As investors we learn to look for discounted securities in areas that have fallen out of favor. This is not a risk free method for finding bargains as there is often good reason for a company to fall out of favor. The biggest headline this year has been the Japanese nuclear issue and as a result uranium and many uranium related stocks were sold off heavily.
I don’t know much about uranium companies but have been doing a little bit of reading here and there. I’m far from being ready to invest, but a small Canadian company did catch my eye last week as potentially being an interesting investment opportunity.
The company is called Hathor Exploration and it trades under the ticker HAT in Canada. In its most recent letter to shareholders written March 18, 2011, the company CEO had the following comments:
“The ongoing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant have captured the minds and hearts of people across the world. Tragically, the news as told by the western media has not always been balanced with respect to the impacts of the earthquake, the tsunami and the nuclear plant. Regardless of the impact of this event on the uranium exploration and mining sector, I would like express, on behalf of all of us here at Hathor, sincere condolences to all those in Sendai-Tohoku, and elsewhere in Japan, affected by this tragedy.
The magnitude of this earthquake makes it a truly once-in-a-millennium event. And the events at Fukushima, caused by this enormous natural disaster are still unfolding, are adding pages to the young history of nuclear power. We all need to keep these pages in perspectives: the sheer magnitude of the story, the lack of precedent, and the time it will take for the story to fully unfold. Patience is required; there are still many questions for which we do not yet have answers.
What we do know is this: Nuclear power is not going away. It provides some 15% of the world’s base-load power, energy that most countries simply cannot turn their back on. Primary mine supply of uranium remains some 50 million lbs shy of the 180 million lbs demanded annually by the world’s fleet of 430 plants which produce that energy. Although the price of uranium has been hit by this crisis, it will not and cannot collapse if the industry expects to fill this fundamental supply-demand gap. Even as I write this message this morning, a note from Versant Partners observes a stabilizing pattern in the daily spot price of uranium, and the need for the spot to move back up to at least $60/lb in order to sustain project development and mine production around the world.
We also know that the importance of the Athabasca Basin in Saskatchewan as the preeminent high grade uranium district in the world is not going to change in light of the Fukushima event. No matter what the price of uranium is, the Basin will continue to host the lowest cost primary mine producers in the world, and that is the inherent value of a discovery like Hathor’s Roughrider: a best of breed asset capable of generating value during any point of a commodity price cycle. The Basin has supplied between 20- 30% of western world supply for the last 40 years, and will continue to do so for the next 30 years. Grade is king in the mining industry, and Roughrider has it. The Athabasca uranium deposits are up to 200 times the world average grade. Hathor’s Roughrider deposit will still be standing after this event is over as one of the very, very few high grade discoveries in the world.
Is the nuclear industry different today, one week after the Japan earthquake? Yes. Will the financial sector react? Yes. Growth profiles for the nuclear industry will be re-examined and premiums will be adjusted for the producerswe have already seen this. Spot price projections will be re-examined and cash flow analyses and target prices will be re-examined for both exploration and mining companies alike, and this is just starting to happen. But amidst these realities, my conviction remains as to the real and inherent value of the Roughrider deposit.
Going forward in 2011, Hathor’s focus will be squarely on the execution of key milestones which retain the potential to add value to this Company and the sector. They include:
1. 43-101 Compliant Resource Estimate for East Zone at Roughrider.
2. 43-101 Compliant Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) on the entire Roughrider deposit
3. Fully delineate the extent of mineralization at the new discovery in Hole 667
The East Zone and the new discovery, informally named “Far East”, represent significant upside potential to the overall resource potential of the Roughrider uranium system, and given the truly world class attributes of this system, and its location, I remain firm on the potential value it presents to the Company and its shareholders.
People, properties and money: ppm. Uranium companies will require all three ingredients in order to survive and move through to the next chapter of the nuclear power industry. Hathor has all three, and Hathor will be there when the dust settles. Thank you for your patience. News will continue to flow as our winter programs come to their end.
We will balance the need to preserve capital while moving forward on key milestones.”
That letter pretty much covers what I thought when I was reading about this company.
