Commodities | Nov 30 2010
By Greg Peel
With the US Thanksgiving break interrupting the markets this week, activity in the uranium spot market was relatively quiet. But two transactions netting less than 500,000 lbs did manage to tick the spot price up US10c to the significant US$60/lb mark, industry consultant TradeTech reports.
There is a possibility a breach of US$60 could see some further interest from speculators, but this week they were simply happy to bargain hunt. The bigger sellers were again backing off. Uranium is also fighting against recent renewed strength in the US dollar, although the price action of most dollar-denominated commodities in the recent euro-turmoil period has belied the dollar's recovery. Oil and soft commodities in particular have continued to head northward.
The real focus last week was nevertheless the inaugural China International Nuclear Symposium which from all reports was quite a blast. Beijing became a forum for the all the world's players to discuss the nuclear renaissance, TradeTech notes, but clearly China was centre of attention. And it didn't disappoint.
China has reached the stage at which its ambitious reactor construction program of several years ago is becoming a reality, such that earlier memoranda of understanding for long term supply of U3O8 are now being converted into solid commitments. For example, last week the Guangdong Nuclear Power Co announced it had made a commitment with Canada's Cameco for the long-term purchase of no less than 29 million pounds of uranium.
Chinese demand, as is the case in just about every other market, has the uranium world excited. On the flipside, falling grades in many of the world's major uranium mines and indications of supply control from Kazakhstan have speculators salivating for another sharp shift upward in the spot uranium price.
Whether or not that occurs will depend on just how aggressive hedge funds choose to be, having been taught a costly lesson in 2007, and at what price point the “real” buyers step out of the market if it's running ahead of fundamentals.
