Oklo Q1 2025 Earnings Report

Oklo EPS Results

• Actual EPS: -$0.07
• Consensus EPS: -$0.11
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.04
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Oklo Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: N/A
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Oklo Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2025
• Date: 5/13/2025
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Tuesday, May 13, 2025
• Conference Call Time: 5:00PM ET

Oklo (NYSE:OKLO) designs and develops fission power plants to provide reliable and commercial-scale energy to customers in the United States. It also provides used nuclear fuel recycling services. The company was founded in 2013 and is based in Santa Clara, California.

Oklo Q1 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Oklo highlighted accelerating political momentum, including executive orders to streamline nuclear permitting, a federal task force for next-generation reactors, and potential DoD reactor procurement orders aligning with its goals.
• The company’s build-own-operate model, small/modular sodium-cooled design, and FFTF/EBR-II operational legacy enable direct commercial deployment without a demonstration reactor.
• Oklo completed seismic drilling at its INL site, initiated the NRC’s Phase 1 pre-application readiness assessment for its 75 MW Aurora Powerhouse, and expects categorized feedback to reduce licensing hurdles ahead of a late 2027 target.
• On fuel, Oklo secured DOE-awarded HALEU for its first plant, signed a MOU with Centrus for commercial enrichment, and is developing in-house fuel recycling to ensure a resilient, cost-effective supply chain.
• Strategic partnerships and expansions include designation as a DoD ANPI qualified vendor, acquisition of Atomic Alchemy for VIPER radioisotope production, and the hire of CTO Pat Schwager to accelerate commercialization.

Presentation

[Operator]

Thank you for standing by. My name is JL, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Oklo First Quarter twenty twenty five Financial Results and Business Update Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question and answer session.

[Operator]

I would now like to turn the conference over to Sam Doane, Director of Investor Relations. You may begin.

[Sam Doane, Director of Investor Relations at Oklo]

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, and welcome, everyone, to OCO's first quarter twenty twenty five earnings and company update call. I'm Sam Doan, OCO's Director of Investor Relations. Joining

[Sam Doane, Director of Investor Relations at Oklo]

me

[Sam Doane, Director of Investor Relations at Oklo]

today are Jake DeWitt, OCO's Co Founder and Chief Executive Officer and Craig Bellmer, OCO's Chief Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that today's discussion, including our prepared remarks and the Q and A session that follows, will include forward looking statements. These statements reflect our current views regarding trends, assumptions, risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed today. We encourage you to review the forward looking statements disclosure included in our supplemental slides, which are available on the Investor Relations section of our website. Additional details on relevant risk factors can also be found in our most recent filings with the SEC.

[Sam Doane, Director of Investor Relations at Oklo]

Please note that Oclo assumes no obligation to update any forward looking statements as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Jake DeWitt, Okla's Co Founder and Chief Executive Officer. Jake?

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Thanks, Sam, and thanks to all for joining us today. We're looking forward to sharing our first quarter update and highlighting the progress we've made since our last update just seven weeks ago on March twenty four of this year. We continue to see strong momentum across both the industry and the political landscape in support of nuclear energy, and that momentum is accelerating in 2025. The current administration has made it abundantly clear that nuclear is a strategic priority. In a recent letter to the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the president named nuclear energy, AI, and quantum technologies as central pillars in what he called the golden age of American innovation.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

That message reinforces what we're seeing across policy and regulatory activity. A series of recent executive orders underscores the administration's commitment to nuclear energy, ranging from regulatory reform and streamlined permitting to the creation of a federal task force dedicated to next generation nuclear deployment. This includes actions to revoke outdated regulatory barriers, declare a national energy emergency to fast track projects, and establish an energy dominance council focused on accelerating technologies like small modular reactors. Other orders reinforce federal oversight to reduce state level interference and direct agencies to conduct cost benefit reviews of existing rules. And now we're seeing signs that the administration may take its support even further.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

According to recent reporting, several new executive orders are being considered that would aim to quadruple the size of The U. S. Nuclear fleet by 2,050, declare certain data centers as defense critical infrastructure, and direct the Department of Defense to take a more active role in nuclear procurement. These drafts also call for a wholesale revision of NRC regulations to streamline reactor approvals and rebuild domestic nuclear fuel supply chains. While still in development, the scope of these proposals signals just how serious the administration is about reestablishing US leadership in nuclear and how aligned that ambition is with OCLO's mission and model.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Secretary Wright, a former OCLO board member, has been one of the most vocal champions of the administration's commitment to expanding and accelerating nuclear deployment. He's made it clear that The US must lead the global push to commercialize advanced nuclear technologies and that the federal government is prepared to support that leadership with urgency and action. We're encouraged to see that level of alignment at the highest levels, especially from someone who knows OHKLO's mission and model firsthand. At OCOLA, our foundation is built on the belief that advanced nuclear technology can and should play a transformative role in the global energy landscape. When we started this company, we saw an industry that had gone dormant, and we set out to reimagine what the nuclear energy industry could be.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

That vision continues to guide us, delivering clean, reliable and affordable energy at scale. As a reminder, our competitive advantage is built on the intersection of three key strategies: our business model, our sizing philosophy and our technology. First, our build own operate business model sets us apart. We sell power, not power plants, under long term contracts. This structure provides predictable recurring revenue and enables a more efficient regulatory path.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Second, our small scale modern design allows us to deploy quickly and scale flexibly. By leveraging existing supply chains and their factory fabrication, we can meet demand efficiently, reduce on-site complexity and scale in lockstep with our customers' evolving needs. Third, our proven and demonstrated technology is backed by over four hundred reactor years of operational experience with liquid metal cooled fast reactors. This gives us a robust technical foundation with distinct performance and safety advantages. Importantly, it enables us to move directly into commercialization without the need for costly and time consuming demonstration plan.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Together, these pillars reinforce position as a leading next generation nuclear provider and will enable us to execute with speed, efficiency and confidence. A key differentiator for Oklo is our ability to go straight to commercial deployment. We're not building a demonstration plant. Our Aurora Powerhouse is built on mature technology derived from the reactors such as the Fast Flux Test Facility, or FFTF, and the Experimental Breeder Reactor 2, or EBR2, which operated successfully for over thirty years at Idaho National Laboratory. This isn't theoretical.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

We're leveraging real, validated operating data that's already recognized by the NRC. Importantly, members of our team work directly on both FFTF and EBR2, bringing deep firsthand experience to the design and deployment of the Aurora. We believe this operational legacy allows us to move with greater speed and confidence through the licensing process and positions us to bring our first commercial unit online in late 'twenty seven to early 'twenty eight. While many advanced nuclear companies are still building one off demonstrations to validate new fuels or designs, Oglos are already focused on delivering a commercial powerhouse. These early stage efforts are useful to the ecosystem, but they aren't market ready.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

We're taking a fundamentally different path, one that's grounded in experience and optimized for near term deployment. As we continue to execute on our strategy, we remain committed to keeping the market informed with clear and consistent updates on our progress. Company updates will continue to be structured around six key areas: project execution licensing progress fuel recycling and feedstock customer pipeline development strategic partnerships for corporate and business development and financial updates. Since our last company update just seven weeks ago in March, we have continued progress across key areas of our business from project execution and licensing to fuel strategy, customer positioning and strategic partnerships. We advanced fieldwork at key sites, made progress in our NRC engagement and were selected as a qualified vendor through the Department of Defense's procurement process, strengthening our position to pursue future opportunities with military installation.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

We are in the process of formalizing new partnerships to support technology development and deployment of POWERHOUSE and radioisotope assets at INL. On the financial front, we remain disciplined and transparent with updates on cash burn, operating expenses and governance included in today's materials. At Oakville, we're executing against our plan and advancing steadily toward commercial deployment. We have completed a major milestone in preparing our INL site for the Aurora POWERHOUSE. Our team wrapped up a comprehensive drilling campaign involving seismic and geophysical studies at our proposed site National Laboratory.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

