Centrus Energy (LEU) Q1 2026 Earnings Transcript

Image source: The Motley Fool.

Date

May 6, 2026, 8:30 a.m. ET

Call participants

• President and Chief Executive Officer — Amir Vexler
• Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Treasurer — Todd Tinelli
• Senior Vice President of Field Operations — Patrick Brown

Need a quote from a Motley Fool analyst? Email pr@fool.com

Takeaways

• Total revenue -- $76.7 million, up $3.6 million or 5% year over year.
• Gross profit -- $31.5 million for the quarter, compared to $32.9 million a year earlier.
• Operating income -- $0.8 million reported in the quarter.
• Net income -- $10 million for the quarter, with adjusted net income at $23.5 million as reported.
• Diluted EPS -- $0.45 reported; adjusted diluted EPS was $1.05, both down from $1.60 and $1.68, respectively, a year ago.
• Trailing 12-month revenue -- $452.3 million reported by management.
• LEU segment revenue -- $44.6 million, a decrease of 13% due to a 47% drop in SWU volume, partially offset by a 52% increase in average SWU price.
• SWU revenue -- Decreased by $9.7 million following the 47% drop in volume; higher pricing partially mitigated this effect.
• Technical solutions segment revenue -- $32.1 million, up $10.3 million or 47%, largely driven by a $9.8 million increase from the HALEU operations contract.
• Commercial backlog -- $3.9 billion, including $3.1 billion in LEU and $0.8 billion in Technical Solutions; $2.4 billion of LEU backlog under definitive agreement.
• HALEU production -- Over 1.6 metric tons of HALEU UF6 contractually produced for the U.S. government since operations began.
• Oak Ridge investment -- $560 million investment in centrifuge manufacturing expansion at Oak Ridge initiated during the quarter.
• Partnerships signed -- Three new partners during the quarter: Fluor (EPC), Palantir (NYSE:PLTR) (AI/data), and Geiger Brothers (construction), all supporting the build-out.
• Identified cost savings -- Approximately $300 million identified since late January; Palantir partnership cited as a contributing factor.
• Capital spend -- $45.2 million, split between $23.2 million CapEx and $22 million non-CapEx, including $17 million in growth costs and $5 million for the Palantir agreement.
• Unrestricted cash balance -- $1.9 billion at quarter-end, with no usage of the ATM program.
• DOE HALEU award -- $900 million HALEU enrichment contract announced in January, with the potential to exceed $1 billion pending final negotiations.
• Raised revenue guidance -- 2026 annual revenue guidance increased to $450 million-$500 million from a prior range of $425 million-$475 million.
• Increased workforce targets -- Piketon workforce net new hires target raised to over 100 from 50; Oak Ridge new hire goal reaffirmed at 100.
• Project procurement progress -- About one third of critical partner contracts finalized, with guidance reaffirmed for completion during 2026.
• Deconversion joint venture -- Exploration of a JV with Oklo to provide deconversion services for HALEU, a capability not yet available commercially.

Summary

Centrus Energy (NYSE:LEU) emphasized significant operational and strategic progress, reporting strong contract wins while expanding its capital program and partnership base. Management highlighted integration of advanced AI and data platforms to drive efficiencies, identifying substantial cost savings and shortening lead times for its manufacturing build-out. The company secured pivotal government contracts, bolstered its commercial backlog, and expanded its engagement with key industry and technology partners, providing clarity and momentum in its transition to full-scale domestic enrichment production.

• CFO Todd Tinelli introduced adjusted net income and adjusted earnings per share to distinguish recurring business performance from growth and expansion expenses.
• President and CEO Amir Vexler said, "the trend is continuing to look like it has in the last few years, where you have constricted supply, you have increasing demand, both from the existing fleet."
• Hiring was accelerated beyond expectations, allowing for faster project execution as more local talent became available early in the build-out.
• Management reaffirmed control over critical centrifuge technology IP and manufacturing know-how, retaining autonomy while leveraging partner capabilities.
• Exploration of vertical integration via potential HALEU deconversion, together with Oklo, aims to address a commercial gap in the advanced nuclear fuel cycle.
• Management noted that U.S. government procurement and national security contracts remain uncertain on quantity and timing, pending decisions and disclosures by NNSA.

