Earnings call transcript: ASP Isotopes Q1 2024 highlights strategic growth

ASP Isotopes Inc. (market cap: $334.82M) reported its financial performance for Q1 2024, showcasing strategic advancements in isotope production and expansion plans. Despite the lack of specific financial guidance for 2025, the company remains optimistic about reaching cash flow positive status in the latter half of 2025. The stock price showed a slight decline of 2.88%, closing at $4.69. According to InvestingPro data, ASPI has demonstrated significant momentum with a 77% price return over the past six months, though the stock remains notably volatile with a beta of 3.69.

Key Takeaways

• ASP Isotopes aims to achieve cash flow positivity by the second half of 2025.
• The company has expanded its workforce and plans further strategic hires.
• ASP Isotopes is exploring new partnerships and regulatory approvals for expansion.

Company Performance

ASP Isotopes has made significant strides in its operational capabilities, notably starting commercial production in three manufacturing plants. The company has successfully enriched Eterbium 176 and is overcoming initial challenges with its Carbon 14 plant. With an increase in headcount from 30 to 50 employees, ASP Isotopes is gearing up for further growth and innovation.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue from Penta Labs for the fiscal year 2024: $4.2 million.
• Cash balance: Sufficient for approximately four years of operating expenses.

Outlook & Guidance

While specific financial guidance for 2025 was not provided, ASP Isotopes expects to become cash flow positive in the second half of 2025. The company is also planning to expand its manufacturing facilities in multiple countries and is considering a potential spinout of its QLE subsidiary. Analysts maintain a bullish outlook, with a consensus target price of $8.50, suggesting significant upside potential. Get detailed insights and comprehensive analysis with InvestingPro’s exclusive Research Report, part of our coverage of 1,400+ US stocks.

Executive Commentary

Paul Mann, CEO of ASP Isotopes, emphasized the company’s commitment to growth: "Our goal is to build many more facilities, some down here in South Africa, some in other countries, and expand our footprint into other regions." He also highlighted ongoing customer discussions for Silicon 28: "We’re talking to four or five customers right now [for Silicon 28]. And I expect to sign them and contest all of them at some point."

Risks and Challenges

• Regulatory approvals: Ongoing discussions in South Africa could impact expansion timelines.
• Initial feedstock challenges: The Carbon 14 plant is facing early operational hurdles.
• Market competition: While no new competitors have been identified, the company faces the challenge of competing against government entities.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about potential partnerships and customer interest. ASP Isotopes confirmed discussions with multiple customers for Eterbium 176 and ongoing partnerships with companies like TerraPower. The company is also exploring opportunities in molybdenum enrichment, which could enhance its market position.

Full transcript - ASP Isotopes Inc (ASPI) Q4 2024:

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to wherever you are in the world. My name is Nick Lawson. I’m the CEO of OceanWall, and I’m delighted to welcome you to the ASP Isotopes fiscal year two thousand and twenty four results webinar. We’re delighted to have with us Paul Mann, chairman and CEO, and doctor Henrik Streidom, who’s ASPI’s chief technology officer. Firstly, gentlemen, congratulations on this morning’s press release regarding Etobium 176, an incredible milestone for you.

Before you tell us more about that, can you take us through the 2024 results, please? And also a review of of q one, ’25, your outlook for 2025, and then give some commentary on, today’s announcement, please. So, gentlemen, over to you.

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: Yeah. Thanks, Nick, for hosting this call. I’m joined here by doctor Hendrix, chief technology officer. Think I can choose some time from in a moment. Anyway, where does that list of companies?

If you could just, look at the forward looking statements and disclaimers in our 10 k alongside this webinar, that would be great. Contains a lot of information in our 10 ks published last night. So, yeah, the fourth quarter was exactly not our expectations. Penta Labs is a fairly stable business and, you know, $4,200,000 of revenue for the year. And, you know, nothing unusual is really happening so far so far this year.

We haven’t we haven’t given guidance. We don’t expect to give guidance for this year. And, you know, I can’t give guidance for the first quarter on this conference call because it’s obviously not it wouldn’t be it wouldn’t be appropriate. But about the main financial quarter for me with the starting up of three three manufacturing plants to start commercial production. So none of them none of them go easily, but they all they all went.

