Welcome to the conference call for the Uranium Royalty and Sweetwater Royalties transaction announcement. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Scott Melbye, President and Chief Executive Officer of Uranium Royalty Corp. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, operator. I'm very pleased today to tell you about this exciting and transformational combination of Uranium Royalty and Sweetwater Royalties. We hope you'll agree that this is an opportunity that doesn't come along in capital markets very often. I caution that we'll be making forward-looking statements, so please consider them accordingly. I'm Scott Melbye, CEO, Board Member, and Co-Founder of Uranium Royalty.
I've been fortunate to enjoy 42 years of uranium and nuclear energy industry experience in senior roles with three of the four largest global uranium companies, Cameco, Uranium One, and Kazatomprom. More recently, I've been very proud to contribute to the extraordinary growth of Uranium Energy Corp as their Executive Vice President, and launching Uranium Royalty as a Co-Founder.
I'm joined by Damon Barber, CEO of Sweetwater Royalties, who has 30 years of mining industry experience and will continue to contribute his capable leadership to manage and grow the Sweetwater assets within the new URC. He deserves to be very proud of the value he and his team are bringing to this transaction. Let's go straight to the strategic rationale for this significant acquisition. URC enjoys its royalty and streaming leadership in uranium space, strong balance sheet and liquidity profile, a highly experienced management team, and a portfolio of high-quality uranium royalties with unhedged price upside. What it lacks is more robust near-term cash flows while the uranium market rebounds from its historic bear market and the portfolio begins to crystallize in value.
Sweetwater couldn't fill this gap any better, with immediate cash flow from world-class assets in a top jurisdiction, significant growth without additional incremental capital, and an enormous untapped growth through the second largest public company land position in the United States. In other words, the Sweetwater combination gives the new URC the financial base and wherewithal to fully realize its uranium growth ambitions at a time of epic expansion in nuclear energy.
Put simply, this combination adds significant cash flow and strategic land holdings to accelerate Uranium Royalty growth. It increases URC annual EBITDA to approximately $74 million and immediately positions URC as a cash flowing company from well-established royalties from mines in the world's leading trona jurisdiction that will see production for 100+ years. These are leading assets in the first quartile of total production cost.
It makes the new URC the second largest public company landowner in the United States and the largest in Wyoming, which brings significant optionality in critical minerals like uranium and helium, in addition to further trona exposure. It provides fully funded volume growth, approximately 60% from current expansions and potential further growth in the neighborhood of as much as 75% from greenfield projects.
This would equate to a 3x growth in EBITDA in the coming years if all the expansions materialize. It provides material enhancement to URC's scale with significant trading upside to royalty and land peers. It brings significant institutional ownership from highly respected Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan and recognized global leader in mine finance, Orion Resource Partners. Last but not least, it uniquely positions URC to accelerate its great Royalty growth at a time of unprecedented expansion of nuclear energy.
This provides the financial base to turbocharge those uranium industry ambitions. Let's look at the transaction. URC will combine with entities owning a 92% interest in Sweetwater Royalties from funds managed by Orion and Ontario Teachers. URC, Orion, and Teachers to contribute interest to a new URC that will be domiciled in the United States and listed on the NASDAQ. Each URC shareholder will receive one share in the new URC. Eligible Canadian shareholders will be able to elect to receive exchangeable shares in a Canadian subsidiary of the new URC. The implied value of 92% of Sweetwater is $1.1 billion, with an enterprise value of $1.7 billion.
Sweetwater shareholders, Orion and Ontario Teachers, will receive $300 million in cash and $813 million in retained shares in the combined entity, issued at $3.64 a share, which was based on recent VWAP. Resulting ownership in the new URC, Orion will have 43%, with Teachers holding 16%. 180-day lock-up will apply to these new shareholders. Cash consideration is expected to be funded with existing URC cash, approximately $242 million, a $40 million UEC subscription receipt, and additional uranium inventory sales.
Prior to closing, URC will pursue external sources of financing with a certain portion of the net proceeds to increase cash consideration and reduce the proportion of shares received by Orion and Teachers. In terms of governance, Uranium Royalty will continue to be run by the existing URC management. Sweetwater will continue to be led by Damon Barber and his team.
Orion and Teachers are to receive rights to pro rata board representation, but capped below 50%. This provides Orion with up to two board seats and Teachers with one. This transaction will require URC shareholder approval, 66 2/3%, Orion, Teachers board approvals, and of course, the applicable stock exchange and regulatory approvals. URC's senior officers, board, and largest shareholder, UEC, have agreed to voting support.