Industry glossary

• SWU (Separative Work Unit): A standard measure of the effort required to separate isotopes of uranium during enrichment, central to pricing and contract structures in uranium supply.
• LEU (Low-Enriched Uranium): Uranium enriched to a lower percentage of U-235, typically for use in commercial nuclear reactors.
• HALEU (High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium): Uranium enriched to higher levels of U-235 (5%-20%), critical for advanced reactor designs.
• Deconversion: The process of transforming enriched uranium hexafluoride (UF6) into a stable oxide or metal form, enabling further fuel fabrication.
• EPC (Engineering, Procurement, and Construction): A contractual arrangement in large-scale projects where one firm oversees engineering, purchasing of equipment and materials, and construction.
• ATM program: At-the-market equity offering mechanism allowing the company to sell shares on the open market as needed, without a predetermined timeline.
• NNSA (National Nuclear Security Administration): A U.S. government agency responsible for nuclear security and some strategic procurement of enrichment services.

Full Conference Call Transcript

Amir Vexler, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Todd Tinelli, Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. This conference call follows our earnings news release issued yesterday. We have filed our report for the first quarter on Form 10-Q earlier today. All of our news releases and SEC filings, including our 10-K, 10-Qs and 8-Ks, are available on our website. A replay of this call will be also available later this morning on the Centrus website. I would like to remind everyone that certain information we may discuss on this call today may be considered forward-looking information that involves risks and uncertainty, including assumptions about the future performance of Centrus.

Our actual results may differ materially from those in our forward-looking statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to materially differ from those in our forward-looking statements is contained in our filings with the SEC, including our annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. The forward-looking information provided today is time-sensitive and accurate only as of today, May 6, 2026, unless otherwise noted. Please note that we report results using non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe provide investors with additional understanding of the company's financial performance as well as its strategic financial planning analysis and period-to-period comparability.

A reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP measurements is included in the financial results section of our earnings release. This call is the property of Centrus Energy. Any transcription, redistribution, retransmission or rebroadcast of the call in any form without the express written consent of Centrus is strictly prohibited. Thank you for your participation, and I'll now turn the call over to Amir. Amir?

Amir Vexler: Thank you, Neal, and thank you to everyone on the call today. The first quarter of 2026 began our historic undertaking to return the United States to domestic commercial uranium enrichment and was marked by numerous wins and great operational progress. Centrus remains the only company with a proven American technology that can meet the growing demand from the commercial LEU and HALEU markets as well as the national security market. Our centrifuge manufacturing program and expansion efforts are enormously significant for the company and the country, a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reclaim American leadership in uranium enrichment with American technology built by American workers.

As a reminder, our initial build-out will address our substantial commercial LEU enrichment backlog of more than $2.4 billion and 12 metric tons of HALEU. Furthermore, our base case build-out is expected to be sufficient to reach our nth-of-a-kind cost. Further additions to our build-out will be progressive, tied to securing additional firm customer orders and capital resources. This quarter's highlights include progress across the milestones set forth in our 2026 guidance, new external partnerships that bring best-in-class expertise and allow us to maintain our hyper focus on reducing costs as well as bringing in time lines and progress with the U.S. government, including winning a $900 million HALEU enrichment award from the U.S. Department of Energy.

But first, let me turn to the quarter's results. As many of you know, there can be a significant amount of variability quarter-to-quarter due to the nature of our business. And as such, we believe our annual results are more indicative of our LEU and CTS business' progress. In the first quarter, we achieved $76.7 million in revenue, a gross profit of $31.5 million, and operating income of $0.8 million. Net income of $10 million, and diluted earnings per share of $0.45, and adjusted net income and adjusted diluted earnings per share were $23.5 million and $1.05 per share, respectively.

Since we've begun our HALEU operations contract, we have contractually produced over 1.6 metric tons of HALEU UF6 for the government. Todd will discuss the results and their respective drivers in more depth shortly. Turning to our commercial backlog. We finished the first quarter with $3.9 billion of backlog that extends through 2040. This is comprised of $3.1 billion in our LEU segment and $0.8 billion in our Technical Solutions segment. The LEU segment's backlog is broken down between $700 million of broker-dealer backlog and $2.4 billion in contingent LEU enrichment sales that are all under definitive agreement. As for our U.S. government opportunities, we are limited in what we can say as we are in a procurement cycle.

However, as previously noted, in January, we won a $900 million HALEU enrichment award that has the potential to exceed $1 billion and still needs to be finalized through negotiations. The award provides another pool of low-cost capital and helps support the 12 metric tons of HALEU capacity we are building. Regarding national security, recall that we were notified by the National Nuclear Security Administration of its intent to sole source certain enrichment activities from Centrus. While we are in procurement, we can confirm that we have submitted a response to their request, and we stand ready to support our national security mission.