And so the carbon 14 plant, it was kind of feedstock issue in terms of getting the feedstock from Canada that arrived in early February. That plant is now it’s down in carbon 14. We still need to get our second batch of feedstock into this. I think we should arrive I think we arrive in the work through those work through those challenges. One example was the cryogenic pump is supposed to produce helium at at minus 20 degrees c.

We need that to recycle sign out of out of the plant and balance the plant. We’re gonna get that to minus 90 to VC. So the government, you know, issues a couple of weeks, get the OEM supplier out, and then they’ve got it fixed. You know, a couple of compressors, the impellers broke. Again, we’ve got a great team of engineers say, pair those impellers and got it working.

So now I think it’s a it’s been a pretty incredible engineering team we’ve built over the last three years down here in South Africa and the challenges they’re able to to deal with and and to work through. Then you’re turning one seventy six also had its fair share of problems as well. The time of flight mass spectrometry didn’t work. And we’ve spent three weeks struggling with that. The battery pumps were looking a bit accurate, again, and a few weeks struggling through those.

And finally, you’ll find this point we announced that the success in pitching your j m one seventy six and started pitching for chemical samples now. So I’m gonna do the main highlights in in my opinion, Nick, for the quarter. I’ll hand over to you for any questions now.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: Okay. So, I’ve got a couple of questions that are coming in. In terms of, the first one is in layman’s terms. Can you explain what the relevance of enriching uterobium is to to enriching uranium, please?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: And do you want this question?

Henrik Streidom, Chief Technology Officer, ASP Isotopes: I will both look for the

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: Okay. Yeah. So so, they’re probably more similar than different, I would say. You know, actually, Utopia has both have different spectroscopies. Utopia has five isotopes whereas Utopia has only got two significant ones.

So it’s easier to enrich your product where you’ve only really got two isotopes rather than five. And also it’s radioactive.

Henrik Streidom, Chief Technology Officer, ASP Isotopes: Yeah. I think, firstly, if you go back to the lasers, you know, lasers since the eighties and nineties have developed. It’s been used in the semiconductor industry. They’ve got a high spec to it, and that suits us very well. So we buy off the shelf lasers today.

No development there. What we do to the lasers is to shape the beam. I think that’s the big difference. But going towards uranium, yes, in the ground state at 3,000 Kelvin, Not that many left there, so you need to address this and get a hold of all the two three five of them.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: Okay. So questions are coming in. Obviously, everyone’s aware that there’s a q and a button on the on the Zoom function. We’ve got a 97 participants. So we’ll do this fast and furious, Paul, as well.

What are your expected revenues for ASPI in 2025, if you can talk about that? And will you reach free cash flow positive by the end of the year?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: So we haven’t given guidance, for the year. We don’t intend to give guidance on on this call. But, you know, if you if you look at the contracts that we’ve signed, you should be able add them up and work out what annualized run rate would be from the from the facilities. And so Eterbium, yeah, and you think you can get maybe to kilogram per year of production of Eterbium. And, you know, we’ve kind of said, think about $20,000 a gram for.

And this for carbon 14, we’ve said that we have a take or pay contract and minimum of 2 and a half million dollars a year, but perhaps we do it more than 2 and half million dollars a year. They can’t take more. They certainly ship feedstock for more than 2 and a half million dollars product this year. So it’s maybe that’s slightly better than 2 and half million. Then we’ve kind of said we’ve got two small orders right now for silicon 28.

We would expect to get some more orders over the next sort of few months. So we’re talking to three or four additional customers who we expect to place orders. And also, I think our two customers who already signed up want to increase their some of their orders this year as well. So that kind of gives you an idea of what ASPI will do. And Pet Labs, know, did $4,000,000 last year.

That should grow nicely this year because we’ve invested heavily in in that business. And so that that actually should grow nicely this year. In terms of free in terms of free cash flow positive, if you add those revenues up and you, you know, we spend it to provide cash operating expenses, we’ll see you know, we should get should get cash flow positive in the second half of the year.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: The press release said the company anticipates now being able to proceed with the plans to construct the Nickel 60 4, the gadolinium one six, and the lithium six, plants. Could you give some guidance on the timing of the construction around those plants, please?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: Yes. So Helvich and his team built the adjutant plant in just two months. It took six months for procurement, but two months to actually put it all together and and construct it. And then they spent about six months commissioning it and, you know, fighting through kind of various small problems that occurred during during the early stages, any any plant start up. So, you know, I’d like to think we have the first plant kind of coming interaction later on this year.

