Paladin's Kayelekera mine costs offset uranium profits

NET losses by uranium miner Paladin Energy sank to $US123.4 million ($120m) in the quarter ended September 30, as a $US178.9m harm on its Kayelekera mine wiped out modest profits from its uranium sales in a quarterly activities report, Paladin said that revenues in the quarter additional than doubled to $US103m from $US49 1m in the same quarter the year before.

But rising production costs still left the company in the red after amortisation and depreciation, and weakness in the uranium price forced Paladin to write down the haulage value of Kayelekera, a mine in northern Malawi with a resource of 19.1m tonnes.

Paladin said its selling price in the September quarter was an average $US51 per pound, against $US55 over the year to the end of June the regular production cost from Kayelekera and the bigger Langer Heinrich mine in Namibia during both periods was $US35.

Uranium: This Time It's Different

The global spot uranium price display as derived by industry consultant TradeTech had risen by US$1.50 over the end-April price to US$56.50/lb, having trade down to US$50 after the March tsunami damaged the Fukushima reactors and unexpectedly sparked a rethink on global nuclear energy policy. It appeared that order destruction was not as significant as a panicky market first assumed. But June has brought a dissimilar story.

TradeTech has marked its end-June spot cost indicator at US$51.50/lb, representing a 9% drop from May. The consultant notes there was a big hurry to sell in the last couple of days of June at a time when buyers are still uncertain over what path worldwide nuclear energy might take from here. One “aggressive” seller was looking to place material fast, but the fact remains that in the short expression at least, the supply-side looks overladen.

The US government is also affecting to re-enrich depleted tailings for sale to finance further clean-up projects, and traders assume that provide may come onto the market in coming months. Japan has shut down many of reactors and a few may never be restart, including the six at Fukushima, so stockpiled uranium inventories also add to latent near-term supply. There seems little reason for buyers not to reverse off in price.

Powertech break uranium mine

Powertech Uranium Corp. has indefinitely put on hold its future Centennial Project uranium mine northeast of Fort Collins, partially due to the Japanese nuclear disaster's impacts on the uranium industry, Powertech's president said Wednesday. The company plans to focus all its efforts on receiving its Dewey-Burdock uranium mine allowed and producing uranium in South Dakota before moving ahead with the Centennial Project, Powertech USA President Richard Clement said. The Centennial Project is planned to be construct in Weld County about 15 miles northeast of Fort Collins between Wellington and Nunn.

Powertech plans to mine uranium there and at Dewey-Burdock using a process called in situ leaching, need the company to inject a baking soda-like resolution into the ground, suspend the uranium ore and pump it out as a liquid. "Dewey-Burdock is the most superior project the company has, therefore, we are concentrating our efforts on Dewey-Burdock to get allowed," Clement said. "Especially in the post-tsunami financial environment, we require to concentrate our efforts as much as any other company." The March 11 Tohoku earthquake in Japan and nuclear reduce at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant that follow sent uranium prices plummeting.

Just before the earthquake, uranium prices had top out around $75. By Tuesday, the price had drop to $55.25, according to TradeTech, a Denver-based uranium market study firm. “This is about as bad a story as you can visualize for the U.S. nuclear power industry,” said Charles Mason, True Chair of energy economics in the finance department at the University of Wyoming, who is script a book about uranium exploration and its impacts. “It definitely is bad news.” Once it became clear the quake would guide to prolonged nuclear disaster, nuclear industry forecasters started to expect unhappy consequences for uranium prices.

Demand for uranium intimidate Grand Canyon biodiversity

The natural beauty and unique type of the Grand Canyon are "in the crosshairs" because of renewed interest in the region uranium reserves. That is the warning from detractor of the mines, ahead of the release of a government report on Friday on the potential crash of fresh mining. Mining has been banned within the Grand Canyon national park since President Roosevelt confirmed it a national monument in 1908. But since 2003, foreign companies have submitted 2,215 claims to view on the edge of the canyon. Ken Salazar, the secretary of the interior, temporarily withdrew 1m acres of ground from exploration in 2009 to allow time for an environmental assessment. Salazar must choose by July whether to ban "mineral entry" for two-thirds of the claims for the next 20 years.

