been going through a lot of fluctuation and it has to do I think with a lot of the actors outside the sector and you know that Iran again I raised that but increasing conflict uh with other countries um an administration that you know thankfully is really wanting to focus on its sovereignty and bring back manufacturing and mining but you know we're up against um a bigger world. So, I think what you're seeing is is a lot of uncertainty in the market and a lot of variation. If you look at gold stocks, they're back to uh prices when gold was 2000. Like, it's just it's um it's a sign of the times. Um I do believe the long-term strategy for uranium and nuclear is very strong. Um, and it and it's being patient, you know, as the it you don't build out nuclear reactors in a few months. You do them in a few years. You don't take uranium uh from the the yellow cake and turn it into energy immediately. It's a two-year process. So, I I think it's it's tough for people that want to see um more immediate gains. And really it's it's a time when you have to have patience and you have to see where this is going and where this current administration the previous administration was very pro- nuclear as well but we're seeing it it it it push watch your energy bills people's energy bills are going higher. Nuclear is going to have a better impact on energy bills. um it's a cheaper uh safer cleaner energy source. So, it's going to be there, but sometimes it takes time to get these things going. >> Well, we have recently seen some big deals on the table for the uranium space recently, a 2.6 billion agreement between the Indian government and KAMO for 22 million pounds of uranium starting in 2027. We also saw a long-term uranium supply contract with India's Department of Atomic Energy and KazadMrom representing over 50% of KazadMrom's book value. Now, that is still pending shareholder approval. But are these kinds of deals signs that countries, governments are starting to wake up to the importance of uranium and nuclear energy? >> I think so, and I think you're going to see more of it. One of the things that I think people aren't really paying a lot of attention to right now and sometimes it's a bit of a sensitive topic, but the US has a need for um military purposes and uh I'll use the example of uh a nuclear sub. Um this this depletes over time. So sources have to be renewed and you can't renew them from external sources. it has to be domestically produced for military purposes. They also have an energy reserve for nuclear. Um there's there's things that I think particular to the US that people should be paying attention to and and I do think that there's going to be a lot more of these transactions going on. I you hear about companies that were sorry companies countries that were opposed to nuclear Germany that are switching their positions now. So I I and again it takes time. >> Well, let's discuss how Verddera Energy fits into the picture. You recently started trading on the TSXV under the ticker V. Can you start by giving us an overview of the company? >> So Verda Energy is focused on advancing uh its well very solid projects in New Mexico. Um we have 400 square miles of private mineral rights. These were known as the checkerboard lands with the Santa Fe railroad. So when they put in the railroads, they granted the railroads every alternating section. So that included the mineral rights. So with our acquisition from Encore, we acquired those. And we have four projects that have 88 million pounds of known and historic resources. Crown Point uh was our qualifying transaction when we went public. So, we updated the 43101 there and uh we'll be working to advance uh two of our other projects, West Largo and Ambrosia Lake through uh 43101 as well. New Mexico is extremely important to the US nuclear renaissance. The Grants uranium district produced 40% of all the uranium ever produced in the US. If New Mexico was its own country, it would be the seventh largest producing uranium district in the world. But it's often forgotten. And so we came in 10 years ago. We actually looked at going into New Mexico. We met with the Navajo Nation that it wasn't time. Uh two years ago, we decided it was time and we started doing the community engagement work necessary to to get to the place where Ver is Vera is now. The other thing that's really interesting about Bera is uh with Bill Sheriff as the chair, Bill has the largest privately held data collection in the US for all commodities, Ranchers, Union, Carbide, Getty Oil, but Verddera now has acquired and compiled the largest uranium database for the state of New Mexico. And we acquired the Kermag database, one of the largest uranium producers historically in the US. and the URI database. So, we have the data from across the state, not just our own projects, which you obviously wanted, but this is a huge value ad to the company as well. Let's talk about New Mexico for a moment here because you mentioned you were there a decade. You decided a decade ago you decided it wasn't time. Now, this is a jurisdiction that has had opposition to uranium extraction. So, what are the risks there at present? Has the