We’ll see. Depends on on on the on the the. And, you know, we we require export permits from certain countries to to ship lasers into South Africa. We’ve got import permit into South Africa, and they can take some time to get there. They’re they’re they’re out of our control.

We’ve already applied for the export permits in the country we needed from, and so, you know, we’ll wait and see how long it take.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: Henrik, so, the the press release talks about the expectation with the Eterbium one seventy six getting to ninety nine and three quarter percent. What’s the nameplate on the facility, and how quickly do you expect samples to be approved?

Henrik Streidom, Chief Technology Officer, ASP Isotopes: Well, to get to 99.75 in one step is is not possible. We do it in batches. So the first batch work up to 88, 90 percent, and that takes a long time. And then the last bit takes about a day to get to 99.75. So Yeah.

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: Yeah. We’re we’re gonna ship it. I think we said, you know, it’s first half of the year, probably towards end of the second quarter, something like that.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: Okay. Given the, SMR race in The US, are there any plans, ambitions to expand manufacturing enrichment capabilities in North America?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: So absolutely, we have plans to do that. It’s likely we’ll try and then partner rather by ourselves. And so if you look at South Africa, we partnered up with Nexa. It’s about the nuclear engineering corporation. We may have a partner with The United Kingdom with a partner there.

I would like to partner up with somebody in The United States as well to help through the regulation licensing challenges. And, again, constructing any form of uranium or nuclear plant, it’s the it’s the licensing and the regulation side that takes takes the time. It’s it’s just the longest longest part of the process.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: Is there I mean, I I sort of know the answer to this. Can you give any comment on the timing of the QLE spinout?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: Yeah. We haven’t given any guidance there as well. What we have said is that we’d we’d like to do it when well, maybe there were two things that had to happen in order for us to be able to spin out. The first is we had to we had to identify the location where we built the first uranium plant. And, obviously, we’ve never announced on December last night in South Africa, And we’re working hard to secure the licenses and permits that we need to to build to build that model and build the test batches and research on that.

And the second thing we needed was to see line of sight to cash flow breakeven or better than ASP isotope side. Looks like I’ve got free glass up and running. I think that’s that box is ticked as well. And so I’d like to think we do, you know, as soon as possible. We can just bring it out of our control.

We need to file some documents with the SEC and then get reviewed by the SEC, which, you know, that’s sort of thirty to sixty day process. So we could be we could be doing it quite soon.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: Yeah. But I think you and I can maybe mention that the appetite, obviously, by the investment banks, this hits the absolute sweet spot in terms of this sort of energy transition profile for large investment banks. Another question. Have you signed any supply agreements for Uterbium? Are you still on pace to sell a kilogram this year?

And the the price reference here is $20,000 a gram. Is that still correct?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: So discussions with customers are around $20,000 a gram. Customers would want to have a sample before they place an order. So what the customer will have to do is check that when they put it in, when they they radiate it for Neutron, then they are they’re able to turn to t c one seventy seven and not get any long long lived site long lived isotope to produce. And so actually, what’s more important in the spec is not determining one seventy six being over 99.5%. It’s actually how low you’re determining one seventy one is.

And so they’re gonna want to see that. And, you know, I’m I’m very confident with respect, but haven’t done it yet. And since they’re gonna want to see that, and that’s really what they need to see before they can fill in some of the supply to the tool. But we’ve got a lot of interest in in the Euterium. We probably have two key programs to indicate demand already from customers.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: I’m just gonna jump a couple of questions. There’s quite a few on Euterium. So you mentioned the ability to scale up the Euterbium 176 plant by adding additional vessels. Is that still something you expect to do?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: It is. Yes. Whether we do it in the existing building or whether we, you know, do it in a new building, we’ll have to wait and see. You know? But, again, it doesn’t take long to add more vessels, does it?

And what are your thoughts on the deck?

