Welcome back, everyone. Next, we have ASP Isotopes Inc, trades on the NASDAQ under the symbol ASPI, and is developing a differentiated isotope enrichment platform to strengthen global supply chain access to critical materials used in nuclear medicine, next-generation semiconductors, and nuclear energy. Happy to welcome CEO, Paul Mann. Welcome to the conference, Paul. We are very much looking forward to hearing your presentation today.
Great. Thanks for your interest, and it's good to be back again. We'll move on straight onto the slide deck. Today, we've got a few slides of forward-looking statements. If you could just review these, that'd be fantastic. Also please refer to our SEC filings for a complete set of risk factors and forward-looking statements and to see the most up-to-date developments at the company. Our goal is to strengthen access to critical materials and specifically these, we have two processes to make isotopes, aerodynamic separation process and quantum enrichment, and we have a large helium project in South Africa as well to bring helium to the market. The goal over the next six months is to bring most of these divisions into commercial production, start generating revenues and free cash flows, and then start to grow, build new plants.
In terms of the industries we operate in, it's mainly kind of electronics, nuclear medicine, and nuclear fuels. I would describe the company as having four verticals, and I'll run through each of these now. Today, we're actually going to take a different step to what we normally do in these things. We're going to do a deep dive into Renergen and helium today. Here's the corporate setup. You'll see it to the left we have PET Labs, and this focuses on radioisotopes and delivering nuclear medicine to people with cancer and other ailments. PET Labs is growing great. We achieved over 50% revenue growth during the first half of the year. Revenue should double in 2026 versus 2025. When we invest in PET Labs, we typically don't see the pickup in revenues for a couple of years.
We're really at this point now where revenues are starting to accelerate and build momentum over the next sort of three or four years. It's very exciting. We are, I would say, right at the start of a new therapeutic cycle in pharmaceuticals where we use radioisotopes to treat cancer. It's a great runway ahead there. Within PET Labs, we also have Alpa Theranostics , and Alpha Theranostics has developed a number of proprietary drugs to treat cancer, and they will go into clinical trials later this year. There'll be lots of news on PET Labs over the next 12 or 18 months or so. Within ASP Isotopes, we've built three stable isotope facilities in South Africa, one for Silicon-28, one for Carbon-14, and one for Ytterbium-176. These are all in the process of starting up and being commissioned at the moment.
The Silicon-28 plant is the one that most people are focusing on right now. We've put together the first 48 stages. We're putting together the final 48 at the moment. That plant is enriching Silicon-28 at the moment. These are both going to nuclear medicine and into the electronics industry for next generation semiconductors. Renergen will be actually the focus of today's presentation and that focuses on producing helium and energy. We've got a very unique asset in South Africa that can produce helium and energy. We actually started that plant up this week. That plant should start producing free cash flow by the end of the year, with first product going to customers during September. That's the expectation there.
Quantum Leap Energy focuses on nuclear fuels for the future, specifically High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium, lithium-6, lithium-7, LEU+, and the kind of nuclear fuels the world needs to build to double its nuclear capacity over the next 25 years or so. Our goal is to spin Quantum Leap Energy out later this year, ideally in the third quarter. We filed the S-1 for that in November. I think we'll be pretty much there with the review process. This just shows the industries we operate within, electronics, nuclear medicine, and nuclear energy. All of these are growing rapidly and a lot of these are shaping the future of the world. In terms of our operational milestones for the next six months or so, we expect to ship our first Silicon-28 during the second half of the year.
That plant is enriching right now. Actually we'll talk more about that later on in the presentation. Carbon-14 is currently producing Carbon-12. We're still waiting for the sufficient quantity of Carbon-14 feedstock to start commercial production of Carbon-14. That should happen during the second half of the year. Ytterbium-176, we're expecting the continuous processing vessel, which allows us to produce large quantities of Ytterbium-176. We're expecting to have that built during September. That's a fairly quick enrichment from that point. We also expect to ship helium and LNG during the third quarter and start generating quite a lot of free cash flow from that towards the end of the year. Phase two, we'll start construction during the second half of the year as well. Phase two is 13x the size of phase one. Expect to see continued growth in radiopharmaceuticals.
