EX-99.5
6
dmc-pr20241107q3financial.htm
PRESS RELEASE DATED NOVEMBER 7, 2024
dmc-pr20241107q3financial
Exhibit 99.5
Denison Mines
Corp.
1100 – 40
University Ave
Toronto, ON M5J
1T1
www.denisonmines.com
PRESS RELEASE
Denison Reports Financial and Operational Results for
Q3’2024, Including
Positive Progress on Phoenix Engineering and Regulatory
Review
Toronto, ON – November 7,
2024. Denison Mines Corp. (‘Denison’ or the
‘Company’) (TSX: DML, NYSE American: DNN) today filed
its Condensed Consolidated Financial Statements and
Management’s Discussion & Analysis
(‘MD&A’) for the three and nine months ended
September 30, 2024. Both documents will be available on the
Company’s website at www.denisonmines.com,
SEDAR+ (at www.sedarplus.ca)
and EDGAR (at www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml).
The highlights provided below are derived from these documents and
should be read in conjunction with them. All amounts in this
release are in Canadian dollars unless otherwise
stated.
David Cates, President and CEO of Denison
commented, “Our third quarter
report includes an update on the positive progress of our
engineering and regulatory approval efforts for our planned Phoenix
In-Situ Recovery (‘ISR’) uranium mining
operation. We continue to rapidly advance detailed design
engineering efforts and achieved completion of 45% of total
engineering by the end of the third quarter. Long-lead procurement
efforts continued to ramp up. Currently, $21 million in milestone
payments or commitments have been made for items included in our
estimates of initial project capex, with several additional
procurement packages in progress.
On the regulatory side, we are pleased to report that substantially
all outstanding information requests (‘IRs’) from the
Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission’s (‘CNSC’)
review of the Wheeler River draft Environmental Impact Statement
(‘EIS’) have been resolved, and the Federal review
process is nearing completion. Given this positive progress
with the Federal review, we have opted to submit a final Provincial
EIS to the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment to advance the
process of obtaining formal approval from the
Province.
Beyond Wheeler River, we are pleased with the progress of the SABRE
program at the McClean North deposit, which remains on track for
production in 2025. Our team is also active on our portfolio
of other development and exploration projects, with study work
advancing on both the Midwest project and the Tthe Heldeth
Túé ('THT') deposit, with the potential to result in
updated or new technical studies in the coming months.
Also notable is our recent transaction with Foremost Clean Energy,
which involves Denison optioning up to 70% of its interests in
a portfolio of 10 exploration properties. The transaction was
designed to amplify our exposure to future discovery by encouraging
exploration on – and retaining significant ownership of -
properties that would otherwise have received little attention from
Denison with our current focus on development and mining-stage
projects.”
Q3
2024 MD&A Highlights
■
Signing of
Wheeler River Benefit Agreements with Kineepik Métis Local #9
and the Village of Pinehouse Lake
In July 2024,
Denison announced the signing of a Mutual Benefits Agreement
(‘MBA’) with Kineepik Métis Local #9
(‘KML’), and a Community Benefit Agreement
(‘CBA’) with the northern Village of Pinehouse Lake
(‘Pinehouse’), in support of the development and
operation of Denison’s 95% owned Wheeler River
Project.
The MBA
acknowledges that the project is located within KML’s Land
and Occupancy Area in northern Saskatchewan and provides
KML’s consent and support to advance the project.
Additionally, the MBA recognizes that the development and operation
of the project can support KML in advancing its social and economic
development aspirations while mitigating the impacts on the local
environment and KML members. The MBA provides KML and its
Métis members an important role in environmental monitoring
and commits to the sharing of benefits from the successful
operation of the project – including benefits from community
investment, business opportunities, employment and training
opportunities, and financial compensation.
The CBA
acknowledges that Pinehouse is the closest residential community to
the project by road, which relies on much of the same regional
infrastructure that Denison will rely on as it advances the
project. Pinehouse has provided its consent and support for the
project, while Denison, on behalf of the Wheeler River Joint
Venture, is committed to helping Pinehouse develop its own capacity
to take advantage of economic and other development opportunities
in connection with the advancement and operation of the
project.
