This Uranium Market 'Different Than Ever Before' - 'We're in Structural Deficit' Now: Mark Mukhija

0:00The following podcast is brought to you by Eagle Nuclear Energy. Enjoy. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ This is the Commodity Culture Podcast, where we interview prominent investors, fund managers, analysts, and companies CEOs to give you an edge when it comes to investing in the commodity space. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Hello, everybody and welcome into Commodity Culture where our goal is to make you a better investor in the commodity sector. My name is Jesse Day, and today is February 6th. 2026, before we dive in, standard disclaimer. Nothing here is investment advice. Do your own, do diligence. And today's guest is a CEO of Eagle Nuclear Energy. Said to be the first US domestic uranium resource exploration and development company with SMR Technology, it's Mark Mukija. Great to have you on the show. Great to be here, Jesse. I want to kick things off with your current overview of the uranium sector and where you see it headed,

1:02because obviously we've seen a ton of tailwinds and catalysts and the positive news flow from both the uranium market side as well as the nuclear energy side continues to ramp up. How do you see uranium in nuclear position right now? And what are the key factors in the market you're watching most when it comes to this year here in 2026? Yeah, that's a great question. And I believe that we're in like foundationally different uranium market than ever before. You know, we're already in a structural deficit today. And you've got people like Goldman Sachs saying that there's a 20 million pound deficit today and up to 20, I'm sorry, up to 130 million pounds per year by the 2040s. And that could be up to a, you know, almost 2 billion pound cumulative structural deficit by that time. And, you know, given all the catalysts that we're seeing coming into the industry, right? We have so many countries signing up to triple their new clear by 2050, so that's adding a lot of stress and strain

2:04on the market already. And then we have this power demand that's coming from AI, cryptocurrencies, quantum computing, you know, and if Elon gets his way, we're going to have more humanoid robotics than people in the near term. So we're going to need a lot more energy to address those demands, right? And we're in a climate now where we can't even separate AI from national security. So power generation is going to be a huge part of that. And for, you know, North America to remain competitive, we're going to have to increase our power generation capabilities. For 2026, what I'm going to be watching out for, first of all, is for the utilities to come back into the uranium contracting market, you know, for a bunch of years that they haven't been contracting at replacement levels. So we do anticipate that to start happening, you know, possibly this year or next year. And then secondly, we'll be keeping an eye on, you know, what the federal government is going to do. So is there going to be a strategic reserve?

3:05Are there going to be equity investments into the uranium sector, like we've seen with rare earths with MP materials? We've seen it in lithium, lithium Americas. And so we are starting to see that. In other parts of the critical minerals supply chain, potentially uranium. Yeah, great summary. Now, one thing that is interesting about the uranium sector, I mean, and also kind of gut wrenching, depending on how you look at it, is that despite these fantastic fundamentals, there's so much volatility going on with the equities. We're seeing double digit percentage gains and losses and then gains again and losses again. This is going on in single trading days. Why do you think we're seeing such radical volatility in this sector? And do you expect it to calm down and maybe normalize once the retail public catches on and perhaps once more institutional investment comes into the space? Yeah, absolutely. I think fundamentally we're in such a very strong uranium market right now. But we have seen that volatility, right?

4:06We've seen other commodities like gold and silver reach historic highs, right? We've seen that happen. And we've seen uranium take up over $100 a pound last week, too. And then also we've seen a bit of the AI stocks kind of trade down as well. And that's kind of had a broader impact when those AI companies and the tech stocks have sold off, there's still some geopolitical tensions in the Middle East that are going on right now. And that has had an impact on the entire market, not just commodities. And we believe when institutional investment starts coming into the uranium sector, that should dampen some of the volatility that we're seeing. As I mentioned, the foundational setup of uranium is just strong. It's ever been. Yeah, I agree. You just got to be able to hold through that inevitable volatility at the moment. I want to get your thoughts on the push by the Trump administration and the US Department of Energy to increase both nuclear capacity and uranium production in the United States.

5:07How much of a boon is that for companies like Eagle Nuclear Energy? And how do you see it impacting the domestic uranium production landscape in the United States? Yeah, it's had an immense and meaningful impact on Eagle Energy in every company that's associated associated with nuclear. So the whole sector, the whole nuclear sector has been re-rated since those executive orders came out. And there are particularly meaningful for Eagle in that, the executive order that came out in March of 2025 was around boosting domestic mineral production on federal lands. So our project does reside on federal lands, so that will have an impact on us. We've seen other companies go onto the Fast41 dashboard, which is around making the permitting process more transparent and potentially accelerated. So that was a big one that came out in March. And then in May, we're the main ones associated with nuclear. So there was four executive orders that came out. And they were all around removing regulatory barriers in unleashing American nuclear energy.

