Transcription
Hello everybody and welcome in to Commodity Culture where our goal is to make you a better investor in the commodities sector. My name is Jesse Day. Before we dive in, standard disclaimer, nothing here is investment advice. Do your own due diligence. Today is November 27th, 2025 and my guest is the CEO of Homeland Uranium, a mineral exploration company focused on becoming a premier US focused and resource-bearing uranium explorer and developer. It's Roger Late. Great to have you back on the show.
>> Great to be back. Thank you very much.
>> Well, I want to kick things off with a bit of a year in review of the uranium sector in 2025. It certainly has been an interesting year. What surprised you? What went according to your expectations and how do you see the sector positioned as we sit here today?
>> Well, certainly it's been a lot more volatile, particularly in the second half. I mean, certainly things took off at the end of the first quarter, uh, last at the beginning of the year. I think if you asked me where things were going to get better in the radium investor space, I think that was pretty clear given where things were going with supply demand, uh, where things were going in terms of SMR development, uh, in terms of new builds elsewhere. But I don't think anyone was really thinking that things were going to go into hyperspeed. You know, when the president came out and said, "Hey, here we're going to, we're going to really ramp up the nuclear sector." You know, going back earlier in the year, the tie to AI was certainly there. It became a little more raw in terms of the AI and SMR development. Uh, it certainly became a lot stronger and much more in the minds of mainstream investors, probably, you know, at the end of May and continuing on. And then you get into, you know, the the wild card in all this is the Ukrainian situation and the back and forth of, you know, are they, are they not going to imply sanctions in the US on uranium exports from from Russia? And then, to be honest with you, that's that's between that and now, more recently, the concerns about the tech companies and a little bit of the risk-off side of investment have been sort of the anchors every so often on where things are going in the space. But yes, overall, still very positive, particularly for American sourced companies.
>> Yeah, I agree with that. The Trump administration making a big push to expand nuclear energy generation in the US along with trying to secure domestic production of uranium. I think regardless of what happens with the Russia situation, it's kind of exposed a weakness in the fact that the US produces approximately, I think it is, 20% of its energy from nuclear and produces basically no meaningful amount of uranium, which is a weakness that needs to be addressed. That's for sure. Um, how much of an impact do you think the policies that the Trump administration have put out surrounding nuclear and uranium have had an impact so far? And how effective do you think the administration will be in accomplishing their stated objectives in the sector moving forward?
>> They've been incredibly impactful. I think things were always getting better. That's one of the reasons why we, you know, I love to sit there and say we built this company thinking about taking advantage of all of what's happened here in the last second half of the year. And clearly that's not the case, 'cause we were around beforehand. We certainly thought things were going to get better. Seeing things like permitting moving along at faster paces, uh, certainly helps where we are in the space. Seeing that pull demand for, we're thinking what's going to happen here starting around the 2028, 2030 range, uh, seeing sites where SMRs are going to be developed, seeing investments in, uh, even big scale nuclear in the US are huge drivers for our industry and, you know, quite frankly, we're probably at a point where we can't catch up as easily as maybe people might think.
>> Yeah, that's a very good point. Um, I think that when it comes to a number of critical minerals, uh, the US really does need to start ramping up production. China obviously having a really big impact here with their kind of, they've been very strategic in terms of how they're handling it, and I think a lot of policymakers and people in the US are starting to wake up. So that's good news. Um, one thing I want to discuss is the volatility in the uranium sector in particular because you touched on it, but lately it really has been ramping up. We're seeing double-digit percentage gains in the equities on on in a single day at some points, only to fall right back down in rapid fashion in a short time frame on the other side, only to rise again. It's been an absolute whipsaw roller coaster ride. I mean, if we look at just URNM ETF since the end of September, it's it's been crazy. What do you think the reason for this extreme volatility is? Is this just part for the course? Just part of being a uranium investor?