In late January, we launched a $560 million investment in our Oak Ridge centrifuge manufacturing plant, an investment aimed at expanding and accelerating our historic centrifuge manufacturing program. And we have thus far signed 3 important partners to support our build-out. We have repeatedly said that our day 1 focus is to reduce costs and bring in lead times. Centrus Energy will maintain control over design, engineering and manufacturing know-how of our centrifuges, while partners bring operational excellence and best-in-class capabilities. First, we signed Fluor, a best-in-class EPC with extensive experience in launching and supporting large-scale complex industrial build-outs. Fluor will perform design, engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning for the expansion. We also signed Palantir as a strategic partner.

Here, Centrus intends to leverage Palantir's Foundry and artificial intelligence platform to integrate distinct systems across classified and unclassified environments and utilize AI to optimize our build-out. Since late January, we have identified approximately $300 million in potential cost savings and additional improvements expected to reduce manufacturing lead times and accelerate our timetable. This is just the beginning of our continuous improvement efforts. And most recently, we added Geiger Brothers to lead the on-the-ground construction work in Ohio. Geiger Brothers previously served as a key construction partner in the deployment of our existing HALEU cascade as well as our 2013 LEU demonstration cascade. We believe this structure generates efficiencies and may mitigate some project costs.

These partnerships underscore our vigilance and commitment to decreasing costs and bringing in lead times while maintaining operational excellence. We also announced that we are exploring a joint venture with Oklo, focused on deconversion services for HALEU, which currently does not exist commercially and will strengthen our position in the HALEU market. This demonstrates our commitment to leading the domestic fuel cycle, and we look forward to updating the market when we have more to share. Operationally, we made strong progress in our workforce additions in both Piketon and Oak Ridge. These jobs span engineers, assembly technicians, maintenance technicians, enrichment operators, lab technicians, project management and project controls.

Our Senior Vice President of Field Operations, Patrick Brown and team have also made great progress on our other operational targets. In the first quarter, we finalized contracts with approximately 1/3 of the partners we deemed critical, while the team entered into the conceptual engineering design phase of the first CfC package. Therefore, we are reaffirming our 2026 annual guidance for finalizing contracts with 100% of the partners we deem critical. Total capital spend in the range of $350 million to $500 million, release of a certified for construction package and at least 100 net new employee hires at our Oak Ridge facility.

Simultaneously, given the strength of our first quarter and commercial progress, including conversations around potential new enrichment offtake contracts, we are raising our 2026 annual guidance for revenue to a range of $450 million to $500 million from $425 million to $475 million. And our Piketon workforce additions from over 50 net new employees to over 100 net new employees. This was a very successful quarter for the company across all fronts. I will now turn the call over to Todd and return with some final thoughts and comments. Todd?

Todd Tinelli: Thank you, Amir, and good morning to everyone on today's call. Let me first walk you through our results before providing more details on some of what Amir discussed. Our results were in line with our internal projections and reflected not only the typical quarter-over-quarter shift in contractual mix, but also the beginning of spend for our manufacturing program. As noted on last quarter's call, I will be presenting financials on a quarterly and trailing 12-month basis. Furthermore, we are introducing adjusted net income and adjusted earnings per share to our reported financials to better reflect and differentiate the ongoing business results from our cost of expansion.

Total revenue for the first quarter was $76.7 million, an increase of $3.6 million or 5% versus the same period last year. TTM revenue was $452.3 million. The LEU segment generated $44.6 million in the first quarter, a 13% decrease versus the previous period last year. SWU revenue in the quarter decreased by $9.7 million due to a 47% decrease in volume of SWU sold, partially offset by a 52% increase in the average price of SWU sold. Centrus also had $3 million of uranium sales in Q1.

The Technical Solutions segment delivered revenue of $32.1 million in the third quarter (sic) [ first quarter ], a $10.3 million or 47% increase over the previous period due primarily to a $9.8 million increase in revenue from the HALEU operations contract. Centrus generated gross profit of $31.5 million and $116.1 million for the first quarter and TTM, respectively, compared to a gross profit of $32.9 million in Q1 2025. The LEU segment's first quarter cost of sales decreased by 17% or $3.4 million due to the 47% decrease in SWU volume, partially offset by a 45% increase in the average cost of SWU sold versus Q1 2025.

