Good morning, everyone. On behalf of DevEx Resources Ltd, ASX code DEV, welcome to this Resources Rising Stars Investor Webinar. I'm Nicholas Read from Read Corporate, and it's a great pleasure to have DevEx's Managing Director, Todd Ross, and Technical Director, Brendan Bradley, in this morning to give us an update on the company's uranium exploration activities. DevEx has this morning just announced the start of field-based exploration across its extensive uranium portfolio in the Northern Territory, and I would like to refer you both to the ASX announcement launched this morning and the company's new investor presentation, which Todd and Brendan will run us through shortly. DevEx is one of very few ASX-listed companies actively exploring for uranium in Australia and therefore one of the few entry points for investors seeking exposure to what is emerging as a compelling market thematic.
Investment bank Barrenjoey recently joined the throng of analysts and experts tipping high uranium prices based on the current boom in nuclear plant construction and anticipated supply shortfalls. Barrenjoey has upgraded its price forecast for uranium from $80 to $90 a pound, with the group's Head of Mining Research, Glyn Lawcoc k, recently saying that the market had gained renewed momentum due to a combination of signals of increased demand and persistent supply-side constraints. With that in mind, I'd like to hand over the floor now to Todd and Brendan to run us through the presentation and tell us what's coming up for DevEx. Importantly, we do like to make these interactive, so a quick note to everyone who's tuned in: please use the Q&A tab on the right-hand side of your browser if you'd like to ask a question.
Once the presentation has concluded, we'll open the floor to questions and run through those as well as some questions we received via email before we started. With all of that said, I'd now like to hand over first to Todd Ross, Managing Director at DevEx. Todd, welcome. Good morning. Great to see both of you this morning, and please tell us what's going on at DevEx.
Great. Thanks, Nick, and thanks for the introduction, and thanks everyone for joining online this morning. We're thrilled to have the opportunity today to present DevEx and provide an update on our exploration plans and activities for the rest of the year and what we're up to out at our highly prospective uranium projects. First of all, the way we plan to cover this webinar is that I'll provide an overview of DevEx and the thematics of the uranium market in general, why we believe DevEx is uniquely positioned to take advantage of what we believe is a resurging uranium market, then move on to handing over to Brendan, who's going to take you through all of our technical updates and the plans that we have and our activities for this year, and then I'll wrap it up at the end. Without further ado, we'll get into it.
Just a usual disclaimer. Just a bit about DevEx and an overview for those that have tuned in to our story recently. We're one of only a handful of ASX-listed uranium explorers operating in the Northern Territory of Australia. We're operating in an area that has monster deposits of these unconformity-style deposits, over GBP 730 million of uranium that's contained there or been discovered over the years. There's a very strong thematic, which I'll talk to in a second about the uranium market, and with a strategy that we have focused on both growth through acquisitions but also through our exploration activities, we believe that DevEx is well and truly positioned to take advantage of this strong market. We're led by a proven team: myself, Brendan Bradley, and our Chairman, Tim Goyder.
We've all got a track record for running and working in the industry, running junior companies and working in this industry, and we think we've got a great upside coming. Just a little bit more about DevEx and our capital structure, as I mentioned, we're led by our Chairman, Tim Goyder. Tim's got about 19% of DevEx, has been a very strong supporter of the company over the years. Tim knows what it takes, you know, for exploration success and for growth and creating shareholder value. You know, he's making sure that we're well-funded. We have over GBP 7.8 million cash in the bank, plus we have investments of over GBP 6 million in Lachlan Star and Intex as well.
Myself, as Managing Director, over 25 years in the sector, and Brendan Bradley, as our Technical Director, very strong technical experience, also running exploration companies and a lot of strong uranium experience, and he'll take you through our programs in a minute. Why are we so bullish on the uranium outlook? As you can see on the chart on the left, that really outlines the World Nuclear Association's projections for demand for uranium over the coming years out to 2040. Below that, in the bar charts below, you can see that the supply that's expected to come online over the next 20 years or so, and that supply gap between what's forecast for demand from uranium through the increase in reactors being built globally, that supply gap is growing exponentially. It's expected to increase by about 200% by 2040.
