Oklo (OKLO) shares rally after releasing first quarter earnings results and telling investors it expects to record its first revenue in early to mid-2026 from a radioisotopes project.

Citi alternative and renewable energy analyst Vikram Bagri joins Morning Brief with Julie Hyman and Brad Smith to examine the optimism driving the nuclear energy stock higher, explaining that every reactor the company installs going forward could add $1.50 to $2.00 of value per share.

To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Morning Brief here.

Video Transcript

00:00 Speaker A

Checking on shares of Oklo today, soaring 19% after reporting first quarter results. The nuclear technology company not yet profitable, but it does expect to report for its first revenues in early to mid 2026. The company also announced that it finished drilling to gather information about the proposed location of its first nuclear plant, calling it a pivotal step. Joining us now is Vikram Bagri, City Alternative and Renewable Energy analyst. So, Vikram, Oklo, a maker, or I guess it will be a maker of small modular reactors, which is sort of a newer style of nuclear reactors. None of them exist in the US yet. So I'm always curious how people are thinking about an investment like this, which is still relatively early stage.

01:13 Vikram Bagri

Sure. Um, I think Oklo is, has a differentiated strategy and a differentiated technology which has evidence of proof of concept in form of, you know, reactors who have operated for a very long time. One FFDF reactor and one experimental breeder reactor at Ohio National Laboratory. So they, they don't need a demonstration of the technology. They have enough capital on the balance sheet, $260 million to execute their strategy, get to the installation of first reactor. So they're, they're owners of their own destiny in a way. Their differentiated strategy also consists of, they don't depend on other companies to adopt the technology and spend the capital and build the, build the reactor. Oklo will build the reactor on their own and will sell the electricity through long-term PPAs, uh, which they have a strong pipeline of. So all they need to execute on this strategy at this point is approval from the NRC to proceed with their plans. And until they get the approval or they are going through the process of getting the approval from the regulators to build these reactors, they can actually complete 70 to 80% of the construction of the reactor, um, you know, beforehand, you know, during the process of, of this approval. The way to look at it, um, I would say is that there is no dirt of demand for these reactors given the, um, you know, sort of the energy needs in the United States driven by data center and AI. City's forecasting, data center, AI, and IT needs will grow by 110 gigawatts by the end of 2030. Um, you have limited supply or limited capacity that gas turbines can add. Gas turbine capacity is sold out through, uh, through the end of the decade. You have solar and wind somewhat restricted by how quickly you can add that capacity to the grid, or grid, grid constraints. And nuclear seems to be the way. It is also one of the only, I would say renewable, um, you know, subsector that has very strong support on both sides of the aisle, Republican and Democrat. Um, I, I sort of like, you know, joke about that, you know, Republicans and Democrats, if there's only one thing in the world they agree on, is nuclear. Even if you sort of like ask the color of the sky, they probably might not agree. One will say blue, one will say red. So it's, it's a very, very strong support, uh, proven technology, enough capital on the balance sheet, and owners of their own destinies. Yeah. Um, sort of like, you know, what differentiates them. Finally, the way we look at it, uh, I'll make a 30-second point is every reactor they install, we calculate the value of their 50 megawatt reactor to be about a dollar and 50 cents per share to a two dollar per share, about dollar and 75 cents per share of NPV of every reactor that they install going forward.

07:43 Speaker A

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