The data we gathered will directly support our combined license application to the NRC and represents the final technical siting step ahead of submitting phase one of our application. We also finalized a memorandum of agreement with the Department of Energy and an interface agreement with INL. These agreements ensure that our site development efforts are aligned with environmental standards and DOE coordination. With this complete, we're well positioned to move into the next phase of licensing and infrastructure development with plans aiming for the plant to begin operations in late 'twenty seven to early 'twenty eight. We recently initiated phase one of the pre application readiness assessment for our Aurora INL powerhouse, reaching an important milestone in our licensing efforts with the NRC.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

This process, essentially address rehearsal, enables the NRC and OCO teams to align on scope and expectations ahead of our formal combined license application submission. The goal is to surface and address feedback early, reduce challenges later and build confidence and momentum as we move toward our formal COLA submittal. We expect we will soon receive an audit report from the NRC summarizing their feedback and recommendations, which we'll incorporate into Phase one of the application. The NRC's feedback will be categorized as follows: Category A, final safety analysis report, or F star, gaps where information required by regulation may be missing Category B, items requiring additional information or further clarification or justification as needed category C, other observations, suggestions or potential issues that could affect the efficiency of review if left unaddressed. We have worked diligently with the NRC to ensure a robust and complete application that should reduce category A observations.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

However, every observation offers important insight into areas we can further develop to allow for an efficient and timely review of our phase one COLA. We do anticipate some category A, B and C items, which is entirely expected and consistent with what other reactor developers have seen. These are clarifications and refinements, not fundamental application content flaws. This is exactly what the readiness assessment is designed to identify, and it helps both OCLO and the NRC get ahead of potential considerations and areas for alignment. Notably, OCLO is using this audit as an opportunity to test several key repeatable licensing pathways and expects valuable NRC guidance on how these novel approaches will best support rapid and cost effective deployment.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

We're also encouraged by broader efforts at the NRC in modernizing its approach to advanced nuclear. For example, the NRC finalized the construction exemption for TerraPower's Natrium plant, allowing construction of its energy island to begin while licensing continues. That decision shows the NRC's increasing embrace of flexible, modern and risk informed approaches, setting a precedent that will also benefit Oklo's deployment strategy. It supports strong alignment with the NRC and will increase predictability and reduce downstream challenges as we move forward. We also continue to make progress on other regulatory fronts by nearing the submission of the licensing project plan for our Oakville Fuel Foundry, a key step in the broader fuel strategy and our license operator topical report, which has now been submitted to the NRC.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

The license operator topical report outlines a new licensing approach designed specifically for Oclo's Aurora powerhouses. Today, most U. S. Nuclear Plant Operators are licensed for a single plant and must be on-site to perform safety related actions, a model developed for the traditional light water reactor fleet. OCLO is proposing a different approach.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Instead of licensing operators for individual sites, operators would be licensed for the Aurora Powerhouse technology itself. This should enable them to monitor multiple powerhouses from a central location and travel between sites as needed. Because Oklo builds, owns, and operates its powerhouses, this licensing strategy is well aligned with its business model and emphasizes efficiency and repeatability. Once approved, the licensed operator topical report can be referenced in future applications, significantly reducing the need to rereview previously approved material. This regulatory efficiency is central to OCO's plan for scalable deployment across its fleet.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

By strategically submitting topical reports like this one, OCO is laying the regulatory foundation for faster licensing pathways that support its broader commercialization goals. Each of these regulatory touch points reflects OCO's proactive approach to licensing and our ability to execute efficiently. Fuel strategy is a key differentiator in advanced nuclear, and Oklo is setting a new standard for flexibility and readiness. We're the only advanced nuclear company that has secured and is actively working with HALEU for our first commercial plant. On the commercial side, we've signed an MOU with Centrus, currently the only domestic producer of HALEU to support our POWERHOUSE deployments with a reliable supply source.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

And looking ahead, our technology is designed to take full advantage of recycled fuel, and we're actively developing that capability through our in house fuel recycling program. This three pronged approach, government awarded material, commercial HALEU access and future recycled fuel positions Okla with one of the most comprehensive and durable fuel strategies in the advanced nuclear sector. It not only strengthens our long term supply chain but will also give us a significant cost and commercialization advantage. We were recently selected as one of eight qualified vendors for the Department of Defense's Advanced Nuclear Power for Installations program, or ANPI. This is a significant milestone, not just because it opens near term opportunities for deployment on military installations, but because it reinforces Oklo's position as a credible go to solution for energy resilience in high security environments.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

The program is led by the Defense Innovation Unit or DIU, which is focused on fast tracking commercial technologies for national security applications. That means streamlined contracting, faster timelines, and a clear path to scalable deployment. Unlike traditional procurement pathways, ANPI uses a contracting mechanism called other transaction authority or OTA. This allows for a faster milestone based approach from early design through prototyping and, ultimately, can even end with a power purchase agreement. OTA contracts can also draw funding from DIU, any branch of the military, or other federal agencies, giving Oclo a versatile and well supported path to deployment.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

For Oclo, this selection validates our technology, aligns with our commercial roadmap, and gives us added momentum with both federal and commercial partners. It's an endorsement that strengthens our position across the board. We acquired Atomic Alchemy earlier this year to expand OCA's reach into the high growth radioisotope market, and this company is already delivering. Founded in 2018, Atomic Alchemy is building a domestic, vertically integrated supply chain for high value isotopes used in everything from cancer treatments and medical diagnostics to national security and advanced manufacturing. Their proprietary technology, including their versatile isotope production reactor or VIPER reactor, is designed specifically for isotope production with a focus on efficiency, scalability, and simplicity.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

They've already hit key engineering and regulatory milestones and are working closely with Idaho National Laboratory to advance deployment. With strong early customer interest and a proven team in place, Palmic Alchemy gives Ocaloo a capital light opportunity to drive near term revenue and long term market leadership in an essential and underserved space. Today's radioisotope supply chain is outdated, fragmented and increasingly unreliable, stretching across multiple facilities, geographies and transport modes, making it risky, expensive and slow. Atomic Alchemy flips this model with a vertically integrated system. The Viper facility will consolidate reactor operations, processing and manufacturing at a single site, dramatically increasing efficiency and reliability.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

This model is not only better suited to meet modern demand but also allows for global distribution with faster lead times and lower costs. As demand for isotopes accelerates, this supply chain advantage will be a major competitive differentiator. The Atomic Alchemy Viper platform is designed to support broad radioisotope production as well as radiation capabilities across medical, industrial, defense and emerging tech sectors. From life saving cancer therapies and diagnostic imaging to industrial sensors, aerospace applications, and advanced semiconductor manufacturing, these isotopes and radiation capabilities are essential to critical systems in our economy. What makes this solution so compelling is not just the diversity of isotopes and radiation capabilities we can produce, but the scale and reliability our integrated model offers.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

This is a broad and growing market with unmet demand, and Atomic Alchemy is built to serve it efficiently and at commercial scale. We believe that Atomic Alchemy is executing a smart, multi project approach to market entry. The first step is a lab based demonstration project designed to validate the process and generate revenue quickly, potentially as early as 2026. This will involve a low cost processing infrastructure and customer ready material using third party irradiation. The second project is the launch of a fully commercial Viper facility, a four reactor site dedicated to direct isotope production.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Licensing is expected to begin in 2025 with operations targeted for 2028. That project is expected to be potentially funded off balance sheet and supported by long term supply agreements that are already under negotiation. With this road map, Atomic Alchemy brings near term upside, long term scalability and significant value to the OPUS broader platform. Shifting to leadership and governance, we're thrilled to welcome Pat Schwager as our chief technology officer. Pat brings deep technical expertise across advanced reactor design, plant systems, and regulatory strategy and a track record of scaling both fusion and fission programs from concept through deployment, including his comprehensive experience working at FFTF while it was operating, which is one of the fast reactors that Oklo builds its design from.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

He's joining at a pivotal moment to help drive our commercial rollout, bringing the kind of strategic and operational leadership that will accelerate Oklo's next phase of growth. We're excited to have him on the team. We recently announced that Sam Altman has stepped down from Oclo's Board of Directors. Caroline and I first met Sam at a dinner in Cambridge, Massachusetts in April 2013. Since that first chance meeting, Sam has played an instrumental role in guiding Oclo, Caroline, myself, and our vision over the years.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Sam has been a mentor, a leader, a supporter, a champion, and a friend since that meeting. Sam invested in the company and joined our board in 2015, and he helped us grow through challenges and into the incredible opportunities that lay before us. We are deeply grateful for his early conviction, vision, leadership and support. As we move closer to commercialization, this transition reflects a natural evolution from the company's early stage development to where it is today. We are excited about the growth this represents.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

And I will now turn it over to Craig.