Technical Solutions cost of sales increased $8.4 million or 42% from Q1 2025, primarily attributable to the HALEU operations contract. The company generated net income of $10 million and $23.5 million of adjusted net income in the first quarter, compared to net income of $27.2 million and adjusted net income of $28.6 million, respectively, in Q1 2025. On a fully diluted basis, this equates to first quarter 2026 earnings per share of $0.45 per unit and an adjusted earnings per share of $1.05, respectively, compared to $1.60 and $1.68, respectively, for Q1 2025. On a TTM basis, Centrus generated net income of $60.6 million and adjusted net income of $87.8 million, respectively.

The first quarter net income decrease was primarily attributed to a $15.9 million increase in advanced technology costs in Q1 2026 and a gain from an $11.8 million nonrecurring extinguishment of long-term debt in Q1 2025. This was partially offset by a $9.7 million increase in investment income and $5.5 million decrease in income tax expense for Q1 2026. First quarter adjusted net income excludes $17 million of growth expenses in our advanced technology costs and $400,000 in stock-based compensation costs, which, combined and tax adjusted, equates to $13.5 million.

The advanced technology costs are short-term noncapitalizable costs related to the expansion of our operations in Piketon and Oak Ridge that cannot be capitalized as they are associated with manufacturer readiness and security training ahead of the build-out. Please refer to the financial results section of our earnings release issued yesterday for a reconciliation of net income and adjusted net income. Going forward, we can expect to have a certain level of these types of expenses flow through our income statement as we prepare for our build-out. Turning to our capitalization and capital spend. Recall, we previously noted that capital spend for this project will include CapEx and non-CapEx spending.

The latter is attributable to costs and investments such as prepayments to suppliers or growth costs associated with our manufacturing pre-preparedness. In the first quarter, we had a total of capital spend of $45.2 million with $23.2 million coming from CapEx and $22 million classified as non-CapEx. That $22 million is comprised of the aforementioned $17 million of growth costs and $5 million related to prepayments for the Palantir agreement. Going forward, we can expect the pace of our CapEx and non-CapEx spend to accelerate throughout the year. We finished the first quarter with $1.9 billion in unrestricted cash and did not access our ATM program.

We continue to feel confident in our existing cash balance, and we believe we are sufficiently funded to meet our near-term capital requirements. As Amir noted, our commercial and operational progress to date have allowed us to raise our 2026 annual guidance for revenue to $450 million to $500 million from $425 million to $475 million; workforce additions in Piketon, Ohio to 100 plus, up from 50 plus. We are simultaneously reaffirming the rest of our financial and operational guidance for fiscal year 2026. With that, I will turn the call back to Amir. Amir?

Amir Vexler: Thank you, Todd. We made great progress across our operations and continue to have meaningful conversations with future commercial and government partners for LEU and HALEU offtake. This includes our conversations with the advanced reactor and hyperscaler communities, conversations that have continued to pick up in pace since we announced our build-out that includes 12 metric tons of HALEU. While these first-of-a-kind conversations take time, we are excited by their increased tenor. And we continue to explore other adjacent areas in the nuclear fuel cycle where we can further strengthen our offerings to the market, including our announcement this quarter with Oklo to explore HALEU deconversion.

On a macro level, we continue to see strong progress from the United States and the rest of the world, doubling down on nuclear power. Reactor developers and their customers from big tech to the U.S. military are rolling out ambitious plans to deploy reactors on a large scale and at potentially faster rates. Moreover, the U.S. government is reducing regulatory hurdles for new reactor designs. We are also seeing new use cases, including space propulsion. Furthermore, global conflicts and rising tensions continue to highlight the need for governments to diversify away from fossil fuels and strengthen their domestic power sources to drive future sustainable economic growth. Nuclear stands to be a key player in this drive to energy independence.

We look forward to sharing more with you on our upcoming calls. With that, I will turn the call over to the operator for questions. Operator?

Operator: [Operator Instructions] And your first question comes from Ryan Pfingst from B. Riley.

Ryan Pfingst: On guidance, you touched on it a bit in the prepared remarks, but could you give more detail on what's driving the increase in expected revenue for this year?

Todd Tinelli: Thank you, Ryan, for the question and the remarks on this quarter, we see -- continue to be active in the market, and we've seen both near-term and line of sight to long-term offtake, and that has allowed us to increase our guidance marginally to what we believe will potentially be the outcome of the year and move us up about $25 million within the range.

Operator: And your next question comes from Rob Brown from Lake Street Capital Markets.