First, nuclear power is not going away. Growth may slow, but the world simply needs the contribution it makes to our energy supply, and it will need even more nuclear power going forward.
Second, this company has likely the most appetizing property in the entire industry. It is held by a small company that likely can’t develop it alone. It is high grade uranium which is of critical importance. And it is in the best location imaginable in the Athabasca Basin in Saskatchewan.
The obvious conclusion is that this company will be taken out by someone who wants this source of uranium.
What makes Hathor even more compelling is the following announcement which just came out from the company: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/17/idUS237361+17-May-2011+HUG20110517
“This new estimate identifies 30 million pounds grading 11.58% U3O8, and doubles the overall size of the Roughrider deposit, as currently defined.”
Yes I bolded the doubles part.
Since this news the share price has increased from $2.30 to about $2.60. The resource has doubled in size but the share price has only increased slightly more than 10%. Before the Japan disaster the share price was over $3. The share price plummeted as low as $1.50 after the nuclear incident in Japan.
Now that is interesting. A 50% reduction in price due to a panic driven selloff. Followed by a doubling in size of the companies only real asset (Roughrider). Perhaps it was fairly valued at $3 and the increase in size of Roughrider would make fair value closer to $6 ?
Based on what I have read in a few analyst reports that actually seems like it might be the case. Here is how it shakes out:
- Roughrider is now estimated to contain 58 million pounds of Uranium.
- Estimates for the “Far East Zone” are for another 12 million pounds which would bring the company total to roughly 70 million pounds of Uranium.
- Value per pound in the ground by the various analysts I see is about $7.
- As a reasonableness test of this you can compare to the acquisition by the company Uranium One of the company Mantra for an equivalent $10 per pound. Then consider that the property owned by Mantra is a much lower grade and is in the middle of a national park in Tanzania, not the Athabasca basin.
The numbers then are a very conservative $7 x 70 million pounds = $490 million
Perhaps a more realistic but still conservative $10 x 70 million pounds = $700 million
The company has a fully diluted share count of just over 120 million shares and a net cash position of about $20 million. 120 million shares x the current share price of $2.64 = $316 million.
It seems like this might be a pretty undervalued asset. Please do your own work; I don’t know this company well and am just starting to research. Critical comments appreciated to help me improve my understanding.
I don’t know much about uranium companies but have been doing a little bit of reading here and there. I’m far from being ready to invest, but a small Canadian company did catch my eye last week as potentially being an interesting investment opportunity.
The company is called Hathor Exploration and it trades under the ticker HAT in Canada. In its most recent letter to shareholders written March 18, 2011, the company CEO had the following comments:
“The ongoing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant have captured the minds and hearts of people across the world. Tragically, the news as told by the western media has not always been balanced with respect to the impacts of the earthquake, the tsunami and the nuclear plant. Regardless of the impact of this event on the uranium exploration and mining sector, I would like express, on behalf of all of us here at Hathor, sincere condolences to all those in Sendai-Tohoku, and elsewhere in Japan, affected by this tragedy.
The magnitude of this earthquake makes it a truly once-in-a-millennium event. And the events at Fukushima, caused by this enormous natural disaster are still unfolding, are adding pages to the young history of nuclear power. We all need to keep these pages in perspectives: the sheer magnitude of the story, the lack of precedent, and the time it will take for the story to fully unfold. Patience is required; there are still many questions for which we do not yet have answers.
What we do know is this: Nuclear power is not going away. It provides some 15% of the world’s base-load power, energy that most countries simply cannot turn their back on. Primary mine supply of uranium remains some 50 million lbs shy of the 180 million lbs demanded annually by the world’s fleet of 430 plants which produce that energy. Although the price of uranium has been hit by this crisis, it will not and cannot collapse if the industry expects to fill this fundamental supply-demand gap. Even as I write this message this morning, a note from Versant Partners observes a stabilizing pattern in the daily spot price of uranium, and the need for the spot to move back up to at least $60/lb in order to sustain project development and mine production around the world.