[R. Craig Bealmear, CFO at Oklo]

Thank you, Jake. As we move closer to commercialization, this transition reflects a natural evolution from the company's early stage development into execution. Sam's departure also supports a shift of his role from that of an insider to a potential future commercial partner, removing a possible conflict of interest as we advance potential commercial discussions with OpenAI. Importantly, this change does not affect day to day operations. In conjunction with this transition, Oclo's Chief Executive Officer, Jake DeWitt, has assumed the role of Chairman of the Board, providing continuity and clear leadership as we enter this next phase of growth.

[R. Craig Bealmear, CFO at Oklo]

At our last update just seven weeks ago, we discussed the additions of Dan Poneman and Michael Thompson to the Board. After now Secretary of Energy Rights confirmation and departure from the Board, we are pleased with how we have grown the Board. The experience and expertise in NRC licensing, fuel supply chains, strategic finance and technology commercialization that Dan and Michael bring to the Board are great additions to our team. I will now provide a summary of our financials. Oakla's first quarter operating loss was $17,900,000 inclusive of noncash stock based compensation expense of $2,300,000 Ocala's loss before income taxes was $14,200,000 which reflects our operating loss adjusted for net interest income of $3,600,000 When adding back noncash stock based compensation charges and considering noncash income tax benefit recorded for the quarter, you get cash used in operating activities of $12,200,000 We believe this puts us on track to deliver on our guided range of 65,000,000 to $80,000,000 for total cash used in operations for full year 2025.

[R. Craig Bealmear, CFO at Oklo]

At the end of the quarter, cash and marketable securities were $260,700,000 Lastly, we have filed our proxy statement and will be holding our Annual General Meeting on Wednesday, 06/04/2025. To close, I'll briefly highlight why we believe Oclo stands out in the advanced nuclear and energy landscape. We are deploying proven fast reactor technology in a compact scalable form, reducing cost, complexity and time to market. Our business model is built around long term power sales, delivering recurring revenue and strong margins. We look to drive superior economics through repeatable deployment of a common designed asset that can be further enhanced with recycled fuel to drive capital efficiency and a competitive levelized cost of energy.

[R. Craig Bealmear, CFO at Oklo]

Our customer pipeline totaled over 14 gigawatts and spans sectors like data centers and defense, proof of strong and growing demand. We've developed a streamlined regulatory strategy backed by years of licensing expertise and a repeatable COLA process aligned to our business model. And finally, we're not just building powerhouses, we're building a platform that integrates generation, fuel recycling and radioisotope production, unlocking multiple high value markets. Thank you for joining us today. Operator, we're now ready for questions.

[R. Craig Bealmear, CFO at Oklo]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. The floor is now open for questions. Session. Your first question comes from the line of Ryan Pfingst of B. Riley.

[Operator]

Your line is open.

[Ryan Pfingst, Equity Research Analyst at B. Riley Securities]

Guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Jake, you mentioned the recent reports about additional executive actions expected to support nuclear power. It sounds like these could include the DoD taking on a greater role in ordering reactors and installing them on military bases. Can you talk about the regulatory authority for nuclear power that the DoD has today and your thoughts on the department's ability to potentially accelerate reactor deployments, whether through programs like the ANPI or otherwise?

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Yeah. Thanks for the question, Ryan. I mean, I think, DOD does have authority to, you know, regulate nuclear plants, on sort of for their use cases and for different opportunities around that. So so we see some interesting angles there. There's been kind of a mixed approach taken in the department, and I think what, you know, we've heard about some interest is looking at ways to make sure that, you know, they are not gonna be held up or held back at all by any kind of you know, from their need sets, from any kind of regulatory permitting issues that could happen outside of sort of their control.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Obviously, they have the ability to control it all. So I think there's an appetite and some potential interest in doing that. That said, the their active infrastructure and their capability set, you know, hasn't been exercised a ton, you know, for these kinds of use cases in a while to put it somewhat, you know, I guess, simplistically. So so I think there's some some significant opportunities for them to step up and and perhaps provide sort of an, an an an alternate pathway for some of those use cases, which is, I think, pretty exciting. Additionally, I think it creates a pretty good dynamic to look at efficiencies where if you are citing these at military installations or other government installations, if you see the broad activities across the government today, just trying to find ways to, streamline and make the regulatory processes much more efficient and modern and and and quick and timely, I think you see opportunity for how these activities, these potential activities around sort of expanding DOD roles here could be done.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

But DOD does have that capability set. They do have that, you know, authority. And so I think it's a matter of looking at how they can sort of best use it to sort of push and accelerate these things.

[Ryan Pfingst, Equity Research Analyst at B. Riley Securities]

Great. Appreciate that, Jake. Then the fuel slide was a helpful reminder of the actions you're taking on that front. Can you give us an update on other parts of the supply chain and your confidence in commencing a fairly near term construction effort?

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Yeah. I mean, this is a feature set for you know, we've designed two supply chain capabilities and information heavily since the beginning. You know? There's a lot of ways you can design a reactor, a lot of different materials, fuel types, coolants, all sorts of things you can do. Some of which, obviously, our our technologies need a lot more r and d and development before they're ready to go.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Some others just need a lot more supply chain development before you can procure the various parts needed. And then In our case, we've designed heavily to leverage what's out there as much as we possibly can. Fuel is obviously the big watch point because that's kind of the biggest, I would say, sort of challenge and opportunity, if you will, that we see. But everything else, we to leverage existing supply chains from in and also outside of nuclear as much as we can. And that's a real feature to sodium technologies.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Right? You can use common stainless materials. You can source those from many other industries from the process side of things. You know, when you look at, like, the steam generation side, that's probably why we partnered up with Siemens, to help drive that last year and kind of accelerate that for them to be able to deliver, and and they do that very well, obviously. So generally speaking, you know, this is a thing that we're gonna be sort of pushing forward as we try to, you know, accelerate what we can do to actually break ground and start building, as quickly as we can.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

And I think that's something that we see on the supply chain side. You know, most of the limitations are are really centered around fuel, and the other long lead items are are looking at eighteen month kind of windows. And and our ability to then also bring in sort of the order book and backlog that we have behind it helps us sort of be able to actually scale more of that, as well. So when we talk to suppliers, it's not just about one, it's about more, and that kind of motivates the right kind of partnerships, if that makes sense. So that's how we're, how we're looking at this and thinking of it.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

But but, you know, this avoids some of the challenges you see in the light water space where you need large pressure vessels or forgings that way. Obviously, there's some capacity for that, but there's a lot less of that. So work done there needs to be done to sort of show that, you know, to get in front of that bottleneck and that constraint, given there's only a few places in the in the Western world that we'll be able to source that from. We as a I'm not OCOLA. We as a as a as America, frankly.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

