Commodities | Aug 26 2014
By Greg Peel
Spot uranium supply has now become thinner, and sellers are backing off their offer prices, industry consultant TradeTech reports. In order to secure supply in a fragmented market, buyers are being forced to forgo their preferred delivery location or pay up, or stand aside and hope prices come down again.
Last week saw a range of transaction prices, influenced by varying delivery location, delivery timing, and form and origin of material. Ultimately six transactions were completed, bringing the year to date traded volume to 22.3mlbs of U3O8 equivalent, TradeTech reports. TradeTech’s spot price indicator finished the week up another US75c to US$31.25/lb.
There was a spate of good news for the industry last week, which makes a nice change.
China’s Fuqing unit one reactor was connected to the grid to bring the number of Chinese operating reactors to ten. Fuqing will eventually house six units.
The US Energy Secretary declared his support for nuclear energy at a conference, suggesting US energy production needs to be modernised to help minimalise the fallout from global warming. Secretary Moniz noted the US will not shun coal or oil as a result, but will push on with finding ways to reduce emissions from fossil fuel. Improving the nation’s 17 nuclear laboratories must be made a higher priority, said Moniz.
Japan’s Sendai units one and two are expected to be restarted as early as year-end (not all analysts agree with this optimism) and Japan has announced it will make a decision on the percentage of electricity to be generated from nuclear energy by late 2015, when the UN climate conference is held in Paris.
In the meantime, several offers are currently being sought by utilities in the spot market and term markets for various delivery times and amounts, TradeTech notes.
TradeTech’s term price indicators currently remain unchanged at US$31/lb (mid) and US$44/lb (long).
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