Uranium Spot Prices Fall as Holiday Season Cuts Demand, Ux Consulting Says

Uranium spot prices, which weakened later than the Fukushima reactor crisis in Japan, fell 1.9 percent in the past week through the Northern Hemisphere’s summer holiday season, Ux Consulting Co. said.Uranium-oxide concentrate for direct delivery traded at $50.50 a pound in the seven days through yesterday compared with $51.50 the earlier week, Ux said in an e-mailed report today that’s based on the most competitive present tracked by the Roswell, Georgia-based company.

The spot price for the nuclear fuel has declined 24 percent given that the week before a March 11 earthquake and tsunami spoiled Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi power station the crisis prompted a few nations to put their atomic power plans on hold china halted approval of new plants and Germany said it will shut additional than 25 percent of its nuclear capacity.

“The spot uranium market continue to edge down on price-sensitive demand,” Ux said. “August is the height of the vacation season, giving buyers yet a new reason to stay away from a market that has been languishing this summer since the implication of the Fukushima accident have set in.”

Australian’s uranium miner market value up 48%

The market valuation of Australian companies with one or more uranium projects grew faster than that of their Canadian peers over the last 12 months, explore by Resource Capital Research (RCR) has shown. In a report on global uranium companies, released on Wednesday, RCR said that the market assessment of Australian uranium companies had risen by 48% over the last 12 months, compared with Canadian uranium companies, which recorded a 29% increase.

However, the market assessment fell over the past month, with Australian companies suffering a 4% decline and Canadian uranium firms a 2% drop.Over the past three months, the market estimation fell by 16% for Australian miners and 15% for Canadian miners.RCR said in its June uranium report that in the past month, the uranium mining majors have had mixed share price performance.

The share price of the largest-listed uranium-miner, Cameco, fell by 6%, while Denison Mines’ stock share price dropped by 1% . Uranium One’s share price surged by a 24%, on the back of a deal with Atomredmetzoloto, or ARMZ. The Russian company will enlarge its holding in Uranium One to at least 51%. Share prices for Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) were up 7% while Paladin’s share prices remained unaffected.

Worry grows over Sask. uranium exports

Fears that Saskatchewan uranium may be used in weapons have been triggered by a recently signed export agreement with India. Prime Minister Stephen Harper sign a nuclear co-operation conformity on Sunday with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was in Toronto for the G20 summit. It allows for uranium exports to India and technological interactions that could be worth billions to Canada's nuclear industry.

Ann Coxworth, of the Saskatchewan Environmental Society, said she fears the central deal could make it possible for Saskatchewan's uranium to end up in weapons. "We need to very seriously consider whether exporting uranium around the world is the type of business that we should be in," said Coxworth.

But Lyle Krahn, spokesman for Saskatoon-based uranium producer Cameco, said the agreement is a growth chance for his company, which is working to secure overseas uranium markets in places like China and India. "We feel that aligns nicely with our plan to twice uranium production by 2018," said Krahn. Coxworth said the environmental society is working to raise public awareness in hopes of stopping the India deal.

The Uranium Market

Nuclear Fuel Supply Chain:

The nuclear fuel market is composed of uranium at each stage of the supply chain shown above. The product of uranium mining is U3O8 in a powder form, referred to as yellowcake. The U3O8 is then sent to a conversion facility, where it becomes UF6 in a gaseous form, and is then sent to an enrichment facility, where the amount of U235 in the UF6 is typically increased to between 3.5 and 5 percent through the addition of SWU (Separative Work Units). At the fabricator, the enriched uranium product (EUP) is sintered at a high temperature to form ceramic pellets, which are encased in metal tubes to form fuel rods.

Reprocessing facilities are able to recycle much of the used fuel into fresh fuel. Commercial reprocessing is not currently practiced in the US.