And so for us at OCOLA being able to not require those needs helps us actually diversify away from that, which is super, super helpful. Similarly, on the turbine set, actually, something that's a little bit underappreciated. You think about nuclear steam turbine systems, most of those are gigawatt scale systems for light water well, most all of those are high hundreds of megawatts to gigawatt scale systems for for light water reactors. And light water reactors operate at a relatively low steam temperature set compared to other power generation technologies. And as a result, like, scaling that turbine, down to sort of small reactors and and smaller for water cooled conditions, not technically challenging, but requires, you know, some reasonable nonrecurring engineering and sort of tooling costs to set up the infrastructure to actually make those, whereas our systems operate at those temperature ranges and pressure ranges that look a lot more similar to where a lot of fossil fire plants operate.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

And that's kind of another feature about non light water systems is you tap directly into some of those supply chains, which is super helpful. And just to kind of, like, emphasize, the recent news of what the NRC did with Therapower is just an extraordinarily important validation of that model that applies also to us, right, with similar technology set so that you can decouple the the steam system, the power side from the reactor side. That opens up so much more flexibility in terms of how you can source, procure, and construct and install.

[Ryan Pfingst, Equity Research Analyst at B. Riley Securities]

Great. Appreciate all that detail.

[Ryan Pfingst, Equity Research Analyst at B. Riley Securities]

I'll turn it back.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Sharif Almagrabi of BTIG. Your line is open.

[Sherif Elmaghrabi, Equity Research Associate at BTIG]

The fuel MOU with Sentriq, can you tell us when you might start taking delivery of that fuel? And is there a date by which you need to firm up that agreement?

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Yeah. I think just to clarify, right, the first fuel we're getting for our first plant that was awarded to us through a competitive process by Idaho National Laboratory and the Department of Energy. So that material is all from there. That's for our first plan. Everything with, like, commercial procurement happens for our second and beyond plans, and that's where we're looking at, you know, obviously, working with Centris and and others.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

What we see is, you know, we're in the process of kind of figuring out the right structures to supply for what we need and kind of the growth and scale. So I think the idea is, you know, as we look at partnering with different folks on the on the enrichment side, it's it's really working to sort of what's the sort of right ramp rates for them and for us given the customer offtakes and how customers might be engaging or not engaging on this is something that we're kind of watching as this develops, and we're helping develop and shape as we speak live time. So, you know, we'll wanna start receiving that fuel as soon as reasonably possible, but some of those pieces are gonna be the things that we wanna put in place to make sure we set the stage for kind of a long term growth curve up and out. When you look at what our fuel needs are, they're pretty exciting and pretty heavy. But that's great for this enrichers on the supply side, but just structuring the right kind of early deals and then also coupling that with some of these customer bases where we have sort of customer partnerships where their ability is to sort of come in and help actually potentially, right, support some of the fuel offtake.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

That's how we're we're kinda looking at shaping some things right now. A lot of that's still developing, but generally speaking, that that's how we're structured on that sense. But it's super, super helpful and important. Right? We have fuel.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

It's actually at Idaho. It's being you know, we're we're setting up the fuel fabrication capabilities to actually be able to take that fuel and fabricate, put that in our first plant. But that material has all been, you know, it's all out there. It's all been produced, from from government reserves and inventories. And that's kind of another key watch point for us is some of the actions that are, potentially coming from the government.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Ideally, there's a lot that moves forward on the fuel side and we're really well positioned to be able to benefit from a lot of that beyond just what we already have.

[Sherif Elmaghrabi, Equity Research Associate at BTIG]

Got it. That's helpful. And sticking with those, I guess, second and later plants, when we talk about the time line for subsequent colas, I think in the past, you've said six to eighteen months. Would that apply to reactors in different sizes? Let's say a customer wants to do a 75 megawatt design.

[Sherif Elmaghrabi, Equity Research Associate at BTIG]

Or is the timeline the same as the first custom colo that we're doing about to do?

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Yeah. So they'll be for the same general plan. What we see is, you know, the the timing is gonna depend a little bit, but, I mean, I I think it'll be a staggered parallel fashion with the with the INL plant. The INL plant is a full commercial plant. Right?

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

We're building an international website because there's a lot of benefits of doing it, it's a full commercial plant. And then there'll be all these things that happen after that, with respect to follow on plants and follow on sites that we're excited about how those are progressing and developing. That said, like, I think the timing of those is is is sort of we see a couple major sites that we've obviously talked about, and we see the different customers that we've announced. And there's, you know it's a very dynamic market in that sense. So what we expect is that there'll be some COLA activity that, you know, we anticipate submitting additional applications, in parallel to all the first ones under review that we'll see some acceleration benefits, but then the real benefits will really happen on the acceleration of the COLAs after that.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

We're doing a lot of, like, we kind of cutting edge, leading edge work with the NRC on doing some of the subsequent licensing at high volume kind of high rates, of deployment. They've been developing, you know, activity I'm sorry, capabilities and and planned lines of sort of action around how they're gonna review those things going forward, so that we're gonna be one of the initial movers and one of the early kind of beneficiaries of that of those approaches, which is pretty exciting for what that looks like. But kind of that's how we see these things kind of playing out from there. But I think it's entirely likely that, you know, by sort of a year from now, we have additional COLAs under review on top of the INL one.

[Sherif Elmaghrabi, Equity Research Associate at BTIG]

Got it. Thanks, Jacob. I'll turn it over.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Vikram Bagri of Citi. Your line is open.

[Analyst]

Hi. It's Ted on for Vic. Thanks for taking the questions. I wanted to ask about the funding needs for the business, just given the larger reactor size that was mentioned last quarter, the growth needed for atomic alchemy, potential costs from tariffs and then also potentially higher Haley prices than the initial plan. Just wondering whether given all those factors, additional capital will be needed?

[Analyst]

And if so, when we could expect roughly that that might be raised?

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Just

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

start really quickly. I think again,

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

an important point is on the fuel, right? We have the fuel allocated and awarded to us. So so that helps a lot with the first plant. And and then, you know, as we've looked at things, I'll turn it over to Craig here, but I think that's a big help with respect to how you sort of manage some of the Hailey pricing. But with that, I'll turn it over to Craig for kind of the dynamics on that.

[R. Craig Bealmear, CFO at Oklo]

Yes. And just to reemphasize the point, the balance sheet's got adequate capital on it for the deployment of INL. Now it was almost two years ago since we announced these back in a year since we closed. And since that time, payout prices have gone up, as you mentioned, Ted. We've also dramatically grown the order book, and we've now got customers wanting a much higher size POWERHOUSE offering that is more capital efficient, but it is going to cost more capital per unit.

[R. Craig Bealmear, CFO at Oklo]

And then we are we're two years on from the juice pack, which means we're two years on towards things to bring recycling forward. So we'll want to be positioned such that capital does not become a constraint as we look to progress those growth plans and we'll make sure that if there is a need to raise capital, we'll do that when the time and circumstances are right so that we can do it in a strategic manner, not a reactive manner.

[Analyst]

Got it. Thank you. And I had just one follow-up. On the Viper facility that was mentioned, could you just elaborate on what the NRC process looks like for that? So it looks like there'll be a construction permit submitted this year.

[Analyst]

How does that process differ from the process for the Aurora Powerhouse? And then also just in terms of intensity required with the NRC? And are there any additional costs for that, over and above what's what's provided in the guidance?

