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This article is plainly wrong. The exclusive driver in the recent spike in Uranium prices [1] is Niger. They had a coup on July 26th. They produce less than 5%

This article is plainly wrong. The exclusive driver in the recent spike in Uranium prices [1] is Niger. They had a coup on July 26th. They produce less than 5% of global production of uranium, but they were supplying more than 25% [2] of Europe's needs. Several days after the coup finished, they made it clear that the colonial style arrangements with France, which were driving dirt cheap uranium to Europe, were over. There continues to be yet another proxy war brewing in the region because of this. Another 17% of the EU's uranium needs comes from Russia, and 27% from Kazakhstan (who in 2022 had an attempted color revolution). It's basically the oil wars, starting all over again. Definitely a good time to go long on uranium prices in any case. Oil prices prior to the 70s were as low as ~$10/barrel inflation adjusted, and uranium is far less plentiful. Well, excepting oceanic extraction which has vast supplies, but the extraction costs there would also send its price to the Moon. There are also unclear environmental implications there. Uranium is only present in something like 3 parts per billion in saltwater. Extracting meaningful quantities there would be a tremendous undertaking. [1] - https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/uranium https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/uranium [2] - https://euratom-supply.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2023-10/ESA%20Annual%20Report%202022%20-%20Final%20%28website%29_2.pdf https://euratom-supply.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2023-10/ESA... (ctrl+f Niger)

