Interesting from Silicon Investor fourm
Sprott put out a piece on the U market yesterday.
At the recent World Nuclear Association conference, Cameco presented a paper suggesting that the uranium suppliers were not ready for the impact that the new reactor builds will have on the current market. It was suggested that in 2010, 10 new reactors would be coming on-line per year for at least a 10-year period. Assuming a typical
1000MW reactor, the initial core of between 700M to 1.2MM lbs of uranium would be required.
More importantly those 10 reactors would require at minimum, two to three years of inventory before commencing power generation. An average reload is required every 8 months to 14 months depending on the size and type of reactor. The average size of a reload on a conservative basis is 500M lbs of uranium equivalent. So on a conservative basis the new reactors would require between 17MMlbs-22MMlbs of uranium before they even begin to produce power on an annualized basis. What the WNA does not account for is the timing requirements of these inventories. For the fuel rods to be fully fabricated and tooled for use the uranium must be purchased/mined, converted, enriched and fabricated. This process will take at best two and half to three years. As such the uranium demand required for 2010 could hit the market as early as 2007. These estimates have not been considered in most modeling. We do not anticipate that this material will not be available, but rather that utilities will be forced to adjust its inventory to make up any deficits and as such lower what are already critical inventory levels.