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Yeah. I think, I mean, the the licensing process and progress is is really centered around a part 50 license application, which is a bit different. This is a non this sounds funny. This is a non electric power producing reactor. So it benefits from a different regulatory approach that looks a lot more similar to what university and research reactors look like.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

So good news there is there's some benefits that happen from that from an efficiency side, but it is inherently, built to a two step process where you get a construction license and then an operating license. However, given kind of the nature of the review of those systems and that, we expect that the construction permit review, you know, will will happen at first. You'll build significant amounts of the plan, and you'll apply for the operating license thereafter. This is similar to the process taken by, Kairos, which received their construction permit, and then, a couple other active groups that are doing work in the space on that. So, you know, that's what the the application, like, review process looks like.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Again, that's quite different than a part 52, which is for power reactors, electric power producing reactors, and doesn't have the repeatability functionality built into it because, you know, typically, these kind of test reactors or these non power producing reactors are built around kind of that not needing that repeatability. So what's kind of neat about it from the OCOLA side is we're gonna have a lot of experience and expertise around both those processes, and there's some efficiencies that we're looking at seeing as as possible benefits to inform sort of future activities around either continued sort of regulatory modernization, efforts, as well as potential legislative efforts around applying some of the best practices between the two to each other. And we'll obviously be kind of at the center of that experience set, which is kinda neat actually, but that's how we see those things going. Generally speaking, there's it's considerable it's considered to be a simpler, more straightforward process to get a nonpower license, right, than a power reactor license just given the relevant hazards around a non a low power reactor operating in that kind of environment. So so typically speaking, the regulatory process kind of reflects that.

[Analyst]

Got it. Thank you.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Eric Stine of Craig Hallum. Your line is open.

[Eric Stine, Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC]

Hi, Jake. Hi, Craig.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Hello? Hey, how's it going?

[Eric Stine, Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC]

Hey, Jake.

[Eric Stine, Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC]

Good. I'm glad I wasn't sure what's going on there. Hey, so just curious, I know you've done the readiness assessment. You've had quite a bit of interaction with the NRC, but also know the NRC is is known for not being a pretty onerous process on the licensing side. So as you get closer to submitting the COLA, I mean, is your confidence higher?

[Eric Stine, Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC]

You know, or or what has maybe changed in your view, if at all, as to your prospects to move, as you said, into a commercial facility and not having to go through kind of the the typical, you know, demonstration plant that might have to operate for three, four, five years?

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Yeah. I mean, I think, generally speaking so to be clear, this is a full commercial plan. Right? Like, this is a full commercial plan that will operate commercially, produce full power, do all of that. Obviously, it's the first plan, so there's some learnings you you both design for and engineer around to be able to accommodate and be able to through, but this is not kind of like a, oh, build it, see how it works, see no.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

No. We're building up a technology that's done that already. Right? There's been two noticeable notable examples on top of 20 plus reactors from before that around the world built around sodium fast reactor technology showing what works and what doesn't work. And the successes at EBR two and FFTF are very significant sort of enablers for us to actually be able to take those technologies forward, apply those, right, take those lessons learned, apply them, and basically replicate what was done in many ways because they were so successful.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

So that's really important. Right? I think sometimes the the facts and the realities of sort of the history around non light water reactor technology development is often very underappreciated even in the nuclear industry. And a lot of that's just because a lot of that pioneering work happened between the sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties pre digitization. Actually, I think there's a big part of the story to this, which is a lot of those lessons learned, lot of the records, all that stuff were written in paper, and put in books, put in binders, put in reports that were literally printed and filed on shelves, like, literally.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

I used to say left on the shelves of history literally because they were. And that, as a result, have meant that, like, accessing all of the wonderful nuggets of information that have been out there about these things, well, was wasn't exactly easy to do, unless maybe you're in academia or in the research development community, which Caroline and I were. So we had the benefits of having a lot of the opportunity to see a lot of the amazing things about this technology set, and how mature it really was. Something that, again, is vastly underappreciated, by and large. And so that's a fantastic spot to be.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Now one of the things we leaned into very early in the company's history was even starting with our first regulatory interactions, including getting the Department of Energy to help with this and the National Labs to help with this, working with the NRC back in 2016, was actually getting that old information, digitizing it, modernizing it, being able to use it in the regulatory space. And that we set off a bunch of activity and work in 2016 that really is continuing through today that pay significant dividends. Right? So that kind of dovetails into your question of yeah. I mean, generally speaking, as we've seen our engagement with the NRC, we've had 600 plus meetings with them.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

I mean, we have a huge amount of interactions in history leading up to submitting an application, you know, and and being in a position that we feel, you know, pretty happy about. So, obviously, the we're doing a readiness assessment to make sure that we understand where there might be gaps so that we can work to address those. We've seen that had a lot of success with what Therapower did. They also did a readiness assessment before they submitted their construction permit, and or the construction permit application, and they've seen that their review has been moving pretty well on pace. I think it's slightly ahead of schedule even.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

So that's fantastic. We expect there to be some similar benefits for us. Obviously, each case is little bit different, but generally speaking, that's why we've been at this for so long. Of all the non light water companies active today with the NRC, we've had the longest engagement, right, dating back to 2016. And that's a very important thing for us, for having sort of that history and that maturity and that kind of credibility and capability accordingly with the regulator.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

I think the thing that's important is also how we take an approach isn't just about whether or not you get the license, but doing so efficiently and effectively. And I think that's that next level of depth and nuance that that I think people are starting to fully understand the importance of, which is not just getting a license. That, I would say, is something that's quite doable. It's also doing it efficiently and effectively so it's scalable. And that's where we spend a lot of time trying to optimize for that.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Back in 2019 or 2018 when we first piloted an application with the NRC, they said they could review something like that. They thought that that made a lot of sense that we proposed all these novel things. Something they then built a novel review plan had based heavily on doing based on doing things, I mean, heavily in person in 2019. Obviously, when we submit an application for all this in person review dynamics in in 2020, that that didn't work out so great given that, you know, the pandemic blew a lot of that stuff out. We couldn't have those in person meetings and dynamics.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

We had to, you know, obviously, change course, and that became somewhat challenging. But since '22, when we started reengaging with them, in person and pre application on this, we've been able to kind of structure around addressing some of these open items and some of these items that we've tried to push the NRC to be forward leaning on. And, frankly, we found that there's been a lot of things that they've been pretty receptive to. Still a lot of work. It's not a, like, hey.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

This is gonna be a walk in the park. It's still lot of work. There's still a lot of existing inefficiencies, frankly, in the regulatory process, but we couldn't ask for a better setup right now amidst the drive and demand on the AI side as well as a bipartisan level of support coupled with a very, you know, administration that's very focused on driving regulatory efficiency throughout the entire ecosystem. So all in all, it creates a pretty favorable dynamic, I think, for where we sit and how we're seeing this come together. So I guess I would say, like, the the pre application engagement is a way to that we've done continually more or less since '20 well, 2016 and sort of re upped in '22, if you will, into what we're doing now, like, has been has been quite, I think, constructive to preparing both parties to be ready for an application.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

I think think from the feedback we've had from the NRC has has largely been around, okay. We're we're really getting ready for you guys to have an application now. We've done all this work, but I think we're getting ready for it. So we see that. We expect to see how that plays out with the phase one readiness, and then we'll we'll kind of move that to the next steps of the review, hopefully, with those some of those efficiencies gained.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

That doesn't take care of all the bumps and problems. There's still going to be things that come up, of course. But at the end of the day, it gives us a great shot on a lot of those angles. Yep.

[Eric Stine, Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC]

No.

[Eric Stine, Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC]

That's great color. Thank you.

[Eric Stine, Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC]

And then just for my follow-up, I mean, should we still think about timing of the actual COLA submission to be I think in the in the past, you'd said, kinda coincide with the Advance Act in in the October time frame?

