November Term Prices of Uranium Falls

Term prices of uranium for November month-end closed at $51.50 per pound, a decline of $0.25 from the end of October, showing yet again a fading buyer interest as opposed earlier in the month, when spot prices topped $4 per pound.

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Reuters
Shortfalls in global uranium supply, used to produce nuclear fuel, is seen to further increase in the coming decades, as countries like China, India and Russia, among others, race to find alternative solutions to fossil fuels to address power generation requirements.

Quoting data from industry consultant TradeTech, Ninemsn News said that November had a total of 34 transactions of over 5 million pounds of U3O8 total equivalent. However, it was mostly the traders who were buying the commodity rather than the expected end-users. Traders, producers and hedge funds were all present on the sell-side, TradeTech noted.

TradeTech has lowered its forecast pricing for both the medium and long term markets, down $0.50 to $54.50 per pound and down $1 to $62 per pound, respectively.

Prices of uranium, a radioactive heavy metal used as an abundant source of nuclear energy, have tumbled 24 per cent since the March 2011 magnitude-9 earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan that caused a partial meltdown at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant.

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Data from the World Nuclear Association showed global mined uranium supply reached 53,663 tons in 2010, but is still insufficient to meet global demand. As a result, some utilities have been utilizing recovered fuel from Russian warheads as contained under the HEU agreement.

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Shortfalls in global uranium supply, used to produce nuclear fuel, is seen to further increase in the coming decades, as countries like China, India and Russia, among others, race to find alternative solutions to fossil fuels to address power generation requirements.