excerpt/ Saudi Arabia of Uranium
board of advisors the ex-president of the world nuclear society, and also know many who are involved in the industry at lettered agencies.
Nuclear Energy Agency, International Atomic Energy Agency, World Nuclear Association (where his buddy was former president, I assume, because there is no World Nuclear Society), World Bank, U.S. Department of Energy, Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics, and Morningstar. Surely none of those lettered agencies employ any actual nuclear scientists.
need for new uranium mines, hence the category on that chart: “New Mines Needed.”
•We expect global uranium demand to rise 40% by 2025. Annual growth of 2.8% might not sound like a lot, but is massive for a commodity that has seen precious little demand growth since the 1980s. Consider that average annual copper demand growth of less than 3% from 2002 to 2012 was enough to drive a 336% price increase.
•Uranium stockpiles accumulated decades ago are diminishing. These supplies have nearly halved since 2013 because of the end of the Russian-USA highly enriched uranium, or HEU, agreement. Other secondary sources will be unable to fill in the hole.
•Mined supply of uranium will struggle to keep pace amid rising demand and falling secondary supplies. Low uranium prices since Fukushima have left the project cupboard bare. We expect a cumulative supply deficit to emerge by 2021.
•These shortfalls should begin to have an impact on price negotiations in 2017 because utilities tend to secure supplies three to four years prior to actual use. We estimate prices must rise from $50 a pound to $75 a pound to encourage enough new supply.
from 60%-70% of current worldwide uranium supply comes from unsafe, politically unstable locales, or from nations led or coerced by unfriendly leaders, i.e., Vladimir Putin. Namely, Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan is four times more important to the global nuclear markets than Saudi Arabia is to the global oil markets. Even worse, Kazakhstan is more important to the uranium sector than the world’s five largest oil producers (US, Russia, Saudi Arabia, China and Canada) are to the oil markets, combined.
pinch point is coming to Kazakhstan, and it will happen faster than most expect. Uranium prices have been low, and the government has been using the funds from production to subsidize its political agenda. Once again, reinvestment has been sacrificed as a result.
AI