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Yeah. That's how we're looking at it. I will say that with all the pending activity around, like, executive orders and all these other things, there's

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

I would call

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

it good uncertainty because it could motivate some reasons that things might move somewhat faster. But, at the end of the day, like, that's how we're seeing kind of the timing evolve here. So, you know, we expect to transition out of the readiness assessment with the feedback we get from that to be able to support us submitting for actual phase one application in, a few months after kind of the feedback from that. And then that would position us to then do the readiness on the phase two part. And then also with the feedback from that position us to be able to submit that, sort of in the Q4 timeframe is what we're expecting.

[Eric Stine, Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC]

Okay. Excellent.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

And that would mean full applications in at that point. Yeah.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Jeffrey Campbell of Seaport Research Partners. Your line is open.

[Jeffrey Campbell, Senior Analyst at Seaport Research Partners]

Good evening.

[Jeffrey Campbell, Senior Analyst at Seaport Research Partners]

Jake, on

[Jeffrey Campbell, Senior Analyst at Seaport Research Partners]

Slides nine and eleven, the fuel recycling and the feedstock preparing the submission to the licensing project plan for the Oak Grove Fuel Foundry. I like that name. Can you add some color on how this licensing effort might be different than that for Aurora? What the primary hurdles might be, and what the timing might be like?

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Yeah. It's a good question. We've been engaged with the NRC on on the pre application activities to submit for large scale fuel fabrication work that, you know, is outside. Right? Just to kind of recap, we have fuel from INL and Department of Energy for fuel for our first plant.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

We'll fabricate that fuel at the Idaho National Laboratory. We're building a pilot fabrication facility there. By that, I mean, we're installing the equipment in existing building. But then as we grow and we look at sort of this backlog that we've been accumulating, we're, you know, we're working to set up a full scale fuel fabrication facility on a not full scale, but I call it large commercial scale, to help us kind of start to meet that demand set. That follows a a different regulatory path, than the typical, like, part 50, part 52 because it's just materials handling.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

It's not reactors. And so so it depends a little bit on the specifics of the site and the infrastructure that we're taking advantage of, but that's something where, you know, as we've been engaging with them, you can expect a a full sort of application review to be done potentially in the twenty four to thirty month time period, possibly as long as thirty six. It depends on how much infrastructure you need to install. Given the the nature of kind of the regulatory environment today, there's some benefits that those timelines might be reduced. I do think there's a general view that this should definitely be done faster than reactors.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

So everything that moves those timelines is probably gonna help with this. So that's kinda how we're seeing that progress. But we're going through evaluating different site opportunities accordingly for that. And as those things continue to progress, we'll have we'll we'll have good updates for the market and for investors as those come together. But generally speaking, that's how we expect that to go to sort of unlock our ability to scale, into, you know, the the, well, the very exciting numbers and customer bases we have.

[Jeffrey Campbell, Senior Analyst at Seaport Research Partners]

Right. And and that's that's very helpful. And the point about being faster than a reactor license certainly makes sense. And my follow-up is, is this essentially some somewhat similar to the way you've talked about your total licenses and adding multiple applications even as you're waiting for INL. Is is this already an effort to create a blueprint for potential fuel founders in a variety of locations?

[Jeffrey Campbell, Senior Analyst at Seaport Research Partners]

And and and in other words, already thinking about scalability and the fuel foundry in the same way that you're thinking about what we want.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Yeah. It's a great question. It's definitely something we think about here. We aren't baking in necessarily the same scalability, but the lessons learned to apply forward will be helpful. The reason I say that is because, like, we kind of expect this facility to be pretty large to meet a lot of our need sets for a while.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

And then beyond that, we'll we kind of are looking at how this can be built and done in different places, you know, potentially as needed. But, generally speaking, like, this is all happening, which is like that's a really silly thing to say. This is all kind of progressing in a way to expect to build one, but understand that there might be, like like, scalability for beyond that. So so it's kind of a weird non answer just, but, we're we're saying, yes, there's ability to have a, like, like, scalability from it. But the infrastructure of the regulations themselves, the actual structure doesn't really allow for that same translatability for repeatability the the way the reactors do because it's not anticipated you'd build many of these.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

But there's gonna definitely be lessons learned, and there's things we're trying to do to allow for that where it makes sense to do. But generally speaking, you know, that's that's kind of a a thing that we'll keep watching as we kinda think through and get into the actual licensing process here. But if, you know, as we think about the the opportunity space for the business, it does make sense to think about having multiple locations most likely, but but kind of not do all those at once, obviously, but that's stuff that kinda lags by probably by five to ten year increments as we think about the long scale growth and potential here.

[R. Craig Bealmear, CFO at Oklo]

And, Jake, I think the other thing is, you know, size of the facility and the scale economies you may get on one end, but logistics of having the difference between having one plant and one foundry in one location versus multiple locations and what it could do around logistics.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Sameer Joshi of H. C. Wainwright. Your line is open.

[Sameer Joshi, Senior Equity Research Analyst at H.C. Wainwright & Co., LLC]

Hey, good afternoon, Jake, Craig. Thanks for taking my questions. First, congrats on all the progress. My question about is about the borehole drilling campaign that you just announced this morning. Does this I think the press release says that it will inform your detailed engineering design.

[Sameer Joshi, Senior Equity Research Analyst at H.C. Wainwright & Co., LLC]

I'm assuming this engineering design pertains to the building and building stability as against the balance of plans like the steam generators and the power conversion system that may need any modifications. Will you will you confirm that?

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Yeah. The way I understood that was really if we expect to see, like like, what the data does or sort of the insights from the site characterization due to impact sort of the the detailed design. Yeah. I mean, generally speaking, you know, it's really just to make sure that the site characteristics and where we're exactly gonna be building, like, we just engineer all the right, like, structural mechanical pieces in the right ways to support that that are kinda bounded by how we take that that sort of bounded kind of standardized approach as is. That's that's really how we kind of angle to to to incorporate that feedback.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

But it's important to have that information to support them, you know, also in the regulatory process, which is kind of why we do it, if that makes sense.

[Sameer Joshi, Senior Equity Research Analyst at H.C. Wainwright & Co., LLC]

Yeah. Yeah. No. Understood. And then the second question I have is, and maybe this has been discussed in the past, but just, I want to make sure I understand.

[Sameer Joshi, Senior Equity Research Analyst at H.C. Wainwright & Co., LLC]

Now that you are in the phase one or initiated in the phase one of the pre application readiness assessment, has this phase also included the specific size of the reactor in terms of whether it is 50 megawatts or 75 megawatts? Or will this be needed to be included in Phase two or the next stage? Just wanted to understand that. Mainly in context of the one of the previous questioners who asked if the subsequent COLAs can be of different sizes. So just wanted to understand, the phase one, phase two and when you have to specify what the COLA is for, whether it is for 75 or 50 megawatt.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Yeah. So so most every so pretty much everything we're really doing is at the 75 megawatt size range. If we're like, that kind of is the generalized design. And then if we flex down from that, it's just because there's a customer need or specific need to do so, which would then, generally speaking, bound against, largely speaking, the same analyses and everything else that we do to support the 75. So, really, just think of it as a kind of a consolidated single platform that we build off of from the licensing side.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Each site then, if it does change a little bit, it's going to obviously, each site has to get some license, but the benefits of sort of repeatability and scalability scalability because of that approach, you know, should hold pretty heavily. Obviously, if we make significant departures by introducing major design changes, that changes some of that, but that's that's not exactly, like in terms of the near term deployment, that's not what we're intending or planning to do. And that's part of why we made that decision to kind of just centralize and focus around the size range. What that means then is if a customer wants it to be a 60 megawatt variant, and then it's the same plant that we're building, we're just basically, you know, as we use the term, of underrating it, and running it at a lower power level, and then maybe low you know, then have the ability to potentially increase that power level with more fuel going forward. So that's really how we're trying to approach that.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

With the Idaho plant specifically, like, that's the same approach we're taking. However, we have we have a fuel constraint. Right? We've been awarded fuel, and to sort of best use that fuel, we would be running that plant at less than 75 megawatts, but we're also pursuing options to perhaps to get more fuel to run that up at a higher power level. That just depends a little bit on sort of how, kind of some of these activities are going play out with respect to the fuel supplies, especially given the fact that you know, there's another five tons of that material that we requested that's available potentially.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

So, like, you know, some of that material we could use to help us run all the way for a full cycle at the full power level. But that's kinda how we're approaching this right now. But, yeah, everything really centralizes around kind of that 75 megawatt level.

