Transcription
Hello everybody and welcome into Commodity Culture where our goal is to make you a better investor in the commodities sector. My name is Jesse Day. Today is April 3rd, 2026 and before we dive in, standard disclaimer. Nothing here is investment advice. Do your own due diligence.
My guest today is the CEO of Jaguar Uranium, a South America focused uranium exploration company advancing a portfolio of prospective brownfield projects across Argentina and Colombia. It's Steven Gold. Great to have you on the show.
>> Jesse. Thank you for having me.
>> Well, let's dive into the uranium sector first and foremost, and then we'll definitely get into what Jaguar Uranium is up to in South America. The uranium sector has been incredibly volatile recently. The war in Iran, of course, appears to be adding fuel to that fire. How do you see the uranium space positioned at present? And do you expect this gut-wrenching volatility to continue?
>> Yeah, it's uh it's sort of a two-part question. The volatility in the equity markets is certainly uh certainly something that uh I think the entire entire sector is is living through. uh the volatility in the supply demand sort of imbalance that we've seen grow over recent years. uh that however is constant and and just to focus on that uh initially is that when you when you consider sort of the last 10-15 years within the uranium space what had happened was that uh about 15 years ago uh upon the the disaster in Fukushima in uh Japan what had happened was was that nuclear energy uh generation sort of came off the table for some time. Governments were nervous and so there was ultimately a lack of investment on the supply side uh terms of new uranium deposits being being developed over the course of uh sort of the 2010s. What had happened was uh eventually of course people woke up and said okay well nuclear energy I is is certainly going to be the the the primary way of the future as far as uh energy production is going to be concerned. And what had happened was was that uh and this was by the way before AI the AI demand wave came in was that you ultimately had uh demand ramping up much faster than supply because of the amount of time it takes to bring on new minds. So fast forward to today, you've basically have a bad situation made worse because the the supply deficiency, which is somewhere, depending on which expert you ask, between 5 and 15 million pounds a year, and growing uh potentially even quarterly, let alone annually, uh is only expected to get even worse between now and 2040. Uh that uh deficiency can grow to almost 200 million pounds depending on who you listen to. and and for all intents and purposes. A lot of the future supply assumption is uh on the basis that uh planned mines get permitted and plans m planned mines get funded and come on online on time and anyone who knows the mining industry across any commodity is that that doesn't happen. So, uh that that's ultimately what's propelled the price of uranium itself over the course of the last several years with with many expert indications that it's going to go much higher.
The long-term contracting price has uh steadily been up and to the right, recently creeping over the spot price as of late February. Are you seeing any signs out there that utilities are coming to the table to secure pounds? And what are your thoughts on the long-term outlook for the term market at this point?
>> Yeah. So just for the viewers' benefit, the the vast minority of u uranium pricing and and contract delivery is is is on the spot market. Um it's certainly utilities around the world and governments will make sure that uh they secure supply uh potentially for years in advance if they can. Uh what we're seeing at the supply side meanwhile is that uh the utilities are say scrambling might be an you know bit of an aggressive word but certainly um trying to source supply wherever they can and so obviously that's going to take a a a potentially longer term uh supply uh agreement with uh with the mining company uh to go that direct. Uh what we're seeing within that sort of contract market is that uh whereas historically you'd sort of be in a band over the course of time as it tracks the supply uh the the spot price, what you're seeing now is contracts with you know ceilings and floors. So it's giving miners co uh really revenue certainty and and not ultimately for them to determine their cost certainty. Uh but it's giving them some certainty about uh if we're going to go invest x amount of money into building out a new mine. We want to make sure that demand's going to be there. Uh so so there is serious competition with respect to how the uh the more traditional energy uh energy generation platforms are going to be able to source uranium because of the shortness in the short supply in the market that's been prevalent for years and expanding.
