Good afternoon. I'm Craig Hudson, Director of Base Metals at TD Cowen. Our next speaker for the day is John Cash, CEO of Ur-Energy . I think John is going to open up with a few presentation slides, and then we'll move to Q&A. If any investors have any questions, I think there's an opportunity to put that in the chat, and we'll try to get to those later. With that, thanks, John, for joining us, and please take it away.
All right. Thank you, Craig. I appreciate the opportunity, and thank you, everyone, for joining us this afternoon. Certainly, a lot to talk about in the nuclear space, a great time for a conference and a great time to be talking about Ur-Energy and the assets that we have in production. We always like to start with a picture of our operating Lost Creek plant. It's been up and running since 2013. I just want to emphasize here that we are a producing uranium company here in the U.S. We have operations in Wyoming. We really focus on in-situ assets. I may make some forward-looking statements during the presentation, so do be aware of that and always do your homework before investing.
The next slide, please.
We have two flagship properties that we like to talk about. We have several others that I'll ignore for today's presentation just because of time, but the two we like to talk about most are Lost Creek and Shirley Basin. Both are in the U.S. and Wyoming. Lost Creek, we got it up and running in August of 2013, and since that time, we've produced nearly, right at 3 million lbs of U3O8. There was a hiatus there where the price of uranium was fairly low. We did slow down operations during those years, and we simply bought pounds on the open market and sold into contracts. In 2022, the market began to improve. We began to sign up long-term contracts with utility customers around the world, and that gave us the confidence we needed to begin to ramp production back up at Lost Creek to commercial levels.
Since that time, we've signed eight long-term contracts, mostly in the U.S. and Europe with large nuclear companies, all names you've heard of, if I were to name them. Right now, we have about 6 million lbs under contract over the next several years, and we're very proud of that. Good price contracts. We've continued to layer those in as the price has gone up. We've got a great resource at Lost Creek to be able to feed into those contracts. We have nearly 12.7 million lbs of measured and indicated and a little over 6 million lbs of inferred resource. We have a lot of room to grow that resource, I believe, at Lost Creek.
If you take a look at our technical report that's available on our web page, there's a map included that shows all of the roll fronts, the mineralized zones and the drill holes related to those, and you'll see that a lot of them are open-ended both vertically and laterally. We believe we've got great opportunity there for exploration. We've got a strong reputation in the U.S. and globally as being a low-cost operation. That's because we're in-situ. It's because we have very low royalty rates, a reasonable tax burden in Wyoming. Historically, we've been able to get very low cost. We believe we're going to be able to get back to a cost of around $45 on an all-in basis for Lost Creek as we get ramped up. It's important to recognize that ramp up to commercial levels. We've been there before. We believe we can get there again.
That $45 would include the operating cost, development cost, taxes, capital, that would be on an all-in basis. We've been there before, and we're striving to get back there again. With the resource we have known at the project, we have about a 13-year life remaining on that particular project. We have a number of exploration areas around Lost Creek that I'll be touching on as we go through the presentation. At Lost Creek, the permits are in place, the license is in place, and we're allowed to recover 1.2 million lbs a year from the mine, and we're allowed to mill 2.2 million lbs per year. That's what the plant is built out at, and we did that intentionally.
We overbuilt, overlicensed the mill because we wanted the capacity to be able to bring in pounds from other projects that we had, but also other projects that maybe competitors had in the region. We have that extra capacity, and that's a great place to jump in a conversation from Lost Creek to Shirley Basin because Shirley Basin is exactly that. That's a facility that we're going to build out just as a satellite. It won't have a mill attached to it, at least the back end of a mill. Instead, we're going to load ion exchange resin beads there with the uranium, and we'll simply truck them over to Lost Creek. It's only about a 110-mi drive. Unload the resin beads at Lost Creek, do elution on them to remove the uranium, load the barren resin back on the truck, take it back over to Shirley Basin.
