Title: Denison Mines Update | David Cates and Geoff Smith Show: Jimmy Connor (YouTube) — interviewer Jimmy Connor; conference-lineup interview Guest: David Cates — President & CEO, Denison Mines (DNN: NYSE American / DML: TSX); Geoff Smith — Denison Mines, commercial / contracting (captioned "Jeff") Date: 2026-MAR-31 (YouTube publishDate) URL: https://youtu.be/9faxAi8pbYo Length: 21:39 Note: YouTube auto-captions. Fillers (um/uh/you know) and stutters/false starts removed; wording otherwise verbatim, every (mm:ss) cue kept. Company management talking its own book. Caption garbles left as spoken — "Jeff" = Geoff Smith; "NextGen's" = NexGen Energy; "Sabre" = SABRE (McClean North); "McLean" = McClean; "Sky Harbor Resources" = Skyharbour Resources; "foremost" = Foremost Clean Energy; "thanks, Sherman" = thanks, Jimmy; "We're new 90%" = we were near 90%; "the vast majority of it is not unexplored" is as spoken (host meant unexplored).
00:01 David and Jeff, thank you very much for joining us today. Denison Mines will be transitioning from a developer to a producer over the next 2 years, and David, I want to discuss this process with you. And Jeff, with you I would like to discuss what's happening with commercial activities and also contracting.
00:18 David, I want to begin the discussion with you. Denison received its final permits to start construction at the Phoenix ISR mine, and now you can move ahead with site preparation and construction. With regard to site preparation, what work has been done, and when can you actually start construction? Yeah, Jimmy, it's been an incredible ride for us to be at this point where we are talking about starting construction.
00:42 An incredible accomplishment for our team to have Phoenix permitted as the first new Canadian uranium mine approved for construction in over 20 years. In terms of what's happening at site, I can comment that we are in position where we have started site preparation work and are commencing construction work in the month of March here.
01:12 And that's part of a 2-year construction process for the project. And David, with regard to construction at Phoenix, maybe you can just touch on some of the key priorities that you will try to accomplish in 2026. Yeah, Jimmy, our mining method's a little different than what we've seen in the region with ISR mining, and so our critical path doesn't involve things like shaft sinking or opening a pit.
01:39 For us, 2026 is really focused on two main objectives. Obviously, civil and earthworks and preparing our site for our slab pour so that we can start building our process plant into the second year of construction and perhaps during the winter months. That's part one, and part two is starting the well field work, in particular the perimeter freeze fence.
02:03 That does take in the range of 12 to 14 months to establish once all the freezing infrastructure's in. So, we would like to be able to get power distribution on site and the freeze wall infrastructure in place so we can start the ground freezing process. Those are our two priorities in the first year of construction.
02:21 And what's the best-case scenario? When can we expect production? Yeah, with our schedule that we have in place, we're looking at about 24 months of construction, and so we are on track for first production by the middle of 2028. And when Phoenix is up and running, what will be the mine life, and what will be the annual production? Jimmy, Phoenix is estimated to have about a 10-year mine life.
02:48 Average production over that period's around 6 million pounds a year, but we'll see production front-loaded in the first 5 years, more in that 8 to 9 million pounds a year range, and then lower in the final 5 years. And I noticed that you released a new CAPEX for Phoenix, $600 million. How does that compare to the previous number? Yeah, CAPEX update was from the beginning of 2026 and reflected quite a lot of work that we've done over the past few years regarding engineering design. We're new 90% total engineering
03:23 at the time of that update, as well as significant procurement, and so that put us in a position to update the market on our CAPEX. We reported that we are expecting post-FID CAPEX in the range of $600 million. That does represent an increase from our 2023 feasibility study. That study was based on 2022 dollars.
03:47 So we've certainly seen some inflation in that interim period, and we've also seen some improvements in our cost precision, which has led to certain other costs increasing, but minimal design changes. One of the design changes has added cost, and that is that we'll actually be deploying a full array of large-scale or large-diameter wells in phase one of the well field, which is part of our initial CapEx.