situation changed? And if there are risks, how are they being managed? So yeah, really good question, Jesse. Um, New Mexico is extremely important to the US nuclear renaissance. It has the largest resources and and resources are are very thick and wide and big. So if you look at at for example Wyoming or Texas, they're more sineuous uh river like spaghetti like good resources, but New Mexico they're they're big. And in the past, New Mexico was in ' 50s to '7s, u there's a lot of uranium extraction that was done by conventional means that underground open pit um that was pre EPA and pre this very strong regulatory environment that we find ourselves in now. And it it really wasn't good for the land or or the people and there was negative impacts. So that left people with we we just don't want it. Um they what we've done to come in and address that is we're not focused on conventional at all. We're focused only on ISR immunable projects. So for the benefit of people that may not know it's wellfield technology. There's contaminated aquifers. The uraniums in it. We use wellfield technology to extract it in liquid form. We don't use chemicals. We only use water and oxygen and remove as much of the uranium as economically possible. Educating people becomes extremely important. We are not going in. We set up the clean energy association of New Mexico having a big conference in April. We've been in the communities. We've been engaging with people. We ISR addresses a lot of the issues, but we have to respect the fact that there's been fear for years. So, it's boots on the ground talking to people and trying to educate in as many ways possible so they have all the information for good decision making. This past summer, we took a group of regulators and citizens to uh Crobute to show them an ISR operation and anything we can do to help with the decision making. We're making progress. Um what we see are communities that want the jobs that that know the commodity is there and it can do a lot to benefit benefit the state. Uh but you have to be respectful of people's feelings. Well, talk to us about the team behind Vera and how you plan to leverage their expertise to advance your projects. Starting with yourself and why you're the right CEO to take the helm. So, my background, I ran a gold production, a gold company. We produce gold in the Yukon. Um, we uh used an alternate process to extract gold that was non-syanide based. I worked with numerous first nations across the north and uh entered into many different agreements, socioeconomic exploration, um won some awards for some of the projects that we were doing. Um so my background really is in community engagement and social licensing. I've been involved with communications as well through through my career, 20 years in the public markets. was the first CEO of Encore when it was Tigris uranium. Handed the reigns to Dr. Stove to take over. Uh once things started to look, we were buying assets really cheap at the time. Um so I stayed and did a lot of communications work with Encore. Um recently worked with Grants Energy, which is part of General Atomics, uh to get them set up in in New Mexico. and I was asked to come in because of that background with a real strong focus on community. Uh behind me, uh Bill Sheriff just announced that he's our executive chair and Bill started and sold Energy Metals in the past during the ' 04 to06 boom. Founder of Encore Energy. Uh brings a lot of uh good solid background in the capital markets uh to to the company. Kevin Bambro is on our board, previously was Spratu. Uh Greg Hayes was my former uh CFO and audit chair in different companies. So strong financial strength there. Two key board members that are really important in New Mexico. John Indall and Mark Pela. Mark has spent his entire career in ISR, worked 10 years in New Mexico with URI and is the lead director from Encore. And John Endall is a lawyer. He's now retired in in New Mexico. He's a senior policy adviser to the UPA, Uranium Producers of America. I got to stop using all these acronyms. Sorry, [laughter] Ter. I hate when other people do it. Now I'm doing it. Um, but but John and John knows the regulations and Mark knows the permitting and that's going to become very important as we start to look at what we want to do at Ambrosia Lake and West Larco. walk us through some highlights on your projects, resource estimates, plans moving forward, infrastructure in place, and any other pertinent details that you think investors should be aware of. >> As I mentioned, our our qualifying transaction was Crown Point Host Debute, and that has um 28 million pounds of uh indicated and inferred resources. Um that we think is our third best project. Um the nose rock project we have is our largest resource at um about 35 million pounds. It's it's deep. It's at about 3,000 ft. And that's why we're paying a lot of attention to what Grants Energy is doing because they're looking at the same formation, same depth. They're looking at horizontal drilling. So if successful and they're well into their permitting process, they've got a private project that's 170 million pounds in New Mexico. Um that's