-Volumes continue to dry up
-Utilities sticking to term markets<\/strong><\/p>\n
By Greg Peel<\/p>\n
The week before last brought the initial omicron alert from South Africa, sending global financial markets into a tail-spin. With speculative activity having recently shot up in the uranium spot market, it, too, suffered from a risk-off shift.<\/p>\n
When Dr Fauci noted that omicron appeared to be less deadly than delta, markets rebounded. But not uranium.<\/p>\n
Having fallen -US$2.00 the week before to US$45.00\/lb, industry consultant TradeTech’s weekly spot price indicator fell another -US25c last week to US$44.75\/lb.<\/p>\n
Spot market activity reached record volumes in November, but largely dried up in the week before last and fell further last week, to 550,000lbs U3O8 equivalent in five transactions.<\/p>\n
Amid lingering concerns over covid, recent inflation news, and general uncertainty in the global financial markets, notes TradeTech, uranium market participants turned their attention to year-end administrative activity and budgetary and strategic planning for next year.<\/p>\n
The market does tend to go quiet heading into year-end.<\/p>\n
Share prices for global uranium miners on TradeTech’s watch list fell by an average -6% over the week.<\/p>\n
Utilities were absent in the spot market last week. A growing lack of predictability in the spot uranium price has prompted several utilities to pursue mid- or longer-term supply commitments in an effort to provide insulation from price volatility in their term contracting, TradeTech reports.<\/p>\n
Utility buyers continue to command slightly lower prices than speculators or intermediaries.<\/p>\n
TradeTech’s term price indicators remain at US$44.00\/lb (mid) and US$45.00\/lb (long).<\/p>\n
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