That's expected to lead to, obviously, significant price pressures on the upside. We saw a blip last year where the price of uranium got up to over $107 a pound, and then recently, over the last couple of months, we've seen the uranium price start to tick up again and heading up towards the $80 a pound [across]. We think that's really going to just be a continuation of that trend as the supply gap widens and we see the demand for clean energy continuing to increase. It's not just really the focus on the clean energy transition. I mean, as we can see, there's over 438 nuclear reactors already operating globally, 33 countries with nuclear reactors, and over 67 new reactors currently being built and another 80 odd being under planning stage at the moment.
It is a source of clean and scalable electricity and power, which really will go to solve a lot of the world's energy transition challenges and carbon emission challenges that we're focused on. We think with our unique portfolio and that our price and the uranium price we're well placed. It's not just the energy transition, though, that's driving the upside in the uranium price. It's really coming from demand from technology as well. There's over $58 billion being invested in the last 12 months or so just in data centers alone, and now we're seeing with the onset of massive use of AI, in particular through the likes of ChatGPT and things like that, the demand for power is huge. ChatGPT is an example. It uses about 10 X the amount of power as a Google search.
You're seeing the major tech companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Oracle all having announced massive investments in nuclear power in the last 12 months, and that's a trend that we're expecting to continue to see. That all leads to more and more uranium requirements going forward. Really, what's our strategy? As I mentioned in the outset, we're focused on looking for these monster high-grade unconformity-style uranium deposits. These are only really found in two districts in the world: the Athabasca Basin, which is well-regarded and world-class uranium deposits, where you've got the likes of the Clough Lake, Cigar Lake, and McArthur River deposits. Very huge systems in the Athabasca Basin in particular, already well and truly controlled by the majors and very well understood and explored.
The McArthur Basin, which is shown on the right, shown on the left here, is the other system in the world of unconformity-style uranium systems, and we have a land package of over 16,000 sq km in that area. If you look at the two charts here, it's the same scale. We have control over an area that is very much underexplored with a lot of upside, especially around our Nabarlek Uranium Project , which Brendan can get onto in a second. Just stepping into quickly the Nabarlek Project, it's 100% owned by DevEx. The region is known to host over GBP 730 million in the McArthur Basin. We're operating predominantly up in the Northwest margin in the area of the McArthur Basin, known as the Alligator Rivers Uranium Province . It's an extensive land package.
We have over 6,000 sq km in that land package, and as you can see on the figure on the right, our land tenements or our tenements are all highlighted in blue, and we're operating and centered around the Nabarlek historical mine, which produced GBP 24 million at 1.84% uranium. That was Australia's highest grade uranium mine ever. We've got the mining lease still, and we've been drilling in and around Nabarlek and also up at the North , Northeastern area, the area called the U40 Prospect. Our strategy is to look for these high-grade deposits, and we've now identified a number of other targets, and this is what is really a target-rich environment. We've got a very large land package over that area. I'll hand over to Brendan now to talk through our strategy and talk through our plans for 2025.
Thanks, Todd, and thanks, Nicholas, for the opportunity to talk through the rocks up here in the Nabarlek area and also in the southern part of the McArthur Basin at Murphy West. For those who are not as familiar with the project area, and just because we're talking about basins and rocks, key to that area and to this slide is to understand that these uranium deposits occur at the base of this basin, which is the yellow rocks that you see in Mullins' image. They start at that base, and then they continue in structures and go through the depth.
This area that we're looking at around where we're exploring at Nabarlek is called the Alligator Rivers Uranium Province for good reason, with a significant endowment, including some very large deposits that were discovered in the early days at Ranger and Jabiluka, and likewise centered around our own tenements at Nabarlek itself. Nabarlek, for those that are not as familiar, although it's GBP 24 million , it was discovered because that basin had been stripped off in that specific area, and as a result, a large portion of that ore body had also been stripped away. Nabarlek itself would have been a much larger deposit if it would have been completed. From DevEx's point of view, our strategy is to go about, and we're looking for the next Jabiluka or the next Ranger or the next Nabarlek.
