Good morning, everyone.
Hello, and welcome to the Energy Fuels Annual Meeting of Stockholders. Please note that this meeting is being recorded. Questions may be submitted via the message icon at the top left of your screen by typing your message, then clicking the send icon to the right of the message box. The meeting is about to begin.
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the 2023 Annual Meeting of Shareholders of Energy Fuels Inc. My name is Birks Bovaird. I'm speaking to you from Lakewood, Colorado. I'm the chair of the board, and I will act as chair of this meeting. The Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer, and Corporate Secretary of the company, David Frydenlund, will act as secretary of the meeting. Also with us today are Mark Chalmers, President and Chief Executive Officer, Julia Hoffmeier, Corporate Counsel and Assistant Corporate Secretary, and Tom Brock, Chief Financial Officer. I'd also be remiss at this time if I didn't acknowledge the directors of the company who are physically and/or listening in to this presentation this morning. Thank you very much, people.
This is Mark Chalmers, President and CEO of Energy Fuels. We welcome each of you to this year's meeting, which we are pleased to again hold virtually so that you, our shareholders, as well as guests from around the world, are able to meaningfully engage with us from the convenience of your homes and offices. We welcome your participation throughout the meeting and will pause intermittently to accommodate questions on the matters before you today. After the official business has concluded, I will invite you to stay on for my presentation, during which I am pleased to share with you our vision for the company as we continue taking steps towards making our White Mesa Mill the critical mineral hub of the United States.
This is David Frydenlund, Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer, and Corporate Secretary of Energy Fuels. This meeting is held in accordance with the Ontario Business Corporations Act, which permits shareholders meetings by electronic means and is deemed to be held in Toronto, Ontario. Please look to the left of your screen at this time for instructions on questions, and for those of you who are eligible to vote at the meeting, you may do so by clicking on the proxy vote, voting site link on the left side of your screen. Only shareholders and proxy holders who have been provided an eleven-digit control number located on the form of proxy you have received are entitled to vote at this meeting. If you've already voted your shares and do not wish to change your vote, no action is required at this time.
If there are any registered shareholders or duly appointed proxy holders who have inadvertently logged into the meeting as a guest but intend to vote by online ballot during the meeting, please log back into the meeting as a registered shareholder or duly appointed proxy holder, as per the instructions provided to you.
The 2023 Annual Meeting of Shareholders of Energy Fuels Inc. will now come to order. To make the best use of our time, certain shareholders have been asked to move and second the resolutions, which we will consider here today and which are set out in the notice of meeting. This will allow more time for voting, as well as any questions and comments later in the meeting. We welcome both shareholders and meeting guests to submit questions as they arise, though we may address them at a later point in the meeting or on a private basis, depending on the subject matter. We will pause periodically throughout the meeting to review questions directly related to any of the motions of the meeting, during which you may experience brief periods of silence.
Subject to any time constraints, general questions relating to the company's business and operations will be addressed after the CEO's presentation following the meeting. Duplicate or similar questions may be consolidated and paraphrased when read aloud in order to minimize repeat answers. We will conduct the votes on the matters before us by a poll. In this format, every shareholder entitled to vote on the matter, that is, every shareholder or proxy holder who has been provided a 11-digit control number, has one vote in respect of each share entitled to be voted on the matter and held by the shareholder. If you previously voted by proxy, please note that voting in the poll will void your previously cast votes, and any votes submitted here will govern.
