(Bloomberg) — The Canadian firm behind the world’s only physical uranium fund said hedge funds and family offices are driving up demand for the radioactive metal used to fuel nuclear reactors.
The Sprott Physical Uranium Trust has itself been on a buying spree, bolstering its stockpile by 45% in four weeks after snapping up 8.1 million pounds of the commodity as prices surged.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
A speculative rally fuelled by Reddit is juicing the price of uranium and investments with exposure to the commodity, leaving investors and companies alike wondering how long the run will last.
The Sprott Physical Uranium Trust, an exchange-traded investment that tracks the price of uranium, rose by 15.5 per cent on Monday on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Shares of uranium miner Cameco Corp., which have rallied 55 per cent since late August, ended the day flat after being up by 8 per cent at one point. Another producer, Denison Mines Corp., rose by 3 per cent on the New York Stock Exchange.
Shares of uranium mining companies surged Monday as retail traders from Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum focused their energies on the rallying radioactive metal. Companies tied to uranium in Australia and the U.K. powered higher Monday, while shares of U.S.-listed companies also rose.
Sydney-listed uranium miners Peninsula Energy Ltd. , Energy Resources of Australia Ltd. and Bannerman Energy Ltd. all closed more than 25% higher. U.K.-listed miner Aura Energy Ltd. jumped more than 35% and London-listed Yellow Cake PLC, a company that acts as an exchange-traded fund for uranium, rose 13%.
The uranium price has surged to the highest level since 2015 due in part to a single fund aggressively cornering the physical market.
Investment firm Sprott Inc. earlier this year launched its Physical Uranium Trust and recently commented on Twitter about how much physical uranium it had been buying, aiding to the commodity’s recent bull run.
Nothing sobers you up like getting called a liar. Full confession: I’m almost invariably sober, as a general rule, if maybe tipsy on the joys of doing a job I love. I cover the energy industry and believe it to be the best (and most fun) job-creating element in business.
And another admission: I am part of the all-of-the-above crowd. In my mind, our power generation sector needs renewables like wind, solar and hydro—taking full advantage of the gifts of creation—but also natural gas, trash-to-energy, nuclear and, yes, coal.
https://world-nuclear-news.org/
Nuclear generation capacity is expected to grow by 2.6% annually, reaching 615 GWe by 2040 in the Reference Scenario of The Nuclear Fuel Report: Global Scenarios for Demand and Supply Availability 2021-2040, launched today at World Nuclear Association Annual Symposium 2021. Only 74% of 2020’s reactor requirements were covered by primary uranium supply.
The report is the latest in a series of reports published at roughly two-yearly intervals since 1975. Drafted with input from over 80 experts from across the global nuclear industry co-chaired by Alexander Boytsov of Tenex and James Nevling of Exelon Generation, the report uses publicly available information gathered from organisations active in the nuclear fuel cycle – both members and non-members of the Association – to produce projections for nuclear capacity and uranium production.
Ian Lowe’s new book – Long Half-life – The Nuclear Industry in Australia – is a timely and riveting account of the political, social and scientific complexities of the nuclear industry, revealing the power of vested interests, the subjectivities of scientists and the transformative force of community passion.
In describing the book, Ian Lowe said:
The discovery of large uranium deposits in the Northern Territory suggested that Australia could become a major exporter of radioactive minerals.
The Fox Report, commissioned by the Whitlam government to study the environmental impacts of the proposed Ranger uranium mine, broadened into an inquiry into the social and political issues of producing uranium.
(Bloomberg) — Struggling nuclear power reactors would get a $6 billion lifeline under the bipartisan infrastructure bill heading for a vote in the U.S. Senate — a move supported by the Biden administration, but opposed by some environmentalists.
A program to evaluate nuclear reactors that are at risk of being shut down and provide them with aid would be created within the Energy Department under terms of the $550 billion, bipartisan infrastructure package.
The senators negotiating the package completed the text Sunday, moving the chamber a crucial step closer to likely passage this week. Final congressional action won’t come until after the House returns from a recess in September.