That's our business, and that's what we're looking for is the large deposits, and that's what we're focused on right now up here in the region. This is elephant country, and this is what we're about. To achieve this, we've been focusing in on what specific characteristics lie to host these large deposits. Looking at the region, looking at the big monsters out there, we're seeing a constant theme of rocks, the right rocks sitting against the right structures which host the large deposits. That's buzzwords, and you can hear the buzzwords being said around that, but we can see that constant theme across all of these deposits, where whether you're at Ranger, an example is Ranger 3 Deeps, a big deposit underneath the Ranger Pit, where we're seeing specific rock types turning into the right structures, and that's where you get the deposits.
Likewise, at Jabiluka, where you're seeing Jabiluka stratigraphy. When that stratigraphy hits the right structures, you're getting large deposits forming, obviously Jabiluka, which is over GBP 300 million deposit at high grades. That brought us into looking into answering the same question for Nabarlek, and that's what we've been focused on over the last six months. We've been pulling all the historical core at Nabarlek. We've been going back through answering that question, and we're now starting to recognize unique rocks actually hosting the Nabarlek deposit. Now that we're starting to see these unique rocks, we're looking elsewhere around the immediate Iona area for where these unique rocks lie, and we're now starting to see the signs of these rocks and historical holes sitting underneath the pit. That's equally great-looking targets that we're developing for and going forward right now. We are definitely looking for the right rocks.
We know we've got the right rocks in our area. We're looking for the right structures, and we know we've got the right structures. If you can bring the two together, I believe you're off to the maternity ward for the big baby that's out here next time. We're definitely looking at that, and we're pulling that core out at the moment. Meanwhile, we've got immediate walk-up targets that we're now advancing and we've been previously announcing in several areas within our own project. It's a summary, but it's key about bringing these two together. Focusing in on Nabarlek itself, I think everyone understands what we've been doing over the last three years. We have been focused on the right structures. We know where these uranium-bearing structures are because we've been drilling them and getting uranium intercepts.
At the Nabarlek Fault, naturally, everyone knows what we've been drilling there, but it hosts a significant uranium deposit at Nabarlek along that Nabarlek Fault. What we've been doing, as I mentioned, is we're now looking at the core, and we're seeing the right rocks, obviously at Nabarlek, and we're now starting to see it re-occur. If we can bring those together along the Nabarlek Fault and also these rocks, then we've got a great target, and we're working at that. Similarly, further to the east along the U40 Fault, we've seen uranium mineralization that we were drilling last year at U40. We're getting high-grade uranium mineralization, including those in the bottom box up in the top right at U40, to the South at U42, and then way further south in historical drilling at the Blackburn Prospect, where there's also high-grade uranium being intercepted.
Interestingly to us, and what we're now also pulling out, the old historical core is at KP or QF Prospect. Further to that, there's drilling further to the west of QF Prospect, where historical logging of core is seeing Jabiluka stratigraphy in this area. They've noted it in numerous drill holes in that region. We've gone out over the last six months and relocated this drill core and are now pushing through, looking at this drilling and looking to bring that into the, similarly, the U40 Fault. We believe if we bring those two together, we're on the right path for a big significant Jabiluka-style discovery, and that's what we're aiming for here. We keep saying it, right rocks, right structures, we have them on our property, we're pushing through the core, and we're looking for bringing up more targets.
In addition to what we've already been announcing on these structures to the south, for example, and the examples of being the prospects that we're seeing, both the Big Radon at KP Prospect, which in the historical data we're now recognizing, it's showing all the signs and symptoms of the potential for significant uranium deposits in that area. As a just a 3D snapshot through that region, what we're seeing here is a historical database which is called Radon Track Etch data . It's been collected in the late 1980s by our predecessors, Queensland Mines. They went out and collected 25,000 radon track edge samples. For those not familiar with what this is about, it's about a cup that's designed and buried in the ground for 30 days, and it measures radon that comes through the surface. Radon is a byproduct of the decay chain uranium.