Henrik Streidom, Chief Technology Officer, ASP Isotopes: Yeah. That’s the easy part. I mean, when when the beam goes through the first vessel, you absorb very little of the light, and you have a lot of laser light left for numbers of vessels to follow.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: It’s a sort of question you sort of answered, Henrik, around the number of passes to get to 19.75%. Are there any technical limitations to reaching that? And how many additional passes do you have to do?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: Yeah. We disclosed the number of passes we have to do. But, Henrik, any technical challenges out of that?

Henrik Streidom, Chief Technology Officer, ASP Isotopes: No. I mean, in single runs, we’ve demonstrated about 90% enrichment already, but then you also do a little bit. So you actually need to have a sweet spot where you run your batches.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: And what do you think the actual demand is for Uterbium one seven six in the market?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: You know, it’s that’s a that’s a difficult one to answer. Right now, we’re we’re clearly very interested in two kilograms from various customers. But, you know, the the PruVictor is I think I mean, it’s thirty years since launch. PruVictor is likely, you know, growing there for the next several years as well. There are a number of other feature written radiotherapeutics and development from other companies.

And Univas have broken up any modifications for Convicto.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: Oh, very quickly.

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: Can you bring

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: the microphone a little bit closer? It’s a little bit muffled, the audio. If you could just bring it a little bit closer to you, please.

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: Is that better?

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: That’s better.

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: Okay. Yes. So, you know, PIVICTO has only been this first year since launch. And so, you know, it’s still growing very strongly. There are lots of clinical trials to expand a number of indications for PIVICTO.

And in addition to that, there’s a number of companies running running drugs with 57 as as well. So, you know, I think we’re in the early stages of this the product cycle, but, you know, we’ll have to wait and see how big it actually ends up into the coming years to come. But vice versa, about chicken as a demand.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: Okay. Two chicken. So in terms of chicken as a demand, so in terms of ramping production, it’s gonna be a function of the demand you see for it, or do you have plans to ramp up production?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: We we have plans to ramp up production without needing the without needing the without needing the orders in hand. Okay.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: Okay. So, we’re coming back now a little bit to the financials and also to the the the contracts with the SMR company. So given your expansion plans for the second half, do you expect to be doing another equity raise?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: Yeah. I think if you look to our balance sheet on December 31, we know how much cash in our balance sheet at the end of the year. If you look at how much operating cash flow we spent last year, it’s about $15,000,000. Know, so if you look at $15,000,000 and 60 we finished the year with, it’s about four years of operating free cash operating burn sitting on the the balance sheet. You know, we had to get cash flow break even or better in the second half of the year.

And when you look at the the capital cost of building these laser plants, it’s it’s not that it’s not that significant. Internal capital is really pretty remarkable. So the utility 176 plant probably came in about, you know, maybe $3,000,000, that kind of number. We spent 2 and a half million dollars in issue, and we had about a half a million dollars of CapEx in the final, few months. And so, you know, these, these parts are large and not expensive.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: Okay. Before we get on to TerraPower, so a of questions around the QLE convertible note. Any progress around the note? And also today, a new subsidiary was added as part of the as seen in the 10 k, QLE TP Funding LLC. Can you talk a little bit about what that is, what that subsidiary is for, and also any progress on the QLE convertible note?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: So, in terms of the progress on the QLE convertible note, you know, I mean, I think, that will convert it to QLE stock on on the spinout. And so, I mean, there’s not much progress to make them. The spin out spin out will will get converted. In terms of that new subsidiary, ASPITP funding, you know, it’s difficult for me to really comment. I wasn’t actually aware that was in there.

You know, it’s it’s when we fund the the South African plant, it’s likely our partner will want to fund it via a US entity, not via South African entity. And so that that is an entity that’s set up to receive capital to flow into South Africa to build a uranium facility.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: Okay. So into TerraPower now. So lots of questions here in terms of the current status of the contract, things like the prepayment timelines, and the sort of bigger question of of TerraPower as a US partner.

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: So we’re talking to a number of potential US partners. One of them is likely to be telepower. They clearly have a good relationship with the US government, the DOE, the new the regulator. The other people have other people are are closer to to the uranium emission cycle, they are so so we’ll see. And in terms of the status of contracts and stuff, you know, we will announce we will announce market when we decide a definitive supply agreement, which is what we are working on the moment.

You know, supply agreements and investment agreements are are quite challenging things to put together. They take a long time. You know? So so just by an example, you know, as you know, who’s who’s shipping the product? Who takes title of the product?

