Commodities | Mar 01 2016
By Greg Peel
The're hardly coming thick and fast, but Japan did restart its fourth nuclear reactor last week. Not that long-awaited Japanese restarts are evoking any excitement in the uranium market.
The week before last saw no transactions at all completed in the uranium spot market. There was only one small transaction completed in the term markets. But for some time there have been two term market delivery tenders sitting in the market, awaiting settlement, for a total of almost 20mlbs U3O8 equivalent.
Another tender for 2.7mlbs has now hit the term markets, and further tenders are expected soon for delivery of UF6, industry consultant TradeTech reports. Given no urgent demand in the shorter term, it appears prospective buyers are waiting to gauge pricing once these outstanding contracts are finally settled.
The sellers have become more anxious. With the end of the month approaching, early last week they began lowering offers in the spot market in an attempt weed out any interest. By week’s end a smattering of buyers was finally prompted into action, including utilities and traders. Six transactions were completed, TradeTech reports, but only for a modest total of 550,000lbs U3O8 equivalent.
TradeTech’s weekly spot price indicator has plunged by US$1.35 to US$32.15/lb.
With the aforementioned term market contracts still awaiting settlement, TradeTech’s term price indicators remain unchanged on US$36.50/lb (mid) and US$44.00/lb (long).
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