What we believe with this is that if you've got a buried uranium deposit coming, as it decays, as it moves its way towards lead, it produces radon gas, and that radon leaks through these structures. We're better to find an attractive target than along known uranium-bearing structures where we're seeing this cluster of radon anomalies, such as what we call by default Big Radon, and it's called Big Radon because it's over three kilometers long and shows all those magenta bars for significant radon coming through, or likewise to the North of [KP]. Both of these prospects have never been drilled before. We've got access to them. We're bringing in our team at the moment. The next step is to bring out and bring out the ground gravity surveys over this area, which we plan for later this month.
These ground gravity surveys will design for us to pick where the structures actually lie in this large-scale area. Those structures then give us the ability to bring out the drill rigs to target these structures directly. Fortunately, we've applied for funding, and we've received funding from the NT government who are supporting what we're doing here, and they're funding us up to $160,000 for drilling at both of these prospects. Not just these prospects, but also the broader area of bringing these right rocks onto these structures is becoming paramount to what we want to do for the 2025 year as we move forward in this region. Stepping out, and again, right rocks on the right structures, we've recently had our tenements to the north of Nabarlek granted.
This area has never been explored before, albeit that it sits in a highly prospective area such as our tenements granted directly to the southeast of the Anglilaria discovery, which is a GBP 32 million discovery, which is held by Deep Yellow. We sit on the Anglilaria Fault between several other prospects that have got uranium mineralization. It sits under the basin, under the McArthur Basin, and actually we can see these structures, and we can see what would be a good drill target for as we get access. Later this month, we'll be on- site meeting with the traditional owners and talking to them through our plans for what we want to do up here.
We want to come up here with ground gravity again to map the structures at depth beneath the sandstones, and by mapping that, it immediately gives us a position for where we want to go and drill. All of those are bringing together for what we want to do for this year in the 2025 period. Stepping out, and as Todd alluded to at the beginning, we're exploring this McArthur Basin similar to concept to the Athabasca Basin. On the southern side of the McArthur Basin is DevEx's Murphy West project, where we're earning in on with several earn-in agreements with other third parties in this region. This represents an enormous- scale project along the southern margin of the McArthur Basin. Our tenements that we're earning in on lie adjacent to Laramide Resources Westmoreland Uranium Deposit.
The deposit's located at Westmoreland within the Westmoreland conglomerate, which is essentially at the base of the McArthur Basin. We see the same theme as what we're doing up at Nabarlek. These deposits are hosted on structures, and they're just simply structures going through the right rocks again. We've flown our region with airborne geophysics, principally for radiometrics, looking for radiometric anomalies that will then lead our teams into doing surface geochemistry. The team are now on site up at Murphy West. They're in the field right now collecting data and collecting surface geochemistry over numerous radiometric anomalies on our tenements. What we're looking for is to fingerprint these anomalies with our geochemistry such that we can draw direct comparisons to either up in the Northern Alligator Rivers Uranium Province or likewise within the Westmoreland-style deposits up there.
We'll be up there over the next month to two months collecting all of this data, and we look forward to seeing these early stage results, which will again lead to near-surface drilling for what we're planning to do up here in the Westmoreland area. Just to give you an example of scale, these are radiometric anomalies that we collected last year from the airborne survey. This is what we're following up on. You've got anomalies sitting associated with magnetic structures, which are the gray colors underneath the radiometric anomalies, and we will be planning to be on the ground, and we're doing this now, is follow these anomalies up with surface geochemistry at the moment. We look forward to seeing these results. It's busy times for DevEx.
The idea is to bring up quality drill targets that give us the opportunity to make large-scale Jabiluka-style discoveries in the region, whether it's in the Northwestern area and in the Nabarlek region or down in the Southern margin of this basin. I'll pass you back to Todd.