[Sameer Joshi, Senior Equity Research Analyst at H.C. Wainwright & Co., LLC]

Understood. May I squeeze in one more, for the Oculo Fuel, Foundry? Will this facility be, also able to handle recycled fuel, for the the fabrication facility?

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

It's an interesting question. So, what we're talking about with the fuel foundry piece here is specific to fresh fuel fabrication. However, next to, like, not next to physically, but in terms of in addition to that, we've been ongoing on the regulatory front for, I think, dating back to, at this point, 2021 and pre application preparing for the fuel recycling facility. That fuel recycling facility would also include so that would include the actual recycling as well as the fuel fabrication facility for recycled fuel. The fuel foundry we talked about here, that's really specific to fresh fuel.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

The same techniques and, you know, approaches in in terms of facility design and process design, generally speaking, will be used to handle recycled fuel. It's still metal. It's still casting based, but it has to be done, obviously, in a different environment given the nature of the recycled material it's it's casting. In other words, the transuranic bearing kind of feedstock that we're fabricating the fuel out of. So that's a really important thing here.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Right? The recycling means you don't need HALEU. That's not you you're not using HALEU. You're instead using the transuranics and the uranium from recycling itself. And, and and as a result, the material is more radioactive.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

It's also thermally hotter. So, you need to fabricate that in a different way or in a different kind of set of constraints, but it sets a really good stage for, how we can, like, you know, apply some of the technologies for it. So to answer your question, the, activities going on in the regulatory side for recycling are different than the fuel foundry side, but of course there's some relations.

[Sameer Joshi, Senior Equity Research Analyst at H.C. Wainwright & Co., LLC]

Got it. Thanks for that color.

[Operator]

Your last question comes from the line of Craig Shere of Tuohy Brothers. Your line is open.

[Craig Shere, Director of Research at Tuohy Brothers Investment Research Inc]

Good afternoon. Thanks for fitting me in. So let me jump on that same line of questioning. So what exactly is the CapEx delta between a commercial scale fuel foundry versus recycling facility? And while the licensing for fuel may be quicker than for the plants, the Aurora powerhouses, How long are we talking about constructing a foundry or recycling facility or constructing?

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Yeah. It's it's a couple of things. So, you've got, if you think about this, right, you have basically two major centers for fuel for Oklo plants going forward. You have one center, which is around fresh HALEU. We procure that material, and then we fabricate it in our fuel foundries to make fuel to go into our reactors.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Then you also have the recycling side that comes in and, you know, we'll start to be able to recycle fuel from existing, know, plants that are producing power today as well as Ocala plants, as well as other advanced reactors, actually. Can take all that material and recycle it, produce a new feedstock. We can make fuel out of that the actual, you know, recycling facility and then have that material go fuel some Ocala plants as well. So generally speaking, like, you know, we see those like, the fuel, the foundry will will will most likely come into existence in terms of being operational before the recycling facility just given the nature of kind of licensing and the technology development and everything else needed for that. And then from there, we kind of see that staged approach of you get the fuel foundry going, fabricating fuel for plants, you get recycling, it comes in later, produces fuel.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

All the benefits kind of play forward in those areas. But generally speaking, I mean and I'm not saying they're staggered on purpose. It's just kind of the the nature of sort of how we think about the infrastructure build out and the planning on that. So a lot of exciting stuff coming, but generally speaking, it it sets the foundation for, like, you know, things that then allow us to kinda grow and scale. Now important things that come from this too.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Fuel fabrication is great. It allows us to make fuel. Also, it opens the door for us to look at potential partnerships with others to make fuel with or for others. Additionally, on recycling, some of that kind of thing. So good, nice opportunities to touch in and tie into different pieces there, which is pretty important.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

If you have a licensed facility to actually fabricate fuel, of which currently in The United States, you know, there's really like, there's there's just not there's it's pretty significantly undersupplies for advanced reactors. There's just not that much out there. A big opportunity, obviously, for us to be able to have that facility and and perhaps support some other activity that others are doing in addition to what we're doing. So some cool things all kinda come together on that. And and one allusion, just to point to you between both, obviously, is stuff we did earlier in the year, but, you know, a couple months ago, obviously announced a partnership with Lightbridge, just kind of an example of how these things kinda can tie together now with the infrastructure and facility work we're doing.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

But generally speaking, you know, kind of the focus we have is, okay. We know we're gonna, like, those things support us for after, you know, what we have going on right now with Idaho with the pilot fuel fabrication facility we have there as well as with the first plant we're building there. So that's kind of how we think about sort of the staging and order of operations. Craig, I'm not sure if you want to add anything specific to the commentary around kind of the incremental CapEx, but that's kind of how we're thinking of the phasing and the structure of this.

[R. Craig Bealmear, CFO at Oklo]

Well, I'd say, Jake, there will be incremental CapEx there, but really, we'll have more to say as we kind of completed some of this appraised work on both the foundry and the recycling. And so we're I think it'd be too early at this point for us to talk about what that could look like.

[Craig Shere, Director of Research at Tuohy Brothers Investment Research Inc]

That's fair. Could we just presume that the recycling takes more capital and longer to construct versus just the foundry?

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

The recycling facility?

[Sameer Joshi, Senior Equity Research Analyst at H.C. Wainwright & Co., LLC]

Yes.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Yeah. I mean, generally speaking, because you're putting in fuel fabrication as well, definitely, yeah, it's gonna be it's gonna take longer to build and and and take more capital, generally speaking, than than the fuel foundry will, is how we think about it. Now the thing with the recycling, though, is you also open up all these massive opportunities for additional potential revenues, right, from additional radio essence of co product sales, additional uranium sales, additional actual true bearing fuel feed sales. So a lot of things that kinda come from that too. So kinda diversifies that piece, which, you know, is something that we're particularly excited about.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Not to mention the massive savings it gives us, compared to fresh fuel, which is pretty huge. But, yeah, we expect that to be something that takes longer and, will cost more than the fresh fuel foundry.

[Craig Shere, Director of Research at Tuohy Brothers Investment Research Inc]

Great. And my last one, you touched on this a bit in Sharif's questioning, but it kind of feels like the foreshadowed new executive orders and Department of Defense involvement to grease the rails on US nuclear could by far be the most meaningful on the fuel side, not government property and other things. Would you agree with that? And if so, what tangible prospective federal steps would you want to see on that front?