When and when? Who is getting the feedstock for the block. The fees is gonna look like, what the spec of the feedstock is going to be. All of that has to be detailed in the contract. What our final specification is gonna be and the format’s gonna be supplied in, what what what what surge it’s gonna be in, how it’s gonna be shipped.

Yes. There’s no further information that’s to go into a supply agreement. And so they they take it takes some time to write, and so we’re working on that at the moment.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: I mean, in the meantime, Oclo have made no secret of their respect for your business and vice versa. What’s your relationship with Oclo like?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: You know, I can’t really I think they could probably first to market the SMR. And, you know, that they’ve a great business model as well. So they’ve got a huge backlog of customers, a huge amount of customers.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: Okay. We’ll we’ll we’ll we’ll we’ll we’ll move on from that. So two questions about permitting. Well, actually, first one’s about regulation. I mean, you and I had an amazing meeting, a couple months ago in, Pretoria with the, with Nexa.

What are your relationships like, or how are the regulatory discussions going with the South African government at the moment?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: Yeah. They’re going really well. And, I was actually invited to Palindar with the government ministers, just last week to celebrate the sixtieth birthday of, the new the the Safari Reactor. And, you know, we have a regular calls with Nexo. You know, so each team each side brings different skills to the table here.

So clearly, we’ve built the technology and the engineers able to design and build the facility, but they’ve got huge amount of experience in regulatory licensing, permitting, that kind of stuff. And so, you know, we’re we’re going we’re talking to the the regulator at the moment but we want to do it. You know, we we we have the first test bench ready to to go, but we’re we’re kinda building the second test bench at the moment. And, you know, it’d be great if we can get this done in the first half of this year and talking something in the second half of the year.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: And and just in Pelindaba, you’ve talked in the past that there are shovels in the ground. Can you slightly expand on that?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: Yes. So so we need to build two test benches to to test our enrichment processes at Pelindaba. The first the first is built. The second is not yet built. It’s being built, being procured, being constructed.

You know, we’ll we’ll announce to you guys when the second one is built to probably get the permits to allow to go and start and start start enriching product there.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: And Iceland. So can you give us some update on where we are with planting in Iceland and also when will the building of the plant start?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: Yeah. So, again, discussing the the government is going very well. Government is going very well. I I met in in January for for a couple of days to meet with the government ministers. Meet with them.

And we’ve got great reception, and they’re very excited about us, coming to Iceland to build, medical isotope facilities and, you know, facilities that enable next generation semiconductors.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: K. So some question I mean, lots of questions, by the way, I’m not gonna ask that have come in because they refer to questions that have been asked already. There will be transcript, and this is being recorded as well, so you’ll be able to see answers to those questions. What is your vision for the company’s growth over the next three to five years? Are there any specific milestones you aim to achieve?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: No. We’ve got internal targets. Certainly, we continue to invest it externally. But, you know, our goal is to build many more certain facilities, some down here in South Africa, some in other countries, and expand our footprint into other regions. And if we do that, you know, hopefully, the the p and l will follow.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: Headcount changes in the next twelve months. You just got some idea of headcount now and where you see yourself in the next twelve months.

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: So right now, we’re we’re about about a 30 something in December 31. Now we’re, like, a 50. We probably need to add a few more people still. And, you know, they they will come in over the next, you know, next couple of next couple of quarters. We have we have enough head count now to operate the existing facilities that we have.

Definitely staffed. And sometimes we’re we’re carrying a cost to those actually through most of last year. So so as you know, we will we add we will add selectively animal people. I think the big hires we need to make this year, you know, I think we need to hire a head of medical isotope sales in The United States and wanna do it as well. I think we need to add a a head of electronic gases sales in The United States or globally, I guess.

So they’re the three main hires. Like, I think we know that each hire. You know, we’ve held off making the big hires until we were actually in production. Now we are it’s time to make you know, that’s time to make those as nice.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: Okay. So we have a there’s quite a few questions. I’m gonna be a bit fast and furious here, Paul and and Henrik, on this one. When do you start when do you actually think you’ll start enriching product in Palindaba?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: That’s out of my control. You know, it comes down to the regulator. I’d like to think we can do it this year. And, obviously, I can’t make any guarantees for that because it comes down to the NRL, which is a national nuclear regulator. They they they they very supportive.