The shareholder meeting is expected in June, with anticipated closing thereafter. This combination transforms URC's financial profile with significant embedded growth requiring no meaningful additional investment. The last two years of pro forma attributable EBITDA would have averaged $74 million. 2025 was a bit lower as a result of mining on checkerboard quadrants of federal land, and this year's return should gravitate back towards the average.
Sweetwater distributed an average of approximately $41 million to its shareholders post-debt repayment in 2024 and 2025. Between brownfield expansions and optimization of existing mines and advanced greenfield projects at Pacific Soda and West Soda, there's potential for as much as 14.7 million tons of production per annum in the coming years. This would result in almost three times increase in EBITDA.
This is an addition to the growth inherent in the uranium portfolio, additional greenfield trona, and other land uses like renewables, uranium, and other critical minerals. Let's turn to what makes Sweetwater unique. Put simply, exceptional cash flow from world-class assets with long mine lives. These assets have produced for 50 years and should have 100+ years of mine life ahead of them, according to USGS assessments of the Wyoming Trona Endowment.
To use a uranium analogy, this is the Saskatchewan Athabasca Basin of soda ash production, where Sweetwater controls the land containing 90% of the global natural trona resources. These mines are all in the first quartile of global production cost, which is of course enviable in any resource commodity investment. Land, the new URC will hold the second largest public company land ownership in the United States and largest in Wyoming.
Two great Americans couldn't have said it any better. Mark Twain proclaimed, buy land, they're not making it anymore. John D. Rockefeller added, the major fortunes of America have all been made in land. This transaction represents an unprecedented land opportunity. 850,000 acres in surface fee land and 4.5 million acres of mineral rights in fee. Not just anywhere, but in the resource-rich and development-friendly jurisdictions of Wyoming and Utah.
Beyond the soda ash, uranium, and renewables potential, don't underestimate the additional upside opportunities of data centers, real estate, ranching and grazing, battery storage, infrastructure, and critical minerals, including potentially helium, where shortages are in the headlines these days, especially with the Gulf War. Sweetwater provides organic growth, fully funded expansions, and greenfield upside. Additionally, there are a lot more trona land available for future development. With that, I'd like to turn to Damon Barber to explain the soda ash business in a bit more detail. Over to you, Damon.
Thanks, Scott. As Scott mentioned earlier, Sweetwater's primary revenue streams come from its royalties on soda ash and other sodium mineral products that are produced from its trona mineral estate in Wyoming. Soda ash, also known as life's invisible ingredient, is one of the world's most widely consumed industrial ingredients. At its core, soda ash is an essential industrial input with no viable substitutes.
It plays a critical role in products like glass and detergents, and because of its unique chemical properties, particularly its ability to reduce the melting point of silica in glass manufacturing, it effectively has no substitute at scale. Other uses for soda ash include chemicals, water treatment, lithium carbonate, and sodium batteries. All of that underpins solid baseline demand and demand growth for soda ash.
As to where soda ash comes from, soda ash can either be produced from naturally occurring trona minerals in the ground or synthetically through chemical processes. Now for a brief overview of where the market has been and where it's forecasted to be going. The soda ash market has grown from approximately 61 million tons in 2015 to around 79 million tons today, which equates to about a 3% annual growth rate over the past 10 years, with the overall size of the market growing by 30% or 18 million tons per annum in just the last 10 years. Looking forward, demand driven by the energy transition is forecasted to continue growing in the near term from 79 million tons to 92 million tons per annum in 2030.
Put simply, that equates to about 13 million tons per annum of additional soda ash being needed between now and 2030, with about 8 million of those tons per annum forecasted to come from increased solar glass and battery demand, as soda ash is the preferred carbonate for making lithium carbonate. As we turn to the next slide, it's worth keeping the scale of growth and forecasted growth front of mind.
We've seen 18 million tons of demand growth over the past decade, with a further 13 million tons per annum expected to be needed by 2030. Against that backdrop, let me show you where a meaningful portion of that future growth is expected to come from. Sweetwater's trona mineral state is in an area designated as the Known Sodium Leasing Area, for short, the KSLA. It's in the Green River Basin of southwestern Wyoming.