Great, thanks Brendan. As you can see, there's a lot of activity now underway and a lot of exciting prospects that we're going to be chasing up over the next few months, which will lead to a fair bit of news flow coming for investors. Obviously, on the ESG side and our relationships with the local community and the traditional owners is incredibly important to us. We're very proud of the relationships that we have with the traditional owners up in the Northern Territory, especially at our Nabarlek Projects, where we have an employment program that we operate. We also have a strong track record in terms of rehabilitation through the historical Nabarlek mine site as well, which demonstrates our strong environmental credentials. We're proud of that.
As Brendan mentioned, the recent government grant that we received for co-funded drilling on the Big Radon and KP targets also demonstrates a strong relationship that we have with the government in the Northern Territory. Just to recap our focus for this year, we're operating in an elephant country, as Brendan said, where we're operating in a district that only exists in two places of the world, the unconformity-style systems of the McArthur Basin where we operate, where we have over 16,000 sq km. This is an area that's hosted over GBP 730 million of uranium. We're operating and have been drilling previously around our Nabarlek mine sites, our historical mine site, which had produced GBP 24 million . We've now identified a number of significant targets beyond Nabarlek and beyond the U40 area where we've drilled over the last couple of years. That's including Big Radon and KP.
We've received $160,000 grants from the Northern Territory. We've now focused on these right rocks and right structures that Brendan mentioned. We've now got a new area to the north of us at th e Sandfire and Spitfire targets, which are just along strike from the Anglilaria deposits. We've got a huge potential here and a lot to follow up on. We're on ground now and activities underway. In the Murphy West region, we've now commenced that surface geochemistry work. We're very much focused on creating value for our shareholders through exploration. We're well funded, and we're also continuing to look at growth opportunities and constantly assessing those growth opportunities to continue to bring value to our shareholders. I'll hand back to Nick.
Thanks very much, Brendan and Todd, for that high-energy presentation. I'm sure we'll all be hoping, shareholders will be hoping that you'll be off to the maternity ward soon. Let's get into question time. Just a reminder to everyone tuned in, please ask questions. Please fire them in using that Q&A tab. We welcome your questions, and I'm sure that the guys will be happy to deal with them. Let's get into it. We do have a few questions that have come through, so I'll get into the first one. The question is, how are the relationships progressing with traditional owners of the Murphy West Project and around the recently lodged tenement applications near Anglilaria? Have any agreements or milestones been reached in those areas yet?
I might hand over to Brendan for that one.
Okay, thanks, thanks Nick, and to the question. It's an important question. Relationships are really important in this region, especially in the northern Alligator Rivers area where we're exploring, obviously, at Nabarlek and naturally where we plan to explore up in the north around the Anglilaria area. To answer that question, we're building relations in those areas with the licenses just being granted. We entered into an agreement last year with the people up in the region through there, the traditional owners. We deal directly with the Northern Land Council, and through the Northern Land Council, we engage with the traditional owners in there. They are the landowners in this region. No different to whether you're in East Queensland or West Australia and you're on Farmer Joe's property. These landowners have a very strong connection to the land, and we respect that.
The best way we do that is through employment, and through that employment, they know what we're doing, and we also understand what is important to them. As all relationships work, it works over time, and we build over time. At Murphy West, we've yet to engage the landowners out there, but we're working with them. It's still Northern Land Council country, and we work closely with the Northern Land Council, given the runs on the board that we've already put up in the northern regions around Nabarlek. We build relationships. Those relationships don't ever become static. We continue to work with it, and likewise, we appreciate the welcomeness that we've had in the regions and where we've explored in that area. I can't emphasize the importance enough about those relationships.
Excellent, thanks, Brendan. Just while I got you, I might just throw this next online question that's come through. When do you expect your first set of results from this program? You're obviously up and running. Lots going on. People will be eagerly looking out for news. What's the likely rollout from here?
Okay, thanks, Nick. Again, thanks for the question, because results matter, and obviously for our shareholders, it's important. I think the results that we've got right now for Big Radon and also KP Prospect is they're ready to go just about. When I say just about, I'd like to get the gravity survey out there so we can see the faults. If we can see the faults, then the draw is to know where they want to go along to several kilometer-long targets in that area. In the meantime, what we're doing and what we've been doing since the wet season started is we've been pushing the core, the historical core, looking for that right rocks hitting the right structures.