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Yeah. I'll kind of I'll give you a long winded answer to this. But I I think it's it's a it's there's a huge amount of, like, I'll call it greenfield opportunity right now, in terms of the policy landscape and in terms of the appetite to use, I'll call it the national resources and assets we have as a country with respect to deployment between significant federal land, like at the Department of Energy, requesting information, you know, about how they might be able to support building data centers at at existing DOE sites. That could also tie over potentially the benefits of them being able to actually be the regulator on some of those sites, potentially. I mean, some of this depends on a lot of moving parts, but that could provide a significant accelerated benefit.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

At the very least, it provides an interesting competitive alternative dynamic to the to the NRC, which I think is good. Right? Competitive dynamics look better kinda good for everybody. So, it's pretty cool. And and just for us, one benefit we have.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Right? Like, we kind of we often have we haven't actually talked about this as much as maybe maybe there's some interesting opportunities to do so. But the the Department of Energy was going through the process of of of designing and building out and therefore included their their having to approve they're having to go through a regulatory process of their internal regulatory authority and authorization of the sodium cooled fast reactor for neutron radiation testing purposes. A lot of the work that they did in that process and for that project, for the safety evaluations and all those pieces, have significant carryover and benefit to us. And as a result, we've seen some of that actually place forward some some some benefits on the NRC side because I think generally speaking, it's safe to say that regulators in general, like well, I think all of us as much as them.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

It's all nice when you can build off of work that others have done as well, and you don't have to do it all kind of from scratch yourself. So if that's the case, then, you know, that's what we've seen there. There's some benefit. So if some of that activity and some of these potential ideas, that we've heard kind of circle around and we know there's been appetite in Capitol Hill from conversations and also in different NGOs and think tanks and activities around how to best leverage the regulatory authorities that the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, and the NRC have kind of in a cooperative, but also maybe somewhat competitive dynamic. That's pretty favorable.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

If you think about what we're doing too at Idaho, we have a great head start on some of these activities given we have a site use permit. We're deep in the process of, you know, deploying and developing there. If all of sudden, there's an opportunity to perhaps bring in, you know, folks like hyperscale partners to there and maybe build more plants there and then have some benefits because we're doing that, whether it be the Department of Energy as a regulating body or, you know, some piece like that, like, there's some significant benefits that can kind of come from all those pieces together. Another side of this, look at the work we're doing out, you know, that we've we announced some time ago, but part of our partnership with Centrus was looking at building two plants, right, to build two plants in Ohio to help support, sort of what they're doing. And that has some carryover from, you know, from Department of Energy, environment management kind of legacy land that they've been turning over for development.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

So a lot of cool opportunities between the different things we've been doing on the on the DOE and DOD sites. Obviously, our our selection and and the DAU process is part of the ANPI program is also helpful for unlocking some opportunities to provide power direct there given that, you know, AI, and energy are considered, you know, pretty important things from the national security perspective. There's also opportunities to do stuff at defense land that could be constructive here as well. So I'm kinda giving you this wraparound answer to say, right now, there's a lot of the art of the possible on the table that could be really, really attractive, and pretty exciting in an accelerated manner. But, you know, we'll see.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Like, all the stuff is is actively evolving, and it's gonna be iterative and dynamic, I think, over the next couple years, frankly, but especially over the next couple months. So we're we're we're excited to see what might be there and what might happen with this, and we're we're trying to kind of thread the needle and push where things make the most sense to sort of accelerate getting plants built and scaling accordingly and bringing the right resources to the table, but that would be pretty constructive and helpful. And then I think another dynamic that ties to that, we talk I just talked a lot about citing and regulatory side, but the government also owns a lot of material that could be used as fuel. And and, ideally, there's some opportunities to sort of accelerate that and build off of what they've already done with us, what they just did in the next round of those things, for other companies building kind of small scale test plans. We're excited about hopefully these things kind of continuing to scale and ramp up for more opportunities there as well.

[Operator]

Thank you. I'd now like to pass the call back over to Sam Dong for a question from Ocwen's retail investors. Please go ahead.

[Sam Doane, Director of Investor Relations at Oklo]

Thank you. Yeah, we had one question come through. The question is, can you elaborate on the current stage discussions or agreements with data center operators or hyperscale customers and how these conversations are shaping Okla's deployment timeline and reactor siting strategy?

[R. Craig Bealmear, CFO at Oklo]

Yes, Sam. I can take that one. So as we said in our last call that we continue to have active discussions with all of our customers, especially those in the data center space. We are exchanging term sheets, and we're talking about commercial terms. I think it's really about how do we optimize what we do commercially around kind of, as I hold it, three factors.

[R. Craig Bealmear, CFO at Oklo]

There's power purchase pricing itself, but there's also trying to structure deals with customers that could include some form of investment in Oaklo, either kind of a prepayment like what Equinix did or potentially some sort of like asset level investment, and also just trying to work with customers that can help us share and manage risk better. In addition to one of our new hires that Jake talked about earlier, Patrick, we've also had Mike Donahue join OCLO as the person leading our business development activities focused specifically on our data center solution customers. Think and Mike's been with the company a couple of months, and I think he's kind of reinforced that think about this strategically and do it in a thoughtful manner or approach that we've been taking. Now Jake did talk earlier about the ability for us to file and have more permits on file as the first permit for our Idaho site is being reviewed. One thing we do need to have in order to file a permit is to kind of know which where we would be locating that site beyond Idaho.

[R. Craig Bealmear, CFO at Oklo]

So that does kind of become an important step in terms of our contracting strategy linking into our permitting strategy. But we're making a lot of progress, and I think it's fair to say that our business development team is one of the busier teams in Oakla.

[Operator]

Thank you. That concludes our Q and A session. I'll now turn the conference back over to CEO, Jake DeWitt, for closing remarks.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

Great. Thank you all, and thank you for the time as always. I think it's only been about seven weeks since the last call. A lot of different things kind of transpiring in the broader sort of macro environment and since then. And what we see though is kind of a consistent steady drumbeat on the on the AI kind of theme around energy need and sort of on the hyperscalers coming to the table and seeing a massive set of opportunities for growth, for compute, but massively constrained by power.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

You know, at a con at a congressional testimony just a few days ago, I guess, last week, our former chairman, Sam Altman, made it pretty clear that energy is probably one of the best things, most most important things the government can invest in. And I think and just generally speaking, be invested into. And so pretty exciting opportunity space to see all those come together and couple that with a broad policy backdrop and an administration that has a heavy focus on driving infrastructure development growth, investment, and and driving the regulatory process to be conducive to that. Also, a stage for, I think, a lot of things to actually exceed expectations in some ways with the potential of ideas out there, but a lot of challenges obviously against that. However, we're in a different world today, than I think nuclear's ever seen before.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

And coupling our sort of distinction with the business model we afford, our approach in technology, and kind of the integrated model we have, we're starting to see some of the clarity of kind of the alignment of what those things unfold and enable as well as just, you know, generally speaking, the ability to move technology development and and deployment more quickly and and significantly change the paradigm that has in some ways challenged nuclear, which had a lot of misaligned incentives, had a lot of different parties and transactional dynamics that made nuclear really hard to scale and build. These things are all a different world today. You have some of the biggest companies in the world needing power in almost insatiable amounts, having deep pocketbooks and the ability to support paying, prices needed to get early plans built with a clear, like, sort of angle on on cost declination beyond that down the road, and then be able to also couple that with best practices from other industries and supply chains to really kind of be able to deliver what nuclear long has, in terms of its potential and promise. So, we we we remain I think the mission here is is one that transcends even just kind of the quarterly basis or the yearly basis, but something that we're working to unlock is is the actual, like, you know, capabilities afforded by splitting atoms, which when you think about heavy metal reserves, that we have in the planet, coupled with fast reactors and recycling, you can talk about billion plus year, you know, energy reserves available to us with technologies that have quite a bit of maturity behind them.

[Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director at Oklo]

So we're excited to be working on that and leading the charge on a lot of those fronts, and looking forward to the next update here in a few months.

[Operator]

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Sam Doane, Director of Investor Relations
• Jacob Dewitte, Co-Founder, CEO & Director
• R. Craig Bealmear, CFO

Analysts

• Ryan Pfingst, Equity Research Analyst at B. Riley Securities
• Sherif Elmaghrabi, Equity Research Associate at BTIG
• Analyst
• Eric Stine, Senior Research Analyst at Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC
• Jeffrey Campbell, Senior Analyst at Seaport Research Partners
• Sameer Joshi, Senior Equity Research Analyst at H.C. Wainwright & Co., LLC
• Craig Shere, Director of Research at Tuohy Brothers Investment Research Inc