Lightbridge Corporation

Greetings and welcome to the Lightbridge Corporation Business Update and Second Quarter 2020 Conference Call and Webcast. As a reminder, all participants are in a listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Mr. Matthew Abenante, Director of Investor Relations for Lightbridge Corporation. Thank you. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you, Zen, and thanks to all of you for joining us today. The company's earnings press release was distributed after the market closed yesterday and can be viewed on the investor relations page of the LightBridge website at www.ltbridge.com. Joining us on the call today is Seth Grae, Chief Executive Officer, along with Larry Goldman, Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President for Nuclear Operations, Jim Fornoff, Vice President for Nuclear Program Management, and Sherry Holloway, Accounting Manager. I would like to remind our listeners that any statements on this call that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements. Today's presentation includes forward-looking statements about the company's competitive position and product and service offerings. During today's call, words such as expect, anticipate, believe, and intend will be used in our discussion of goals or events in the future. This presentation is based on current expectations and involves certain risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ significantly from such estimates. These and other risks are set forth in more detail in LifeBridge's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Lightbridge does not assume any obligation to update or revise any such forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new developments or otherwise. With that, I would like to turn over the call to our first speaker, Seth Grae, Chief Executive Officer of Lightbridge. Hello, Seth.

Well, hello, Matt, and thank you. Thank you everybody for joining us this afternoon. I hope that each of you and your families are healthy and well. Lightbridge is well aligned with the support the U.S. government is providing to develop advanced nuclear technologies that can help the existing large reactors and new smaller plants. This quarter, we continued to make progress on developing our proprietary next-generation nuclear fuel. In early June, we commenced work under our Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with Idaho National Laboratory, or INL. The scope of the project, which we expect to be completed within 12 months, includes experiment design for irradiation of metallic fuel material samples in the Advanced Test Reactor at INL. We will establish the test plan for the measurement of what are called thermophysical properties, such as heat capacity and thermal conductivity, of our fuel materials both before and after irradiation in the reactor. From there, INL will perform the detailed design and establish the safety case for the experiment in the advanced test reactor. We expect these steps will lead to the complete design and safety case needed for insertion of our fuel materials into the advanced test reactor. We continue to see strong bipartisan governmental support for the types of benefits that our fuel will bring. In June, the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis issued its report on addressing climate change. Regarding advanced nuclear, the report recommends that Congress should direct DOE to provide support for first-of-a-kind or early deployment nuclear power technologies through R&D and federal financing. provided the technology meets high standards of safety and minimizes proliferation risks. In July, the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation lifted its ban on investment into advanced nuclear energy projects for export. In lifting the ban, the International Development Finance Corporation recognizes advances in technology which could make nuclear energy particularly impactful in emerging markets. This policy change recognizes the vast energy needs of developing countries and can bring additional U.S. government support to advanced nuclear technologies. Lifting the financing then was a key recommendation in the Nuclear Fuel Working Group's report in April. After the International Development Finance Corporation announcement, Lightbridge's chairman, Tom Graham, was quoted in a Reuters article on how lifting the ban will lead to a boon in U.S. nuclear investment and discussed the importance of greater American participation in the global nuclear industry, particularly in terms of safeguards against proliferation. Lightbridge Fuel has been independently validated to be the most proliferation-proof nuclear fuel there is. Also in July, the US Senate passed the Nuclear Energy Leadership Act, and it was included as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. This legislation will focus DOE efforts on the demonstration of advanced reactor concepts, including fuel technology, As we've said on prior calls, government support for nuclear has become one of the few bipartisan issues in American politics, which is helpful for America's global competitiveness in nuclear. Since our next call will not be until after the election, I'm happy to say that Lightbridge has relationships on both sides of the aisle. There was a recent article in Forbes that discussed how boosting U.S. nuclear energy sector competitiveness has support from both the administration and a bipartisan group in Congress, which we shared on social media channels yesterday. In the article, Zheng Dongdong, the director of China's Department of Energy Research, was quoted as saying, quote, whoever dominates the technology leads the world on global nuclear energy. Technology is the primary productive force, unquote. Turning to our strong patent portfolio, during the second quarter, we received a decision to grant from the Japan Patent Office, which covers metallic fuel assembly design for using can-do type reactors. We then received a patent from the Australian Patent Office that covers an alternative embodiment for an all-metal fuel assembly design, which incorporates light bridge design four lobe helically twisted fuel rods for use in pressurized water reactors. Following that announcement, we received a patent from the Eurasian Patent Office that covers an all metal fuel assembly design with a mixed grid fuel rod arrangement inside the fuel assembly. Patenting the technology that we develop helps assure that our shareholders will fully benefit from commercialization of our technology. And with that, I will turn the call over to Andrey Mushakov, Executive VP for Nuclear Operations, who will review our near-term research and development opportunities. Andrey? Thank you, Seth.