We note that proxies received to date indicate that the company has sufficient votes to pass all matters in accordance with recommendations of management. The poll will be open for all resolutions at the same time. This will allow you to vote either on each resolution immediately or wait until the conclusion of discussions on all resolutions prior to casting your vote on any of the resolutions. Your votes may be changed until voting is closed just prior to the termination of the meeting. American Stock Transfer & Trust Company, LLC, will act as a virtual scrutineer of this meeting to report on the shareholders present virtually and the number of securities represented virtually and by proxy at this meeting, and any adjournment thereof.
to compute the votes cast by proxy and by the poll conducted at this meeting or any adjournment thereof, and to report to me on these matters. The notice of Internet availability of proxy materials was mailed to all registered shareholders and was also mailed or notice was delivered in accordance with the notice and access requirements to all non-registered shareholders in accordance with Rule 14a-16 of the United States Securities Exchange Act, 1934. Accordingly, the company is also in compliance with the Canadian National Instrument 51-102, subpart 9.1.5, which allows compliance with SEC notice and access rules. The Affidavit of Mailing has been duly filed, and I direct that the affidavit be attached to the minutes of this meeting as is scheduled.
If you're entitled to vote at the meeting, you may address the meeting when there is a call to discuss a motion before the meeting. Should a shareholder or proxy holder entitled to vote at the meeting like to address the chair or other speaker on any motion, please type in your question or comment in the message section provided on your screens. Subject to timing constraints and applicability to the matters being discussed, the secretary or another speaker may read the question aloud and provide a response during the course of the meeting. As previously noted, duplicate or similar questions may be consolidated and paraphrased when read aloud in order to minimize repeat questions. A quorum for the transaction of business at the meeting of shareholders is at least two persons present.
In this case, virtually, each being a shareholder entitled to vote at the meeting, or a duly appointed proxy holder, or representative for an absent shareholder so entitled. I will now ask the secretary to report on attendance at the meeting.
Mr. Chair, we are pleased to report that there are 110 shareholders holding 76,788,527 common shares represented in person or by proxy at this meeting. This represents 48.59% of the 158,029,412 issued and outstanding common shares.
I declare that the requisite quorum of shareholders is present, and that the meeting is properly constituted for the transaction of business. I direct that the final scrutineer's report on attendance be an annex to the minutes of the meeting as is scheduled. The first item of business is the presentation of the financial statements of the company for the year ended December 31, 2022, together with the auditor's report thereon. Copies of the financial statements have been publicly filed and mailed to all shareholders who requested them. Are there any questions concerning the financial statements?
This is Julia Hoffmeier, Corporate Counsel and Assistant Corporate Secretary. There are no questions at this time.
Thank you. As there are no questions, receipt and presentation of the financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2022, is hereby acknowledged. The next item of business is the election of directors. It's proposed that 10 directors be elected at this meeting. As described in our proxy statement, the company has adopted a majority voting policy that provides for individual director voting by the shareholders. Under the policy, if any nominee director receives a greater number of votes withheld than votes for election, such nominee director will tender his or her resignation for consideration by the board of directors following the meeting.
In addition, in 2014, the board and the shareholders of the company approved an amendment to the company's bylaws, which requires that the shareholders submit a notice of director nominations at least 35 days and not more than 65 days prior to the annual meeting. No notices of nomination were received by the company within the specified time period. May I have a motion to nominate the individuals recommended by the board of directors?
This is Mark Chalmers. I nominate for election as directors of the company for the ensuing year, the following 10 persons. Those nominated have been authorized by the board of directors: J. Birks Bovaird, Mark S. Chalmers, Benjamin Eshleman III, Ivy V. Estabrooke, Barbara A. Filas, Bruce D. Hansen, Jacqueline Herrera, Dennis L. Higgs, Robert W. Kirkwood, and Alexander G. Morrison.
As no other nominations were received by the company, in accordance with the advance notice provisions of the company's bylaws, I now declare the nominations closed. All of the nominees have signified their consent to act as directors of the company. May I have a motion in respect of the election of the nominees as directors?
This is Mark Chalmers. I move that the individuals I have nominated be elected as directors of the company to hold office until the close of the next annual meeting of the shareholders, or until their successors are duly elected or appointed.
This is David Frydenlund. I second the motion.
Thank you very much. Is there any discussion on this motion?
This is Julia Hoffmeier. There are no questions at this time.