Uranium deposits mineralise in 2,000-feet deep "breccia" pipes, a geological feature ordinary to the world-famous golden brown sedimentary rock in the canyon. When absent alone, the uranium is not harmful. But once dissolved in water, it can leach into spring and aquifers that then supply into the Colorado river, which finally supplies 18 million people in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The water can remain impure for decades after a mine shuts. Taylor McKinnon, campaigns director of public lands at the Centre for Biological Diversity, said the expansion of mining would intimidate the park's delicate ecosystem that multiplicity from desert scrub in the parched canyon to the Californian condors that wheel above the craggy outcrops.

He said: "The Grand Canyon is an international treasure and recognized for its breathtaking expanses. Its isolated seeps, springs and caves harbour a notable diversity of life, including species found nowhere else on earth. Uranium mining puts those kind in the crosshairs." Mining companies have been drawn to the Grand Canyon area since the 1940s, because of huge quantities of high rank uranium that fuelled the nuclear weapons and nuclear power industry in the US. But fast-pace nuclear power programmes in countries such as China and Korea are fuelling a fresh rush for "hard rock", and have send uranium prices soaring from $7.10 a pound in 2001, to $63.88 a pound in 2011.

Wyo Uranium Industry Bullish Amid increasing Prices

The uranium industry is arresting a bullish tone amid resurgent prices and a welcome atmosphere in the top state for uranium treasury. Companies tout plans to mine more uranium in Wyoming through a Wyoming Mining Association news meeting Thursday."I feel uranium will be here to stay," said the association's assistant director, Lynn Welker. Titan Uranium USA Inc. said it intended to open a mixture surface underground uranium mine in Wyoming. Meanwhile, the top U.S. miner of uranium, Cameco Resources, said it planned to double uranium manufacture in Wyoming by 2018.

Wyoming, followed by New Mexico, jointly have anywhere from two-thirds to three-quarters of the nation's predictable uranium reserves, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The industry got its found in Wyoming during the early days of the Cold War and fell on hard times in the 1980s. Uranium prices soared in current years, reaching $130 per pound in 2007. Prices plummet during the depression but are up 50 percent since previous summer, reaching $62.50 per pound as of Thursday.

Not far from Jeffrey City, a central Wyoming community that has been a spirit town since the local uranium industry go bust in the 1980s, Titan Uranium USA Inc. plans to reopen an region uranium mine once own by U.S. Energy. "People ask us if we are going to bring Jeffrey City back from the dead," said Gregory Adams, vice president of Titan Uranium USA Inc. The mine will bring 200 jobs, which will help the region even though the company has no plans to restore the town itself, Adams said. "I think the uranium industry is on a roll here once more in Wyoming and they are leaving to bring a lot to the state," he said.

Uranium prices to increase in 2011

Uranium has become one of the mainly sought after metals in 2010 and it might continue to be so in the upcoming year also. According to market analyst, require from India and China will keep uranium prices up in 2011 also. Both these nations have chalked out big plans to place up latest nuclear power plants to meet their power demands. This will help uranium prices to go up in the upcoming year also. Uranium prices have rise about 20 percent since October because of a restricted supply of the nuclear fuel being available to utilities, manufacturer and traders on the spot market.

Uranium oxide concentrate for instant release reached $62.50 a pound this week. Meanwhile, the Uranium Stocks Index is high on Thursday, up 1.6%, adding to a six month presentation that has seen the Index double, and there could be more benefit to come for uranium stocks in 2011. Supply and demand matter have helped drive spot uranium prices as tall as $62.50 in recent weeks, but prices could rush more next year. China’s entry into the uranium market is the means to drive prices top. The country just announced a deal with Cameco (CCJ), the major US-listed uranium miner by market value.

Uranium investor Enriched by China

A small event in a nuclear reactor the collision of a neutron with an atom of nuclear fuel triggers enormous energy through a powerful chain response. Something related happened in the uranium markets previous month. The small event was in China, where an official for the country's nuclear power agency give a speech in which he predictable China could build 112 gigawatts of nuclear ability by 2020. Though he stressed that 80 gigawatts was the more likely aim, that cautionary nuance was lost in conversion, and the price of uranium shot up to $65 a pound within a little days, after languishing near $40 a pound since the start of the global recession.

"That actually got people's juices going," says Edward Sterck, an analyst with BMO assets Markets. "It was a 'maybe' scenario, and when it got statement in the English press, they only reported that top line shape." To put the official's high estimate in perspective, 112 gigawatts is about a third of the world's current nuclear capacity, and 60% over the "high" estimate for China's growth forecast by the London-based World Nuclear Association last year. China is at present building 26 new reactors, more than twice as many as the nearest contender, Russia.

