Centrus gets waiver on uranium imports from Russia
The DOE deferred a decision on a waiver for 2026 and 2027, Centrus said.
By Dan Oancea, InfoMine
In this series of short articles I present a few of my notes and observations on thermal coal, uranium, vanadium, molybdenum, copper and gold — commodities that were discussed at Roundup 2011 technical exploration conference in Vancouver.
Uranium
Like coal price increases resulting from recent floods in Australia, the price of uranium was also influenced by weather events, such as the second flood at Cigar Lake, tornado announcements at Ranger mine, and the Olympic Dam malfunction announcement. As usual, uranium is not immune to bubbles created by speculation (e.g. the 2007 bubble).
By 2030 we could see energy demand double. At the same time activists will continue to apply pressure on coal and other “dirty” energy sources but they won’t be able to tarnish uranium as nuclear power is good for climate change (CO2-wise).
When thinking energy we also have to consider the security of supply because we could get enough uranium from stable countries but that does not apply to oil that comes from the troubled Middle East.
A nuclear renaissance is suggested by the 156 planned and the 322 proposed nuclear reactors.
In 2010, there were 438 commercial nuclear reactors operating in 30 countries.
China has no domestic uranium production that we know of; the country has 13 nuclear reactors in operation, 26 under construction, 37 planned and 120 proposed. In 2010 China entered the long-term market for uranium; before that the country bought uranium on the spot market. This significantly contributed to a rise in the price of uranium.
Growth in uranium demand will also come from South Korea, Japan and India, while in the United States, U.S. nuclear reactors will generate 20% of the country’s electricity by 2020.
On the supply side, 180 million pounds of uranium are consumed per year but the world produces less than that. The balance comes from recycled uranium. Kazakhstan covers 27% of supply and accounted for 80% of the production increase in the last decade. But even this mighty country faces deeper targets, lower grades, has infrastructure problems, etc., and because of that it threatened that it won’t be able to sustain actual production levels if uranium prices continue to stay low.
Last but not least, it takes 10 years from exploration to uranium mine construction. That is why 2010-2020 is considered the decade of uranium.