baybal2 3y ago
[dead]
jillesvangurp 3y ago
Exactly, we can debate the pros and cons of nuclear all we want here but the reality is that the supposed shift in sentiment about nuclear power is way too recent to have had any impact whatsoever on actual world uranium consumption by nuclear plants. Planning and building nuclear plants takes a very long time and the number of new plants built, constructed, and delivered because of this new sentiment remains at zero. At best there are now more discussions about maybe building some over the course of the next few decades. To say that these discussions are concluded would be very premature. There's also a lot of talk about small reactors but they are still in the experimental/prototype stage where there are just not a whole lot of them online (zero or close to zero?, I don't actually know). And in addition, they would need relatively small amounts of uranium (by design, they are tiny compared to conventional reactors). So, to have an impact on world uranium demand there would have to be rather a lot of them and there just aren't right now. That will take a few decades if it starts happening at all. Economically these things aren't exactly a proven solution yet. The easier and more obvious explanation is exactly as you say. And btw. especially the dependence on Russian enriched uranium could speed up the demise of some nuclear plants dependent on that. Running nuclear plants is expensive relative to renewables. And cost increases for businesses that are already struggling tend to have obvious consequences. Short term, there are more planned plant closures than there is new planned nuclear capacity in the US. Mostly that is because a lot of older plants are struggling economically and are reaching their planned end of life.
littlestymaar 3y ago
I'm saddened to see this BS as the top comment. The coup in Niger barely had a visible effect on Uranium price[1], and the Uranium price is on an upward trend since 2018[2]. [1] unlike the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year for instance, as the Uranium price rise in August (after the coup) has been almost equal to the one in July (before the coup). [2] see the 5-years graph on trading economics
- aatd86 3y ago
  The spot price increased right after. Contracts on commodities can be long term. This is also multi-factor.
  - littlestymaar 3y ago
    > The spot price increased right after. What's your source for that, because the OP's graph shows a significant increase happening 1 month after the coup. > This is also multi-factor. Definitely, but I'm responding to someone claimed that “The exclusive driver in the recent spike in Uranium prices [1] is Niger”, which is literally the opposite of saying that it's multi-factor.
dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
You don't have to mine the oceans, there are massive uranium reserves all over the world [1]. The economics of extracting it of course depend on price, but it's not exactly a bulk material. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_reserves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_r... https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/mining-of-uranium/world-uranium-mining-production.aspx https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c...
WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago
USA shares similar story Uranium source as of 2022: - 27% Canada - 25% Kazakhstan - 12% Russia - 11% Uzbekistan - 9% Australia - 16% ROW data: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/where-our-uranium-comes-from.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/where-our-uraniu... What's interesting is, demand for uranium is slowing down since 2015, a year after Ukraine's coup
- varjag 3y ago
  What's interesting there was no coup in Ukraine.
  - mc32 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - throwaway2990 3y ago
      There was no meddling by the US. The people voted in a president who said he wanted close ties with Europe. After getting into power he changed and tried to get closer to Russia. The people protested against him and he fled to Russia.
    - odiroot 3y ago
      You mean the revolution against Russian meddling?
  - WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - zoomablemind 3y ago
      > ...I stick to the facts, whether you like it or not One needs also understand the facts, not just cite them. All of the names you cited, Lukash, Lebedev, Ilyin were appointed by Yanukovich and indeed were working for his government. That is Ilyin was attempting to deploy military units against the civilian protesters already being suppressed by AK-47 armed police forces. No, the military did not try to stage a coup. It was russia-serving Yanukovich that was using every unlawful measures to stay in power, including the attempt to deploy the military units to suppress the Maidan civilian protesters. As for the foreign interference, cherry-picking the references can't hide the outcome, as the Crimea and Donbas region were directly invaded by russian military and paramilitary units, following up with illegal annexation declaration.
xvilka 3y ago
> Well, excepting oceanic extraction which has vast supplies, but the extraction costs there would also send its price to the Moon. There are also unclear environmental implications there. Uranium is only present in something like 3 parts per billion in saltwater. Extracting meaningful quantities there would be a tremendous undertaking. Or just build breeders. There's plenty of thorium and it's dirt-cheap.
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  There's also plenty of depleted uranium and we don't know what to do with it anyway. The problem is that there no simple “just build breeder reactors” plan. Breeder reactors are complex and have completely different safety concerns than regular reactors (mostly because the coolant cannot be water) so it's actually a lot of work to make one.
  - PaulHoule 3y ago
    The worst problem facing breeders, I think, is fuel fabrication. France has developed a process that uses a high energy ball mill to “alloy” plutonium and uranium oxides to make very high quality fuel. The trouble is this also makes carcinogenic plutonium nano particles and protecting workers from them is problematic because workers need to pick up plutonium pellets up with gloves and stuff them in a tube. The factory Karen Silkwood worked at made excellent quality fuel for the FFTF with something like the French process but had trouble controlling plutonium dust. The U.S. wanted to build a MOX fab with help from the French for destruction of weapons grade plutonium but construction was halted not long after studies shown that workers in French fuel fabs were getting lung cancer (at a low enough rate thar French and Russian regulators seem sanguine about it.) Some other process like what https://www.moltexenergy.com/ https://www.moltexenergy.com/ uses might address the occupational safety problems plus the high capital costs that have affected breeders. If a breeder could replace the steam turbine with a supercritical CO2 or some other high temperature heat acceptor, capital costs could possibly be less than the LWR.
    - littlestymaar 3y ago
credit_guy 3y ago
> oceanic extraction which has vast supplies, but the extraction costs there would also send its price to the Moon That is often repeated, but incorrect. It would indeed multiply the price of uranium about 4 times, but the end result is that the price of electricity produced by the nuclear power plants would increase with less than 1 cent per kWh, and that's what matters. For comparison, the average retail price of electricity in the US is about 15 cents per kWh. Here's the math, if you are curious: on average a PWR nuclear power plant produces 50 GW-day of electricity from one ton of enriched uranium, and you need about 10 tons of natural uranium to get that, so that's 5 GWd per ton of raw uranium. The current market price of uranium is $74/pound [1], or $163/kg. It is estimated that it would take $640/kg to extract uranium from sea water [2]. So, this is roughly $480/kg more expensive. 1 kg of Uranium results in 5 MWd or 120 MWh, so the increase in uranium price would result in $4 more for 1 MWh, or 0.4 cents per kWh. [1] https://www.cameco.com/invest/markets/uranium-price https://www.cameco.com/invest/markets/uranium-price [2] https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/48/039/48039446.pdf https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/...
dontwearitout 3y ago
> Definitely a good time to go long on uranium prices in any case. Is there an easy way for a casual investor to do this?
- zardo 3y ago
  Screwing up my uranium futures trading and having to take delivery of a couple truck loads.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- solumunus 3y ago
  Yellow Cake PLC, all they do is buy and hold physical uranium.
- chollida1 3y ago
  https://sprottetfs.com/urnm-sprott-uranium-miners-etf/ https://sprottetfs.com/urnm-sprott-uranium-miners-etf/ Probably the best ETF you can buy, owns spot Uranium.
- WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago
  Uranium price will collapse with the rise of 4th gen nuclear power plants, which is meant to reduce waste and use it back to power the fission, making it dirt cheap since it's reusable and abundant
  - simonebrunozzi 3y ago
    In how many years, though? 8-10, perhaps?
- flashback2199 3y ago
  Looks like there's an ETF called URA
  - 3y ago
realusername 3y ago
> they made it clear that the colonial style arrangements with France, which were driving dirt cheap uranium to Europe, were over. France was overpaying the market rate during the past 10 years to keep good relationships with the previous leadership so no it's the opposite, it's the end of the more expensive uranium for Niger most likely.
- somenameforme 3y ago
  The deals between France and Niger are not public, but Reuters was able to provide some citable data here (2015) [1] : --- "Reuters has reviewed documents which reveal that Areva’s mines pay no export duties on uranium, no taxes on materials and equipment used in mining operations, and a royalty of just 5.5 percent on the uranium they produce." --- Areva has been restructured and is now Orano. [2] Alongside the token level royalty rate and exemptions, they're undoubtedly also exploiting local labor. Niger is one of the poorest places in the world, with a nominal gdp/capita of $630 - about $50/month. There's a reason the streets were full of people rejoicing when the coup happened! [1] - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-niger-areva-specialreport-idUSBREA140AA20140205 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-niger-areva-specialreport... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orano https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orano
  - hokkos 3y ago
    Not true, the customs data are public and we know the price per kg of each grams of uranium from each counties, the Niger was on the expansive side, you can look it up it's code NC8 is 28441090 on the douane website. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F2_pLLfWcAAQswU?format=jpg&name=medium https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F2_pLLfWcAAQswU?format=jpg&name=...
    - somenameforme 3y ago
      I'm not sure what that table is showing, but it's not what you are implying. Niger is France's plurality supplier, so them showing 5% is clearly measuring something else. Beyond that, France is not importing from Niger in the nominal sense. A French state owned company, in Niger, mines the uranium, and then gives Niger a token royalty on profits. So if they claimed e.g. $100, you'd expect about $5.50 of that (unless Niger was able to negotiate a better deal since 2015) to go to Niger. So their "real" cost would be the $5.50 plus labor/supplies.
pkulak 3y ago
Except you don’t need very much uranium. Open one more mine and the market is basically flooded.
- BenoitP 3y ago
  And it accounts for about 5% of the marginal electricity cost in raw (25% when fully transformed)
jszymborski 3y ago
Maybe I'm missing something but it seems Uranium prices started rising right around Jan 2021. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/URA/ https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/URA/
- defrost 3y ago
  Depends how old you are, check out January 2011, $130 or so IIRC, more than 4x the current price ... and from my PoV that was after a legendary single day spike a few years earlier. Close of day averages make it look like a decent spike, hourly trading figures on tthe day were a crazy rollercoaster.

