Energy Fuels president and CEO Mark Chalmers said he was "particularly excited" about the US investigation into limiting uranium imports plus the company's decision to restart vanadium production this year.

"These opportunities are exciting because they provide us with unsurpassed optionality to increase uranium production as prices rise, as well as allow us to take advantage of the recent significant increases in vanadium prices," he said.

The Department of Commerce had announced its investigation last month following a petition jointly filed by Energy Fuels and Ur-Energy in January. 

 

 

Chalmers said Energy Fuels was the only company currently capable of producing vanadium in North America and would resume production by recovering solubilised vanadium from the White Mesa Mill's tailings and evaporation ponds, prompted by V2O5 spot prices nearing $20/lb.

"We expect to initially recover approximately 500,000lb of V2O5 in late 2018 or early 2019, and given favourable costs, recoveries, and then-prevailing market conditions, we expect to continue vanadium recovery in 2019, recovering up to approximately 4Mlb of V2O5 over the life of the project," he said.

It would also look at longer-term alternatives including processing previously mined uranium/vanadium stockpiles near the mill and potentially re-initiating uranium/vanadium production at some of its mines.

Energy Fuels said its net income was mainly due to advancing future deliveries under long-term contracts into the quarter.

It had delivered 400,000 pounds of U3O8 into long-term sales contracts at the price of $61.30/lb on April 1.

It delivered a further 100,000lb into a spot contract in mid-June at $22.57/lb.

Energy Fuels produced 128,000lb of uranium for its own account during the June quarter and said it had produced another 91,000lb for the accounts of others.

It said it had also started fulfilling toll processing alternate feed contracts which was expected to bring about $7.1 million in revenue for 2018.

The company also announced the passing of the company's former president and CEO, Stephen Antony.

Energy Fuels had $43.2 million in cash and equivalents at June 30.

Its shares hit a 52-week intraday in both the US and Toronto on Friday and closed up more than 15% on each bourse to US$3.51 and C$4.53 respectively.