6:10And we're obviously a part of that. And one of the main things there was talking about quadrupling nuclear power generation by 2050. So going from 100 gigawatts to 400 gigawatts. And that's going to require a whole lot of uranium to get there. So that has a big impact. And we believe that that could lead to things like invoking the Defense Production Act, just to re-ensure that supply of domestic uranium. So there are a bunch of tailwinds that came out of those executive orders. We're hearing it from the president himself. We're hearing it from Secretary Wright at the DOE. So we do believe that there is this meaningful push from the administration for nuclear power generation. Well, let's talk about small modular reactors, because this has been a very hot topic in the nuclear sector as of late. In your opinion, how close are SMRs to being rolled out in large-scale commercial capacity? And what is the timeline for your SMR development

7:10at Eagle Nuclear Energy before that might hit the market? Yeah, I definitely believe by the end of the decade, some of these advanced reactor companies will have a first-of-a-kind reactor that's built. And we do see in Ontario, there are the BWXT for 300 megawatt SMRs that should be completed by the end of the decade. So there are a lot of things that are happening. It's gonna happen sooner than we think, right? They're just on the horizon. So I think they're gonna be very beneficial for addressing any kind of incremental power demand that does happen. And for Eagle, we're very early in our SMR development. So I would say we're in the concept development phase. So the next two years are gonna be around design validation and component testing to really get a stronger idea of how we wanna build that roadmap going forward. If we satisfy and achieve our milestones that we have set, then the next steps will be around

8:11the detailed engineering, regulatory approval, and then into commercialization. And that whole process could still be about 10 years away, but we're really excited about the technology that we have in the portfolio. But we really wanna take a phased, disciplined, engaged approach with it. And when it comes to uranium demand and the increased demand coming from SMRs, how do you see that having an impact? Because obviously, in my opinion, the SMR side when it comes to uranium demand is kind of icing on the cake because the supply deficit is so glaring and there's not a lot of new supply that's gonna be able to come online to meet that. In my opinion, prices have no choice but to rise under that scenario. But when it comes to the SMR side once they're rolled out, do you see that also having a big impact on demand? Just so you nailed it when you said it's icing on the cake. So the SMRs are definitely gonna be a part of addressing some of that incremental demand that comes from AI and data centers. But there's just so much demand today from existing reactors.

9:12And that's not even taking into consideration the low-hanging fruit of doing upgrades, life extensions, were the new builds that we're gonna see in this country. So I think there's more than enough demand from traditional reactors. And that just getting domestic supply of uranium that it's just gonna be icing on the cake, as we said earlier, when these SMRs do come online. I wanna discuss how EGLE nuclear energy fits into the picture. You've touched on it a little bit so far but maybe you could unwrap it for us and give us an overview of the company. Yeah, EGLE energy is in a very unique position in that we have the largest mineable measured and indicated uranium deposit in America. And along with that, we've got this proprietary SMR technology. So we're building that integrated nuclear company. And as a part of our going public, we've partnered with Spring Valley. So Spring Valley is a team that took new scale public.

10:14And pardon the pun, but they started this whole chain reaction in the nuclear equity sector, right? So we're very fortunate to have them as our partners. And as a part of that transaction with them, we got a $30 million pipe investment from a singular institutional investor. And that funds us for the next 20 to 24 months. So that our team can focus on execution and meeting our milestones, rather than having to raise equity right away. Let's talk about Aurora, the largest mineable uranium deposit in the United States over 32 million pounds of indicated and around 5 million pounds of inferred resource. Walk us through your plans for Aurora. And are you looking to bring it into production yourselves? Ultimately, or is the goal to be acquired by a bigger player in the space once you get all the resources established there? Yeah, that's a good question. And Aurora is just an incredible and rare asset. We're so fortunate to have it or portfolio. So our focus will be on de-risking this asset, Jesse. And that starts with a technical work program

11:15that we're aiming to commit in July. And as a part of that program is gonna be about 30 to 35 holes and they're gonna be focused on metallurgical testing, hydrogeology, rock mechanics, and also some exploration drilling too. That information is gonna feed into a pre-fusability study that we're gonna start by the end of this year and have completed by the end of next year. So our whole focus, how can we de-risk this asset? And in parallel, we're gonna be working on our baseline environmental studies, our permitting, and all of that process as well. And the plan is for us to take it into production ourselves. There's gonna be opportunities for non-dilutive funding from the federal government. There are opportunities to raise capital in the future as long as we continue to meet our milestones. But I can totally understand that this project becoming more and more attractive to others as we continue to de-risk it. I'd love to discuss the team behind Eagle nuclear energy

12:15and how you plan to leverage their expertise. Let's start with yourself and your own background because you have an extensive background in the mining sector along with AI. Could you walk us through that? What led you to taking the helm at Eagle and any highlights of the team members as well? That'd be great. Absolutely. So I'm a professional mining engineer. So I studied at the University of British Columbia. I started my career with BHP in Australia. So I got my technical and operational foundation with them. I transferred internally with them to the Caddy Diamond mine where I did some underground notem pit diamonds from there I was an engineering team leader at an energy coal mine in Alberta. And then in 2016 I started at a mining tech startup at a Vancouver and they were focused around using machine learning AI and computer vision to make mining safer and more productive. Now they saw the Australia and my resume and they shipped me right back out there to run Asia Pacific. So help get the tech deployed at BHP, Rio and Fortescue.