■
Continued
Advancement of Phoenix Engineering and Federal Regulatory Review of
the Draft EIS
During the third
quarter, the Company continued to focus its efforts on the
advancement of the Phoenix project towards a final investment
decision in support of its objective to achieve first production by
2027 / 2028, including:
●
Phoenix engineering
activities are advancing within expected timelines to support a
financial investment decision (‘FID’) by mid-2025.
Total engineering completion at end of the third quarter was 45%,
supported by finalization of process design, piping and
instrumentation diagrams (P&ID’s), hazard and operability
studies (‘HAZOPs’), as well as the selection of major
process equipment and electrical distribution
infrastructure.
●
The review of the draft EIS
continues to advance and Denison has been in regular contact with
CNSC staff to support the conclusion of any remaining IRs. In
September 2024, Denison received confirmation that the majority of
outstanding IRs have been resolved, which suggests that the Federal
review process is nearing completion.
■
Option of
Non-Core Exploration Projects to Foremost Clean Energy
Ltd.
In September
2024, Denison executed an option agreement with Foremost Clean
Energy Ltd (‘Foremost’), which grants Foremost an
option to acquire up to 70% of Denison's interests in 10 non-core
uranium exploration properties (collectively, the ‘Foremost
Transaction’). Pursuant to the Foremost Transaction, Foremost
would acquire such total interests upon completion of a
combination of direct payments to Denison and funding of
exploration expenditures with an aggregate value of up to
approximately $30 million. The Foremost Transaction provides
the following benefits to Denison:
●
Collaboration with Foremost
is expected to increase exploration activity on a portfolio of
non-core Denison properties with the potential to increase the
probability of discovery within Denison's
vast Athabasca Basin exploration portfolio.
●
In October 2024, Denison
received an upfront payment in Foremost common shares (representing
a ~19.95% ownership interest in Foremost). If Foremost completes
the remaining two phases of the Foremost Transaction Denison will
receive further cash and/or common share milestone payments of $4.5
million and Foremost will fund $20 million in project
exploration expenditures.
●
In addition to becoming
Foremost’s largest shareholder, Denison retains direct
interests in the optioned exploration properties and also secures
certain strategic pre-emptive rights to participate in future
exploration success from the optioned properties.
About Denison
Denison Mines
Corp. was formed under the laws of Ontario and is a reporting
issuer in all Canadian provinces and territories. Denison’s
common shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (the
‘TSX’) under the symbol ‘DML’ and on the
NYSE American exchange under the symbol
‘DNN’.
Denison is a
uranium mining, exploration and development company with interests
focused in the Athabasca Basin region of northern Saskatchewan,
Canada. The Company has an effective 95% interest in its flagship
Wheeler River Uranium Project, which is the largest undeveloped
uranium project in the infrastructure rich eastern portion of the
Athabasca Basin region of northern Saskatchewan. In mid-2023, the
Phoenix FS was completed for the Phoenix deposit as an ISR mining
operation, and an update to the previously prepared 2018
Pre-Feasibility Study (‘PFS’) was completed for Wheeler
River’s Gryphon deposit as a conventional underground mining
operation. Based on the respective studies, both deposits have the
potential to be competitive with the lowest cost uranium mining
operations in the world. Permitting efforts for the planned Phoenix
ISR operation commenced in 2019 and have advanced significantly,
with licensing in progress and a draft Environmental Impact Study
(‘EIS’) submitted for regulatory and public review in
October 2022.
Denison’s
interests in Saskatchewan also include a 22.5% ownership interest
in the McClean Lake Joint Venture (‘MLJV’), which
includes unmined uranium deposits (planned for extraction via the
MLJV’s SABRE mining method starting in 2025) and the McClean
Lake uranium mill (currently utilizing a portion of its licensed
capacity to process the ore from the Cigar Lake mine under a toll
milling agreement), plus a 25.17% interest in the Midwest Joint
Venture (‘MWJV’)’s Midwest Main and Midwest A
deposits, and a 69.44% interest in the Tthe Heldeth Túé
(‘THT’) and Huskie deposits on the Waterbury Lake
Property (‘Waterbury’). The Midwest Main, Midwest A,
THT and Huskie deposits are located within 20 kilometres of the
McClean Lake mill. Taken together, the Company has direct ownership
interests in properties covering ~384,000 hectares in the Athabasca
Basin region.