Robert Brown: Congratulations on all the progress. Could you give us a sense of the pricing and margin trends in the backlog? It seems like things on the SWU side, it's -- things are moving up. Just what's the sort of average pricing trend in the backlog?

Amir Vexler: Rob, thank you for the question. Although I can't specifically address contractual pricing, as we stated in the past before, I will say to you that the trend is continuing to look like it has in the last few years, where you have constricted supply, you have increasing demand, both from the existing fleet and from the new reactors that are either in demo state or reactors that are planning to be started up soon. I mean, people are starting -- think about fuel and start putting their fuel orders, that puts pressure on the market. So what you're seeing overall from a macro level, you're seeing pressure on the price through the demand side of it.

And so we're seeing a lot of favorability there. So once again, I cannot comment specifically about prices, but we certainly are seeing favorability in the short, midterm and the long run in terms of contractual activity.

Operator: And your next question comes from Joseph Reagor from ROTH Capital Partners.

Joseph Reagor: I guess just kind of a follow-on to one of the previous questions. The additional $25 million that you guys have added, was any of that in Q1? Or is it all future-looking? Just so we can understand kind of the cadence of how things kind of come to be.

Todd Tinelli: Joseph, thanks for the question. We would look at it more as, obviously, our business, and I described this in the call. It's wise to look at our business on a TTM basis as shipments and deliveries can move from quarter-to-quarter. It's difficult to comment to say exactly which quarter it took place. We do have comments within our MD&A section. What I would say is we're in line with our expectations for the first quarter. And the future quarters, I would say, would be ratable to comparable periods in the past and to always adjust based on a TTM view, which gives us the best 12-month period to look at total revenue, net income and performance of the company.

Operator: And our next question comes from Nick Amicucci from Evercore ISI.

Nicholas Amicucci: A couple of quick ones for me. I just wanted to kind of dig into the Palantir partnership a little bit. So you guys have outlined that you identified opportunities to reduce manufacturing lead times. Should we be thinking about that in the realm of the first cascade on the 42-month timeframe or kind of across the board? And then as we think about just the cost for the full build-out, right, $1.9 billion worth of cash on the balance sheet, you're in a strong position now.

But if you could just kind of provide some color on the initial build and then at what point do you get to, I guess, for lack of a better term, proof of concept where then you can entertain other financing options like maybe project financing, the cascade or something to that nature?

Amir Vexler: Nick, thank you for the question. So let me address the first part of your question, and then maybe I'll let Todd weigh in on the second part around the capital. So I'm glad you're mentioning this partnership with Palantir because it is transformative for us. Really, the relationship here and the value that we're seeing lasts much, much longer than the first cascade, the first centrifuge. I mean, we're viewing this as sort of a business-altering type structure in terms of our unit cost and our ability to meet our lead times to market and beyond.

So layering Palantir's AI platform really provides us with real-time data and empowers our team, the Centrus team to take more meaningful role in the project management. It allows us to add efficiencies across our work streams, which obviously can lead to additional cost mitigations and will allow us to bring in lead times. So for example, these efficiencies can help us reduce fuel supply chain risk and could, as I mentioned earlier, reduce execution time and costs. I'll turn it over to Todd to weigh in on the capital question.

Todd Tinelli: Yes. Thanks, Nick. So just as a reminder, you're correct, we have $1.9 billion on the balance sheet that we can deploy. But we also have the $900 million HALEU award that will be ratably -- come into us on based on milestones payments. So essentially, the way we look at is we have about $2.8 billion currently. Our focus is to always look at many pools of low cost of capital. This may involve the NNSA, third-party investment, foreign direct investment and then also continuing to be opportunistic in the market when we see fit. We don't feel any pressure to be actively out there raising capital in a down market.

We did not participate in the ATM program in the first quarter, even though we have one that is open. And that was that we just didn't feel it provided the right shareholder value, and we believe there are better low cost of capital options out there, which we're continuing to explore to fund the full build-out.

Operator: And your next question comes from Mark Shooter from William Blair.

Mark Shooter: Congrats on the progress this quarter. What we're seeing is advanced reactor companies are pushing through the markets also with the DOE and NRC licensing. And a lot of them are using HALEU and TRISO. So I'm just wondering if you could update us on where you see the most SWU value in LEU or HALEU? And has anything changed how you're looking at that strategically?