What that allows is for a much, much lower capital cost at Shirley Basin to be able to build that out since we already have that capacity at Lost Creek. That'll take us up to that 2.2 million lbs per year mill rate once we get both facilities up and running. Shirley Basin is in construction right now. It's licensed at a million pounds per year. We can build it out as a satellite, which is exactly what we're doing, or if we want to, we can build it out as a full processing plant. If the capacity at Lost Creek at the mill there is consumed by other toll milling agreements, we have the ability to build out the back end of Shirley Basin with no additional permitting. It is very easy to do that. Shirley Basin already had a lot of the infrastructure in place.
That was a brownfield property. We acquired that from Areva NC, now it's Orano, back in December of 2013. A number of the buildings were already there, roads, power, a lot of that was already there. We've refurbished all of that. Really, what's remaining on construction there is building out the satellite plant. I've been out there a number of times over the last month. It looks like the pads for the tanks are largely done. We're moving in now to pour the floor between the pads, and very soon we're going to start swinging tanks into position and build the skin of the building around that. We are targeting production in early 2026. The resource there is 8.8 million lbs measured and indicated. There are no inferred resources. It's all measured and indicated, and that's a reflection of the drill density. That is a very heavily drilled project.
We won't be doing exploration there. We won't be doing delineation drilling there. We go straight into production. Because of that, we only need about five or six drill rigs operating at Shirley Basin. I just realized I didn't mention, for Lost Creek, we've got 19 drill rigs turning there. Shirley Basin, we believe it is the home of the first commercial in-situ uranium mine in the world. We've got all of the records sitting in a file cabinet behind me over here, and it's a real joy to go back and read what they did starting in the late 1950s. By April of 1963, they had a commercial mine up and running. They recovered 1.5 million lbs of uranium from that facility through their experimental mine. We are excited to be bringing that technology back to its birthplace.
For Shirley Basin, the cost there, we're looking at a little over $24 cash cost and all-in cost there of around $50 a pound. Very high flow rates expected there based on historic pumping tests, but also more recent injection tests that we've been doing. We're expecting flow rates at Shirley to be three, four, maybe even 5x higher than most in-situ mines here in the U.S., and we're going to do our best to take advantage of that. A little bit further on Lost Creek, right now, what are we doing? We're working on optimizing production. The mine itself is producing wonderfully. The head grade is very high. If you take a look at our Q2 numbers, you can see the head grade coming out of the ground was around 70 parts per million.
That's nearly double what we had anticipated at this stage, so we're really excited about that. The flow, we can adjust and move it as we need to, but right now we're really focusing on the plant processing, building in efficiencies there so we can continue to bring in more and more pounds into the plant site. Our header house 215 is complete. It's up and running. It's been performing very well. We have moved drill rigs into phase two of the first mine unit, and our next header house that we could bring on there will be in the second phase of mine unit one. In Q2, we packaged a little over 112,000 lbs. That was a 35% increase over Q1. It's our mandate now to continue to push those numbers, get us up into those commercial levels of production.
We also shipped a little over 105,000 lbs of yellowcake to the conversion facility in Metropolis, Illinois. In Shirley Basin, our focus here over the next few months is completing that construction and starting production. Again, we're targeting early 2026 for production. We are on target to do that. We have a lot of work to do over the next few months, but we are on target to be able to do that. The refurbishment of all of the existing buildings is done. All of those buildings we've occupied, including the office, and the plant is well underway with its construction. With that, Valerie, we'll go ahead and change slides.
Turning to exploration, we have not done exploration at Ur-Energy for quite some time, and I'm excited to say that in late 2025 and going into 2026, we have a number of exploration programs planned.