Now to your question about where we see it going, well what what what we what we know is that uh the the whether it's AI and the power generation required for that and and of course this is above and beyond just sort of standard keep your lights on kind of thing. um the the requirements that that industry has already put in terms of pressure on the on the on the uranium supply side as well as whether it's data centers or what have you. Um, you know that that's something that's really a new animal and what we're seeing is large tech companies like Microsoft and and and Google and Amazon uh they're saying you know we're not just going to rely on the grid that's already in place. were going to go uh get involved with the nuclear generation energy generation side directly and that that's been quite unusual. It's you you you wouldn't typically see a company over the course of time you rely on anything other than what you know sort of the government has provided in terms of infrastructure. So so it's it's a bit of a hogging situation. you're going to start seeing uh more so of really individual whether it's a tech company or otherwise try to hog as much supply and generation as they can. Uh meanwhile they're ultimately going to be competing with the same governments uh and utilities uh who are also sort of scouring the earth right now.
Just for sort of context for the viewer, uh, five countries represent approximately 88% of global supply and, uh, a lot of that is regional with geopolitical connotations. You had mentioned the war in Iran. Uh, the war in Iran doesn't specifically impact supply directly, but what it does do is make certain areas a little bit more challenging from which to source material. So for example, Central Asia uh whether it's um historic Russian assets that are all part of either Kazakhstan or Usbekistan and of course their prox proximity to what is currently obviously a conflict zone. Uh it's making it quite difficult for uh countries and utilities to import product from there maybe for geological reasons. you know, from from a South American standpoint, a lot of their uranium is imported from uh from Central Asia, and there's sort of a rejigging of of geopolitical uh sort of uh allegiances on the continent. And and that's what makes sort of uh uh the the search for other jurisdictions so attractive.
As you touched on at the top of the show, we're in a structural supply deficit, pime primary mine production is lagging, reactor needs. When we look across the landscape of of uranium projects right now, where are these pounds going to come from? Because we've seen in addition to the challenges you just mentioned, we've seen Kazadam Prom, you know, traditionally producing a third of the world's uranium there in Kazakhstan, come out and cut their production guidance. Kamico, the other big giant has also indicated they may potentially need to go to the spot market to secure pounds um to fulfill long-term contracts. Where is this all going to come from? what are the challenges you see facing the mining sector for uranium right now as well?
>> So, so it's going to have to I mean generically with a broad stroke it's going to come from new supply. Um I think that when you look around the world where that new supply is going to come from um yes it's true that some of the larger uranium producers have been developing new sources of supply for some time. However, their depletion rates are real and uh it's one thing to plan for new mine, but you also got to get there and in that span of time, you're mining your resource as we speak. So, when you look around the world uh and this is really from our standpoint, um you central central Asia does it quite well. Um, but yes, yes, it's true. You either have cost issues or you have supply issues or mining mining may not work exactly as as as planned. Things happen. We've seen this happen at most major mining projects. Uh you know, the the Canadian side of things. Um I live here in Toronto and there's not a day that goes by that we don't see some sort of endeavor for uh some some foreign foreign countries government for lack of a sort of better stroke that uh that they're not trying to uh arrange long-term supply contracts with supply coming here. uh naturally the United States um will uh will continue to try to develop uh resource within their own borders and encourage resource in friendly countries as well, resource development there as well. So to answer your question as far as where the pounds are going to come from, it's going to have to come from new regions. Um and and and it's really a question that that I think that executives of of whether it's um you know sort of the main mainstream utilities uh departments of energy or the like around the world and then finally companies on their own are are asking themselves the same question every day.
You also touched on electricity demand from AI data centers. Some analysts forecasting forecasting that could be tripling by 2028. How quickly can nuclear scale to meet that base load need? What does it mean for uranium production timelines? And are data center buildouts just the icing on the cake here? Are they really a main driver for for the supply demand um dynamics right now?