Thank you. As there are no questions, I now call for a vote on the motion before the meeting. All persons eligible to vote may enter their votes by clicking on the proxy voting site link on the left side of your screen at this time. You may cast or change your vote until the poll for all proposals is closed just prior to the termination of the meeting. The next item of business is the appointment of auditors. As described in our proxy statement, management is proposing that KPMG LLP, an independent registered public accounting firm located in Denver, Colorado, be reappointed as the auditors of the company. I now ask someone to make a motion.
This is Mark Chalmers. I move that KPMG LLP of Denver, Colorado, an independent registered public accounting firm, be appointed as auditors of the company until the next annual meeting of the company, at such remuneration as shall be fixed by the board of directors.
This is David Frydenlund. I second the motion.
Thank you. Is there any discussion on this motion?
This is Julia Hoffmeier. There are no questions at this time.
Thank you very much. As there are no questions, I now call for a vote on the motion before the meeting. All persons eligible to vote may enter their votes by clicking on the proxy voting site link on the left side of your screen at this time. You may cast or change your vote until the vote for all proposals is closed just prior to the termination of the meeting. The next item of business is a vote on a non-binding advisory proposal to approve the compensation for the named executive officers as disclosed in the proxy statement. I now ask someone to make a motion.
This is Mark Chalmers. I move the following resolution be passed. Resolved that the compensation paid to the company's named executive officers as disclosed pursuant to Item 402 of Regulation S-K, including the compensation discussion and analysis, compensation tables and narrative, is hereby approved.
This is David Frydenlund. I second the motion.
Thank you. Is there any discussion on this motion?
This is Julia Hoffmeier. There are no questions at this time.
Thank you. As there are no questions, I now call for a vote on the motion before the meeting. All persons eligible to vote may enter their votes in Lumi at this time, as indicated on your screens. If you have not yet cast your vote on any of the matters to be voted on in this meeting, you now can cast your votes. I will pause for about 30 seconds to allow time for all votes to be cast. Okay.
Based on the preliminary scrutineer's report, proxies were received from a sufficient number of shares relative to the total number of votes cast at the meeting, such that I declare the following: One, with respect to the election of directors, I declare the motion carried and confirm that all of the nominees have been elected as directors of the company to hold office until the close of the next annual meeting of shareholders, or until their successors are duly elected or appointed. Each of the nominees for director received more votes for than the number of votes withheld, and accordingly, each of the directors has been duly elected and none of the directors is required to tender his or her resignation into, under the majority voting policy.
2, with respect to the appointment of KPMG LLP of Denver, Colorado, an independent registered public accounting firm, as auditors of the company until the next annual meeting of shareholders at such remuneration as shall be fixed by the board of directors, I declare the motion carried. 3, with respect to say on pay, the resolution that compensation paid to the company's named executive officers as disclosed pursuant to Item 402 of Regulation S-K, including the compensation discussion and analysis, compensation tables, and narrative discussion, was approved by the requisite majority....
I hereby direct that a copy of the scrutineer's final voting results be annexed to the minutes of the meeting, that a report on voting results be filed on SEDAR in accordance with Section 11.3 of National Instrument 51-102, continuous disclosure obligations, and that a Form 8-K, in accordance with Item 5.07, be filed on EDGAR pursuant to the filing requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. That concludes the scheduled business of this meeting. Is there any other business that anyone entitled to vote at this meeting wishes to bring to the attention of the meeting?
This is Julia Hoffmeier. There is no further business to be brought before the meeting.
Thank you. As there's no further business, I declare the meeting terminated. The formal part of this annual meeting of shareholders is now adjourned. I invite you to stay online for a presentation on the company's activities to be given by Mark Chalmers, the President and Chief Executive Officer of the company.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and to all our shareholders that are listening and participating today, and our directors and our employees. It's always my pleasure to give an update on the company, and our kind of reviews looking forward. This first slide, I think most of you have seen this, and I wanna remind everybody that we try to update our presentation monthly and put it on our website. It doesn't always happen right on the month, but typically once a month, it gets updated. This picture of, on the front slide is of the White Mesa Mill, which again, many of you, most of you have seen before, and this is the center of our critical mineral hub, producing the critical materials required for the clean energy transition.
