本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛RE: Uranium
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After 47 consecutive months without a drop in price, weekly spot U3O8 had a small hiccup.
According to the month-ending edition of Nuclear Market Review (NMR), the spot uranium price registered at US$135/pound at the end of June – down by US$3/pound from the previous week.
“After 23 months of tight supply, rising spot prices, and intense bidding for material, buying interest has waned considerably,” wrote NMR editor Treva Klingbiel. “And the market now sees increasing interest on the part of sellers to move material.”
Lack of aggressive buyers helps explain why TradeTech dropped the consulting service’s U3O8 price indicator this past week.
“A few told us they would be willing to sell at US$135/pound, but have not been able to find buyers at this price,” chief executive Gene Clark told StockInterview in a telephone interview. “No one really needs it to meet contract delivery requirements right now. All the buying interest seems to be from discretionary buyers.”
According to the June 30th issue of NMR, active spot supply rose to 2.5 million pounds U3O8 while active demand dropped to less than 900 thousand pounds. The supply/demand ratio rose to 2.8 during June.
For the rest of the summer, and especially during August, Clark predicts the market will remain slow, given the historical experience. “Maybe we’ll see more buying in the fall,” he told us.
According to Matthew Smith of TheInvestar, “Uranium stocks hit support levels across the board this past week.” Smith believes his Canadian uranium mining stocks index could drop by another 10 percent or more
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Despite the commodity making its most dazzling bullrun in history, the share prices have not followed this year.. They did get ahead of themselves earlier in the year, first Camecos Cigar lake disaster and then the speculation surrounding Australia's 3 mine policy.. Since then the stocks have pulled back which is a indication that investors are beginning to doubt that the price of Uranium can sustain these levels...
It's true that the price 'may' pull back or consolidate however, the fundementals are still very much in tact for this resource and IMO aren't about to change any time soon .. 'If' the price does pull back expect a knee jerking over reaction and the prices being pulled down more !
I'm sure Hedge funds etc will do their best to shake people out and make vast sums in doing so..
China and India have been buying up the supplies to power their new nuclear plants and the ones that are in the build stage.. Uranium cost only accounts for around 2% of the total infrastructure of a Nuclear facility and they aren't going to find themselves short without enough .. Normally Nuclear power plant operators like to keep 2 years supply on hand...
There is a worsening supply crunch in the USA... Over the last decade no new nuclear reactors have come on-line and infact over the same time period 6 have been decommissioned !
The Nuclear Regulatory commission expects to receive proposals for 19 new nuclear reactors by 2009!! Russia has been decomissiong its nuclear weapons and the weapons grade uranium has been converted into reactor grade fuel .. This is running at approx 19 million pounds a year and it's agreement with USA for a 300 million pound total will be exhausted in approx 2013.. Just as a lot more Chinese reactors are scheduled to come on line..In April the Chinese announced a 5 yr plan to accumulate a straegic uranium reserve...
Russia could agree to extend its agreement with the US but why would it when it would be able to re-negotiate and get a higher prices in the open market..
In the meantime the US 'may' try and dump some of its stockpiled uranium on the market to dumb down the price a bit, just like we see with Gold... But basically it comes down to supply and demand and that imo will win the day..
In any case US plant operators only have enough U308 to power their reactors for 4 years with the fixed contracts they have secured after that they would have to join in with the scramble for more ..更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net