13:16And while I was in that world, I got to see just how important innovation was to not just the mining industry but every industry. And that helped shape my conviction that clean power, reliable energy and advanced technology, they all converged in that nuclear space and that led to the creation of Eagle Energy at the end of 2023. And I'm blessed to be surrounded by a great team as well. Such as our VP of operations who, you know, he's worked as a professional geologist. He's got 20 years of experience. He spent some time in investment banking and being a mining analyst. And to have somebody of that experience on the team is just so beneficial for us, you know, as we look at other M&A transactions, as we look at doing our work program in the southeast of, sorry, the southwest of the United States. So very, very fortunate to have a show all on our team on that. And then when it comes to the SMR side of things, we hired a head of licensing

14:17that has 27 years of nuclear experience, 20 years of that at EnterGee. So all of our activities and R&D activities, I should say, will be focused with the NRC lens in mind, right? Where'd we focus our time and efforts just with that regulatory lens as our focus? And I would like to discuss that how you divide your attention between the uranium mining side and the SMR side because you're an SMR technology company and an exploration and development company in the uranium industry, which is a very unique value proposition. I don't know of another company like it. Could you explain how you plan to advance both sides of the company without diluting your focus? Yeah, absolutely. Our uranium asset is our foundation, right? We know the size and scale of it is just so important to the nation in terms of energy security and energy independence. So that's going to be our primary focus. But the SMR technology, we believe it's completely

15:17innovative, it's going to be game changing as well. And because we're so early in that in terms of concept validation and component testing, we don't believe it's going to detract from our main vision of bringing that uranium asset online. And then also doing that initial phased and gated work on the SMR technology, I think as long as we keep it structured and miles driven on the SMR tech. And then, you know, as that grows and develops, that there's an opportunity to raise more capital and progress through the steps of the SMR tech, all while remaining our focus on that foundational uranium Well, you mentioned the company's cash position earlier. I'd love you to dive a little deeper in that because you said that you were funded for, I believe, 12 to 24 months up ahead. Maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong there. But could you walk us through your cash position, how you plan to put that cash to work and moving forward how you plan to raise capital as needed? Yeah, so that initial pipe investment

16:18should give us 20 to 24 months of runway. With a bulk of that, going towards the uranium asset and de-risking that and a small portion of that going towards the SMR technology. So, you know, that's good that we can focus on execution and milestones. You know, we're not gonna have to go do the meetings to try to raise capital right away. We're focused on achieving the milestones. And then when we do have to go raise capital, we've proven that we can execute on what we said we were going to. And then, you know, when we do need to go back to the market, we have that track record that we can rely upon to raise more capital when required. And then also things like the federal government can come into play as well. As we continue to de-risk the project, get our pre-visibilities studies completed. You know, things like the DOE, the energy dominance financing, formally LPO. Those are all kind of non-diluted options that we can look at in the future. I'll end by opening the floor to you. Is there anything we haven't yet discussed

17:19or anything you think it's important to emphasize on eagle nuclear energy that investors should be focused on? Yeah, I just want to reiterate the importance of domestic uranium. There's 94 reactors in the country and they consume 50 million pounds of uranium per year. And in 2024, the country only produced 677,000 pounds. So under 2% of requirements, you know, it's just so important for us to focus on bringing projects such as ours online. You know, when you look at the importation where that is coming from, half of it is Canada and Australia. But the other half is Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan. And when you look around the world, you see that China's doing in a huge build-out of nuclear reactors as well. And there could come a time where, you know, that Russian and Kazakhstan supply start flowing east rather than west. And we're very honored to be a part of the Western response to that and try to bring these pounds online

18:20so that they can go into American reactors or these advanced SMRs that are coming to market as well. Fantastic. Well, Mark, very much appreciate you coming on the show. I'm going to put a link in the description below to Eagle Nuclear Energy website as well as social media for people who want to follow along with the company. And Mark, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your knowledge with the audience. Thank you, Jesse. I appreciate you having me on here. Commodity culture is a podcast that covers investing in commodities and natural resources. If you'd like to hear more, be sure to subscribe so you were always alerted of the latest episodes.