Whether it be uranium or vanadium, which it was actually built to produce, or now over actually the last few years, rare earths, looking at, advancing our strategy on medical isotopes and our long history of recycling. Next slide. I may be making some forward-looking statements, so on this slide, it provides all that disclosure. Next slide. Energy Fuels, as I said, is the leading producer of uranium, and vanadium and rare earths, creating clean energy for a better world. It's a very exciting spot. Next slide.
This slide, and again, I've had this in our presentation for the last few months, just showing the periodic table, and I like to point out to people that the entire mining industry has changed dramatically over the last decade or so because we now have a number of new elements that little attention was paid to if you go back over the last 20, 30 years. And certainly, as you're all aware of, uranium has been our core business and will continue to be to the future, but then the rare earths. And you look down in that, the green rare earths are kind of highlighted there, most of them are elements that most of us didn't even know how to pronounce a few years ago.
Vanadium, again, has been a core part of our business strategy over years and will be in the future. And then lastly, on the periodic chart, radium. Next slide. So really, our products are unique. When you make an investment in Energy Fuels, typically you would invest in a uranium-only company or rare earth company or vanadium company or perhaps an isotope company. But with Energy Fuels, you get this broad diversification on the things that we either currently produce or plan to produce, whether it be for the nuclear fuel assemblies, for nuclear power, vanadium flow batteries, the permanent electric motors for electric vehicles, wind turbines, or even fighter jets. We cover a lot of real estate with the things we produce. If you look at the list of critical minerals, I think it's about 50.
We produce at least 10 of the 50 on that list, and I am proud to say that's probably more than just about anybody that I know of, in the United States or the Americas, and perhaps even the world, at a single location. Next slide. So all our products are high-value products. Uranium, used for carbon-free energy, about 50% of the carbon-free energy. Certainly, we're seeing a renaissance here with people recognizing a need for clean baseload energy, particularly with electrification, electric vehicles. Rare earths, the critical elements used for the most powerful magnets that come up with the most powerful efficiencies and ranges for both cars and wind generators and other high-tech, appliances.
Vanadium, primarily used for steel hardening, but more recently, looking at for vanadium flow batteries, which are grid-scale renewable energy storage, are getting more attention over the last few years. The medical isotopes is really new to us. We've been advancing that for the last year and a half or 2 years, focusing on some of these elements that can potentially be used for emerging cancer therapies, which is a very exciting space. All of them, and I like to point this out, everything we do is divided by the fact that most of the products, all the products that we take to the mill contain uranium and other radioisotopes, and that and they're all the common denominators.
So everything that we take to the mill contains uranium, and that gives us the ability to do these high value lines. Recycling, the reason the White Mesa Mill exists today, because for a period of years, perhaps a decade or two, it was able to recycle natural uranium that kept the facility alive, and in good standing over periods of low uranium prices. That's still, even though it's a small part of our business, it's a very important part of our business. Financial strength. We always pride ourselves on strong financial strength with strong balance sheet. At the end of the Q1, we had $143 million of working capital, including $104 million of cash marketable securities and large inventories of both uranium and vanadium.
I'll go into more detail later on the strength of that balance sheet and actually, how it actually is quite conservative. Next slide. Again, uranium has been our core business, will continue to be our core business going forward. Next slide. We have significant position in the United States, proven uranium production, constructed, fully paid for projects. In this world we live in today with inflation, the cost and the capital cost of starting up a new uranium project from scratch, even if it has its permits, is hugely expensive, and Energy Fuels has probably in the order of $1 billion worth of assets, in terms of the capital cost to recreate what we have.