Amir Vexler: Mark, actually, I'm glad you brought this topic up. This is a great strategic question about our general market, and it's something that we spend a great deal of time discussing internally and paying very close attention to as to where the market is going. As you know, we are preparing expansion of both LEU and HALEU. We are dealing with both sides of the house in terms of customers in addition to national security as well. So we have a pretty broad perspective of the market. So you are correct. The market is actually starting to mature now on the advanced reactor side.

If you and I had this conversation a couple of years ago or even, I don't know, 8 months ago, I would have said that a lot of the advanced reactors are not fully thinking or focused on fuel just yet. Their attention is more to the administrative side of the licensing.

Through the executive orders, through some of the emergency type activities that have been put by the Department of Energy and quite frankly, by the entire administration into nuclear, I would like to think also fueled by some of the crisis we're seeing in generally energy markets, we're now seeing a lot of the reactors get to a phase where they are starting to seriously procure and commit to fuel. Now that's a big step. That is a significant purchase for all of them. Obviously, we're in participation with the vast majority of them. The fact that the Department of Energy has selected Centrus for the HALEU award, puts us really in the front position, in the most credible position.

The fact that we have a cascade operating, cements that position. And to your specific question about where would the majority of the value be derived from HALEU or LEU, as I read your question, just from a physics perspective, when a company plants their initial core, they would -- they'll be thinking about feed and they would be thinking about HALEU. Feed in most cases, would come in an LEU form. And just from a physics perspective, there is a significant amount of LEU feed that would be required to create a single unit of HALEU. So from a volume perspective, the value comes from LEU because LEU drives a lot of the volume.

I believe from just generally margin and market being ahead of everybody else, HALEU has a lot of the advantages for us. So we're deriving value from both is really the answer in different ways. But the good news -- and just to end it on the sentiment, the good news is we're seeing almost across the board, all the reactors that were in different states of development are now actually moving towards significant and serious committed fuel procurements.

Mark Shooter: That's great. I appreciate all the detail, Amir. Talking about your ongoing conversations with SWU offtakes, I'm wondering if you can give us an update on the engagement with hyperscalers or traditional utilities and IPPs. Has one been more aggressive recently than the other? And I'm also wondering if -- how the war in Iran and the constrained oil markets has factored in? Has that put any more urgency into the type of conversations?

Amir Vexler: Good question. Who is more aggressive from our perspective? Look, I'll tell you this. The reactors that are operating have very seasoned fuel buyers. They have been through many markets. They have been through up markets, down markets. They know how to buy fuel, not to say that others don't. They've been through these cycles before. And you can't always tell as to what's driving their buy. Is it a strategic buy? Is it sort of a desperate need? We don't know, and we don't really get into these types of questions. Every utility has their own strategy and usually, they execute very well on it.

And we're kind of seeing a steady flow of requests for pricing, requests for quotations on that kind of business. And as I mentioned earlier, we're still seeing the prices trend up, whether it's for midterm or long-term SWUs in that market. So I would not classify this as aggressive behavior, but definitely strategic behavior because all of these utilities want to cover their bases, and they will not take any undue risk in procuring fuel. I think price is important to them, but obviously, it is secondary to security of supply. On the other hand, the hyperscalers are getting into this market now. They're informed.

I think they're hiring people or consultants that help them decide on how they want to handle strategically fuel purchases. And I think they do a good job at it. And the earlier comment that I made is, it is true. I mean, we're seeing fuel buying activities and a lot of attention being put to those activities. I would give the upper hand to hyperscalers when it comes to trying to go faster and stronger just because fuel represents, in my view, a fairly significant question mark and uncertainty about their reactors. They want to cover that risk as early and as thoroughly as possible, especially as they progress through funding and capital raising for their projects.

This is not a risk they should have on their books, and they don't want to have it on their books, and we fully understand it and work very closely with them to make sure it is not. So we're seeing them becoming more interested and more importantly, more able to commit. Your question about the global conflict, I mean, this -- on a macro level, it highlights the need for governments to diversify away from fossil fuel. I mean we know it's still an important source of energy and will continue to be an important source of energy.

But just like in history showed us many times before, diversifying to nuclear gives you a huge lever in conflicts like this, whether it's politically or whether it's economically. So we are seeing it being a very helpful parameter for decision-making for new nuclear build.

Operator: And your next question comes from Eric Stine from Craig-Hallum.

Eric Stine: So you mentioned that the -- we know the NNSA had notified you of intent to award and you responded to it. So I'm just curious, I mean, now what would next steps be? I mean, maybe it's something that's very difficult to answer, but expectations on kind of how that plays out? And then can you just remind me what the potential amount of that funding source would be?

