So far this week, spot prices for yellowcake – uranium concentrate used in nuclear power generation – reached a new 16-year high, climbing to $92.45 per pound.
Reflecting on our December 2020 note to readers in Buy Uranium: Is This The Beginning Of The Next ESG Craze, yellow-cake prices have risen 217%.
The uranium market is only getting hotter, now that the African colonization era seem to come to an end and continued tightness could push prices over $100, analysts from Bank of America and Berenberg Bank wrote in two separate notes.
BofA’s metals and mining team said tightness in uranium markets could extend well into 2025, indicating that prices could run higher through this year.
The team of analysts has increased their uranium spot price price targets to $105 per pound in 2024 and $115 in 2025. The analysts pointed out: Uranium’s third bull market set up for a promising 2024.
On a separate note, Berenberg analysts said the requirement for some uranium users to diversify away from Russian supply could be a major price driver. They said prices will likely normalize around $70 per pound for the long term.
Soaring prices have buoyed stocks of mining companies like Cameco up nearly 300% since December 2020. The Sprott Uranium Miners ETF (URNM is also up almost 300%. And supplier Uranium Energy Corp is up 416%.
According to uranium market data firm UxC, uranium demand is surging as contracts signed by utilities reached 160 million pounds last year – the highest annual volume since 2012.
The uranium market is only getting tighter, Jonathan Hinze, president of UxC, told The Wall Street Journal. It only took 13 years after the Fukushima disaster to put nuclear energy back into the spotlight as the world races to de-carbonize power grids.
Oil Price.com / ABC Flash Point News 2024.
Luckily not all countries have this mineral available.
I wondered why South Africa wasn’t being sanctioned by the USA as South Africa has taken Israel to court–the mining companies mentioned above are Canadian and the USA needs Uranium .
On a point of interest the UK government says -quote- “depleted uranium is safe ” as it sends shells to Ukraine — real data= over 300 tons of depleted Uranium was used in Iraq Cancers rose from 40/100,000 population to 1600 also returning US Vets developed unusual Cancers that could only be linked to depleted Uranium contamination –the US government at the time admitted it wasn’t safe .