>> No, they're going to make a bad situation worse. Um the the when you look at at the supply demand forecast again depending on which one which one you look at there's some estimates that suggest uh no demand coming whatsoever from the AI data center um SMR side of side of things and that's not to say that that it's not coming and it is coming because it's happening as we speak but what that what that means is that those who have forecasted out demand didn't include that part of it and even if you don't include that, you're still in a supply deficiency situation. So, um it's not to sound alarmist, but the numbers speak for themselves. It's it's it's an icing on the cake. It's, you know, it's a very pleasant way of putting it's going to make a very bad situation that that that we're in now in 2026 and 2027 uh much much worse. uh if the data is data forecasts are true by 2028 um you're just going to see likely more upward pressure on price because it's going to get a lot more competitive than it than it has been. And that's that's following the price move we've seen in uranium over the course of the last several years. Uh I I I don't think that a lot of the upside in the price of uranium has even accounted for a lot of that uh that tech demand in terms of AI and data centers at all.
Well, let's discuss how Jaguar Uranium fits into the picture. Why don't you start by giving us an overview of the company?
>> Absolutely. So, uh, we we are we are big believers in not a several year, uh, sort of bull run of of in terms of, uh, uranium price and, uh, and supply deficiencies. We see this as a multi-deade situation. And so our view was sort of following up what we had just chatted about where would one go around the world to find new sources of supply. Well, uh, Central Asia has done it quite well for some time. Um, Australia has done it well for some time as has Canada. United States to a great extent. Uh, and you look within Africa. Africa has certainly some some fantastic deposits. Uh, very interesting. But, uh, we see South America as the last frontier. South America is no stranger to mining. been mining all sorts of commodities for for centuries. Uh but you don't really think about South America from a critical metal standpoint and and definitely not from a uranium standpoint. Uh with that said, uh we had uh come across a package of assets in Argentina and in Colombia and these were assets that uh are not truly grassroots in their nature. We consider them to use a baseball analogy second or third inning assets. Uh, in one case in Argentina, one of our assets was a former mine. It only came offline because the price of uranium had sunk below sort of $12-$13 a pound over the course of the 60s and 70s. And uh, and obviously fast forward to now, that's that's a kind of situation that I'm I'm sure the governments would love to see back in production. Whereas there are other assets at the expiration levels, some of them have had uh, you know, some significant expiration uh, activity on them in the past. uh the previous owners for one reason or another uh, you may have owned them at a different point in the uranium sort of price cycle. So so our company is built on exposing the investor to an area that is generally new in terms of new supply. uh not necessarily new to mining, but in a situation where if you're going to bring forward new uranium production, um, you know, one would probably want to bet on an area that has either done it before uh or or had these assets in production in the past.
When you look across South America, the the the buildout of new nuclear energy is is not removed from the continent. you know for Argentina for example where uh we have some flagship assets. This is a country that has three uranium three nuclear uh energy uh uh uh plants in uh currently online. uh there are discussions for up to another four to be built and when you put that in the mixture and the company the the country imports 100% of its supply we see it from the government their you know their excitement their their their partnership to uh to see uh new domestic sources of supply. So, it's sort of added sort of rocket fuel to um you know what is historically obviously a long-term plan to bring new supply online. But when you look in these individual countries, um, you know, these governments see what's happening and and and as the middle class grows in these countries and you sort of have these economic renaissances, specifically in Argentina, for anyone's been following that over the last couple years, uh, the they're taking a very pragmatic view of let's get some newest supply online as quickly as possible and how can we help companies like Jaguar uh, contribute to that?
Well, talk a little bit about that, your relationship with the local government in Argentina. Um, we've heard that it's turned much more promining under Malay. Uh, it it has that borne out from what you your own experience with Jaguar and maybe if you could also touch on what's going on in Colombia as well um seeing as there are presidential elections coming up on May 31st in that country as well.