As I mentioned earlier, our first clinical candidate is going into humans during the next several months. Today I'm going to focus on the electronics sector and do a deep dive into electronics. I think in the next one we do with you guys, we'll do nuclear medicine. Then we'll do Quantum Leap Energy. Our helium asset is very unique. When we drill for helium, we get about 3% helium in the gas. Typically when you drill for natural gas in the U.S., you get about 0.4% helium. In Qatar you get about 0.04% helium. This is a very unique asset. We have the only onshore petroleum production right in South Africa. As I said, we've completed phase one. We started production this week and we expect to start phase two during the second half of the year.
This is designated a strategic asset by both the South African government and the U.S. government. We have secured a significant amount of capital for phase two from the U.S. government and from Standard Bank, about three-quarters of a billion dollars. As I say, this is one of the few assets of its like in the world. We announced back in July that we intend to merge this asset into a NASDAQ company called ENDRA Life Sciences, and this will then become the focus of that company. This will become the first helium pure-play company listed on NASDAQ. It is actually producing helium, so it is very exciting. It is a very unique asset, helium. I will talk a bit more about helium now.
Helium is unique in that it is chemically inert and it is a zero viscosity as a liquid and as a gas and it is very good for sterilizing and sanitizing certain things. It has got a very low density and has a boiling point at extremely low, minus 270 degrees Celsius. Here you will see the end markets that helium is used in. I think what is driving significant growth right now in the helium market is really semiconductors and rocketry. You cannot launch a Falcon 9 or a SpaceX Starship without a large amount of liquid helium. It is the propellant that pushes the fuel out of the rocket. You cannot make a semiconductor without liquid helium. It is used in a number of industries globally.
It is about a $3 billion market. You will see over the last 20 years or so, 10- 15 years or so, the U.S. strategic reserve has dropped from being about a 1/3 of global supply to almost zero. Coincident with that, the prices have escalated from 200 up to more like $400/MCF or $500/ MCF. We expect this growth to continue as the GDP plus type demand growth. If you look here, about a 1/3 of the world's helium production used to come from Qatar, or comes from Qatar, about 15% or so from Russia. If you look at the demand and supply-demand imbalances, America is broadly balanced in terms of supply and demand. If you look at Asia and Europe, both are significantly out of place in terms of their needs and the supply.
We think it is likely we are entering the fifth helium supply crisis. What has happened since the start of the year is that Iran has damaged Qatar's gas processing facilities, and so Qatar has had to shut down its LNG and helium production. The Strait of Hormuz is also closed, so they cannot get anything out of Qatar to the rest of the world. When Qatar tries to restart its LNG facilities, it may take some time, and we do understand that some of those facilities are impaired for a number of years rather than just a number of months. Additionally, Russia has introduced helium export controls. It will no longer be exporting helium to the rest of the world. Almost 50% of the world's helium supply is currently not available for customers.
I was in Asia earlier on this year, and there are some very nervous semiconductor companies that need helium that are concerned that they are not going to be able to get it in the amount they need. Not so much concerned about the price, just more concerned about the quantity and the amount. This will be interesting to see how the second half of the year plays out. We are in the process of starting up our plant at the moment to help supply some of this market. We cannot supply the whole lot, but help supply some of it. This asset is very unique. This is probably the highest concentration of commercially scalable helium found on the globe. It is vast, multigenerational asset. The location of it makes it extremely efficient to ship around the world. This is also the lowest carbon footprint for incremental helium production.
It is very unique. It was formed about 2 billion years ago when two meteorites, two asteroids hit planet Earth at exactly the same point, one 3 billion years ago and one 2 billion years ago. What you have below the surface of the ground is a large concentrated source of uranium about 5 mi below the Earth's surface. That undergoes radioactive decay and produces helium, which is then trapped in the upper portion of the rock. That is how I got there. Our acreage is where this red kind of patch is on the map, and if you look at the pink bit in the middle, that is the center of where the meteorite hit the planet. This is our resource that we have. Our proven reserves are basically in this middle yellow polygon that is drawn there.