baybal2 3y ago

[dead]

jillesvangurp 3y ago

Exactly, we can debate the pros and cons of nuclear all we want here but the reality is that the supposed shift in sentiment about nuclear power is way too recent to have had any impact whatsoever on actual world uranium consumption by nuclear plants. Planning and building nuclear plants takes a very long time and the number of new plants built, constructed, and delivered because of this new sentiment remains at zero. At best there are now more discussions about maybe building some over the course of the next few decades. To say that these discussions are concluded would be very premature. There's also a lot of talk about small reactors but they are still in the experimental/prototype stage where there are just not a whole lot of them online (zero or close to zero?, I don't actually know). And in addition, they would need relatively small amounts of uranium (by design, they are tiny compared to conventional reactors). So, to have an impact on world uranium demand there would have to be rather a lot of them and there just aren't right now. That will take a few decades if it starts happening at all. Economically these things aren't exactly a proven solution yet. The easier and more obvious explanation is exactly as you say. And btw. especially the dependence on Russian enriched uranium could speed up the demise of some nuclear plants dependent on that. Running nuclear plants is expensive relative to renewables. And cost increases for businesses that are already struggling tend to have obvious consequences. Short term, there are more planned plant closures than there is new planned nuclear capacity in the US. Mostly that is because a lot of older plants are struggling economically and are reaching their planned end of life.