You can see the land package we have there in the Great Divide Basin. This does not include Shirley Basin. Shirley Basin would be off of the slide a little bit to the east. In the Great Divide Basin, we have 10 projects over 2,000 unpatented mining claims that consist of about 41,000 acres. We have three exploration targets we're hitting. Right now, the drill rigs are at Lost Soldier. We're expecting them to complete the work there today and maybe very early next week, but we are installing a series of monitor wells there so we can run hydrologic pumping tests and better understand the hydrology. That particular asset has over 4,000 drill holes already in it, defining the resource there. More to come on Lost Creek or on Lost Soldier as we understand the hydrology better.
That will enable us to make decisions on how to advance that project. Here in the next day or two, when those wells are done, we will move those two drill rigs over to North Hadsell. You'll see that's kind of the north central part of the photo here. That is true greenfield exploration for us. We do have some regional data that suggests that there are roll fronts or oxidation boundaries that move through that region. We're optimistic we'll have some success there, but we've got about 60 drill holes planned between now and the end of the year. Hopefully, we'll have some good news to report there on that greenfield exploration. Moving down to the south, just south of Lost Creek and LC East, we have a property there called LC South.
We've already done quite a bit of drilling down there, but most of that drilling has been right on that boundary with Lost Creek and LC East, where we know those mineralized zones come right down into LC South. What we would like to do late this year, early next year, is put a couple of drill rigs on that, continue to define that resource. That's not greenfield exploration. I would really characterize that as brownfield exploration or delineation drilling. Lots of targets there. Historically, and even in our tenure as holding these land packages, we've really focused on two horizons, the HGA and the KM geologic layers. There's a lot more room in the M, the M, the O sands. We know they all have mineralization. Tremendous opportunities within that land package.
With that, Valerie.
Turning to our corporate structure, of course, all of this data is readily available online, but our share price, we've seen quite a bit of volatility in that lately. In fact, today we approached $2 a share before we retreated a little bit later in the day, but that's established a new 52-week high for us. Average volumes, today was a big day for us, but we usually average around 6 million- 7 million shares traded a day, so we are a nice liquid story. Market cap has been on the move, over $700 million today. We'll have to see where we close here in a little bit, but really happy with the direction the company's been headed. A lot of tailwinds behind the entire nuclear space, critical minerals, and U.S. production, and we are certainly riding that wave and very happy to be doing so.
As far as shares outstanding, about 365 million. Cash on hand, our last report, we had $49.1 million. We have no financial debt. We do have a physical uranium loan that we intend to pay back next year, about 250,000 lbs. That gets paid back in physical pounds, not in cash. The interest on it gets paid in cash. We've got great coverage in the U.S. and in Canada. One of the things we're most proud about is the institutional shareholders in the company. Right now, we're about 85% institutional held, and those firms that hold our shares are some of the most sophisticated names in the uranium space. I would specifically call out Segra Capital, Cap, Azarias, Alps Advisors. Station Cove is in and out of our shares a good bit. We're really proud of that share registry that we have. With that, we'll go to our final slide and get things wrapped up, Craig, and then we can do some Q&A. Awesome.
I just like to point out, with Ur-Energy, we're a well-known entity. We're well established. We've been producing uranium for a long time. We're well financed with that cash resource of $49.1 million at the last report. We also have some warrants that are well in the money. We are expecting some revenue to be coming in from those between now and February. We've got those long-term contracts. We're already seeing revenue coming in from them. This year, we sold or delivered 440,000 lbs . Next year, that book goes up to 1.3 million lbs . Good revenue coming in from those. We continue to see RFPs coming in from utilities, especially coming in after the W&A meeting in London, growing interest there. One thing I would highlight here is growing interest from government programs, the LEU program, the HALU program, the uranium reserve.
We stand to benefit from all of those programs, and we routinely are in front of those DOE and other agencies to communicate our interest in those. We've got great resources in the ground, second side of production coming online early next year in a good, strong cash position. Our focus here in the near term is just building out, ramping up. We've had a series of interviews today in the conference room behind me as we are continuing to hire people for Shirley Basin. As you all know, as you've participated in this conference today, a lot of catalysts in the nuclear space, geopolitics, green energy, big data demand, U.S. government buying pounds, just so many tailwinds right now. It's a great time to be jumping into the uranium space, and we would encourage you to take a look at Ur-Energy.