>> Yeah, sure. So, so in Argentina uh when we had acquired these assets, we could frankly never have dreamed of the the the relationship that evolved afterwards between uh MLE and uh and the American administration. Um what we found in in in Argentina is that generally speaking, the policy is set at the top being at the federal level, but it's implemented uh mostly at the provincial level. So what we've seen is uh is is really generally speaking is is is whether it's the Ministry of of of Energy of which this this particular project would fall under in one particular province or or even at the federal level it's it's really go go how could we help you? Uh I think the proof is in the pudding. on March uh 2nd of this year. So just uh uh just over a month ago, we had announced that we had received an environmental uh permit approval for one of our uh one of our permits that is going to allow us to basically kickstart uh uh exploration immediately. And just to give a sense on what the political environment is and how it's impacting the mining side, mining side of things, and this is not just us, by the way. Um, you know, we we receiving a permit months before we expected to get it. And and that to me is is the strongest indication of what the authorities, whether it's at the federal level, provincial level, or even at the municipal level, what they're saying and what they want to see. So, so, uh, obviously Argentina is really, my opinion, one of the most investable places on the planet right now. and and the their their statistical data that's coming out from an economy standpoint and on the ground what companies like ours are seeing in terms of permitting or what have you that speaks for itself.
Moving over to Colombia, um, you know, Colombia is is is is emerging as a lot of the same. Uh yes, there are presidential elections coming up. uh but from our standpoint you know Colombia Colombia has always been a jurisdiction from which uh you've seen some uh tremendous success stories at the mining level and and there are two uh there two gold companies for example in in the same region or even go smaller the same department they call them departments in Colombia not necessarily states or provinces uh that have created multi-billion dollar companies over the course of the current administration so From our standpoint, um, you know, we're we're not we're not in a situation where we're mining a commodity that is undesired. We're we're we're in a situation now where in Colombia, it's not like we're we're mining coal. What we're doing is we're we're we're trying to develop and and and and ultimately explore these projects that are going to contribute to the national well-being from a power side. So across Latin America, we've seen over the course of the last year, every country is a bit different, but generally speaking, we're seeing, you know, much stronger Western influence there. Uh whether it's the United States in particular, but but you're really seeing the the actions speak louder than the words. And I think that we're really entering in sort of a use the analogy, a a golden age of of of new projects and new supply coming into the continent.
>> Very interesting. Could you dive a little bit deeper into your projects? Um, starting with Argentina, what are the assets you have there and and touch on Colombia as well? Um, infrastructure in place, plans for the future, notable milestones, anything that you think it's important for people to be aware of.
>> Yeah, of course. In in Argentina, we we sort of group them in sort of two categories. There's one asset called the Humul Mine. Uh the Humu mine is in an area of uh of the Mendoza province that is uh no stranger to uh to mining activity has done quite well over time. Um specifically when we look at it as in the in the uh in the realm of uh what this asset is. So this is an asset that was in production from 1955 to 1975. And um and uh that specifically what had happened was the government had owned this asset back at that time. Uranium price fell. They said, "Okay, we're not going to mine this anymore. We're just going to import it all." And that made sense at the time. Uh they didn't leave for geological reasons. They didn't leave for metallergical reasons. They just simply met because of left because of price. Uh what had happened eventually uh was that obviously the price of uranium had had had moved higher. turn fast forward as I said earlier 2026 and what we're trying to do is uh basically establish what what amount of resource is there and hopefully move that towards a production decision.
Elsewhere in Argentina we own a property called that we call Laguna Salata and Laguna Salata is upwards of approximately 230,000 hectares. It it's absolutely immense. um that is an area where the previous owner had uh had spent some considerable time and resources to uh explore that area. It's our job to uh ultimately demonstrate it ourselves. Uh and that is the area from which I spoke earlier when we received the CIA approval permit um that has allowed us to start exploration. So, so from an investor standpoint, if you're looking at these assets, it's not as if we're entering them sight unseen and where do we drill for the first time? uh there's a lot of data and information that has been available on these assets that allow us to sleep at night and say okay we we know there was activity here in the past uh it's up to us to demonstrate uh what's left.
