Standard Nuclear, Inc.

Good day, everyone. My name is Elizabeth, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome you to the Standard Nuclear Second Quarter 2026 earnings call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent background noise. Today's call is being recorded. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please use the raise hand icon at the bottom of your webinar application. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Chris Koscielniak, Head of Investor Relations.

Thank you, Operator, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Standard Nuclear's second quarter 2026 earnings call, our first as a public company. On July 16th, our common stock began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker STDN. We are pleased to welcome our new shareholders and everyone joining us today. Yesterday, we issued our earnings press release reporting results for the three and six months ended June 30th, 2026. And this morning, we filed our quarterly report on Form 10Q with the SEC. The press release is available in the investor relations section of our website, and an investor presentation will be posted there following this call. Before we begin, please note that our remarks today will include forward-looking statements and are based on assumptions as of today and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially. Please refer to the risk factors described in our Form 10-Q and our SEC filings. We undertake no obligation to update forward-looking statements except as required by law. During this call, we will refer to certain operating metrics, including funded backlog, total contract backlog, and qualified pipeline. Definitions of these metrics and important limitations on their use are included in yesterday's press release. With me today are Kurt Tarani, our President and Chief Executive Officer, and Kevin Harrell, our Chief Financial Officer. Kurt will open with an overview of the quarter's results and an update on our strategy, followed by Kevin, who will take you through the financial results. And then Kurt will close before we open the line for questions. With that, I'll turn the call over to Kurt.

Thank you, Chris. And thank you, everyone, for joining us on our first earnings call as a public company. Let me start with what Standard Nuclear is. We make the fuel that most advanced reactors run on. That fuel is Triso. And it is worth spending a moment on why it matters. Triso is not a new idea. This coated particle fuel form was first developed in the 1960s and used across a number of commercial nuclear power plants worldwide. Since 2002, the United States Department of Energy has put the latest generation of this fuel technology through the Advanced Gas Reactor Testing and Qualification Program, a rigorous testing and irradiation program that took the fuel to record burn-up and temperatures with essentially no fuel particle failures. After irradiation, the fuel was then safety tested by exposing it to temperatures far beyond anything a reactor accident would produce to ensure the release of radioactivity from the fuel stayed below safe levels. This is why the DOE calls Triso the most robust nuclear fuel on Earth. Each particle is a speck of uranium ceramic about the size of a poppy seed, wrapped in layers of carbon and silicon carbide. Those layers are the containment. Every particle is its own miniature pressure vessel, holding the radioactive material inside at temperatures well above anything the reactor will ever see. And it does that passively, without the need for a pump, power, or operator to actively maintain the cooling on the fuel. This is what we mean by functional containment, and it is why a reactor running on Triso can be small, sited close to the customer it serves, and safe without relying on active safety systems. What is new here is not the fuel. It is the ability to make it at commercial scale. This quarter, we shipped our first commercial fuel cold load. We signed contracts on the back of it, and the demand behind those contracts moved toward us on every measure we tracked. The quarter tells the story through five themes. First, micro-reactive deployment is accelerating from pilots to programs with named site and targeted dates. Second, we manufactured and shipped the first full core load of modern commercial tricer fuel ever produced in this country. Third, we converted pipeline into contracts and contracts into funded backlog. Fourth, we scaled. Modular equipment is moving into both new sites now, putting capacity in place for up to 2.5 metric tons of annual throughput by year end, subject to authorization. Fifth, we broadened the platform, the Frampton joint venture, selection for negotiation under this surplus plutonium program, and fuel transportation package development. Deployment creates fuel demand. Demand becomes contracts. Contracts become funded backlog. Backlog is matched with capacity. The platform work widens the base underneath it all. Advanced nuclear is moving from pilots to scheduled deployments. Five participants in the Department of Energy's reactor pilot program have now reached criticality, four of them by the program's July 4 target. And the demand signals are structural. Hyperscale data centers need firm, continuous power. The reindustrialization of the American grid is underway. Defense programs such as Project Janus are targeting reactor deployments at nine Army installations as we speak. That's just the start before additional installations under the other branches come on. And as I hope it is clear to you all, energy security is of national importance. For anyone less familiar with it, the Army's Project Janus is Department of War's program to put micro-reactors, that is small nuclear reactors, sited at military bases so that critical missions are run on reliable around-the-clock power. Every reactor runs on fuel, and the advanced reactor fleet moving toward deployment will overwhelmingly run on TRISO. Project Janus has now announced its awardees, and Standard Nuclear is proud to be the fuel supplier to a number of the reactor developers under this program. We are not the direct awardee. Our customers are. That is exactly the position we want to hold. For developers we supply, each awarded deployment creates a TRISO fuel requirement on a defined schedule. We will not name specific customers or programs beyond what the government and our customers have made public. Let me be clear about where we are focused and when. Over the next five years, the demand that is real, funded, and scheduled is micro-reactors, starting with what is concentrated in government and defense and quickly followed by commercial behind the meter. This