And this is classified as a high impact project for the country, and so it’s getting a lot of attention from the government and from the regulators. And so, yeah, hopefully, they’ll be they’ll be forthcoming and cooperative and and helpful.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: How are the market prices changing in, the three producing isotopes at the moment?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: So carbon 14 is a fixed 24,000 a gram. And and, you know, that’s that’s a take on their contract with that price and. It’s certainly, again, we’ve had a little pushback from customers when we talk about $20,000 a gram. There seems to a lot of demand at that price. Silicon twenty eight is the one where I I think we will lower the price a bit.

So we’re talking about half a million dollars a kilo up until now. I think we can bring that price down a bit to try to push more demand into the marketplace and make it so that we don’t want stick to the market so that people get excited about using sort of 28 and then find other places to use it. As I think I’ve said before, if we can build sort of 28 miles in Iceland and it’s of the right scale and of the right size, I’d love to make it, know, if you’re making selling it at $20 a gram, that’s to make a 75% gross margin. And that’s obviously some years away unless, you know, as a roasting in life, that’s cool, walk, learn money.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: Okay. So, obviously, we had the, fuzzy panda issue back in November, which we’ve we’ve sort of got over in terms of intellectually. But in terms of sell side coverage, question here is, would we get great to get more sell side coverage just to lend lend more sort of credence to the story. Are there any updates coming here?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: You know, I talked to a number of investment banks. I was in New York, a few weeks ago, talked to a number of investment banks. You know, it’s fingers crossed. Let’s wait and see. Hopefully, yes.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: Okay. A question here. The Cyclotron Centre in Norway, are there any collaborations? What’s the current relationship there? And then any ongoing collaborations?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: Again, you know, with the customers, we sign NDAs, and we can’t really talk about our discussion with other government entities and that kind of stuff. Yes. We we know the like we know the Norway cycle cycle cycle central central very well. It’s a really good center. It supplies most of the isotopes and the specter isotopes.

And I saw all the g r and d is done there as well. So it’s it’s got a great good design to stop there. It’s a pretty fantastic facility. Yeah. We know well.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: With molybdenum, with moly 99 and moly hundred enrichment, are there any potential partnerships with US organizations in enrichment development there?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: We we we’ve had we’re we’re having discussions. We have have we’re having discussions with you guys as potential partners there. That’s that’s the biggest commercial opportunity I think we have in medical isotopes. It will take a it will take a while to get into. But there are there are certain customers that want to take lithium 100 or the lithium 98 and convert it into to the 99 or to the lithium 99.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: Okay. I’m not gonna I’m not gonna sort of ask this as a question because I think it’s more of a comment that’s come through, but I think a lot of people are quite keen now with with the sort of from the CFO perspective that we get financial results in a more timely manner. How would you respond to that?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: Yeah. So I think last year before before Heather joined the CFO, we missed two of the deadlines by about three or four days. At least this time, we we filed on time, which was March 21. Heather’s doing a great job. She’s putting in place a lot of the controls and the procedures and processes that we need in order to be sub score for b compliant and sub score for a compliant.

And, you know, with that comes more automated, better invoicing and routing. Have to remember down here in South Africa,

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: Okay. Thank you. Are are you seeing any new emerging competitors with the market opportunity ex Russia?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: No. We’re not. No. Actually, I said, a couple of small universities announced on to be one seventy six. I’m told it’s a few grams.

But we have and and there’s certainly things like Silicon twenty eight, And so they’re struggling to use it. And I think that’s so while I’m told they can’t reduce it, there hasn’t been much of a market impact or demand for some.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: So so, Stuart, I mean, obviously, there’s a little press the weekend about Do want to talk about how many new contracts you expect to sign in Silicon twenty eight in the in the coming year?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: Silicon twenty eight, I’d expect I we’re talking to four or five customers right now. And I expect to sign them and contest all of them at some point.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: Question’s back again about the short interest in the stock. I mean, we’re now at 30%, which is is is, sort of strong bearish sentiment. Sorry, Paul. Do you mind just moving the microphone even a bit closer to you, please?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: Yes. The microphone’s stuck on the wall over there by the television. Could you could you pull mister

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: mister Mann, could you pull the microphone off the wall, please? Sorry. So to everyone saying you can’t hear it clear, this is clear as, as clear as we’re gonna get it. I’m sorry about that. So just on the short interest, in the stock there, that 30%.