Amir Vexler: Eric, thank you for the question. Starting with just a general statement, we are in a procurement cycle, and therefore, we're very limited by what we can say as I mentioned on the call. We can confirm that we have submitted our response to the NNSA's request. And again, as a general statement, we stand ready to support our national security mission in any way required. I mean we know the requirement, demand is real. And there's not a whole lot more that I can say about that. We're going to let the NNSA and the government drive the announcements and the information released to the public on this.

To your question about quantities and things of that sort, again, this is not something that we have disclosed. I'm going to let the NNSA and the government drive that information to the public.

Operator: And your next question comes from Bill Peterson from JPMorgan.

William Peterson: You mentioned in the prepared remarks and there was a press release in March about a JV or potential JV with Oklo for deconversion. Can you discuss your strategy around deconversion more broadly? Are you looking for additional kind of commercial partnerships or arrangements? What does the market look like for that today for you? And what would give you confidence in Centrus taking a role in deconversion in the coming years?

Amir Vexler: Yes. Well, Bill, thank you for the question. Let's maybe start from just some of the very basics so that listeners can understand what's driving us to think the way we do. First of all, just from a market perspective, there is a hole in the fuel cycle right now when it comes to advanced reactors and particularly sort of HALEU-type fuels. Deconversion of uranium hexafluoride or UF6 to whether it's an oxide form or metal form, more predominantly metal form, that process does not exist commercially.

And so this is the reason why, obviously, the Department of Energy is getting ready to make an award, and they have all the drivers and all the intention to help industry stand up that part of the fuel cycle, which, again, is critical to standing up the entire fuel chain supply for advanced reactors. But we also are taking a very proactive role because we see an opportunity. We see a commercial opportunity and the commercial opportunity is really highlighted by this partnership with Oklo. Oklo is not only a potential participant in here, but they also are a large offtaker and customer. I mean this is the fuel form that they will be using.

This is the fuel form that they require. Most importantly in the strategy is if you were to have a blank sheet of paper type design and you were to ask yourself, where and how does it make most sense for me to construct my deconversion facility, you will automatically arrive at a conclusion -- for many parameters and many factors, you will arrive at the conclusion that it makes the most sense to put my deconversion together with enrichment. Now it's a lengthy conversation why that is, and there's many important factors that feed into it. Efficiency is one of them, security is another one.

But we believe that we're driving towards something that will provide great efficiencies to the market. From our perspective, it allows us for potential vertical integration and further differentiation of our enrichment of HALEU.

Operator: And your next question comes from Lawson Winder from Bank of America Securities.

Lawson Winder: I would take it positively that you see the ability to hire in 2026 at a higher rate than previously expected. Would you describe the additional hiring more as a need for greater resources than previously anticipated to do the same work? Or is this a need stemming from the required work just going faster than expected? And then if I could kind of sneak in a follow-up on that, taking an early look at 2027, do you foresee hiring needs being similar, lesser or greater than 2026?

Todd Tinelli: Thank you for the question. What I would say is, right, hiring in today's world, there's a number of components that we have to look at. One is, can we source employees from the local community and area? Do we have to look nationwide? So how quickly can we bring those employees on board? How quickly can we get them? As a reminder, at our facilities, you have to be a cleared individual, so you have to go through security, which is part of our uncapitalized cost. And then because we do one-of-a-kind work, we have to train these individuals.

The rate at which we were able to source employees in both Oak Ridge and in Piketon in the local communities was actually stronger than we anticipated, which allowed us to accelerate our hiring curve, and that allows us to move quicker than we anticipated. If we have a strong workforce, then we're able to not have any delays. Obviously, human capital is critical to our build-out. So we see this as a very strong positive. And the sooner we get people cleared, trained and working towards our project, it allows us to move swiftly. But obviously, we want to be cautious in our approach. We want to be -- make sure that we have critical execution throughout the project.

And so what I would say going forward is, look, where we are finding people now is unions, local shops, where we're going down to universities, all different areas to build up our workforce and the rate at which we hire will dictate how quickly we can get those people on board. I would say that for 2027, our growth is always going to be tied -- or we have our base case, but we can accelerate based on additional potential offtake that we see, or customer demand will increase our rate that would require additional human capital.