going to really change the economics of nose rock. Um West Largo is uh Mark Pel and Bill Sheriff's favorite project. It's 17 million pounds. It's all on private land. We're going to be doing an updated 43101 on that project. The thing I really need to stress was all of our projects were developed by oil and gas companies and they used very conservative numbers and they used a cut off grade of 0.5 and now what you're seeing in other jurisdictions is 0.2. So as we change as we go and update the technical reports we do expect to see some changes in the numbers. Uh we will do some additional drilling around West Largo. Um there's not it's all on private land. So we'll do some drilling around the periphery which we hope will also have a positive impact on the numbers. Um Ambrosia Lake is my favorite project. Uh it's my favorite project because it's a formerly um operated underground mine. BHP has the northern 70%. we have the southern 30% but under Rio Algam they were doing what's called stoke mining uh where they were extracting water from the underground uh shafts and running it through a remote ion exchange facility at site uh then shipping it in resin fil trucks uh to a central processing plant offsite. So, that one um I think offers some really interesting opportunities for some near-term cash flow and it's still going to take several years. Uh but we'll start with doing some baseline work. So, all of these projects plus the scoping study for the central processing plant which potentially may not even be in the state. Um we'll spend about half of our budget. As I mentioned, we have 25 million. So, we'll go through that. That should last us a couple of years. The only other project I'll mention is Treeline. Um that was the LA last project ever um developed by the oil and gas companies before 3M Island slowed everything down. There's 1.5 million pounds there. We only use an example as the type of project that we see in our database if other companies are going to be considering um coming into the state. We're going to have a lot of data to make available to them and really see the opportunities of doing some value ad um with the um uh amount of data that we have they may require for for the projects that they may be missing. >> What is the company's current cash position? How much runway does that give you? And what are your plans for raising more capital as needed moving forward? So, we have about, [clears throat] excuse me, about $25 million in the bank following our our RTO and qualifying transaction. That should last us a couple of years under the current work plan. Uh, we'll spend about half of that this year on those projects. Um, we don't have any plans for a capital raise at present, but you know, when the market's agreeable, you have to you have to look at it. Um, we do want to look into the scoping study for a central processing plant and that would obviously have changes to to our plans and capital requirements. >> And what are the main upcoming catalysts and news flow that investors can expect coming out of the company? >> We just put out uh a news yesterday about our data acquisition that gives a lot more background on who Ker McGee was and the importance of the data. Uh, I think you'll start to see information flowing about our drill programs that will permit and our baseline work at Ambrosia Lake. Um, and then we'll start to work into the scoping studies. So, I think you'll see a a good uh flow of information. Uh, we also have an upcoming conference that we've been backing. Uh, it's midappril and really to help educate people on the nuclear cycle and where we fit into it in New Mexico. And is there anything we haven't yet covered or anything you think it's important to emphasize the potential shareholders of Vera Energy should be focused on? >> No, I I I I think we've covered it all. You'll you'll start to see a lot more information flow um as we put our technical team together. Uh John Hamick's very important in in that he's our lead advisor. John was with Union Carbide with production. He was with Cotter with Reclamation. So, we're putting together a team. There's a lot of data to go through. We have um probably 120,000 drill hole logs. It's all paper, but it's it's full of gems that we've already been uncovering. And we'll be pulling together the two data sources in the next week. So, you'll start to see some information there. And and I think New Mexico's time has come. I I think it's um you know people need to pay a little bit of attention to where it fits in in the the scheme of things in the US. >> Great. Well, I'm going to put a link in the description below to the Vera Energy website as well as social media for people who want to dive into the company and follow along. Uh Janet, this has been a fantastic conversation. Thank you so much for coming on the show. >> Well, thank you and I appreciate your time and everybody else's. I know time is valuable and thank you for giving me a bit of it. Commodity Culture is a series on commodities and natural resources. If you would like to see more, be sure to subscribe and hit the bell notification so you're always up to date with the latest episodes.