Uranium Energy to acquire Wyoming assets from Rio Tinto for $175M

Uranium Energy Corp. (UEC) announced that it has entered into an agreement with Rio Tinto (RIO) to acquire 100% of Rio Tinto’s Wyoming assets, comprised of the wholly-owned and fully-licensed Sweetwater Plant and a portfolio of uranium mining projects with approximately 175 million pounds of historic resources. The purchase price payable at closing is $175M, subject to customary working capital adjustments, and will be funded with UEC’s available liquidity. In addition, the transaction provides UEC critical scale in the Great Divide Basin, with opportunities to realize synergies from shared infrastructure and project personnel expertise. Addition of approximately 175M pounds of uranium resources, at an in-situ valuation multiple well below UEC’s current trading levels. Approximately half of these resources appear amenable to ISR mining methods and half to conventional mining. ISR amenable resources will be prioritized for development and near-term production, with conventional resources providing substantial optionality for further production growth. The transaction adds more than 53,000 acres of land for future exploration along with an extensive geological database gathered from over 6.1M feet of drilling facilitating historical resource conversion and more effective exploration. Combined with UEC’s existing 54,615 acres of mining rights in the Great Divide Basin, this will establish a portfolio of approximately 108,000 acres of mining and exploration prospects.