The area is also known as the Snowman. A look at the map will tell you why. The KSLA holds the world's largest known trona deposit, estimated to be 90% or more of the world's known trona reserves and resources. Today, there are five producing mines operated by four high-quality operators, collectively mining approximately 20 million tons of trona annually to produce approximately 12 million tons of soda ash annually.
Sweetwater owns approximately 50% of the minerals in the KSLA in a checkerboard fashion with federal and state lands. While production and sales volumes from our lands can vary from year- to- year, as a percent of total production and sales from the basin, we have generally received a royalty on approximately half of the soda ash production and sales from the basin. Stepping back, the size of Sweetwater's minerals and strategic significance here is hard to overstate.
Sweetwater owns approximately half of the minerals in the KSLA, i.e., approximately 45% of the world's known trona, and the mines in the basin are firmly in the first cost quartile globally. That combination of size, scale, cost position, and resource longevity underpins the long-term durability of our royalty income. What's particularly compelling is that this is not a static asset. Across the basin, we're seeing ongoing brownfield expansions from existing operators alongside two advanced greenfield development projects.
That provides visible long-term production growth without any capital requirements from us. Importantly, beyond the current producing and under development footprint, Sweetwater also owns significant unleased mineral acreage within the KSLA, which provides additional opportunities for future development and royalty generation. In summary, the KSLA represents exactly what to look for in a royalty asset, long life, low cost production, operated by high quality counterparties with embedded organic growth and no capital exposure. With that, I'll turn it over to Scott.
Thank you, Damon. Let's talk about uranium potential. As a second-generation Wyoming uranium miner whose entire career has repeatedly taken me back to this wonderful jurisdiction, I can say without a doubt that this Sweetwater land position across the entire southern portion of the state from Cheyenne to Salt Lake City represents significant uranium optionality. Wyoming has multiple uranium companies in operation and has accounted for over 70% of historic US-mined uranium, cumulatively over 250 million pounds to date. Speaking of uranium, let's turn to URC's market leading portfolio as the only significant royalty and streaming company in the uranium space. For a young company only publicly launched in December of 2019, we're quite proud of our collection of 27 royalties on 24 uranium projects and operations.
These include some of the world's largest and leading uranium mines, like Cigar Lake and McArthur River in Saskatchewan and Langer Heinrich in Namibia. We have significant exposure to the American uranium industry, especially given the Trump administration's commitment to the growth of nuclear power and the revitalization of the domestic nuclear fuel cycle. Projects like Lance, now in production in Wyoming, and three additional projects, Church Rock and Roca Honda in New Mexico, and Dewey Burdock in South Dakota, are all on the president's FAST-41 permitting initiative. We're also excited about an approximate 2% royalty on UEC's very promising Rio Tinto acquisition, the Roughrider project in the eastern Athabasca Basin of Saskatchewan. Looking to the future, analysts' forecasts see cash flows reaching roughly $15 million by 2030, ramping up to $38 million in subsequent years.
We should also not lose sight of the fact that URC physical uranium purchases made off the bottom have generated $89 million in cumulative gross revenue, with $20.2 million in gross profit. I believe most are familiar with the compelling supply and demand thesis for uranium, but we'll give a quick overview. With the recognition of nuclear's ability to generate clean and abundant resilient energy, the base case has us on track to double nuclear generation by 2045.
The electrifications of homes and businesses in a high-tech society, coupled with the data center infrastructure of the AI hyperscalers, has energy demand soaring at rates not seen in many decades. Alongside natural gas, these tech giants are turning to large, small, and advanced nuclear reactors to meet that demand and keep their multi-trillion dollar market cap ambitions intact.
Suddenly, the World Nuclear Association's aspirational goal of tripling of nuclear power by 2050 looks rather achievable. In fact, forecasts are already trending towards those levels. However, at the same time, the post-Fukushima bear market failed to produce meaningful investments in uranium exploration and new mine development, which has created a massive 1.7 billion-pound supply deficit between now and 2045. I believe Goldman Sachs pegs this closer to 1.9 billion. As a capital provider for new mine development, this is the looming opportunity for URC to capture a portion of the billions of dollars in capital required to close the deficit gap through royalties and streams. The Sweetwater combination gives URC the financial wherewithal and near-term cash flow to successfully realize on this opportunity. URC's mandate has been and will continue to be laser-focused on growth in the dynamic global uranium space.