Certainly, we have the White Mesa Mill, that is the center of our critical mineral hub, that will do all the elements that I have pointed out on the periodic table or most of them, as we evolve. The Pinyon Plain Mine in Arizona is in pre-production readiness, and that is a project that I built out in 1987, when I was working for the old Energy Fuels, which was a private company. We also have the significant Nichols Ranch Project in Wyoming, which is still on standby, and then we have La Sal Complex, and I'm not talking about all our projects here. La Sal Complex comprises a number of fully developed mines that are connected in many cases in the town of La Sal or near the town of La Sal.
But we also have Sheep Mountain, Roca Honda, Bullfrog, and that is very material because we really have the projects of several companies, and I think a lot of people don't understand that, that we have the best of the best on the conventional, and ISR in the country. Next slide. So last year was a very big year for us, with the securing of new long-term sales contracts that run from starting this year to 2030, and that was really on the back of the Ukrainian conflict, and we were able to secure three long-term contracts. We also sold uranium into the reserve, that we sold the first quarter, 300,000 pounds at a very nice price at $61.57, and we're looking at additional contracts at higher pricing, looking forward.
Now, this year, we will deliver about 560,000 pounds near $60 a pound, $58-$60 a pound this year. And that is really a significant event for us to get back into or going back into primary uranium production at some very, very nice margins. Next slide. So I really like this slide for a lot of reasons. We still trade as a uranium company, and we have from looking back a few years, and we currently do trade as a uranium company, so we're kind of in the middle of the path of the companies in North America. I mean, you look at our market cap, around $1 billion, working capital.
I mean, you can look at our peers, and we're very strong on our working capital, reported at the end of Q1, zero debt, and we have substantial assets that would again, cost hundreds of millions of dollars, if not $1 billion, to replace. We also have large inventories of uranium and vanadium, and I also like to point out on this table, all these companies on this table are uranium producers, but none of them are advancing a strategy for rare earths or vanadium or medical isotopes or have the ability to recycle. So even though we trade as a uranium company, we're much more than that. We're much more diversified than our peers. Next slide. So let's talk about the rare earths. Next slide.
So again, I've used this slide previously, but uranium and rare earths go perfectly together, and they go perfectly together for Energy Fuels, because the best feeds of rare earths contain uranium and other isotopes and radionuclides, which we can handle at the White Mesa Mill. So this is a remarkable opportunity for our company, not just in the Americas, but around the world. And I think there are a lot of people out there that are envious of the fact that we can deal with the contained uranium and recover the uranium and the rare earth feeds that we are searching for and building a story for. Next slide. So this slide, and I think this should shock people. This is a slide prepared by the Department of Energy, and the red shows how dependent the world is.
The global rare earth market is on China, so red is China. And you look at the mining, the separation, the refining, and the magnets, and you can see the stranglehold that China has on the rest of the world. It is our strategy to fill in that gap where we have full integration and time. It may take a long time to get to magnets, and we may not get to magnets, but our goal is for as full a integration as we can get in the United States of America. Next slide. So this timeline is really quite remarkable because it shows when we first announced we're getting into the rare earth space in April of 2020, so that was just a little over three years ago.
Our company, I believe, does as much in one year as many companies do in 10 years. So when you look at getting in or announcing we're getting in to the rare earth business in April 2020, we began making a carbonate. We began doing partial separations and creating a high purity mixed rare earth carbonate with NdPr in the grades of around 32%-34% that we started shipping to Neo, and they absolutely love our carbonate. Then in February of this year, we closed the acquisition of a very significant project in Brazil, the Bahia Project, that we're doing drilling on and advancing that to be a mine for our company going forward. Phase one separation, and this is really exciting.