04:16 And large-diameter wells give us maximum operational flexibility. So, each well can be used for both recovery and injection. In the feasibility study, we had a slightly lower cost strategy of large-diameter and small-diameter wells being intermixed, where a small-diameter well could only be used for injection purposes, and not recovery.
04:37 So, with that tweak, we're able to have greater control of our well field, and that sets us up to achieve our production rates, and maybe some additional optimizations, as well. And David, just because you touched on inflation, I have to ask you about the oil price. We've seen a lot of volatility in the last few months.
04:54 It's been as low as $60 in January, as high as $100 in the month of March. How does a higher oil price impact the economics at Phoenix? Well, higher oil prices certainly don't help with costs. We do have materials that we'll be transporting to site, and we will have equipment operating on site.
05:15 But, our project is unique in that we are situated on the provincial power grid, and earlier this year, we announced that actually the provincial power grid has been brought to our site, and is ready for us to connect to it. So, our energy-intensive activities, for example, establishing our freeze wall, we are set up to be able to power that from the grid, which means we will be largely insulated from the volatile costs of diesel that you would otherwise need when developing a like this in a remote
05:49 region. David, I want to move on now and ask you about another one of your operations. Denison along with its JV partner Orano is producing uranium at the McClean North Sabre mine. Can you provide an update at these operations? How are things progressing? Jimmy, it's been a very positive start-up and commissioning of the Sabre mine at our McClean North deposit.
06:13 We're very grateful for the excellence of our partner and the operator of that project, Orano. We achieved Denison's share of production just under 150,000 lbs packaged finished goods from operations in 2025. The mine has been operating well and it has been feeding to the McClean mill, which is of course a truly world-class processing facility, and the production has gone pretty seamlessly in terms of co-producing with the ore coming from the Cigar Lake mine. So, it's excellent
06:50 for us to be back in production and, while it seems like 150,000 lbs is maybe small compared to the type of production we're talking about for Phoenix, the production coming from this mine on a 100% basis does make it one of the largest uranium mines in North America, producing in that range of 6 700,000 lbs in 2025 alone.
07:17 So, really a great success story to rapidly ramped up and achieve production in 2025 and certainly more to come. Jeff, I want to turn the discussion to you now. Denison has committed to selling 5 million lbs of uranium. Can you explain the details behind this contract? Yeah, Jimmy, certainly. So, this contract is one of multiple agreements that we've entered into, but importantly this contract achieves both financing and commercial objectives.
07:45 And so, this contract relates to 10 million US dollars of upfront funding that we received partially in '25 with the balance to come in '26. In exchange for that upfront financing component, we'll deliver a discount per pound as our future deliveries are made with those deliveries coming notionally as Phoenix begins production.
08:13 And Jeff, what other transactions can we expect in the coming months in terms of contracting? Yeah, thanks, Jimmy. So, we are also in advanced negotiations for an additional 12 million pounds of sales commitments. So, we certainly expect to see some progress and be able to update the market as those are finalized and further advanced.
08:34 And maybe you can speak to how your strategy at Denison will be different from NextGen's and Cameco when it comes to selling pounds. Yeah, absolutely. So, it all starts with basically a Denison-centric approach. And what that really means for us is looking at our unique circumstance, whether that's our assets, our balance sheet, and market position.
08:58 And with Phoenix, our flagship asset, being a low-cost mine, having a robust balance sheet, these are factors which allow us to be able to tolerate greater variability in price relative to other producers that may require a greater degree of price certainty in order to be able to maintain margins or service debt.
09:20 We have a robust view on the fundamentals for uranium. So, being able to pursue market-related pricing structures and capture that potential upside it certainly an important part of our strategy. But, also, we have to recognize our position in the market. We will be a meaningful producer, especially when you think about who has potential supply available in the next five years, uncommitted and from Western sources, but we won't be the largest producer in the market.
09:49 And because of that, we have to design our strategy recognizing that there may be other factors, other behaviors from other competitors that may cause the future market dynamics to differ from our base assumptions. So, we're trying to have a diversified strategy and whether that's by pricing structure, tenors, counterparty, or other factors that would allow us to deliver robust results in multiple future scenarios.
