Jocelyn Aspa reports that higher nuclear demand from China, India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is expected to give the metal a boost in price. The price of uranium was under pressure over the course of the last month, trading at $29.10 per pound on April 15, which was 1.4% higher than in March. But, overall, uranium is down 14.9% on a year-to-date basis, with its current price at $27.60 as of May 9.
The April edition of the FocusEconomics Consensus Forecast Commodities report indicated that even though Japan has been able to restart some of its nuclear facilities after the Fukushima disaster in 2011, uranium remains oversupplied due to secondary sources, such as excess inventories and nuclear reprocessing.
However, in addition to high nuclear demand, a drying up of secondary supply sources should help tighten up the market. Panelists surveyed in the report expect the price of uranium to average $40.20 per pound in the fourth quarter of 2016, and steadily increasing through 2017 to an average of $45.50 in the fourth quarter.
Platts recently wrote that uranium miners and traders are suffering from oversupply, low prices, lack of liquidity and low demand from utilities. There’s little expectation that market conditions will improve in the short-to-medium term.
At a conference in Abu Dhabi last month, Nick Carter, executive vice president with Ux Consulting said the spot uranium price could stay in the low $30 per pound for quite some time. This is because of an expected excess in near-term supply of approximately 25 million to 30 million pounds of U308 between 2016 and 2019.
Carter reportedly does not see a supply deficit in the market until the late 2020s, due to the current supply gut.
Despite weaker uranium prices, several junior mining companies have been keeping busy with exploration work ... Forum Uranium, NexGen Energy, and Fission Uranium.
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