...a setback for uranium in Australia
Article from: The Australian
PULLdown the bunting, recork the champagne, throw out the sausage rolls --there will be no celebration party for the Queensland uranium players.
Laboris back. There will be no uranium mining for at least the next threeyears, thanks to a combination of ideology and coal industry muscle.
Had the election result been otherwise, though, there would havebeen only a brief rally in the affected stocks. The change ofgovernment last year in Western Australia saw uranium stocks jump inthe immediate post-election days, but this lasted less than a week inmany cases.
There would have been even less excitement in Queensland because ofthe lower numbers of listed companies with advanced projects. There arereally only two players of consequence in Queensland uranium, PaladinEnergy (PDN) and Summit Resources (SMM), which each own 50 per cent ofthe Valhalla and Skal deposits, where there is a combined resource of34,000 tonnes of contained uranium. The other main beneficiaries of achange in government would have been two Canadian companies, MegaUranium and Laramide Resources, which have some of the more attractivedeposits in the state.
Gavin Wendt of Fat Prophets makes the point that a political changein Queensland would have been of significance to Paladin in allowing itsome diversification away from Africa. The company was last weekreporting industrial problems at its Malawi site, where its secondAfrican mine is being developed.
But Africa is where the uranium is -- and where they'll let you mineit. So Paladin has also expanded its exposure by taking a 14 per centstake in NGM Resources (NGM) and stumping up $500,000 to finance workat that company's concessions in Niger, which is close to the Imourarenmine whence France's Areva plans to produce 5000 tonnes of uranium ayear from 2010. Areva is going ahead with the mine despite fallinguranium prices, with the spot hitting $US42.50 a pound, against$US70/lb a year ago and $US139/lb in 2007. It must be added that thelong-term contract price seems to still be around $US70/lb.
On top of that, we are seeing mine closures. Toronto-listed DenisonMines now has its Utah mine on care and maintenance and last weekannounced it was suspending operations at two pits in Colorado.
The drastic decline in the price has really hit the local sector forsix. A check on announcements shows that many local uranium explorershave more or less gone into hibernation, emerging only to file thecompulsory quarterlies and financial statements.
But as Warwick Grigor points out in his Friday note from BGFEquities, virtually every country other than Australia has recognisedthat it can meet greenhouse targets only by moving to nuclear power. Heis recommending holding uranium stocks and says Alliance Resources(AGS) should be the next profitable, low-cost producer here.
We won't see another uranium frenzy of the 2007 variety, and Grigorbelieves the next upward move in uranium stocks will be more temperedbut also longer lasting.
There is still some activity among the juniors. Marmota Energy (MEU)has now earned a 25 per cent share of the Ambrosia project west ofTarcoola, South Australia, in a joint venture with Monax Mining (MOX)and can move to 50 per cent. Drilling will begin next month.
Undaunted by the uranium mining ban in Queensland, MKY Resources(MKY) continues to accumulate tenements in the Georgetown area, thelatest being the Huonfels tenement, which lies 2.5km south of theMaureen deposit where Mega Uranium has a contained uranium resource of2900 tonnes.