We are currently installing phase one separation that should be installed by the end of this year, early next year, and that will provide somewhere in the order of up to 1,000 metric tons of NdPr per year, given enough feed, and that could be up to about 1 million electric vehicles of NdPr for these high efficiency electric motors. So we're very excited about that. We're doing it at a remarkable strike rate of $25 million to put in phase one. Now, that is being put in the existing SX building, where we currently recover uranium and vanadium, and we have made room to also recover the NdPr oxides in a Sm+, which is where the heavy fraction reports.
So we're also looking at and advancing some of our feasibility work on phase two separation and getting plans to do that and advance that, which would be somewhere in the order of three times larger than the phase one process. So we are looking for scale. And then lastly, we will, and we are gonna be piloting the heavies this year, and we're also looking at going to heavy separation of the Dy and the Tb by around 2027. Next slide.
So really, when you look at our strategy, and again, remember, uranium's our core business, will continue to be core business, but bolting on the rare earths, we are advancing the strategy of full integration as quickly as we can and faster than anybody else I know, here in the United States, but also looking at, you know, starting separations, as I said, with phase one, later this year or early next year. But we're also looking at things like metal making and, magnet making in due course. But, and we're looking at doing that processing work in the United States, in Utah, but we're looking outside of the United States as we did with the purchase of the Bahia Project.
So we are looking at other projects and opportunities globally in the rare earth business, and we hope to expand our footprint outside of the United States, mainly looking for molecules of monazite to process at the White Mesa Mill. Next slide. So the Bahia Project, as I said, we were able to finally close that in February 2023, just a few months ago. Very large land position, and it is like 40,000 acres. We did some phase one exploration on it already. We bought a sonic drill rig, which we plan to have in Brazil and operating and turning again later this year. And we're also looking at advancing to both a 43-101 and an S-K 1300 for both Canada and the United States in terms of technical reports on the resources.
But we see this as a very important stepping stone for us in securing a mine. But we are looking for more mines. Bahia is a great start, and we look to acquire other projects that make sense for our company going forward. Next slide. So just some pictures, because, again, pictures are worth a thousand miles or a thousand words. And looking at the upper left-hand corner, where that's carbonate going to Neo in Estonia, because there is no commercial separation capacities operating in the United States. There will be soon, with the addition and the completion of phase one. Looking at the team, the team's very proud. We've got a great team of people at the White Mesa Mill.
We couldn't be prouder of them, but we have a great team in the company around the entire Western U.S., that manage and operate the projects that we have and are currently being advanced. But we also have a great team here in Lakewood, Colorado. In the lower right-hand corner is the pilot separation facility that we have in the mill, at the mill, that we do a lot of our test work for scaling up to design and install phase one and phase two. And one of the key things that we have that is very unique for Energy Fuels, amongst many of our peers, is we have the ability to do our test work and our piloting at the White Mesa site.
We don't have to go to outside parties and schedule that work in most cases. I mean, sometimes we go out for certain check samples and whatnot, but we have the ability, and we have the team, and that is a very unique reason why we move a lot faster than anybody else in this space. Next slide. So why will we be successful when a number of people have had problems? One, we have the ability to deal with the radionuclides. We have the infrastructure, we have the permits, and monazite is a high-value feed, very high value with the distributions it has of primarily the elements used for high-efficiency electric motors. It is available, mined around the world. It used to be worth nothing, now it's looked at as quite a valuable product.
It's very straightforward to process it if you have the ability to deal with the radionuclides. It's low cost and capital efficient in terms of utilizing the infrastructure that we have and the knowledge that we have. We are focused on solvent extraction. We have over 40 years of experience with dealing with solvent extraction, and that's why phase 1 is in the existing SX building. We're focused on moving through this supply chain towards integration because you really need integration to get the to capture the whole value chain of the rare earth business. Lastly, and I'm always proud to say this, Utah is a great place to do business, and we're very proud to have the White Mesa Mill in Utah. Next slide.