>> Well, if you go back to the last cycle, I think you could say yes, there was certainly volatility in the space. There were more names out there, and I think the volatility was maybe not as extreme from day to day, but certainly was there across a broader selection of potential companies because I think people didn't know at the time who was good, what was bad. Having uranium in your name was enough to get you in the spotlight or on the radar of some companies. This time around, it's a whole lot more about, you know, I do think there's been a the AI angle and the SWAM modular reactors and the tech investments into nuclear are huge. Seeing that market concerns here since the, you know, beginning of middle of October or so on AI certainly had an impact as people see things going up and down. We're seeing volatility in tech to a certain degree as well, maybe not to the same extreme. But, you know, probably the biggest thing is volatility in the spot price of uranium. And that volatility is very short-term demand. Uh, and it's it's kind of funny because the rest of the stuff, the indicators behind and prices behind the spot price, like the midterm price and the long-term price have been stable and slowly increasing, not experiencing that volatility. So investors see spot prices going up and down. Uh, and all that is being driven by, you know, a lot of that's being driven by what's happening about, are there, are we not going to have a peace treaty in Ukraine? Or are we not going to make things go? But I think, you know, particularly for American focused potential producers like ourselves, the reality is while the Russian agreement is really, you know, a big impact on the nuclear fuel cycle itself, the Russians don't produce uranium, they produce uranium products. So that's the how to take the yellow cake and turn it into a fuel pellet process, but they don't have the yellow cake to feed the process. They get that from elsewhere. So still the need for domestic supply hasn't really changed regardless of whether or not the Russians are in or out, uh, in terms of access to the US market to a degree. To a degree.
>> Do you think we're going to see more uranium added to a strategic uranium reserve? Because I believe it was a couple years ago when the US went ahead, the government went ahead and bought some pounds off of domestic producers. It seems like that's a direction they could continue going in. Do you kind of see a revival of a strategic uranium reserve and potentially something that they're going to see as a long-term asset for strategic purposes moving forward?
>> I think there'll be an attempt to do so. Whether it's successful or not will depend on just how fast the ramp up of demand domestically happens to be. So we'll even utilities start looking at putting out, you know, increasing their strategic reserve within their own stockpile. And I think the answer is nobody really knows for sure. We know that going into this cycle that utilities were eating into that supply of, you know, that three-year sort of buffer they like to have when it comes to the process of turning yellow cake into fuel pellets, which is about a two and a half to three-year window, and they were eating into that. But it's certainly the uncertainty of things. And I think if we find some sort of certainty one way or the other, the market will sort of return to more fundamental supply demand issues.
>> Yes, because we are in a very obvious supply deficit at this point. I think that's just the main thing that's driving the uranium bull thesis. AI is interesting, SMRs are interesting. I honestly don't think we need either of those to see the uranium price rise significantly from here. It's kind of icing on the cake. Let's look forward to 2026. What do you see as the major catalysts and tailwinds driving the sector in the new year as we look ahead?
>> Certainly, I think one of the things we'll see closer to the end of the year, uh, is more about new deployments of nuclear, whether they be SMR or more mainstream large scale plants, and whether those go ahead, not just in the US but globally, as we're starting to see people saying, yeah, we're doing this, yeah, we're doing that. I think the story of retirements is over, that's not going to have an impact per se anymore. But certainty around costs or projected certainty around cost in new build will be a huge driver in, does this nuclear renaissance have legs in the minds of investors? And I think that's going to be one play. Obviously, what happens in the Ukraine situation and whether or not sanctions are lifted or actually implemented, right, because they're sitting here on the books, but whether or not they actually get implemented or whether the exemptions are removed or not and reinstated is a huge driver, particularly in the United States. And that's going to be part of the roller coaster going forward. I think the AI angle, um, I agree, it's icing on the cake. The fundamentals going back a year ago were still extraordinarily strong. And whether or not everyone, you know, I don't believe everyone's going to triple their output globally, whether it's that 31 countries or whether the US by 2050 will quadruple, but even a 25% increase where they are now is a huge challenge for this in for the mining industry and uranium sector to meet.