Demand for uranium is growing at the same time supply is becoming less certain, said Cameco President and CEO Tim Gitzel July 28.
“Since 2011, about 1.6 billion pounds of uranium have been consumed in reactors, and only about half of that or 800 million pounds have been placed under long-term [utility] contracts,” Gitzel said in a second-quarter earnings call. “This has led to a growing wedge of uncovered uranium requirements,” he said.
“We’re also seeing increased demand for uranium from financial funds and junior uranium companies,” Gitzel said.
The ghosts of the uranium boom continue to haunt the land, water and people.
In late August 2018, in the heat of one of the warmest and driest years on record in the Four Corners country, under a blanket of smoke emanating from wildfires burning all over the place, I piloted the Silver Bullet — my trusty 1989 Nissan Sentra — to the quiet burg of Monticello, Utah.
I was on my way from one camping site on the Great Sage Plain to another on Comb Ridge, where I would feed my misanthropic side with a searing hike down a canyon, seeking out potholes that still had a smidgen of stagnant water left over from the last rain.
I took a detour through Monticello to look into one of the most contentious fronts of the long-running public-land wars, the battle over uranium mining and milling and even radioactive waste disposal. San Juan County’s public lands played a major role in what I call the Age of the Nuclear West, which reached its multi-decade apex during the Cold War and hasn’t ended yet.
Greenland has taken the first step towards outlawing uranium mining after lawmakers there proposed a stricter version of a ban that the country’s national assembly overturned in 2013.
Only July 2, the elected government began a month-long public consultation period for a proposed bill that, in addition to mining uranium, would prohibit the feasibility studies and exploration activities that must be completed before a mining project can be considered for a license to begin operation.
According to proposal, Naalakkersuisut, the elected government, is hoping that a reinstatement of what was known as the zero-tolerance policy, to achieve its goal of ensuring that “Greenland neither produces nor exports uranium.”
Demand for greener energy has put companies with uranium and base metal projects under the spotlight. Here’s a list of the top ten Canadian-headquartered base metal and uranium juniors with no production. The ranking is based on the companies’ market capitalization as of June 3, and compiled by MiningIntelligence.
NexGen Energy – Market capitalization: C$2.7 billion ($2.3 billion)
NexGen Energy’s (TSX: NXE; NYSE: NXE) market cap has increased fivefold from last year, pushing it from third to first place in this year’s top ten ranking.
The exploration and development company’s valuation has been boosted as the spot price for uranium edged higher in May to pass $32 per lb., and comes after several years in which uranium was trading in the $25-30 per lb. price range.
https://www.eurasiareview.com/
Ronald Stein is Founder and Ambassador for Energy & Infrastructure of PTS Advance, headquartered in Irvine, California.
As a reaffirmation of what Abraham Lincoln said back in 1858, “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time”, investors are not being fooled by the rhetoric that weather can provide for our electricity needs.
Share prices in uranium miners are on the rise, much to the horror of the weather dependent wind and solar industries.
The market seems to be taking the threat of looming net-zero emissions targets seriously. Knowing that the only serious measure of meeting any such target is nuclear power, the smart money is backing any company with uranium mining interests or even the mere prospect of developing such an interest.
Study shows vSMRs could reduce emissions by 85 per cent or more CHALK RIVER, ON, June 23, 2021 /CNW/ – Very small modular reactors (vSMRs) could provide clean, economic and reliable power and heat to remote northern mines and surrounding communities, reducing or eliminating reliance on diesel, according to a recent study completed by Ontario …
https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/
Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Trutnev has instructed Rosatom to submit a plan for the resumption of uranium mining in Yakutia.
Rosatom, the state corporation specializing in nuclear power, in 2017 suspended the development of Yakut uranium deposits but is now ordered to resume mining in the region by Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Yuri Trutnev.
News online RBC reported that Tutnev announced his nudge towards Rosatom at a meeting on the efficiency of the utilization of minerals and the conduction of geological exploration in Yakutia on June 2nd.
The latest time at which the license freeze can be upheld is 2025, however, the process of revoking the license suspension is already on its way.