I'm really keen to bank up a series of quality drill targets that give our shareholders the enthusiasm that I have is about where we're going to put the holes to deliver the best chance of success. As we move forward, we're pushing through that core, and it becomes a key focus for drilling holes that give the shareholders the opportunity to make another Jabiluka discovery. That's what we're aiming for right now.
Thanks, Brendan. I'll just quickly throw another couple at you while we're on that topic. It's probably an inevitable question here about timing of drilling. When would you be able to drill at Sandfire and Spitfire? When would you expect to, you know, potentially have first results from that?
I look aiming for 2025. We've got meetings with the traditional owners later this month. I'll be on site, meeting with them and talking them through what we plan to do. We don't want to just necessarily race up there with the drill rig and start drilling holes. We want to do the gravity survey, and through the gravity survey, again, we target these structures properly so that we're using our money wisely to drill these structures southeast of the Anglilaria discovery and all the Anglilaria resorts. We can see how it all lines up, just because I'm sitting out at a broader scale doesn't mean that you're going to have to drill multiple holes. The gravity that we're going to do will help focus that drawer in.
If we can bank all these drill targets up, we're off to a good program for the 2025 year, but we've got to work through these targets first and get them all lined up.
Okay, great.
Maybe just to jump in quickly, yeah, it's about building up that target base that we've got. Obviously, previously we were drilling around Nabarlek and U40 where we already have, you know, targets that were sort of more low-hanging fruit that we'd focused on previously. We have the relationships with the traditional owners there. We're working up that now around the Anglilaria area, around Spitfire and Sandfire. That's really just defining those targets and getting ourselves ready for this year.
Okay, thanks, Todd. I'll just quickly close out one last question on the drilling. The question is, how many rigs do you expect to have drilling, and what is the typical cost per meter of drilling up in that whole world?
I'm happy to answer that. I mean, we actually find from the last two years of drilling is that the cost per meter is quite, it's quite effective by comparison to other uranium provinces in the region. Generally, for an RC drill campaign, you're looking at north of, like, without telling our drillers how to quote, we're looking at around about $80 a meter, generally all in. Key to that is about drilling effective holes. Each different project requires different styles of drilling. What we learned from diamond drilling, which is much more expensive, nonetheless gives us great insights. A lot of these programs will be a mixture of RC and diamond drilling. It really comes down to how quickly we can bank up these targets for drilling as we go.
Excellent, thanks, Brendan. Todd, I'll throw a tricky one to you now. We've got a question from a shareholder about the share price, and hopefully it is going to come up. I think we should address it. In my observation, the price was, I think, around $0.24, $0.25 September last year. It's obviously declined since then. Can you give us any thoughts? I mean, obviously, it's been a tough, it has been a tough market. I'm not even out about that, but are there any specific factors you can sort of talk to?
Yeah, look, there's a number of factors. I mean, I think at the end of last year, the drilling was probably a little disappointing to some extent. While there was certainly lots of technical success in there and still lots of indications of uranium mineralization, that probably didn't have the grade that we were hoping for. That was the first factor, perhaps in October or so when those results came out. Separately to that, I guess, you know, we went into the wet season, so the news flow has been relatively quiet, although, as you've just heard from Brendan , the work hasn't stopped. There's been a lot of really good work done now about identifying these additional targets and areas that we want to go after. Now we're ramping up again.
I guess thirdly, we've suffered just like many other junior exploration companies in the market the last six months or so. The thematic last year for uranium was really positive and strong. It's now, you know, that hasn't changed as far as we're concerned, but the momentum in the market seemed to really just drift away last year. A lot of the uranium stocks suffered because of that, as did other junior exploration companies. We've been very much conscious about how do we turn this around? How do we get the share price back up? That's what I'm here for. That's what Brendan is here for. We're obviously working very closely to do that and working very hard to try and get that share price back up again.