We also know that the importance of the Athabasca Basin in Saskatchewan as the preeminent high grade uranium district in the world is not going to change in light of the Fukushima event. No matter what the price of uranium is, the Basin will continue to host the lowest cost primary mine producers in the world, and that is the inherent value of a discovery like Hathor’s Roughrider: a best of breed asset capable of generating value during any point of a commodity price cycle. The Basin has supplied between 20- 30% of western world supply for the last 40 years, and will continue to do so for the next 30 years. Grade is king in the mining industry, and Roughrider has it. The Athabasca uranium deposits are up to 200 times the world average grade. Hathor’s Roughrider deposit will still be standing after this event is over as one of the very, very few high grade discoveries in the world.
Is the nuclear industry different today, one week after the Japan earthquake? Yes. Will the financial sector react? Yes. Growth profiles for the nuclear industry will be re-examined and premiums will be adjusted for the producerswe have already seen this. Spot price projections will be re-examined and cash flow analyses and target prices will be re-examined for both exploration and mining companies alike, and this is just starting to happen. But amidst these realities, my conviction remains as to the real and inherent value of the Roughrider deposit.
Going forward in 2011, Hathor’s focus will be squarely on the execution of key milestones which retain the potential to add value to this Company and the sector. They include:
1. 43-101 Compliant Resource Estimate for East Zone at Roughrider.
2. 43-101 Compliant Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) on the entire Roughrider deposit
3. Fully delineate the extent of mineralization at the new discovery in Hole 667
The East Zone and the new discovery, informally named “Far East”, represent significant upside potential to the overall resource potential of the Roughrider uranium system, and given the truly world class attributes of this system, and its location, I remain firm on the potential value it presents to the Company and its shareholders.
People, properties and money: ppm. Uranium companies will require all three ingredients in order to survive and move through to the next chapter of the nuclear power industry. Hathor has all three, and Hathor will be there when the dust settles. Thank you for your patience. News will continue to flow as our winter programs come to their end.
We will balance the need to preserve capital while moving forward on key milestones.”
That letter pretty much covers what I thought when I was reading about this company.
First, nuclear power is not going away. Growth may slow, but the world simply needs the contribution it makes to our energy supply, and it will need even more nuclear power going forward.
Second, this company has likely the most appetizing property in the entire industry. It is held by a small company that likely can’t develop it alone. It is high grade uranium which is of critical importance. And it is in the best location imaginable in the Athabasca Basin in Saskatchewan.
The obvious conclusion is that this company will be taken out by someone who wants this source of uranium.
What makes Hathor even more compelling is the following announcement which just came out from the company: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/17/idUS237361+17-May-2011+HUG20110517
“This new estimate identifies 30 million pounds grading 11.58% U3O8, and doubles the overall size of the Roughrider deposit, as currently defined.”
Yes I bolded the doubles part.
Since this news the share price has increased from $2.30 to about $2.60. The resource has doubled in size but the share price has only increased slightly more than 10%. Before the Japan disaster the share price was over $3. The share price plummeted as low as $1.50 after the nuclear incident in Japan.
Now that is interesting. A 50% reduction in price due to a panic driven selloff. Followed by a doubling in size of the companies only real asset (Roughrider). Perhaps it was fairly valued at $3 and the increase in size of Roughrider would make fair value closer to $6 ?
Based on what I have read in a few analyst reports that actually seems like it might be the case. Here is how it shakes out:
- Roughrider is now estimated to contain 58 million pounds of Uranium.
- Estimates for the “Far East Zone” are for another 12 million pounds which would bring the company total to roughly 70 million pounds of Uranium.
- Value per pound in the ground by the various analysts I see is about $7.
- As a reasonableness test of this you can compare to the acquisition by the company Uranium One of the company Mantra for an equivalent $10 per pound. Then consider that the property owned by Mantra is a much lower grade and is in the middle of a national park in Tanzania, not the Athabasca basin.
The numbers then are a very conservative $7 x 70 million pounds = $490 million
Perhaps a more realistic but still conservative $10 x 70 million pounds = $700 million
The company has a fully diluted share count of just over 120 million shares and a net cash position of about $20 million. 120 million shares x the current share price of $2.64 = $316 million.
It seems like this might be a pretty undervalued asset. Please do your own work; I don’t know this company well and am just starting to research. Critical comments appreciated to help me improve my understanding.