littlestymaar 3y ago

I'm saddened to see this BS as the top comment. The coup in Niger barely had a visible effect on Uranium price[1], and the Uranium price is on an upward trend since 2018[2]. [1] unlike the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year for instance, as the Uranium price rise in August (after the coup) has been almost equal to the one in July (before the coup). [2] see the 5-years graph on trading economics

aatd86 3y ago
The spot price increased right after. Contracts on commodities can be long term. This is also multi-factor.
- littlestymaar 3y ago
  > The spot price increased right after. What's your source for that, because the OP's graph shows a significant increase happening 1 month after the coup. > This is also multi-factor. Definitely, but I'm responding to someone claimed that “The exclusive driver in the recent spike in Uranium prices [1] is Niger”, which is literally the opposite of saying that it's multi-factor.

dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago

You don't have to mine the oceans, there are massive uranium reserves all over the world [1]. The economics of extracting it of course depend on price, but it's not exactly a bulk material. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_reserves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_uranium_r... https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/mining-of-uranium/world-uranium-mining-production.aspx https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c...

WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago

USA shares similar story Uranium source as of 2022: - 27% Canada - 25% Kazakhstan - 12% Russia - 11% Uzbekistan - 9% Australia - 16% ROW data: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/where-our-uranium-comes-from.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/where-our-uraniu... What's interesting is, demand for uranium is slowing down since 2015, a year after Ukraine's coup

varjag 3y ago
What's interesting there was no coup in Ukraine.
- mc32 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - throwaway2990 3y ago
    There was no meddling by the US. The people voted in a president who said he wanted close ties with Europe. After getting into power he changed and tried to get closer to Russia. The people protested against him and he fled to Russia.
  - odiroot 3y ago
    You mean the revolution against Russian meddling?
- WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - zoomablemind 3y ago
    > ...I stick to the facts, whether you like it or not One needs also understand the facts, not just cite them. All of the names you cited, Lukash, Lebedev, Ilyin were appointed by Yanukovich and indeed were working for his government. That is Ilyin was attempting to deploy military units against the civilian protesters already being suppressed by AK-47 armed police forces. No, the military did not try to stage a coup. It was russia-serving Yanukovich that was using every unlawful measures to stay in power, including the attempt to deploy the military units to suppress the Maidan civilian protesters. As for the foreign interference, cherry-picking the references can't hide the outcome, as the Crimea and Donbas region were directly invaded by russian military and paramilitary units, following up with illegal annexation declaration.

xvilka 3y ago

> Well, excepting oceanic extraction which has vast supplies, but the extraction costs there would also send its price to the Moon. There are also unclear environmental implications there. Uranium is only present in something like 3 parts per billion in saltwater. Extracting meaningful quantities there would be a tremendous undertaking. Or just build breeders. There's plenty of thorium and it's dirt-cheap.

littlestymaar 3y ago
There's also plenty of depleted uranium and we don't know what to do with it anyway. The problem is that there no simple “just build breeder reactors” plan. Breeder reactors are complex and have completely different safety concerns than regular reactors (mostly because the coolant cannot be water) so it's actually a lot of work to make one.
- PaulHoule 3y ago
  The worst problem facing breeders, I think, is fuel fabrication. France has developed a process that uses a high energy ball mill to “alloy” plutonium and uranium oxides to make very high quality fuel. The trouble is this also makes carcinogenic plutonium nano particles and protecting workers from them is problematic because workers need to pick up plutonium pellets up with gloves and stuff them in a tube. The factory Karen Silkwood worked at made excellent quality fuel for the FFTF with something like the French process but had trouble controlling plutonium dust. The U.S. wanted to build a MOX fab with help from the French for destruction of weapons grade plutonium but construction was halted not long after studies shown that workers in French fuel fabs were getting lung cancer (at a low enough rate thar French and Russian regulators seem sanguine about it.) Some other process like what https://www.moltexenergy.com/ https://www.moltexenergy.com/ uses might address the occupational safety problems plus the high capital costs that have affected breeders. If a breeder could replace the steam turbine with a supercritical CO2 or some other high temperature heat acceptor, capital costs could possibly be less than the LWR.
  - littlestymaar 3y ago