>> Yeah, some great points. Why don't we dive into Homeland Uranium and how the company fits into the picture? Could you start by giving us an overview of Homeland Uranium?
>> I've said when we were here last time, hopefully people are starting to hear about us. Uh, we certainly are pretty excited about being able to get out in the ground here. We just started our drill program at Coyote Basin. Two significant uranium projects of significant size that are open, potentially open pit, amenable. We're looking at lowering processing costs with heap leach, ion exchange recovery processing of conventional milling. But they're in the same neighborhood, uh, in a very favorable jurisdiction for uranium mining with historical uranium production from the 1980s, which is sort of common almost everywhere in producing parts of the United States, the exception of parts of Wyoming. We're poised, if we can convert these historical resources into current resources, to move forward with an with engineering studies to produce meaningful pounds. And what I mean by meaningful pounds for the domestic US market is, you know, most producers and most mines in the US, they're great operations. They're very good. They're going to, but in terms of meeting a 50 million pound a year demand, uh, everything that's supposed to go ramps up, we're still only a fraction of the way there. Not not 50%, not 25%, we're lower than that. And there's a need for production centers that can produce multiple millions of pounds a year. And I think that's one of the things that we have the potential to do. I mean, we're still a long way away from that, but definitely the ability to produce more than a million pounds a year out of a single operation. We'll have two side by side, uh, in the same neighborhood, which allows some synergies clearly if they both are able to go ahead, would make Homeland a potential meaningful producer.
>> Great. Well, could you shed some light on the team behind the company, how you plan to leverage their expertise, starting with yourself and your own background? And I know a lot of viewers know you as the former CEO of UEEX. Um, perhaps you could touch on that a little bit and your other experience in the sector.
>> Yeah, I've been in the uranium industry for about 25 years. I started in 2001 when it was allegedly a dying industry and there was no hope and people were going to shut down all their reactors and we're getting all out of it and renewables are going to be the answer to everything. And, you know, certainly we've seen great growth in renewables, but I started off with Cameco working on projects, uh, both with the emerging junior sector at UEX at the time, helping them out, but also at their some of their operations at Rabbit Lake. We made discoveries there. I moved on to managing their Saskatchewan exploration portfolio. Uh, while I was doing that, last cycle was starting to take off and I also did double duty as on the mergers and acquisitions team there before they did some, before they made some other interesting acquisitions, which was past my time there. I moved on to manage their global portfolio and then in 2012, I was, I left the company, did a couple years with an AIM listed junior company in both the nickel and uranium space before moving on to UEX where we managed our world our assets post Fukushima and did we did all right. We did, it was a tough, very tough market for the uranium sector. We managed to quadruple the market cap before we were taken out and double resources under management through acquisitions and discoveries. So I wanted to really come back to the space and be focused in the US for multiple reasons. Our VP exploration, Nancy Noore, has been around, worked all over the Canadian scene, not just in the Athabasca but also out in Labrador and Newfoundland Labrador. She has experience on discoveries as well, being early days at Denison, being involved with our stuff at Christie Lake. She knows how to find things and she's proven to find things. Our board of directors is, you know, I'll argue that we're so blessed to have a board that has covered all the bases of what you could possibly ask for in the space. We have capital markets experience, M&A experience, uh, strategic value. Unfortunately, we no longer have Ross because he's been ruling on to finish his time at Apollo, but we certainly with our strategic advisors, with Brent Cook and Paul Matiss, certainly have very good advice opportunities and when we need help to really guide this company forward. I would suggest it's for a company that's in the $30 million US market cap range to be sitting with a board like this that you expect that on a company that has an order of magnitude least size bigger in terms of market cap than we are now. And I think that bodes when we brought them on board, I was very surprised and we of course pitched them all and was very surprised that they all wanted to be a part, and I think testament to the assets that were brought to the table.