Moving over to Colombia um that asset is is uh is an exploration asset um it is in an area called the department of calis as I mentioned earlier it's a very promining jurisdiction uh that is an area where uh substantial work had been done uh recently we announced that uh we were going to start some analysis on some uh some of the core that had been uh that had been uh left and I say we inherited for lack of a better word when we had acquired the asset. So when you look at the milestones across the company, it you sort of mission number one is for us to demonstrate to the market um you know that these assets are not grassroots and and ultimately come up with hopefully some sort of resource level uh in 2026 or 2027. when you look at uh sort of the peripheral sides of it um you know that there there there is a potential to look around the continent and say okay there might be some more assets just like this and that'll play part and parcel with the theme that South America is really going to be in our view really the the next frontier maybe the last frontier so I think that from an investor focus uh again critical metals you don't think South America uh too quickly but uh it's it's uh it's our hope and belief that uh the continent will continue to surprise people especially with sort of the political realignment that we've seen over the last year and a half to two years.
>> Now Jaguar has also launched a rare earth element assessment program at the Berlin project in Colombia. Could you give us the details and explain how rare earths could be positioned in your overall strategy?
>> Yeah, so what so this asset is uh from our standpoint definitely uh uranium focused asset. uh there are uh you know there are indications of byproduct being various different rares specifically venadium and phosphate focused. So when we look at when we look at the asset in terms of what it could be down the road um you know uranium is the focus but we look at the rare earth side as being hopefully not not insignificant. uh we don't believe it to be uh but we'll ultimately have to determine that of course along these these this initial testing phase that that we're going to embark on on some of the core that's been in place. Um the idea would be that the rare earth side of would would provide a sort of a cost credit side that with the focus being uranium. um we would want to see how to uh bring these rarers into a world where we're able to establish hopefully significant cost credits and become uh a lowcost provider of of uranium. So, uh, I like to tell people, you know, we're we're very excited about the rare earth potential, uh, and it could be it could be meaningful, uh, but again, within the context of focusing on uranium and allowing ourselves to, uh, to move ourselves along the cost curve that we're, you know, one of the lower cost producers, uh, coming out of the industry.
>> So, what are the main catalysts and news flow investors can expect coming out of Jaguar Uranium for the remainder of 2026?
Primarily we we want to demonstrate uh um a resource at at the assets in which we have each will move at a different pace. Uh there's permitting standpoints and and that's pretty much the the primary sort of indicator of how fast these can move along. Uh I think we're we're we tremendously benefited from uh what I call as an acceleration of that environmental permit at our large 230,000 hectare Laguna Salata exploration project in uh in Argentina. Uh the permit itself covers a a uh portion of the area that represents um about 8 uh 8 n% of it 10% of it. But uh the idea is is that within that area we're able to start expiration and ultimately deliver uh hopefully uh a resource uh estimate at some point um in 2026 or 2027. So without focusing specifically on dates, uh it's it's uh permitting in combination with delivering these uh potentially resource estimates and then moving on to seeing how big it can be and ultimately how fast the production decision could be made uh at any of these assets and that goes for all assets whether it's Argentina or Colombia. Um, you know, again, I I cannot overemphasize that different assets in different promises, provinces and different departments, different jurisdictions move at very different speeds. Uh, but the all-encompassing plan is uh that we look at the broader market and its supply deficiency and we look specifically within country and different motivations of whether it's the corporate side uh being the tech industry or what have you. uh you know, everyone is very aware uh of the need to bring on new supply as quickly as possible and and it'll ultimately have to come from companies like ours because uh the majors, you know, they do what they do very well and obviously their assets speak for themselves, but that incremental production is ultimately going to have to come from these these these new frontiers.
>> Well, Steven, fantastic conversation. I'm going to put a link in the description below to the Jaguar Uranium website as well as social media for people who want to follow along with the company. greatly appreciate you coming on and and thanks for uh sharing your knowledge with the audience.
>> Jesse, thanks for having me.
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