is where we are pointed today, and it is what our capacity is being built against. Small modular reactors also represent a substantial market, but they arrive later, as those designs work through licensing and reach commercial viability towards the end of the decade. We are not waiting on that market to prove our model. Microreactors fund the business today, and the field development and customer relationships that come with them are exactly what an SMR supplier will need. The same design frozen modules produce fuel for both. So nothing we build now has to be rebuilt later. Standard Nuclear is currently the only independent U.S. company producing tricycle fuel at scale for commercial customers. We are reactor agnostic. We do not compete with our customers. We fuel them. This quarter moved that position from a description to an actual demonstration. Three developments this quarter and shortly after translated that market movement into standard nuclear execution. We delivered fuel, we converted demand into contracts, and we scaled capacity. First, we delivered fuel. During the second quarter, we shipped our first commercial TRISO fuel, a 50-kilogram batch of HALU TRISO to Radian Industries for its collidus demonstration here at the microreactor. That fuel is now at the Department of Energy's dome facility at Idaho National Laboratory. Shortly after quarter end, we delivered the balance, completing delivery of a full core load of TRISO fuel for Radian's first microreactor. This is the first complete reactor core of a commercially produced tricycle fuel supplied by an independent U.S. manufacturer. The core will support a full power, full temperature demonstration using fuel from our Oak Ridge production line. Second, we converted. Our commercial engine did what we built it to do. Move opportunities from pipeline to contracts, to funded and binding commitments. Total contract backlog grew from $91.3 million at March 31st to $241.5 million at June 30th. Funded backlog, the portion under binding commitment with firm delivery obligations grew from $8.2 million to $61.9 million over the same period. In August, we entered into a fuel supply agreement with Antares Nuclear, providing a firm commitment of one metric ton of helium trisyl fuel, with a customer option for up to seven additional metric tons over the next several years. Giving effect to that agreement, funded backlog approximately doubled from June 30th to $119.3 million, and total contract backlog reached $576.9 million, more than six times the March 31st level. That is conversion. It's not churn, and Kevin will walk you through the movement between these categories. It is how market acceleration reaches our order book. Deployment dates and government program timelines turn fuel from a planning item into a firm requirement with a date attached to it. The customer relationships make that conversion tangible. The binding term sheet we signed with Radiant Industries in May became a definitive multi-trunch fuel supply agreement in August. Because the May term sheet was binding, those amounts were already reflected in our June 30th backlog. The August agreement formalized the relationship. Radian is the customer whose first core we just completed, demonstrating the core to reload model. In announcing the agreement, Radian described it as securing its planned deployments through the early 2030s. And its president called securing the fuel supply chain a strategic advantage to deploying at scale. That is the change we've been describing. Fuel availability has become a gating item for reactor deployment, and developers are prudently contracting years in advance. Separately, the fuel supply agreement with Antares Nuclear we announced earlier this week carries a firm commitment of one metric ton, with customer options extending as far as 2035. There are multi-year, multi-ton relationships with reactor developers moving toward deployment, and both of these customers are Project Janus awardees, by the way. That is what makes these two agreements the most important thing we did this quarter. It is the demand signal completing its full circuit. A federal program puts deployment dates on the calendar, awards a reactor developer, and the developer contracts with us for fuel. So a national program decision arrives in our backlog as a firm requirement with a date attached. What was a demand signal two quarters ago is a signed contract today. Third, we scaled. Construction is substantially complete at our two new production facilities, SNTN in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and SNID in Idaho. The facilities are identical, each starting at up to one metric ton of trisophil production per year and designed to scale to two and a half metric tons each for a combined capacity of up to five metric tons per year. The Department of Energy has approved the preliminary document of safety analysis for both sites, commissioning of the manufacturing modules underway, and we are targeting authorization to operate both facilities in the fourth quarter. The modular manufacturing equipment is on site and moving into both buildings now. Subject to receiving authorization, SNTN and SNID will join SN0, our original Oak Ridge line that's producing the fuel today, to put capacity in place for up to 2.5 metric tons of annual throughput by year end. up to half a metric ton at SN0 and up to one metric ton initially at each new site. SNT and SNID are replicable by design. This quarter's process engineering and authorization work creates a template for repeated builds. Our standard facility is designed to come online in approximately 11 months, and our long-term plan scales from the half metric ton we operate today approaching up to 40 metric tons of annual capacity by the end of the decade. sized to the demand we can contract rather than to the theoretical market. For scale, in our base case, roughly 7 gigawatts electric of cumulative trisofuel deployments by 2035 would require well over 100 metric tons annually. In a market where demand is arriving in metric tons and incumbent supply is measured in kilograms, an approximately 11-month capacity cycle is a strategic advantage. In July, we also acquired land on an existing Oak Ridge building for $5.5 million in cash with no debt and disclosed in our Form 10Q. Our Oak Ridge holdings now total approximately 57 acres, providing space for future design frozen modules. Now, to manufacturing performance. Process yield was 63.3% at the end of June, as reported in our Form 10-Q. The number measures speed, not waste. Material that does not make it through on the first pass is returned to the front of the line and used. So we are not losing HALU feedstock, we're