##{"id":50126,"date":"2016-07-05T10:00:03","date_gmt":"2016-07-05T00:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fnarena.com\/index.php\/2016\/07\/05\/uranium-week-frustrating-june\/"},"modified":"2016-07-05T10:00:03","modified_gmt":"2016-07-05T00:00:03","slug":"uranium-week-frustrating-june","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/2016\/07\/05\/uranium-week-frustrating-june\/","title":{"rendered":"Uranium Week: Frustrating June"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Greg Peel<\/p>\n

Shikoku Electric Power has started loading fuel into its Ikata unit 3 plant in preparation for its planned restart later in the month. Assuming all goes ahead, Ikata would become the fifth Japanese reactor to restart in the five years since Fukushima.<\/p>\n

Despite the slow pace of restarts in Japan and the announcement of several reactor closures in the US, global nuclear capacity additions hit 10.2GW in 2015, industry consultant TradeTech reports – the fastest growth rate in 25 years. Growth was mostly driven by China, with help from South Korea and Russia.<\/p>\n

But capacity growth has done little to support uranium prices. The month of June saw a glimmer of hope as the sport uranium price rose to US$28.25\/lb but it just as quickly retreated to US$26.00\/lb. As activity slowed towards the end of last week ahead of the US long weekend, TradeTech’s spot price indicator fell US40c from last week’s US$26.80\/lb to end the month on US$26.40\/lb.<\/p>\n

The price dip mid-month did encourage some buyers to pick up excess inventory at attractive prices. TradeTech reports 27 spot market transactions over June totalling 3.4mlbs U3O8 equivalent.<\/p>\n

Five transactions were reported in the term markets, all of them mid-term. Producers are under pressure as intermediaries are looking to take more of the market, forcing term prices lower despite some rekindling on interest from utilities. To that end, TradeTech’s mid-term price indicator has fallen US85c to end the month on US$28.15\/lb. The consultant’s long term price indicator has fallen US$1.00 to US$40.00\/lb.
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