So now let's look at where we fit with the rare earth companies, publicly traded rare earth companies. Again, we're right in the middle of the pack. But remember, that market cap is based on being a uranium producer. We get valued as uranium producers, so we are rapidly trying to go up that chain towards the Iluka, the MP, and the Lynas that are multi-billion dollar companies, and get recognized that we are going to get there with our rare earth strategy. And I can say that we are going to get there. Now, we still have a lot of things to do, but it's a very exciting spot.
Again, as I said, when you look at the things that we've been able to do with the securing of Bahia, getting the phase one separation, making a carbonate, shipping it to Estonia, I mean, we are really going at incredible speed, as I said, over other people. Next slide. So let's talk about vanadium and the medical isotopes. Next slide. So vanadium, we've always been, vanadium has been a very significant part of our business strategy, but it's always, vanadium is a very spiky element, and we've always been typically a high-cost or higher-cost producer. But we do have the only conventional vanadium circuit in the United States. And, and so that is something that is very unique in itself. As I said, it's usually used for steel hardening, mainly used for steel hardening, but also for grid-scale batteries.
We produced 2 million pounds of vanadium in 2019, when the price went up to $30 a pound. And we've been selling a bit of vanadium over the course of the last year and this year. Last vanadium we sold was nearly $11 per pound. We still have nearly 1 million pounds in inventory that we can sell as the market improves, and we kind of pick our spots when we sell vanadium. We wait for it to spike up, and we sell some vanadium.
But we also have the ability to recover substantial quantities of vanadium from our existing tailings solution at the White Mesa Mill, as we do, going back into uranium production, where some of our mines are uranium, vanadium mines, located in the region, and we can go back into primary production of vanadium, in due course when it is warranted financially. Now, the medical isotopes, again, we've been advancing this the last year, year and a half, and, it's a very exciting area. And when we're processing uranium, vanadium, and rare earths, we solubilize a number of other elements that go into solution. So we are looking at some of those other elements that now look like they have demand for, particularly when you start focusing on these emerging cancer therapies for targeted alpha therapies.
Very exciting area, and we're primarily looking at radium, 226, initially 228. And this is a very exciting area. It's still early days, but we are advancing it. We have submitted an R&D license application, and we are talking to a number of people around the world on our strategy on medical isotopes. And what a better place, or could there be a better place than the White Mesa Mill in Utah? Next slide. So let's talk about the community and some of our recycling activities. Next slide. So again, when you look at what we do, everything we do fits perfectly with ESG: uranium for zero carbon, baseload energy, the rare earths for high-efficiency electric vehicles and other technologies, vanadium.
potentially for grid scale batteries and high-strength steel, and the isotopes in terms of potentially assisting with the treatment or cure of cancer, with these elements that, again, have not been on the radar screen for a lot of people for a number of years. The recycling. When you look at the amount of uranium and vanadium we have recycled over the past couple decades, it just is really staggering because we have limited a lot of carbon emissions because of those activities. Our sustainability report is on the website. We produced that about a year and a half ago, and it really is ESG on steroids. Next slide. Talk about community outreach, and we are doing more now with community outreach in the region around the White Mesa Mill than we have ever done.
We set up the San Juan County Clean Energy Foundation. We made an initial contribution of $1 million to the foundation and are committing ongoing funding equal to 1% of the annual revenues of the mill going forward, which could be very substantial. Grants to date: we've made a grant to the American Indian Services for $160,000, where we're buying two small buses and providing them with some school supplies, with a focus on STEM education for indigenous people. We also funded Canyonlands Field Institute, which is a native training program for Native Americans at some of the regional parks. The Navajo Nation, we've contributed some money for some of the work that they had at some of the small, little towns on the reservation.
We've also committed to fund a solar energy project on the Dinosaur Museum in Blanding, and we're also making some contributions to the San Juan County High School. It's just starting to get going here. Most of these contributions are focused on education, environment, health, wellness, economic development, and Native American priorities, and we're very proud of this focus and the good we can do in the region. I'm also very, very excited to say that we have an advisory board. We have indigenous people on that advisory board and members from the community that help determine what projects we should fund. There's a website that you can go, the San Juan Clean Energy Foundation website. And if you haven't visited it, I ask you to go visit that website.