We believe we're one of the best value plays in the space. With that, Craig, I'll wrap it up and be glad to answer any questions that anyone has.
That's great, John. Maybe I'll just start with my own questions. Just on Shirley Basin, you mentioned the ability to build, I guess, an extraction facility there and process uranium directly versus trucking it up to Lost Creek. The measured and indicated resources, I think you said about $8 million, $9 million lbs. Is there a lot of inferred resources there? Are you working on drilling that project as well?
Yeah, at Shirley Basin, there are no inferred resources. That project is completely drilled out. It's typically drilled out on 100 ft spacing to 200 ft spacing, so very tight. As far as exploration goes on Shirley Basin, not much room to grow the resource. There are a few projects around us that we may be able to make acquisition on. They're smaller, you know, $1 million lbs there and $2 million lbs there. We may be able to acquire those. I think we've got a good chance of that in the future. The drill rigs we have at Shirley, they are really dedicated to production drilling. There's no need to do exploration because everything's been drilled out. There's no need to do delineation because we already have very tight space drilling throughout the property. Those five rigs can focus on going straight into production.
The cost differential is obviously a lot cheaper production at Shirley Basin based on your estimates versus Lost Creek. Is that a function of grade?
Yeah, so it's the flip. The production cost at Shirley all-in is going to be around $50 a pound. Lost Creek, it's about $45. It's a function of scale. Shirley Basin has a lot of advantages over Lost Creek as far as grade, depth to mineral, and existing infrastructure, but it doesn't have as large a scale as Lost Creek. Because of that, it's going to be slightly more expensive by the time we divide all of that capital into it.
Okay. A question here just in regards to the ability to maybe be part of the U.S. Strategic Reserve Fund or other opportunities working with the U.S. government in terms of development or fast-tracking projects. Any insight in terms of where those opportunities lie for you guys?
Yeah, you bet. So much is going on in the federal government right now. As far as fast-tracking of permitting, we don't need that. We're permitted. We're beyond that stage. There's not much we can benefit from there. Maybe for Lost Soldier in a year or so, maybe we can benefit, but right now, not much of a benefit from the FAST 41, for example. The uranium reserve, we're very interested in that. We have sold uranium into that in the past. We sold 100,000 lbs, what's it been, three years ago. That program is established. What needs to happen now is Congress needs to fund it for additional purchases. We'll wait to see if that happens. We don't hitch our wagon to the U.S. government. We believe we need to be independent of them and have a strong business model outside of the largess of the U.S. government.
Having said that, if they have programs where they're needing pounds, we stand ready to supply into those, whether that be the uranium reserve, the LEU program, or the HALU program. We've got the capacity. We've got the resources to be able to sell into those.
That's great. We just have a minute left. Maybe just a kind of open-ended question to cap things off here. Anything you think that investors and analysts may underappreciate with the story? It sounds like you've got some nice tailwinds now and the stock's starting to move, but just, you know, things that people may not be aware of the Ur-Energy story that you feel should be captured here.
Yeah, absolutely. I mentioned it before, but I would say it again. We're a value play. We don't have a tremendous, you know, massive number of pounds in the ground, but the pounds we do have are quality pounds, and we believe we can put them in the can. We like to say we're a pounds in the can story, not a pounds in the ground story. Our cost of production historically has been low. Our financial books are clean and strong. Great assets, great management team, just a very clean, investable story. We're not always the most vocal out there, but I would encourage the listeners to take a look at us, do a deeper dive. If you've got questions, please feel free to reach out. Glad to talk to you further about what it is we're doing at Ur-Energy .
That's great, John. We're going to leave it there. I think there are a couple of other questions. Maybe we can have those forwarded on to you after the fact, but thanks again for participating.
Thank you.