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Uranium Spot Market a ‘Ghost Town’ With No Price Change, Ux Says
Uranium spot prices, depressed by the nuclear crisis in Japan, were unchanged last week amid low trading volume, Ux Consulting Co. said.
Uranium-oxide concentrate for immediate delivery sold for $50.50 a pound in the seven days ended yesterday, the same as the previous week, Ux said in an e-mailed report today. That’s based on the most-competitive offer tracked by the Roswell, Georgia-based company.
The spot price for the nuclear fuel has declined 24 percent since the week before the March 11 earthquake and tsunami damaged Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s Fukushima Dai-Ichi power station. The crisis prompted some nations to put their atomic power plans on hold.
“A number of market participants have indicated that recent market activity has been very limited,” Ux said in the report. “This lack of activity has been described as the market looking like a ghost town.”
Nuclear-power utilities buy the bulk of their uranium from mining companies, with the contracts mostly extending beyond 12 months. The spot market allows trading for delivery within a year and includes buying and selling by financial investors.
“Some activity still proceeds as the spot price floats near the $50 level,” Ux said. “Several spot transactions have been posted over the past week, most involving smaller quantities.”
Kazatomprom, the Kazakhstan state nuclear company, said yesterday it plans a 100-fold increase in sales of uranium pellets to China within three years as the world’s biggest energy consumer almost triples the number of nuclear power plants it operates.
Kazatomprom expects shipments to China to grow to 200 metric tons of uranium pellets in 2013 or 2014 from the 2 tons planned this year, Chief Executive Officer Vladimir Shkolnik said in an interview in Almaty yesterday.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Scott in Perth at jscott14@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Alexander Kwiatkowski at akwiatkowsk2@bloomberg.net
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