taking another pass at it, and we expect the number to rise as the new facilities ramp. At the coating step, where each kernel gets the carbon and silicon carbide layers I described earlier, we ran 95-97%. Process yield is a number that will move as we scale. Coating is already where we want it. Here's why that matters. Yield is a cost lever. Every point of improvement means more sellable fuel from the same labor, the same utilities, and the same equipment. And that flows straight to gross margin. We earned 67% gross margin in this quarter at 63.3% yield. As yield improves and as the new facilities spread fixed costs across more output, that is the direction margin moves. Beyond our wholly owned facilities, several initiatives broadened the platform across regulatory pathways, feedstock, and logistics. First, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the license amendment for Framatome's Richland, Washington facility, raising its license enrichment limit to just under 10 weight percent uranium-235 and authorizing trisoparticle fuel fabrication. That clears the regulatory path for a joint venture to begin production at Richland in 2027, with initial capacity of approximately one metric ton annually and ability to expand to two. This capacity would be incremental to our wholly owned sites. Our Tennessee and Idaho facilities are advancing towards authorization under an established Department of Energy framework through our Other Transaction Agreement. Our DOE fuel authorization was granted under the Fuel Line Pilot Program, where the Department of Energy selected us as the first company accepted into the program. And SNTN and SNID are progressing through the same established framework towards authorization in the fourth quarter. Our relationship with Framtum adds a second independent pathway, production in Richland under Framtum's NRC license, a route we secured through the amendment in under two years. Two regulators, two frameworks, one company able to deliver under either. A new entrant would likely face a historically seven to nine year path through this licensing, construction, and qualification process before its first kilogram, We hold an operating DOE authorization today with an NRC license route alongside it. That diversification mitigates the impact from any one regulatory process or policy shift to constrain our ability to deliver. And it positions us to be able to serve government, defense, and commercial customers all in parallel. Second, the Department of Energy selected Standard Nuclear for advanced contract negotiations under the surplus plutonium utilization program. This selection positions us to fabricate plutonium-based triso as an independent supplier if the demand for this fuel form materializes. Selection for negotiation does not constitute a contract award, but it validates that the triso-cylinder-carbide architecture as a potential pathway to convert a national liability, now plutonium, into useful fuel and extends our feedstock beyond uranium. We also have entered into a memorandum of understanding with Oklo that established a pathway for fabricating fuel from recycled material, completing the feedstock arc from uranium to surplus plutonium to recycled fuel as those streams mature. Also, our continued strategic partnership with Shine Technologies is intended to support that recycled material pathway as its planned recycling capabilities develop. Third, our R&D work extends to packages used to transport and store Haley Foodstock and Trusted Fuel, with our designs progressing through the NRC's Part 71 process. Fuel must be transportable to be able to be delivered. Developing that pathway supports contract schedules and creates the potential for an adjacent revenue stream as the industry scales. And our fuel technology reaches beyond the grid. NASA's space nuclear propulsion program lists standard nuclear on its nuclear thermal propulsion contract extension. Space is not in our forecast, but it represents long-term optionality from capabilities we already possess. Before I put the quarter in market context, Let me take head-on the fuel supply chain question we get most often. HALU. Our position is very straightforward. We are reactor agnostic and feedstock agnostic. Under Department of Energy's HALU availability program, material is allocated to project developers, who then engage a fabricator. This past December, we became the first company to receive the Department of Energy authorization and physical delivery of HALU feedstock for tricycle production. Material allotted by DOE to Radiant and processed by us in Oak Ridge into a full core load for Radiant's first reactor startup. That is not a pilot. That is the fuel line working end-to-end. Standard Nuclear also holds its own conditional allocation under the same program awarded in the second round in August 2025. Nine entities have now been named across three allocation rounds and several of them are our customers or prospective customers. Every one of them leads a fuel fabricator. All right, now let's put the quarter in market context. Total contract backlog and qualified pipeline together represent approximately $1.3 billion, roughly 40% of our estimated $3.2 billion serviceable addressable market through the end of the decade. Qualified pipeline is not backlogged, but together the categories show the scale of commercial engagement. The comparison also understates the full duration of our commercial relationships, which include customer options extending through 2030 and beyond. Our model moves customers from development agreements to deposits reserving production capacity to long-term fuel supply agreements. Each first core can seed a recurring refueling relationship. And this quarter's conversion into binding fuel agreements shows the model working. Radian has said publicly that each colitis microreactor runs up to five years before refueling across a 20-year operating profile. On their numbers, every unit deployed is a first core followed by roughly three reloads. And they have announced a commercial agreement with Equinox for 20 units alongside their selection for Buckley Space Force Base. Those are their figures to update, not ours, but they show why we treat a first core as the start of a relationship rather than an individual sale. In summary, the July IPO gave us the balance sheet to press this advantage that we have. Our new facilities were already fully funded. and an approximately $137.7 million of net proceeds gives us flexibility to add capacity ahead of demand, strengthen the supply chain, and convert backlog into recurring production revenue. With that, let me hand it to Kevin to take you through the numbers. Kevin, please.