No the the US$320m/yr was for 2,857,144SWU/yr which as Scaggs points out (and I also did) is about half the 6MSWU enrichment capacity shown by SLX/GLE in their recent presentations. My assumption in my last post was that Cameco did not take up their option to 26% but remained at 49& but that the PLEF enrichment plant (both from tails to NUF
6 & (for 5Mlbs/yr) is restricted to 5Mlbs/yr of NUF6 which is then further enriched to produce 714,286lbs of 4.4% LEU. I took the pessimistic assumption that the PLEF output was restricted by the 5Mlbs/yr of NUF
6 feedstock which is is constrained by our existing agreement with the DOE for tails. As Scaggs points out the NUF
6 production from tails could be roughly doubled (with the agreement of the DoE) to produce 10mlbs/yr of NUF
6 which would then roughly use all the 6MSWU shown in the GLE/SLX presentation (the alternative would be to buy in the additional NUF6 from Cameco's Port Hope conversion facility). If 6MSWU/yr of 4.4% LEU was utilized (to produce roughly 1.5Mlbs/yr of 4.4% LEU) then the earnings from the 6MSWU plant would roughly double to US$640m/yr (this would only be the case if the DoE allowed us to double the tailing processing - if GLE had to purchase the NUF
6 from Cameco (Port Hope) then our (SLX) GLE earnings (still holding 51% of GLE) would be reduced by US$180m/yr to roughly US$460m/yr).
b
As Scaggs points out the more likely scenario is that Cameco take up their 26% option to move to 75% of GLE in which case SLX's income from it's 25% equity GLE would be roughly halved with an unchanged royalty (i.e US$106myr for the 5Mlbs NUF
6 option and US$212m/yr for 10Mlbs/yr of NUF
6 with a fully utilized 6MSWU enrichment plant. The advantage of Cameco taking up their option is that SLX would then probably have sufficient cash from the sale of its 26% to Cameco to finance its 25% interest in the PLEF and have a BBB credit grade lead operator (i.e Cameco) as the principal owner. This would definitely "oil the wheels" for financing the PLEF and help in getting a US government guaranteed loan for the PLEF capex. IMO raising the necessary Capex will be a hurdle for Centrus (debt US$170,3m and NOT investment grade - the DoE own their existing HALEU ACP plant) and likely impossible for aspirants (such as ASP isotopes & LIS Technologies) who IMO are too immature to bid for the RfP due on 26 August.
I see that Silex are giving a presentation on 24th October in Sydney (see
HERE) - the AGM should be somewhere about this date - hopefully news on TRL/6 test before then.
(20min delay)