Uranium hitting 15-year highs as nuclear power demand surges

Usually when the price of a commodity such as a metal or oil shoots up, there is an obvious reason.

But a rally in the price of uranium, which is used to produce nuclear power, has left many in the City scratching their heads as there has not been an obvious trigger.

Uranium is trading at a 15-year high of more than $80 a pound.

Experts say the astonishing rise from $48 a pound at the start of the year is partly a sign of the times.

After years of rhetoric about cutting carbon emissions, many countries are now setting out longer-term ambitions to use nuclear power.

For some, such as the UK, China and Sweden, this means building a plethora of new power stations, while for others it is about extending the life of existing sites.

Keith Watson, portfolio manager for the uranium-focused Geiger Counter Fund, said: ‘The sea-change has occurred at both a public and a government level, where we now have much more pro-nuclear policies.’

But this comes after the sector fell out of fashion for several years in the wake of the Fukushima power station disaster in Japan in 2011.

Watson said: ‘After Fukushima it was easy to park it in the shade and ignore it, but as a result we’ve seen lots of underinvestment.’

The world currently produces roughly as much uranium as is required for use. Ramping up this production by getting new mines and processing plants up and running will take time.

Uranium sales are also what is known as a very ‘tight’ market – where there is not much of the material available to trade.

Robert Crayfourd, co-fund manager at the Geiger Counter Fund, said the disruption caused by the coup in Niger earlier this year tightened supply even further.

Niger only produces 4 per cent of the world’s uranium – the most important producers are Kazakhstan, Namibia, Canada and Australia – but it was an important supplier to France, a major producer of nuclear power.

In the wake of this, Western utility companies have been even keener to pin down contracts to ensure they have access to uranium in the long term. This means there is even less to trade in the general, non-contracted market, known as the ‘spot’ market. It is this spot price that has ballooned.

The UK will be drawn into the wider scramble to secure access to uranium, as the Government is convinced that nuclear energy will be crucial in the coming decades.

Ministers are struggling to find finance for new projects such as Sizewell C power station on the Suffolk coast and there are efforts to set up a fleet of mini nuclear plants, known as small modular reactors.

So is the rally likely to last? John Meyer, mining analyst at consultancy SP Angel, believes it will.

Meyer said: ‘We see prices potentially rising year-on-year for the next ten to 20 years, or until the world finds another source for large-scale uninterruptible baseload power with a low carbon footprint.’

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk