All in the financial world is not doom and gloom; one just has to look deep enough to find the success stories that are still out there. Companies are still working hard to provide values for shareholders, making products that are still of value to our world.
One of those firms is Vancouver-based Uranium One, whose stock trades on the TSX under the symbol UUU. Its name and symbol represent simplicity itself.
Uranium One, Inc. (TSX: T.UUU, Stock Forum) is one of the world's largest publicly traded uranium producers with a globally diversified portfolio of assets located in Kazakhstan, the United States, South Africa and Australia. And its most recent tidings have to provide a smile, or at least, an upraised eyebrow to small cap investors seeking value.
In March, UUU announced its 2008 results, and they were encouraging: uranium production during 2008 of 2.8 million pounds, an increase of 41% from just over two million pounds in 2007. The company also reported attributable sales volumes of 2.2 million pounds of uranium last year, a 37% hike over the year before.
Not that the company was immune to the general economic pinch of 2008. Earnings from mine operations were $96.7 million (all figures in U.S. dollars unless specified otherwise) during 2008, a 5% drop from 2007, primarily due to a lower realized uranium sales price.
However, 2008 was also the year of forging links with international partners such as Japanese-based Mitsui & Company, who would pick up a 49% stake in the Australian assets of Uranium One for a minimum cash commitment of $104 million Australian (or about $68.4 million U.S.).
UUU has numerous friends of influence in Japan. In February, Tokyo Electric Power Co., Toshiba Corp. and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation teamed up to buy 19.95% of outstanding shares in Uranium One Inc. to secure a stable supply of the radioactive element.
Keeping with the international theme, Uranium One has a 70% interest in a Joint Venture in Kazakhstan that owns the Akdala Uranium Mine, which is currently in operation and the South Inkai Uranium Project, which commenced pre-commercial production in 2007. The corporation also has a 30% interest in a Joint Venture in Kazakhstan that is developing the Kharasan Uranium Project.
Stateside, the corporation has applied for a license to construct and operate an ISR facility at Moore Ranch in the Powder River Basin and at JAB/Antelope in the Great Divide Basin of Wyoming. In addition, Uranium One owns the Dominion Uranium Project in South Africa and the Hobson – La Palangana ISR project in Texas.
Shares of the world’s tenth-largest uranium producer can be had for a good price. UUU sits in the middle of a 52-week price range from $5.18 Canadian last April, to 60 cents Canadian last October. Mid-March prices were around the $2.25 mark.