Lotus Resources Ltd (ASX: LOT) shares are having a difficult start to the week.
At the time of writing, the ASX 300 energy stock is down 22% to 20 cents.
Why is this ASX 300 energy stock crashing?
Investors have been hitting the sell button for a couple of reasons on Tuesday.
One has been a selloff of artificial intelligence (AI) related stocks following surprisingly strong advances in the technology in China. Uranium is seen as the key to fuelling the data centres that power AI.
However, the breakthroughs in China from DeepSeek appear to indicate that its AI will be cheaper than existing alternatives, require fewer chips, and less nuclear power.
Fellow uranium stocks Boss Energy Ltd (ASX: BOE), Deep Yellow Ltd (ASX: DYL), Bannerman Energy Ltd (ASX: BMN), and Paladin Energy Ltd (ASX: PDN) are all recording double-digit declines today.
What else?
Today's selloff comes on a day that this ASX 300 energy stock has announced financing for working capital.
According to the release, Lotus Resources has signed term sheets with two leading Southern African banks for equipment finance and working capital facilities.
The two equipment finance term sheets are for up to US$18.5 million in aggregate with Standard Bank Plc and First Capital Bank. This means that total current funding is now US$135.5 million.
These funds will support the restart and ramp up of its Kayelekera uranium project in Malawi through to positive cashflow. Though, investors may be concerned that positive cashflow will be harder to achieve if uranium prices fail to enter an AI-fuelled multi-year bull market.
Nevertheless, Lotus is on track to restart uranium production at Kayelekera in the third quarter of 2025. It notes that all key items of equipment have been ordered, its construction crews and mobile equipment are mobilised, and works have been commenced with 200+ personnel on site.
The ASX 300 energy stock's managing director and CEO, Greg Bittar, commented:
With the restart capital fully funded to first production by our recently completed A$130m, two-tranche equity placement, these finance facilities provide Lotus with working capital liquidity and funding flexibility as we rapidly progress our accelerated restart program at the Kayelekera uranium mine.
The financing banks provided these facilities on very competitive pricing and terms because of the quality of the Kayelekera Project and their confidence in the progress of the restart program, which is on track for first production in Q3 CY25.