10:14 And Jimmy, maybe I just add, further on the market position, some elements that I think make our proposition attractive and why we've been welcomed by utility customers. When we think about who's bringing new source of supply to the market to meet this growing demand, it really does rest on the shoulders of the new producers.
10:35 The emerging and, sorry, the incumbent producers have been clear that growth is not a priority. And so, the growth comes from the emerging producers, but Denison within that set is viewed as a low-risk alternative. We have multiple sources of supply that we're offering. We have 1.85 million pounds of uranium in inventory that's de-risked, active production from McClean, all in advance of our Phoenix asset, which is scheduled to be online in mid-28.
11:02 So, having that variety, diversification of sources, is really been a key differentiator, and something that's been really well received by utilities. And Jeff, in the past, Denison has held a large inventory of physical uranium on its balance sheet. Do you still own that? And if so, how much? Yeah, thanks, Sherman.
11:20 We do continue to own a large inventory balance. That consists of 1.7 million pounds of purchased uranium. And we've been continuing to then build on that with the production we're receiving from McLean North production. So, as of December 31, we have received approximately 150,000 lbs of uranium finished goods in inventory.
11:43 So, at the end of the year we ended with 1.85 million lbs. Those will be used to support project financing objectives. With the multiple source of supply we're able to begin entering into long-term contracts with near-term deliveries as well as pursuing more opportunistic transactions to provide cash flow and funding during the Phoenix construction time period.
12:07 David, let's bring the conversation back to you and discuss your second project and that's Griffin. And this is going to be a traditional underground mine unlike Phoenix which is going to be ISR. What's the timeline or sequencing of Griffin in relation to Phoenix? Yeah, Jimmy, certainly more to come on Griffin on our end and you see from our plans for 2026 that we're going to be looking back at our pre-feasibility study work there, carrying out some additional evaluations, and working on refining that timeline.
12:38 But the objective is to be able to utilize the cash flows generated from Phoenix to build the Griffin mine and to have the Griffin mine potentially in production before the end of the Phoenix mine such that together we can have something that looks more like a 16, 17, 18-year mine life producing over 100 million pounds in total.
13:03 And again using those Phoenix cash flows and our existing site infrastructure to be able to support the development of Griffin. Hey David, the last CapEx number according to the feasibility study we saw in 2023 was 737 million. Can you fund that entire number with the cash flow from Phoenix? Yeah, the expectation is that we can.
13:26 Phoenix has an incredibly strong economics and operating margins even with the prospect of repaying debt or the plan to repay debt ahead of that with a roughly 4-year expected construction timeline for Griffin. Phoenix production should certainly be producing more than enough cash flow to be able to fund Griffin internally.
13:51 And you and your team are going to be very busy moving toward production at Phoenix and also moving Griffin forward. Do you have the skilled labor to do so? Well, we built up an internal team of engineering and technical experts. We are relying on third-party construction management firm, which was announced earlier this year.
14:13 We're using company called Wood. They're involved in global engineering and EPCM related projects across the resource sector. So they certainly add that expert capacity for us to be able to manage construction projects. And what we have is an integrated project team approach where we have great continuity on the projects from our teams that have seen the engineering through together with Wood.
14:38 And then we're able to leverage Wood's talent set and team to be able to hit these peaks of activity. Now, in terms of actual construction workforce, we're using a variety of construction firms and vendors that are based in Saskatchewan in Western Canada and they draw upon existing labor pools.
15:01 I would say that the Phoenix project generally has a lower number of employees associated with it for operations and construction owing to the nature of the project. And so the timing of that now is working out fine. As we move to Griffin, you would expect that you see with an underground mine potentially larger head count, but that is yet several years away from being in production and I think the workforce will have time to respond.