We expect to start exploring the outer parts and doing another reserve analysis later on this year. Phase one and phase two combined use about half the yellow box in the middle. So we expect to have plenty of acreage and supply for phase three and a phase four and a phase five if we think the market requires that. This just shows the scale of what we have here. Our 1P reserves are basically about the same size as what the U.S. federal helium system is, the reserve is. It is a vast reserve for many generations to come. South Africa is actually an ideal place to ship helium from. When you are shipping helium, about 1% evaporates or turns off into a gas every day you are shipping it. So shipping distances matter.
Cape of Good Hope is a great place to ship to all four corners of the world, actually. That means when customers receive their helium in liquid form, there should be more liquid versus gas, and they want the liquid, they do not really want the gas. It is actually important the customers recognize that. That is just a quick overview on phase one and phase two, what it looks like. This is one asset, two products, but actually four markets. We expect to sell our LNG to gas to power industrial transport and helium obviously mainly for the export market to semiconductors and rocketry and so forth. This just talks about the size and the scale. Phase one, we expect to produce about 70 MCF a day of helium and about 2,500 GJ/day of LNG.
For those in the U.S., gigajoule is approximately equal to an MMBTU. If we can achieve a sales price of say, $600/ MCF on average, and say $13-$14 per gigajoule for the LNG, phase one should generate revenues of somewhere close to $27 million and gross profit of about $11 million. Right now, we are talking to customers where the prices are more like $800-$1,000, and actually the spot price is north of $2,000, I am told by industry participants. There is a lot of operating leverage here. If we can achieve a higher price to $800-$1,000, this asset can do $15 million-$20 million in gross profit from just phase one. Phase one started up earlier this week. We expect to ship our first shipments to customers during September.
We will start moving on to phase two in the second half of the year. Phase two is significantly larger, about 34,000 GJ/day of LNG and about 900 MCF a day of liquid helium. At $600 / MCF and $14 per gigajoule, this is more like a $370 million in revenue type plant and $300 million in gross profit. Obviously, we have got no control over where gas prices go and where LNG prices go, but both kind of feel biased to the higher side in the current environment. Phase two should benefit from a significant amount of debt, at half a billion dollars from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation and about a quarter of a billion dollars from Standard Bank.
It will take about 44 months to build, and we will be building this plant on a turnkey contract with an EPC construction company that is well-known to build these types of plants. In 2030, we should start to see the first production, with 2031 being the first full year of production. Let us just talk quickly about the electronics market of ASPI and kind of where this fits in. This shows the electronics kind of supply chain of how they make a semiconductor. You will see that isotopes are used in many steps here. Silicon-28 is we expect to get used in the first couple of stages, and then other unique isotopes we expect to be used in the packaging and other parts of the chain. Throughout the process, we are using fluorinated gases and helium. I have explained helium already.
Silicon-28, the world believes will produce faster and better semiconductors. It is believed that if we enrich Silicon-28 to say 99% or 99.9%, we will see a 20%-30% benefit in terms of thermal conductivity in these chips, and that is quite significant. This is probably the largest market for Silicon-28 longer term, and the plant with 48 stages is capable of enriching to these kind of levels. We are expanding the plant right now to 96 stages, and this will produce products for quantum computing. It is important to have zero spin atoms in quantum computing. The enrichment of Silicon-28 to 99.995% should provide that kind of efficacy. Carbon-12 crew enriching in our additional plant may well be used for quantum computing as well. Fluorinated gases are also used in electronics.
We have three scientists that have PhDs in fluorination chemical engineering, and this is the plant they constructed that can fluorinate heavy rare earth metals. There is significant demand for things like tungsten hexafluoride and germanium tetrafluoride by electronics customers. Actually, in our recent trips to Asia, many customers said how they are very interested in getting another supply of those chemicals. What we are putting together here is we are putting together an electronics division that has helium, that is used in many stages of the semiconductor manufacturing, Silicon-28 and Germanium-70 and other isotopes that will likely be required for next-generation semiconductors, and then fluorinated gases that are used in production as well. We are really touching many parts of the electronics supply chain. In terms of milestones, I highlighted this earlier, and these are the kind of milestones to expect during the second half of this year.