This, of course, can be done at the same time URC maximizes the value of its Sweetwater assets. The new URC will see a significantly enhanced pro forma capitalization, almost $1.4 billion at the transaction share price, and the enterprise value will grow to over $2 billion. The transaction does require that URC absorb Sweetwater's debt facility. Fortunately, this facility has an attractive coupon rate of 5.3% under a long-dated mortgage style amortization. It has a BBB rating and is held by a group of life insurance companies.
This combination strategically positions URC amongst both its traditional royalty peers and land companies. Specifically, it uniquely provides land and mineral rights ownership, ability to internally generate new royalties, geographic diversity, century-plus duration resource base, and exposure to critical minerals. Furthermore, given the material increase in size and scale, there comes an opportunity for a significant re-rating.
This combination will bring a 5x increase to the standalone enterprise value of URC. The significant increase in NAV, coupled with the lowest multiple in the peer group, should create huge potential for a re-rating in share price. Finally, this combination is expected to unlock meaningful upside through value recognition of the strategic land position.
Just look at the enterprise values of Texas Pacific and LandBridge at $36 billion and $6.5 billion respectively. Compare to the new URC's pro forma EV of $2.1 billion and its uncomparable 5.35 million-acre land position. Other measures like EV dollars per acre, EV to EBITDA, and recent EBITDA to total acres all point to a significant re-rating. In closing, I hope you'll agree that this is a transformational combination, creating an investment opportunity that doesn't come along in capital markets very often.
It provides an attractive financial profile, a platform to accelerate uranium royalty growth, fully- funded organic growth, extensive US land holdings, unparalleled long-term optionality, and meaningful opportunity for a valuation re-rate. Damon and I are very excited to bring these companies together, and we'd like to turn it back to the operator to open it up to questions.
We will now begin the question- and- answer session. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. We ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. I have a question here that was submitted in advance of the call. This question reads, h ow should investors think about URC's commodity focus going forward?
Now, that's a great question. Obviously, anyone who knows me and is familiar with our team, we are uranium bulls at a time of historic growth in nuclear energy and uranium development. That focus isn't going to change. What this transaction brings is that financial strength and that platform of near-term cash flow and very significantly growing cash flow in the coming years to really grow this company, grow that uranium focus, but at the same time, derive maximum value from these world-class Sweetwater assets. We very much continue to be focused on uranium, but thrilled to have the robust cash flow and growth prospects from Sweetwater.
I have another question here that was submitted in advance. What does URC see as the opportunity or the upside with this land package?
Well, I think, and I'll start, and then I'll turn it over to Damon, but these mines have been operating for 50 years. A lot of the mine lives, given the resources, will be operating for decades, if not 100+ years. There's so much additional trona land that can be developed in that particular commodity, but also just the 5.3 million acres provides so much optionality on oil and gas, grazing, critical minerals, uranium. We really are excited about what Damon and his team can do to really extract full value for this really world-class land position. Damon, anything to add there?
No, I think you've touched on them all, Scott. We see definitely the potential for revenue streams across all of those things going forward.
Great.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question over the phone please press star then one to join the question queue. I have another question here that was submitted in advance of the call. How sustainable is the cash flow from Sweetwater?
Damon, that's a good one for you.
Happy to take that one. These mines have been around probably on average of 50 years. Some go back even farther than that. The USGS estimates there's about 23 billion tons of reserves in the KSLA. About half of that would be Sweetwater's. The basin is mining about 20 million tons of trona annually today. You could do the math on the amount of time these mines are going to be in operation or production from the basin will be in operation. The resources are there for it to be hundreds of years.
I think something to add to Damon's remarks is the stability of the soda ash market. It will respond to supply and demand like any other commodity, but far less volatile than other commodities, including our uranium focus. It's a wonderful complement to some of the big swings we see in uranium pricing with very stable and growing soda ash trona prices going forward.
Thank you. This concludes our question- and- answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to management for any closing remarks.
Great. Thank you, operator, and thank you all for joining the call today. We couldn't be more excited about the Sweetwater transaction. It will accelerate our near-term cash flows from these competitive, reliable, long life assets located in this top jurisdiction, Wyoming, in which we have a great deal of affinity and familiarity. Again, as we said, it will provide that strong financial base to allow us to fully realize and expand our uranium focus at a time of historic growth in nuclear energy. At the same time, we look to maximize the incredible value of the Sweetwater assets and land position to generate robust returns for our shareholders. We're very excited to announce this transaction and move to close it in the coming months. With that, thank you very much.
The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.