Guardando quello che hai postato, quale può essere il motivo per cui Denison cresce molto di più degli altri?
Grazie
Denison Mines
The company’s Wheeler River uranium project can use ISR, which can turn it into one of the best uranium mines in the world.
The NPV that the company uses in its presentations is pre-tax and is based on an average combined selling price of $43.92 per pound of uranium.
Additionally, ISR has not been used in Canada, which is likely to lead to issues with environmental permits.
Denison Mines (DNN) owns Wheeler River, the largest undeveloped uranium project in the eastern portion of the Athabasca Basin region in northern Saskatchewan.
This is one of the few uranium companies that has a project with a positive net present value at the current spot uranium prices.
Denison’s main assets is a 90% interest in the development-stage Wheeler River project, which is located close to the McClean Lake mill.
(Source: Denison Mines)
The Phoenix deposit at the project has probable reserves of 59.7 million pounds of U3O8, but what makes this one special is that uranium can be extracted using the in-situ recovery (ISR) mining method. This is a very high-margin technology and Kazatomprom uses this method across its mines in Kazakhstan.
Phoenix thus has the potential to become one of the lowest-cost uranium mining operations in the world.
(Source: Denison Mines)
According to a Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) completed at the end of 2018, Phoenix has a pre-tax net present value of C$930.4 million ($730.8 million).
(Source: Denison Mines)
Also, the addition of the nearby Gryphon deposit has the potential to add another C$560.6 million ($440.3 million) to the pre-tax NPV at $50 per pound of U3O8.
(Source: Denison Mines)
Looking at the timeline, Wheeler River can be in production by 2024.
(Source: Denison Mines)
(Source: Denison Mines)
The other main asset of Denison is a 22.5% interest in the McClean Lake mill, which is currently processing ore from the Cigar Lake mine under a toll milling agreement. However, the company sold its right to receive future toll milling cash receipts from the property in 2017 for C$43.5 million ($34.2 million).
Denison’s other assets include stakes in the Waterbury and Hook-Carter Properties.
(Source: Cameco)
Denison is not an exception and the base case for Wheeler River is based on an average combined selling price of $43.92 per pound.
(Source: Denison Mines)
Another issue here is that the NPV is pre-tax. Using the base-case scenario, Denison’s 90% stake of the post-tax NPV is reduced to C$755.9 million ($593.7 million).
(Source: Denison Mines)
Development-stage mining companies are usually valued at around 0.3x-0.5x times post-tax NPV and remember that this case is at $43.92 per pound of uranium.
I also think the development of Phoenix is risky because ISR has not been used in Canada, which is likely to lead to issues with environmental permits.
Investors have been hoping for a recovery in uranium prices for almost a decade now. I think uranium prices will need to recover to around $50 per pound to stop the shutdown of current mines and encourage the opening of new ones. However, uranium mining is a small and opaque market and timing the recovery is nearly impossible.
Another issue with forecasting uranium prices is that Kazatomprom has removed supply on purpose and is unclear at which point it will increase production to usual levels.
(Source: Kazatomprom)
Kazatomprom is currently keeping around 6,500 tU of uranium per year away from the market.
The Wheeler River project is the main asset of Denison and its key figures look compelling thanks to Phoenix. However, the NPV that the company likes to show investors is pre-tax and the base case for the project uses uranium prices that are much higher than those we have today.
In addition, development-stage mining companies are rarely valued at more than 0.5x post-tax NPV.
Thread with caution.