Additionally,
through its 50%
ownership of JCU (Canada) Exploration Company, Limited
(‘JCU’), Denison holds interests in various uranium
project joint ventures in Canada, including the Millennium project
(JCU, 30.099%), the Kiggavik project (JCU, 33.8118%) and Christie
Lake (JCU, 34.4508%).
Technical Disclosure and Qualified Person
The technical
information contained in this press release has been reviewed and
approved by Chad Sorba, P.Geo., Denison’s Vice President
Technical Services & Project Evaluation, and Andy Yackulic,
P.Geo., Denison’s Vice President Exploration, who are both
Qualified Persons in accordance with the requirements of NI
43-101.
Certain
information contained in this press release constitutes
‘forward-looking information’, within the meaning of
the applicable United States and Canadian legislation concerning
the business, operations and financial performance and condition of
Denison. Generally, these forward-looking statements can be
identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as
‘plans’, ‘expects’, ‘budget’,
‘scheduled’, ‘estimates’,
‘forecasts’, ‘intends’,
‘anticipates’, or ‘believes’, or the
negatives and/or variations of such words and phrases, or state
that certain actions, events or results ‘may’,
‘could’, ‘would’, ‘might’ or
‘will be taken’, ‘occur’, ‘be
achieved’ or ‘has the potential to’.
In particular,
this press release contains forward-looking information pertaining
to the following: projections with respect to exploration,
development and expansion plans and objectives, including the
scope, objectives and interpretations of FS, PFS and the Wheeler
River technical de-risking process for the proposed ISR operation
for the Phoenix deposit; expectations with respect to the EA, EIS
and licensing and permitting for proposed operations at Wheeler
River; anticipated benefits of the transaction with Foremost;
expectations regarding the restart of mining operations at McClean
Lake; expectations regarding the assessment of the amenability of
ISR for THT and advancement of technical studies for the Midwest
deposit; expectations regarding the performance of the uranium
market and global sentiment regarding nuclear energy; expectations
regarding Denison’s joint venture ownership interests; and
expectations regarding the objectives and continuity of its
agreements with third parties. Statements relating to
‘mineral reserves’ or ‘mineral resources’
are deemed to be forward-looking information, as they involve the
implied assessment, based on certain estimates and assumptions that
the mineral reserves and mineral resources described can be
profitably produced in the future.
Forward looking
statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management as
of the date such statements are made, and they are subject to known
and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause
the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements
of Denison to be materially different from those expressed or
implied by such forward-looking statements. For example, the
results and underlying assumptions and interpretations of the FS
and PFS may not be maintained after further testing or be
representative of actual conditions within the applicable deposits.
In addition, Denison may decide or otherwise be required to
discontinue testing, evaluation, engineering, and development work
if it is unable to maintain or otherwise secure the necessary
approvals or resources (such as testing facilities, capital
funding, etc.). Denison believes that the expectations reflected in
this forward-looking information are reasonable, but no assurance
can be given that these expectations will prove to be accurate and
results may differ materially from those anticipated in this
forward-looking information. For a discussion in respect of risks
and other factors that could influence forward-looking events,
please refer to the factors discussed in the Company’s Annual
Information Form dated March 28, 2024 under the heading ‘Risk
Factors’. These factors are not, and should not be, construed
as being exhaustive.
Accordingly,
readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking
statements. The forward-looking information contained in this press
release is expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. Any
forward-looking information and the assumptions made with respect
thereto speaks only as of the date of this press release. Denison
does not undertake any obligation to publicly update or revise any
forward-looking information after the date of this press release to
conform such information to actual results or to changes in
Denison's expectations except as otherwise required by applicable
legislation.