credit_guy 3y ago

> oceanic extraction which has vast supplies, but the extraction costs there would also send its price to the Moon That is often repeated, but incorrect. It would indeed multiply the price of uranium about 4 times, but the end result is that the price of electricity produced by the nuclear power plants would increase with less than 1 cent per kWh, and that's what matters. For comparison, the average retail price of electricity in the US is about 15 cents per kWh. Here's the math, if you are curious: on average a PWR nuclear power plant produces 50 GW-day of electricity from one ton of enriched uranium, and you need about 10 tons of natural uranium to get that, so that's 5 GWd per ton of raw uranium. The current market price of uranium is $74/pound [1], or $163/kg. It is estimated that it would take $640/kg to extract uranium from sea water [2]. So, this is roughly $480/kg more expensive. 1 kg of Uranium results in 5 MWd or 120 MWh, so the increase in uranium price would result in $4 more for 1 MWh, or 0.4 cents per kWh. [1] https://www.cameco.com/invest/markets/uranium-price https://www.cameco.com/invest/markets/uranium-price [2] https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/48/039/48039446.pdf https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/...

dontwearitout 3y ago

> Definitely a good time to go long on uranium prices in any case. Is there an easy way for a casual investor to do this?

zardo 3y ago
Screwing up my uranium futures trading and having to take delivery of a couple truck loads.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
solumunus 3y ago
Yellow Cake PLC, all they do is buy and hold physical uranium.
chollida1 3y ago
https://sprottetfs.com/urnm-sprott-uranium-miners-etf/ https://sprottetfs.com/urnm-sprott-uranium-miners-etf/ Probably the best ETF you can buy, owns spot Uranium.
WhereIsTheTruth 3y ago
Uranium price will collapse with the rise of 4th gen nuclear power plants, which is meant to reduce waste and use it back to power the fission, making it dirt cheap since it's reusable and abundant
- simonebrunozzi 3y ago
  In how many years, though? 8-10, perhaps?
flashback2199 3y ago
Looks like there's an ETF called URA
- 3y ago

realusername 3y ago

> they made it clear that the colonial style arrangements with France, which were driving dirt cheap uranium to Europe, were over. France was overpaying the market rate during the past 10 years to keep good relationships with the previous leadership so no it's the opposite, it's the end of the more expensive uranium for Niger most likely.

somenameforme 3y ago
The deals between France and Niger are not public, but Reuters was able to provide some citable data here (2015) [1] : --- "Reuters has reviewed documents which reveal that Areva’s mines pay no export duties on uranium, no taxes on materials and equipment used in mining operations, and a royalty of just 5.5 percent on the uranium they produce." --- Areva has been restructured and is now Orano. [2] Alongside the token level royalty rate and exemptions, they're undoubtedly also exploiting local labor. Niger is one of the poorest places in the world, with a nominal gdp/capita of $630 - about $50/month. There's a reason the streets were full of people rejoicing when the coup happened! [1] - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-niger-areva-specialreport-idUSBREA140AA20140205 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-niger-areva-specialreport... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orano https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orano
- hokkos 3y ago
  Not true, the customs data are public and we know the price per kg of each grams of uranium from each counties, the Niger was on the expansive side, you can look it up it's code NC8 is 28441090 on the douane website. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F2_pLLfWcAAQswU?format=jpg&name=medium https://pbs.twimg.com/media/F2_pLLfWcAAQswU?format=jpg&name=...
  - somenameforme 3y ago
    I'm not sure what that table is showing, but it's not what you are implying. Niger is France's plurality supplier, so them showing 5% is clearly measuring something else. Beyond that, France is not importing from Niger in the nominal sense. A French state owned company, in Niger, mines the uranium, and then gives Niger a token royalty on profits. So if they claimed e.g. $100, you'd expect about $5.50 of that (unless Niger was able to negotiate a better deal since 2015) to go to Niger. So their "real" cost would be the $5.50 plus labor/supplies.

pkulak 3y ago

Except you don’t need very much uranium. Open one more mine and the market is basically flooded.

BenoitP 3y ago
And it accounts for about 5% of the marginal electricity cost in raw (25% when fully transformed)

jszymborski 3y ago

Maybe I'm missing something but it seems Uranium prices started rising right around Jan 2021. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/URA/ https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/URA/

defrost 3y ago
Depends how old you are, check out January 2011, $130 or so IIRC, more than 4x the current price ... and from my PoV that was after a legendary single day spike a few years earlier. Close of day averages make it look like a decent spike, hourly trading figures on tthe day were a crazy rollercoaster.