Thanks, Todd. Obviously, the best way to get it up is to drill and have success. With that in mind, the investor sort of says, you know, how quickly could it rebound? Do you see potential for it to go back to, you know, the sort of levels we were hoping for last year? Can you just talk to that? Obviously, the company's strategy is to look for big deposits that are going to change the value of the company quickly. Presumably, you know, the ability to do that is still very much there.
Absolutely. You know, we've got beyond just Nabarlek and U40, where we were focused last year, we've got all of these other targets now that we're de-risking and focusing on identifying the areas to put drill rigs. The best way to create value is to get rigs on the ground and get moving. We want to make sure that we're preserving the cash that we have and to make most effective use of that to get the share price up. As I said from the outset, we're well funded. We've got enough money to be able to carry on with the programs that we want to run this year. As soon as we can get out there with those targets that once we've de-risked them further, that's the plan. That's how we think we're going to be able to create value and get the share price back up.
Excellent, thanks, Todd. A great segue into the next question, and this has come both from emails and LaCassie online here. Can you talk to the company's funding position, cash? How much, how far do you think your current balance sheet can take you in terms of exploration activity? What's your take on the need to raise capital and when?
Yeah, absolutely. Look, no need to raise capital at this stage. Our focus is on the exploration programs that we have planned for this year, GBP 7.8 million in the bank. We've been very much focused as well on keeping our costs down and trying to preserve the cash that we do have. We've also got over $6 million of investments in the treasury. We're well funded to be able to do what we need to do this year and carry out our exploration plans.
Excellent. Thanks very much. I'll just go to a couple of email questions here, Todd, if that's okay. This question is, since the Country Liberal Party formed government in the NT, how would you describe the shift in the regulatory environment, particularly for uranium? Has there been a noticeable change in government support or permitting efficiency compared to the previous administration?
Yeah, I mean, we're certainly well supported. As that recent grant demonstrates, the $160,000 in co-funding that we've received, we're getting a lot of support from the government there. Perhaps Brendan can talk to the history before I joined about the change from before to now. From my experience in the nine months that I've been here or so, the relationships are fantastic. The support is there. It's a territory, obviously, that's supportive of uranium mining ultimately and exploration. I think we're well placed to be able to continue that relationship. Maybe, I don't know if you had any comments, Brendan.
Oh, no, I'd say the same. We deal with the Northern Territory regulators, and the territory both has territorial oversight and also federal oversight. We deal with both of those oversight groups, whether it's the supervising scientists or the territory and mines department. We know them both. We've been dealing with both, and they also know us. I don't actually see any changes between how they go about their business. They've got a clear mandate for uranium mining, and uranium mining has been taking place in the Northern Territory for well over 50 years. They know how to regulate them, and they know how to watch it. It's a matter of working with them about what our plans are and then setting ourselves up for when we actually drill that right hole into another Jabiluka discovery such that we're ready to go.
Fundamental to that is having great relations with the landowners.
Excellent, thanks, [Brendan]. Todd, here's one for you. Just putting your Corporate Development sort of M&A hat on. The investor makes the observation that there's many uranium tenements in the Northern Territory that are relatively dormant or held by companies focused elsewhere. I think that's a good observation. Are you actively engaged in any discussions to consolidate prospective ground? Is there a broader strategic ambition for DevEx to become the leading uranium explorer in the NT?
Absolutely. I mean, I think we already are one of the leading uranium explorers in the Northern Territory. Certainly one of only a handful that's operating there or being very active there. We've already got over 6,000 sq km of land tenure in the Alligator Rivers Uranium Province and then another 10,000 in the earnings down at the bottom end of the McArthur Basin at Murphy West. We think we've identified, without sounding arrogant, some of the better tenement areas to go after. We're always in discussions with other groups if there's an opportunity for us to be able to consolidate land packages. We've got a lot to keep us busy and a lot of potential upside here with a really target-rich environment of prospects to go after already.
I guess beyond what we're doing in the Northern Territory, we continue to always look at other projects, and it's really focused on, I think where we've suffered perhaps to some extent is not having a resource in the portfolio when you look at some of the valuations compared to our peers. While we haven't focused on that previously to build out a resource around the U40 or Nabarlek Prospects, it's been primarily focused on chasing these high-grade monster deposits, which has continued to be our strategy. Where we could pick up a resource to bring into the portfolio, that's certainly something we're always looking at.