15:27 Saskatchewan is a tricky market for that. It's not a big province, but it is centrally located and it has shown that large projects can be executed in the province, sometimes drawing on Canadian resources from outside of the province. David, let's move on and discuss your balance sheet and how much cash do you have on hand and how will you allocate that cash in the coming year? And we ended the 2025 year with just under $700 million in a combination of cash equivalents, the physical uranium and our
16:02 investments. So that puts us in an incredibly strong position to execute on Phoenix. Our budget for the year does show a significant portion of our spend will be going to support the first year of construction at Phoenix, but we do also have budget for continued exploration as well as evaluation work as we talked about to bring Griffin forward to be able to advance that project.
16:33 So, a balanced but focused approach. Our priority is executing on Phoenix and the budget shows that, but we do see the importance in this part of the market cycle to be investing in assets for growth as well. And David, Denison also owns several equity positions in various uranium companies.
16:54 What are your intentions with these companies? And we've built up what we call team Denison of equity and investment positions in companies that are exploring in the Athabasca Basin region with us. These are junior companies. Look, making a discovery in the Athabasca Basin region of a meaningful uranium deposit is actually quite challenging.
17:17 And so while our focus is on executing at Phoenix, and we will be exploring, I call it domestically within our own portfolio on top priority projects, we like the idea of amplifying our exposure to discovery success by investing in and partnering with good quality juniors. And so the strategy here has been either to take non-core assets and vend them into companies like in the case of Cosa Resources or Foremost Clean Energy, where we have a 30% interest at the asset level, or plus I guess on top of that a
17:57 large equity position, roughly in the range of up to 20% in either of those companies. So really strong partnership there, but allowing those companies to raise the capital, use their teams to explore assets that we were unlikely to be exploring in the next 3 to 5 years. And we also have a great partnership with Sky Harbor Resources, where we've been a long-term shareholder, but recently announced a transaction where a very large property called Russell Lake, which is adjacent to the north and the east of our Wheeler
18:27 River property, has been broken up into four different joint ventures, where we have initial interest in those joint ventures, and importantly, we have the option to earn into up to 70% on two of the key joint ventures. And the one that we're focused on right away is called Wheeler North. Obviously, some potential synergies if a discovery is made on Wheeler North with our Phoenix and Griffin deposits on the Wheeler River property.
18:54 So really trying to be able to keep that growth profile moving and portfolio active, because we do believe our company would benefit significantly from exposure to another significant discovery in the region. And when I hear you talk about with various projects, one thing that really comes to mind is and I don't think a lot of people realize this, but just how large the Athabasca Basin is and so much of it, the vast majority of it is not unexplored.
19:24 There's a mix of intensities of exploration, you're right. There's a lot of the region that hasn't been explored. Some parts of the region where there's known mineralization has had a lot of activity. What I like about it, Jimmy, is that we're tapping into multiple teams because exploration is not just about good quality land and I think we've got in these companies better than average land positions, mostly coming from Denison having been in the region a very long time. But
19:52 now we've got smart minds at Denison, smart minds at Cosa, foremost, and Sky Harbor all working on making a discovery and I think that's potentially very powerful. I look at recent results from Cosa Resources where they've had success on the Murphy Lake North property and of course we hope that that will be something that turns into a meaningful discovery, but it's really accessing all these thinkers at the same time and being able to work such a vast portfolio of property without us diverting our
20:25 focus from executing on Phoenix. David and Jeff, that was a great update and I want to thank you very much for spending time with us today and as we wrap up, what news flow can investors expect from Denison in the coming months? Jimmy, this is an incredible platform as always and you've put together an excellent lineup for this conference, so we appreciate being part of it.
20:47 We do have an active next 12 and 24 months ahead for our company. Obviously, we will be focusing on construction updates for Phoenix, but certainly you'll see us talking about the work that we're doing at the Griffin deposit as well as our work across the exploration development portfolio and team Denison.
21:07 And then on Jeff's side, certainly more to come as you already heard about our commercial activities, contracts under negotiation, and we know that the investors are very interested to see how our commercial book is coming together. So, I'd certainly stay tuned for that, as well. David and Jeff, once again, thank you. Yeah, thank you. Jim.