Uranium Price Forecast - Still Going Up, But When?

Uranium (Nuclear Minerals) / Exploration, Mining, Marketing, & Acquisitions

Date posted: 08/12/16

Jocelyn Aspa reports that analysts surveyed by FocusEconomics expect the prices to gradually rise due to an increase in demand from India, Russia and China, with prices averaging $33.20 per pound in the fourth quarter of 2016. Dipping into 2017, panelists expect the price to continue rising to an average of $39.50 by the fourth quarter, 2017. While uranium is currently seeing rock bottom prices, it certainly has come a long way to go in just a few short months to rise above the $30 per pound mark. At the end of July, Cantor Fitzgerald released its 2016 Quarterly Commodity Outlook and noted that the spot uranium price of $27.55 for the Q2 2016 was lower than its estimate of $33 per pound. Rob Chang, senior analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald, noted their expectation that utilities would begin accumulating uranium for their upcoming uncovered requirements have not materialized. Chang added the firm has changed its view and expects utilities to focus their buying in the spot market until they are no longer rewarded with low prices for doing so. That being said, Chang believes a violent increase for the uranium price is still in the cards, but that large global uncovered requirements are significant and there cannot be enough available spot market inventory to cover the pending demand. In the current low-price environment, Chang concludes that a significant number of uranium mines will shut down once the high-priced contracts that have been keeping them operational roll off. For the foreseeable future, CF expects the uranium price to remain somewhere around $40 per pound U3O8 due to forecast production shutdowns based on the expiration of long-term contracts. On the other hand, the firm also projected uranium prices of $70 per pound assuming that ... a) uranium producers will produce at their forecast production levels, b) all new uranium projects will start on time and exactly according to their ramp up forecasts. The latter hand is not likely so prices .. Read on ..