>> Well, exciting news coming out of the company. You already touched on it. You announced you're commencing your drill program at Coyote Basin. Can you walk us through the details of that?
>> So we were drilling, we call our phase two program, which comes in two sub parts. So we're doing part one. They're going to look about 35 to 37 holes, uh, in the sort of 17,000 foot range of drilling. And we have three areas that Western Mining found back in 1979, before 3M Island cratered the entire uranium industry back in 1980. And it's sort of three sort of lobes where, you know, the mineralization was defined by them. And we'll be the first part of our drill program will focus on the southern and central sections, which we think are the most interesting. And then the second part, which will probably be in the new year, will focus in the northern area areas. And the idea here is to turn historical resources into inferred resources. The inferred resources with a little bit of work on metallurgical testing, the first steps of maybe five to get to the finish line on metallurgy and just to help us decide whether this is worth doing the infill drilling to get to indicated resources so that we could go full-blown, full-blown engineering work and and hopefully permitting, shovels in the ground thereafter.
Well, obviously, we'll be looking forward to results from this drill program. Aside from that, and maybe if you want to even touch on more details regarding perhaps the timeline for the drill program, but just essentially the catalyst and news flow that are upcoming that Homeland Uranium shareholders can look forward to as we head into 2026.
>> Sure. So, I think for the next little while, like every couple of weeks, we'll be putting out real-time results from our drill program. Uh, we can, because we can do downhole probing, we get what's called equivalent values from the gamma probes downhole. They'll be, and so we'll be expecting to do that on an every sort of two-week basis, batches of our drill holes. That'll take us through to Christmas and maybe into the new year. Um, and then followed up from that point forward with the results with the assay follow-ups from those holes to confirm what we know. Then we'll be, probably in the middle of the second half of the year, we'll be, that will transition over into what the results of our metallurgical work were. And if there's a resource there, because clearly we think there was, that's why we bought the property based on historical work, that resource estimate. But overlapping with that will be the startup of our Skull Creek project. We bought, we bought just a couple of months ago, and it's a very similar story to what we see at Coyote Basin, found around the same time, abandoned around the same time. Same vend groups picked it up back in the last cycle. Same things happened to it when it got turned into Uranium 1. And I think all of these things will be six to eight months behind. So in the spring, we'll start a drill program over there at Skull Creek. The difference is we have a lot more information. So we may be able to move that one in terms of historical work and we'll be able to move that along a little quicker than maybe Coyote Basin.
>> Well, is there anything we haven't yet covered? Anything you think it's important to emphasize that you think potential shareholders of Homeland Uranium should be focused on?
>> Yeah, I think when you're out looking at opportunities and particularly, you know, you want to look at who can move to the finish line at a reasonable pace. You know, none of the uranium opportunities out there, with a couple of exceptions of groups like NextGen that are shovel-ready to go, are going to impact the market in the next two, three years, right? That's you're looking a little, you know, you're looking at a five-plus year window. And the question is, which ones can get you there faster in which jurisdictions, and then which ones can make meaningful differences to whatever market they're plugging into, whether it's the US domestic market or not, and have the resource capacity to sit there and be able to leverage opportunities, whether it be ability to enter the long-term uranium market through through term pricing. Uh, and I think that's one of the things that I'm really excited about where we're poised is that with two operations side by side that can work out of the same common facility for processing, if that's the way it works out, and the ability to produce more than a million pounds a year in the future, if all the resource pans out and the engineering pans out, then we become a significant player in the space. And I think there's very few companies out there that have that potential in the next decade of time.
>> Well, I'm going to put links in the description below to the Homeland Uranium website as well as social media profiles so people can follow along with the company. Roger, this has been a great conversation. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
>> Well, thanks for having us again.
Commodity Culture is a series on commodities and natural resources. If you would like to see more, be sure to subscribe and hit the bell notification so you're always up to date with the latest episodes.