Rio Tinto's ERA predicts a recovery in uranium output up to 3,700/t in 2012

Rio Tinto's Energy Resources of Australia expects uranium output in 2012 to recover to among 3,000 and 3,700 tonnes after mining interruption drove it to a A$154 million ($164 million) loss in 2011.ERA's shares, which have tumbled 78 percent over the past year due to the company's production problems and wider concern afflict uranium stocks post Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster last March, were down 7 percent by early afternoon.

Production was suspended for five months last year at ERA's Ranger mine, which in previous years abounding as much as 10 percent of the world's uranium, due to heavy rains in Australia's tropical north.The result was a 30 percent decline in generally production in 2011 to 2,641 tonnes against its 2010 tally.

It also said it purchased 2,126 tonnes of uranium on the stain market, of which 1,636 tonnes was sold in 2011. Shared with inventory management and uranium loans, this enabled the company to meet all its sales commitments.ERA warned in January that creation may be hit again this year as rain had delayed access to high grade uranium-bearing ore.

Chinese power group eyes uranium companies

A Chinese state-owned power company has set its sights on two uranium companies, making a £632m offer for London-listed Kalahari Minerals that if completed would trigger an offer for Australia-listed Extract Resources.China Guangdong Nuclear Power has bid 243.55p for Kalahari, an investor in a Namibian uranium project, representing a 16 per cent premium to the Aim-quoted group’s share price over the past six months.

Kalahari’s board recommended the latest offer from the Chinese group, which is trying to secure supplies of nuclear fuel as the country embarks on the world’s biggest reactor-building programme.Earlier this year, CGNPC tried to buy Kalahari but its 290p offer was disrupted by falling uranium markets after the nuclear disaster at Fukushima in Japan as well as an adverse ruling from the UK’s takeover panel.

Kalahari is an investment company whose sole asset is a 43 per cent stake in Extract, which is developing the Husab uranium project in Namibia.Australian securities laws require bidders to extend their offer to all shareholders if they buy a stake of 20 per cent or more in an Australian company.

Chinese bet on Extract's uranium

An expected $2.2 billion bid for uranium explorer take out Resources by a Chinese state owned nuclear power company is being labelled as the boldest show of hold for the sector since the Japanese nuclear disaster in March.

The takeover speculation was spark after Guangdong Nuclear Power reopened talks with Extract's biggest shareholder, which hold nearly 43 per cent of the share register, according to a media statement in the UK over the weekend.

Australian-listed Extract's intended Husab uranium project in Namibia is the focus of Guandong's intentions it is a 15 million pound a year mine that take out says will be one of the world's three largest uranium mines take out placed its shares in a trade halt after it had climbed 82 cents, or 10.2 per cent, to $8.86 following an hour of trade

Areva to temporarily shut down 2 French uranium plants

French nuclear group Areva on Thursday said it would for the moment shut down two uranium exchange plants in France during November and December the temporary shutdown of the two plants, which employ approximately 570 staff, comes after a sharp fall in orders from Japanese nuclear power producers in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, said a spokeswoman at Areva.

"This decision is justified by events that occur in Japan and that are reducing Japanese power groups' delivery needs against this background we deem it unreasonable to create large amounts of converted uranium," the spokeswoman said.

The spokeswoman said the temporary shutdown would decrease estimated production to 10,880 tonnes in 2011, down from an early goal of 13,400 tonnes for the full year the plants, which are owned by Areva's subsidiary Comurhex and are situated in the southern French cities of Tricastin and Narbonne, chemically arrange uranium before its is enriched to become fuel for nuclear power plants.

Energy resources woes rise as uranium reserves tumble

The Darwin-based ERA has also reported a first-half net loss of $121.75 million, losing from a $22.7m profit a year earlier the loss integrated a $99.4m inventory writedown because of the shelved project, which would include processed stockpiles through acid-leaching, and a surprise reduction in grades of extra stockpiles that ERA had planned to process.

The woes add to ERA's dismal first-half construction from its Ranger uranium mine after heavy rains stopped its plant, as well as to an ailing viewpoint for uranium markets in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, In response in the direction of yesterday's result, ERA's shares slumped 42c, or 10 per cent, to a seven-year low of $3.92, despite the original loss of $22.3m beating analysts' forecasts and the support of the $120m underground Ranger Deeps exploration decline.

The stock is now down 70 per cent in the long-ago year, representing a $1.3 billion loss for Rio, which has a 68.4 per cent stake in ERA.ERA chief executive Rob Atkinson said he thinking yesterday's excellent news outweighed the bad,"The good news for ERA is the looking at decline being approved and the very great exploration program we are going to embark on," he said,"Even on the downside issues, those are significant business elements, and as we increase our knowledge we do get superior levels of comfort."

Uranium prices to rebound as Japan disaster memories fade

Uranium prices slumped in the come around of the nuclear disaster in Japan earlier this year, but it looks like any price fault in 2011 will be short-lived as memories fade and demand for electricity continues to grow. Adam Schatzker, forecaster with RBC Capital Markets, notes that China, India and South Korea are maintain their nuclear build plans even as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Vietnam include announce new nuclear plans as well.

“The market will start in on to recover in 2012 as the events at Fukushima become less of a driving force and the supply-demand essentials re-assert themselves,” he said in a note. “There is not enough uranium production, either current or planned, to gratify reactor needs, initial core requirements and inventory for new reactors. A sustainably higher cost should help resolve this gap.”

Germany’s threats to shut down all of its reactors will be upturned, and the threat of Japan final its reactors are unlikely, his said.Mr. Schatzker forecasts uranium prices to be range-bound at less than US$60 a pound for the rest of 2011 and may yet drop under US$50 a pound depending on what Japanese utilities do with planned deliveries for the remainder of the year.

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.