Although the Chinese official afterward played down the top line figure, uranium prices and the stocks of uranium producers have reserved their gains. This is mainly because people were previously seeing signs in the market that China is arrange for a bigger nuclear power growth than previously estimated. A week before the speech, China's biggest nuclear power utility signed a decade long conformity to purchase uranium from Areva SA, France's state own nuclear power company.

Uranium Demand to generate Upside Pressure on Prices

A report issued final week by Morgan Stanley forecasts that uranium prices will average $52.25 a pound next year, an enlarge of 19 percent higher than this year. The expectation for analyst Peter Richardson and Joel Crane is that as new provide becomes available the demand for nuclear fuel will outpace manufacture capacity. Although it is certainly not the first predict for strengthening uranium prices, the message may send prices higher if utilities act sooner to try to build inventories before the impending inflationary force mounts. A nearly balanced uranium market makes prices “vulnerable to deliver shocks and/or new build announcements,” Richardson and Crane wrote.

The average spot price this year is 6 percent below the previous year and almost 30 percent lesser than the average in 2008, according to the report. “The steady, two year erosion in uranium prices has translate into difficult mining breakeven points, mostly for new uranium projects,” the analysts said. As of October 1, the countries with the leading number of planned and proposed new nuclear reactors are: China 159; India 60; Russia 44; USA 31; Ukraine 22; and South Africa 15. The report cites that demand from residential economies is also set to rise on “concerns over carbon emission expenses and energy supply security.”

The new plants will need 32,900 tonnes of nuclear fuel, almost half of the demand from this year’s 443 profitable reactors. Most of the demand growth will have to be meet by mines as secondary supplies from recycled Russian warheads may finish with the end of an international agreement in 2013. The mark price of uranium jumped 5.6 percent this week, growing $2.75 to $52.00 per pound as reported on Monday by UxC trade consultants. It has been a very busy month for Australian uranium mining welfare in Africa, with Paladin Energy taking a holding interest in NGM Resources. The market has reacted optimistically the news sending the share prices for Paladin 20 percent superior for the month of October to the current range of $4.39.

Uranium prices to increase 19% in 2011

Uranium prices will average US$52.25/lb next year, on behalf of an advance of 19% compared with 2010, according to a new report by Morgan Stanley. The mid to longer term price rises can be credited to an increasingly tightening demand-supply balance. Spot prices for uranium oxide this year through mid October average US$43.78/lb and for 2012, the company’s analyst Peter Richardson and Joel Crane predicted it could rise to as a lot as US$60. This year’s average is 6% below last year’s level and approximately 30% lower than the 2008 average. “The steady, two-year erosion in uranium prices has translate into difficult mining breakeven points, particularly for latest uranium projects,” the analysts said.

The fall in prices has made the world ever more dependent on Kazakh output, which reached 14.02Mt last year, efficiently knocking Canada of the top spot, according to the World Nuclear Association. Moreover, with new nuclear reactor capacity coming online in the stage up to 215, demand for fuel is expected to rise by 24%. And growth potential lies ahead for the longer-term as well as over the next decade, an extra 147 nuclear plants are planned to come online, according to Morgan Stanley. Their fuel necessity is estimated to be around 32,900t of nuclear fuel. It is envisage that most of this order will have to be met by mines as secondary supplies from recycled Russian warheads may cease as an international conformity expires in 2013.

ERA cut uranium output target

Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) cut its full-year uranium oxide production objective by up to 800t after 3Q output dropped 36% to 911t. It now expects to produce around 3900t, down from the 4300-4700t variety it predicted earlier. The company confirmed it will need to buy around 5000t of material to meet this year’s sales obligations. Mr Warwick Grigor, sector forecaster and chairman of BGF Equities in Sydney commented: “The shortfall represents about 1% of world supply in 2010, so it’s not the end of the world but could have some collision on the uranium price. Overall, ERA is coming in 20 percent under their capacity and that’s significant.”

In 2009, ERA accounted for nearly 10% of the universal uranium oxide production. In the first months of 2010, ERA’s output attained at 2628t of uranium oxide out of 705,000t of ore mined, a figure that is 64% below the level attained in the equivalent time of the previous year. The company reported that “Strong plant performance continued with mill revival only slightly below both the earlier quarter and the corresponding quarter of 2009. Year to date mill revival remains in line with 2009. During the quarter, the replacement of the calciner was successfully finished and well within schedule.” Around 1,845,000t of ore was milled, up 11% from the primary nine months in 2009.