You can Google San Juan Energy Foundation, and you'll find it. We're very excited about that. We're also continuing to be supportive of helping with the reclamation of a number of mines that were never reclaimed or reclaimed poorly, from the Cold War, and we still have visions where we can do great things with that in itself. Next slide. Let's talk more about financials. Next slide. In last quarter, Q1, we had earnings of over $110 million. It was a very big quarter for us. We were selling uranium, we were selling vanadium, with very strong margins, 58% on the uranium, 37% on the vanadium. The strong balance sheet, as I discussed, $144 million at the end of Q1. Plenty of cash, lots of cash.
But when you look at that working capital number, and you adjust for the current price of uranium, vanadium, particularly price of uranium, which is going up, you get a big lift at current prices over our book prices. So again, zero debt. We total assets and current assets increased by 37% and 10%, respectively. Total liabilities and current liabilities decreased by 44% and 72%, respectively. And we still have large quantities of finished goods, uranium, nearly 850,000 pounds of uranium and nearly 900,000 pounds of vanadium, ready to be sold when the time's right, and finished high-purity rare earth carbonate as well. Next slide.
So when you look at our working capital, again, zero debt, and you look at our uranium inventory, we've got 850,000 pounds of finished goods, but we also have in process and stockpiled material that you could add up to one point two million pounds or so of uranium that we can bring to the market on top of the finished goods. So it's the delta between the 850 and that one point two four million. So we're really in a great position to produce more uranium very quickly with what we already have at the mill. And then I said, the strong position with vanadium. And when you look at what we carry, our uranium inventories on the books, it's less than $30 a pound.
The current price is $54 a pound and starting to go up. So that is a substantial delta in our favor if we sell those inventories. Vanadium prices have come down a bit, but still, higher than what we currently hold vanadium on the books. Next slide. So again, I'm repeating myself a little bit. We'll sell at least 500,000 pounds of uranium this year, nearly $60 a pound. You know, and part of that is because we completed the sale to the DOE, you know, this, this first quarter. But we'll sell another 260,000 pounds into our initial, sales contracts here, starting this quarter and next quarter. We're continuing to prepare uranium mines, to go back into production....
To be ready to produce uranium last quarter of this year or early next year. I mean, we could produce freshly mined uranium today if we wanted to, but we're really getting things ready to go back into production optimally later this year. We're also looking at additional long-term uranium contracts. We want uranium contracts at higher pricing than these initial contracts that we've signed, and so we continue to bid, and hopefully we'll secure more contracts this year. We will mainly focus on rare earth production this year. We're not planning to have any uranium or vanadium production this year because of the activity level for the rare earths. We are continuing to produce material that we've received from Chemours.
The monazite, we've already made a run this year, and we'll continue to build out this rare earth circuit that I talked about with investment about $25 million. We are still advancing, and I hope to be in a position in the not too distant future to talk about some rare earth offtakes and continue to advance the Bahia Project. So it is a very busy time for Energy Fuels today and going forward, and it's just an exciting time to be involved with this company. Next slide. So really, that is the end of the presentation.
And I like this picture because you can see the beautiful sunset, and the landscapes that we operate in, we take very seriously and feel blessed that we have the ability to work in the jurisdictions that we do at the high standards that we do. And I now would like to open the floor to anybody that might have any questions.
This is Julia Hoffmeier. There are no further questions at this time.
Well, I now will say that this concludes our 2023 annual meeting of the shareholders. We thank you for attending and look forward to your participation again next year, and we look forward to a very exciting next year. And we hope to be updating shareholders with a number of these initiatives as they come to fruition, as we build this critical mineral hub, that nobody else is even close to building like we are in the United States of America. Thank you very much.