Our goal is to generate $300 million of EBITDA in 2031. We have given this guidance as to where we expect that $300 million to come from. If you look at electronic gases, that is between $150 million and $300 million. As I have just said before, LNG and helium alone, we think can probably do $300 million at the current kind of prices we are talking about. LNG or natural gas, we expect gives you $100 million and $200 million. Medical isotopes, that is kind of Ytterbium-176, Carbon-14, Gadolinium-160s, much harder to predict. Again, a small contributing factor, though we expect that to do sort of $40 million-$ 100 million. Then radiopharmaceuticals, so PET Labs, which is growing exceptionally well, more visibility over that. We think that is kind of a $400 million to $100 million EBITDA business as we get to 2031.
I have had 20 minutes of presentation time now, Anna. Let us maybe go to some Q&A from the web, please.
Okay, great. Thank you for that, Paul. Let us jump in. Once the first commercial shipments occur, how quickly can production ramp from initial quantities to nameplate capacity?
Actually, we typically run these plants at nameplate capacity. I would expect by the end of the fourth quarter, we are running at nameplate capacity. What we are doing right now is we are tying in the additional wells to the plant so that we have enough wells tied into the plant to start commercial production. The final few wells will be connected between now and, say, October kind of timeframe, and then we are at kind of nameplate capacity. In terms of Silicon-28, I would say right now we are running at nameplate capacity for a 48-segment plant. We need to add more segments over the next sort of few months to get to where we can really enrich to exceptionally high levels of enrichment. Carbon-12 and Carbon-14 is running at nameplate capacity already. Ytterbium-176, we will start at nameplate capacity once the continuous processing vessel is built.
Thank you. A viewer wants you to clarify what does commercial production mean in measurable terms, kilograms per year, enrichment level, yield, uptime, and cost per gram?
Yeah. It depends on exactly which element we are talking about, but typically we are talking about kilograms or grams. For Carbon-14, we are talking about grams. For Silicon-28, we are talking about kilograms. Obviously, for LNG and helium, we are talking about tons. In terms of prices, for Carbon-14, think about $24,000 /g . In terms of Silicon-28, think about a few hundred dollars a gram. For Ytterbium-176, think about $20,000 /g , that kind of number. LNG and helium, I kind of gave you some numbers earlier, expect $14- $20 per gigajoule or MMBTU for the LNG. Right now, we are looking at north of $600 per MCF for liquid helium.
Dan says you have experienced delays in Silicon-28 production due to equipment issues. What engineering changes have you made, and why are you confident those issues will not recur as you scale?
Yeah. So actually the main issue we've had is with the compressors. This plant has over 400 compressors in it, and they were purchased from a compressor manufacturer in Switzerland. They failed to meet the specifications that we'd set for the compressors. The compressors have to be hermetically sealed, which means they're helium tight. If they're not hermetically sealed, then the plant won't be able to enrich to 99.9999% chemically pure. One of the things we found is that the O-rings the compressor manufacturer put into the compressors are faulty. The problems we've had is not really with our engineering team or our plant, it's with the compressors that go onto the plant. We've managed to put together. We had to take apart each compressor and change the O-rings around. That has to be done in a clean room, in a clean, sterile environment.
It has to be passivated. They've put together enough compressors now to put 48 stages of the plant together, and that is successfully enriching exactly as we'd expect it to enrich. We're seeing the enrichment happen in the product being prepared. To get to extremely high levels of enrichment, one needs a few additional stages to get there. We're replacing the additional compressors at the moment. What gives me the confidence that this will work, the compressors we have on the plant are working very well, and the enrichment is happening as we'd expect it to. We just need additional compressors to get the cascade longer to achieve higher levels of enrichment.
What purity levels are customers requesting, and how difficult is it to move from today's specifications to even higher enrichment levels?