Amir Vexler: Lawson, this is Amir. I want to add something to Todd's comment. I think this is a really important topic. As you know, we are doing something here that historic, which is not only building the first enrichment facility, but we're also building the first centrifuge manufacturing facility that's American-owned, American technology, which is a great milestone for us as a nation and obviously, for the industry as well. A lot of what's driving this project, we're actually driven to intersect the demand curve that up until now has been trending to increase in size and is always moving in.

And so as we evaluate the project, project spend and how fast we go, it is always driven by the need to meet this demand that we're seeing, that is real. Some of it is already signed into contracts. Some of it is in discussions. But to my earlier comments to some of the analysts' questions, this is a developing and fast-moving changes in how we view the project.

Operator: Your next question comes from Jeff Grampp from Northland Capital Markets.

Jeffrey Grampp: Circling back on the Palantir partnership. I was curious, Amir, if the $300 million in savings that you guys have identified thus far, can you give us a sense for what are the main factors driving those cost savings? Is it particular components or just any other commentary you can provide to give us a sense for where those are coming from specifically?

Amir Vexler: Sure. Well, thanks for the question. And I know we talked a little bit about it, but I think that I would like to talk about it a lot more, if I can, because I think it is really a critically important item for us. So what I mentioned earlier is when you stand up a manufacturing facility like we're doing, there's a lot of challenges in doing that. Obviously, there's the technological aspect of it. You have the suppliers that you need to line up as part of your supply chain. But what really holds everything together and lines up the efficiencies is the informational system and our ability to make decisions quickly and with high fidelity.

What Palantir does and what their AI platform allows us to do is it actually provides us with real-time data, which is critically important for a company like ours that is standing up a manufacturing facility and handles hundreds of suppliers. I mean that is a critically important aspect of it. And we're seeing huge and meaningful reduction in cost in project management. It allows us to shorten our lead times and cycle times. I mean, so far, we've already declared $300 million in cost savings. And as I said on previous calls, I mean, we're not stopping there. We're continuing to push and expect more, and I believe we will see further developments on this front.

So I guess the quick answer without getting into a lot of detail is it allows us to manage information, allows us to make decisions and really introduces efficiencies at that level.

Operator: And your last question comes from Sameer Joshi from H.C. Wainwright.

Sameer Joshi: Congrats on the progress. And thanks for all the color you're providing. Just a quick one on -- in the prepared remarks, I think I heard that the SWU prices were up around 52%. At the same time, SWU costs were also up around 45%. So that clearly gives you a gross margin boost a little bit year-over-year. Should we expect gross margins from SWU increasingly positive going forward?

Todd Tinelli: Yes. So the rate at which SWU prices move, obviously, it has to do with our contractual mix. And we are -- we can't comment on our actual contracts and the margin associated with that. But depending on when shipments take place as to when we record revenue, when we record -- when we have shipments come in, in the cost. So what I would always point to is look at this on an average basis over several quarters. That's why we continue to emphasize that we want to talk about this on a TTM. We have seen positive movement in SWU prices. That provides additional options within the market.

We have a contractual mix that allows us some flexibility on our supply sourcing. And some of that has to do with our increased revenue guidance that we've -- for 2026. And also, it allows us to have better line of sight for additional offtake with SWU pricing in the outer years.

Sameer Joshi: Understood. And Todd, thanks for doing the 12-month -- trailing 12-month metrics, that helps us understand better the general health of the company. On that line, just a follow-up. Should we expect uranium sales in the second quarter? In the recent history, at least, they have tended to concentrate in the second and fourth quarter. So given that you're providing TTM -- highlighting TTM metrics, should we expect 2Q to have uranium sales?

Todd Tinelli: We can't provide any guidance on specific sales. What I would say is uranium sales are opportunistic in the market. They can be -- happen occasionally throughout the year. But right now, we can't make any comment as to when those sales are going to take place or if they are going to take place in any future periods.

Operator: And there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Neal Nagarajan. Please continue.

Neal Nagarajan: Thank you, Kelsey. This concludes our investor call for the first quarter of 2026. As an aside, please note that we are introducing a summary slide deck to our earnings materials, which can be found on our Investor Relations website under the Presentations tab. As always, I want to thank you and our listeners and our analysts who called in. We look forward to speaking with you again next quarter.

Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you very much for your participation. You may now disconnect your lines. Have a great day.

This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. Parts of this article were created using Large Language Models (LLMs) based on The Motley Fool's insights and investing approach. It has been reviewed by our AI quality control systems. Since LLMs cannot (currently) own stocks, it has no positions in any of the stocks mentioned. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability.

The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.