You know, I mean, I I we’ve done a lot of work on this, and we obviously know that a lot of it is quad driven. It’s based around algo that looks for sort of growth stocks, pre revenue, exhibiting certain characteristics. But nonetheless, the stock is still down 50% since the Fuzzy Panda report. Is there any message? It says it says a bit of a trite question this, but you would like to give to short sellers and naysayers.

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: Listen. I’m buying these buyers and sellers, sir. I’ve had to spend most of my career trading and trading stocks. You know, it’s tends to make a market. What I would say is the short interest in most of new stocks is pretty high.

If you look at up low down in new, they’re centrist, and it’s all pretty high. There’s a lot of normal levers in new.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: No. They are. And that’s right. And and I think a lot of that, as I say, is a function of the way in which the algos are are set. If you look at the distribution amongst the shorts, you know, there is a very large number of them.

So, some a couple more questions. I know we’re getting towards the end of the time. A lot just so you know, I’m not gonna be answering all of them, but a lot is around analyst coverage, when you’re gonna bolster institutional interest. But here we have one here, asking about when we’ll get independent commercial third party confirmation that enriched silicon is a 50% more efficient than unenriched silicon.

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: So the answer to that is I I don’t know because it’s unlikely it’s unlikely that Intel or TSMC and so forth will publish the results they get in their in their research facilities. So but there there are some scientific papers, some scientific papers out there, you know, stating stating those numbers. And so, I mean, so the experiments have been done already. But I I’d be surprised if our customers who aren’t academics published their work.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: Okay. So I think we’re getting relatively close to the end. Any more questions? It’s last chance to wrap them up. One last question about capacity utilization of PET labs for radiation isotopes.

Can it be increased at low cost?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: It’s not just that we are increasing it. PET labs is running flat out. Right now, it’s running flat out from the entire last year, but there’s all production runs a night currently, which is is huge. So we’ve added bit of cyclotron into Pet Labs here in in to around 1,000 production in the Pet Labs building today. We’re at Pet Labs offices today.

That’s waiting for the final approval from Southrop, which should come in the next few weeks or so. And then that can start producing more commercial products and really ease ease the supply shortage. Our Spectrum Labs received its commercial license, last week, and so we should see good growth from Pet Labs to see if those new assets, coming on streaming.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: Okay. Lots of questions again about spinout of QLE. We’ve talked about that already. That will be in the notes afterwards. What is your view of post enrichment after nuclear radiation of isotopes?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: Say, accept question again.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: What’s your view of post enrichment, I. E, after nuclear radiation of isotopes? Someone here who’s obviously been following you, you said the balance sheet used to keep you up at night. Now you’re producing isotopes. What keeps you awake now?

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: You know, I mean, when you when you’re competing against government governments, that’s always a concern. You know, there’s a lot of, you know, you know, I think our our main competitive advantage is our our governments are more restrained about giving away a lot of free money to to our competitors. It feels like there’s more adults adults in the room now than there were two years ago.

Nick Lawson, CEO, OceanWall: Right. Okay. So just just one thing. A lot as I said, there’s lots of people asking about analyst coverage. One thing I will say is there is a a hosting channel called Curation Connect where there is an excellent ASPI page, which gives all the relevant information in both short form, long form video, links to all the, reporting accounts to the videos that Paul has done to expert views and work.

It’s Curation Connect, and you’re going to showcases and you go to, ASP isotopes. And that’s a very good repository for those that are looking for more sort of analyst coverage. So we, Yeah. I will drop a link of the analyst coverage to someone’s asking for that link. We’ll we’ll send that afterwards.

It’s curationconnect,all1word,.com. So, Hendrik and Paul, that The news coming out is excellent. The critics are being answered. We’ve got our results out on time as well.

Everything’s progressing in the right way. I’d like to thank you for your time, and I think we’ll probably look to try and do this, in a couple of months time again. But thank you all for attending.

Paul Mann, Chairman and CEO, ASP Isotopes: Thank you. Thank you for your your questions, and thank you for listening. Thank you. Thank you.

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