Yeah. Our belief is that the way we enrich doesn't change as you enrich to greater levels. All one really needs to go to higher levels of enrichment is more time and basically additional costs and more energy, basically. We expect that to happen, and if you can enrich from 1% to 2%, you can enrich from 1% to 100%, just takes a lot more. 99.999% just takes a lot longer.
Have customers moved beyond sample evaluation into discussions around multi-year supply agreements?
Yeah. For helium and LNG, our contracts are typically between five and 15 years, and they have an inflation-linked mechanism within them. So you expect the price to increase at South African PPI inflation, every year. We would expect to have about 100% of our LNG contracted under long-term, 5 - 15-year contracts and about 50%- 75% of our helium contracted on 5- 15-year contracts, the balance being sold at spot. For Carbon-14, we have a multi-year take-or-pay agreement there with a Canadian customer, happens to be the supplier of the feedstock. It is more of a tolling agreement. Then, for ytterbium and Silicon-28, they are more spot purchases or short-term contracts rather than long-term contracts.
How large is the current supply-demand imbalance for Ytterbium-176, and what is driving demand?
Yeah. Novartis recently launched a drug called Pluvicto. I think it is doing about $3 billion- $4 billion a year now. Market expectations for it to grow to $6 billion, $7 billion, $8 billion per year by the end of the decade. There is a new category of drugs emerging. There are about 100 therapeutics in development, phase one, phase two, and phase three for radiotherapeutics. That is what is driving demand is this growth in the end markets. In terms of the supply-demand imbalance right now, Russia is the only country that can enrich Ytterbium-176 today in commercial quantities. Our messaging from customers is that there is a significant supply shortage, and it is taking a long time for patients to get therapy and get product, get drugs because of the supply-demand imbalance of the stable isotope.
I think also, if you look at some of the clinical trials being conducted, I believe Bristol Myers Squibb and Eli Lilly recently announced delays to their phase three trials because of the isotope supply chain. This is a problem for a number of pharmaceutical companies, and our goal is to help solve that supply chain problem.
How much Yb-176 could your existing facility produce annually at full utilization?
Yes. We believe we can do about 1 kg a year once we have the continuous processing vessel working. As I said, that should happen during September, then we will start commercial production later on in the year.
As Lutetium-177 therapies expand into additional cancer indications, how directly does that translate into increased Yb-176 demand?
Yeah. Lutetium-177 has a half-life of a few days, so you have to manufacture it every week, and the more demand for Lutetium-177, the more need for Ytterbium-176 there is. I would suggest that it's probably one-for-one relationship between the drug demand and Ytterbium-176 demand.
If quantum computing demand develops faster than expected, how quickly could you expand Si-28 production capacity?
We believe our current plant at 100 stages can probably produce about 80 kg a year of Silicon-28 at 99.995% and several hundreds of kilograms of product at 99% enrichment. We could build an additional plant in about 12 months from starting construction. As we get the visibility of market demand growing, we'd expect to build an additional Silicon-28 plant. Most likely someone like Iceland would benefit from cheap energy.
If we are at nameplate capacity, like you mentioned, at 99%, why no sales yet? You stated the lower grade Si-28 was needed.
Yeah. So we're at nameplate capacity for the smaller, for the 48 stages. We're running at 48 stages. We really need to get to 96 to 100 stages before we can really start producing large quantities of it. We'd expect to start seeing revenues come through during the second half of the year, yeah, as we do that.
Can you address the QLE spinoff and why there have been delays?
Yeah. The S-1 was filed in November, and the SEC was shut for something like four to six weeks during the fourth quarter last year, because of the government shutdown. Yeah. It took a long time for the first S-1 to get reviewed. The financials went stale on February 15th, so we couldn't file the second review until early April. We've had a couple more reviews now. After the recent share exchange for a convertible loan note, we feel in a really good position to be able to spin out a substantial amount of Quantum Leap Energy, between now and the end of the year.
Wonderful. Well, Paul, thank you for this presentation, and it's nice having you back with these updates. We would love to have you back again with some more.
Thank you very much for your interest. Next time back, we will do a deep dive into PET Labs and medical isotopes. Thank you.
Sounds fun. All right everyone, we will be right back.