Excellent, thanks, Todd. Brendan, here's one perhaps for you. Just a nice segue off that comment about a resource. The investor asks, are there any plans to publish an MRE, a mineral resource estimate, for U40 or any of your other advanced prospects? Can you give any indication of how many pounds of uranium may have been defined to date across some of your key prospects like Nabarlek, South, U40, etc.?
Okay. Look, our strategy is about making that Jabiluka monster, which is a GBP 300 million discovery. We're looking for something that will either collectively be sufficient in size that can justify its own operation on site and where we are operating, including around the Nabarlek mining lease, as an example. We're looking for something that's materially large enough in that context. The uranium mineralization we've encountered at U40 along strike of over 500 m is still reasonably broad space for what we're defining in that area. What we're still looking for is something large. We drilled at broad spacing last year, looking at the uranium hits that we had in the 2023 year and 2024. We followed up on that and we found the results to be slightly erratic.
It doesn't mean you don't want to go back there and infill it, but we're looking for size, and size matters for wanting to get started. We've continued to explore these areas at the moment. Yes, there's a collection of uranium prospects out there, and yes, we've got great intercepts in those areas, but we're looking for the monster first, and then we can come back and circle around those as well.
Fantastic, thanks very much. Here we go. A couple more just to round things out. Todd, is DevEx actively working towards inclusion in any of the uranium-focused ETFs? If so, what are the key hurdles or criteria still holding their path?
Yeah, look, getting onto one of the ETFs is certainly an ambition of ours. It brings liquidity to the stock. It certainly brings more attention to the story. Given where we're at and the lack of news flow the last six months or so, given the wet season up in the Northern Territory, we've been trying to focus on what we can do and what we can control, which is our exploration activities and the good technical work that we've been doing to identify those really solid targets. We think by doing that, that will ultimately give us the recognition to bring onto those ETFs. In itself, it's not something we can necessarily control, but it's certainly something we have as an ambition to get onto the ETFs.
Great, thanks, Todd. Just a couple more to round stuff out here. I appreciate this is a tricky one to answer as an explorer, but the shareholder asks, do you foresee DevEx being in a position in the future to pay dividends to shareholders?
To be able to get to the point where DevEx is actually cash flow positive, it means we've found the monster that we're after and it means we've been able to advance it to development. That's what we're here for. We're here to really grow this business. We're not just, you know, focused on becoming an exploration company forever. If we could get to that point, we'd all be very happy as well.
Yeah, and I'm sure that the Chairman would love that too. This has been a 20+ year journey, I think, for him. I'm sure he'd love to see some dividends in the future. I think that rounds it out. I think I've covered all the questions that have popped up. I just thought we might finish. There was a shareholder here who just wanted to pass on his thanks for the update. He said it does make a big difference for small cap shareholders when they feel informed and up to date on what's going on. He says he appreciates there's been a lot going on beneath the surface during the wet season, but it's hard to see or feel as though today's update with the human touch of a live briefing is very helpful. Good luck with the campaign.
With that, Todd, we might sort of wrap things up, but I might just hand over to you for a couple of final words. Sounds like we're in for an exciting few months.
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Nick, and thanks everyone for dialing in today. Brendan, thanks for taking us through the programs. We've got a lot of exciting news coming. We are chasing the monster deposits. We're here to create shareholder value, and I think that's what's the priority and what everyone wants to see coming forward. Stay tuned.
Thanks very much, Todd and Brendan. Thanks so much for your time this morning, and thank you to everyone for tuning in. It's much appreciated. We had some great questions, and just a reminder that the recording of this will be available later today. We'll get it up on the company's website, socials, and it'll be emailed out to everyone who registered. Thanks for your time. We appreciate your participation and look forward to keeping you informed about what DevEx is up to. Thanks for joining us. Have a great day.
Okay, thank you.