RE: For those interested...China is stockpiling uranium and purchasing the yellow metal in unprecedented quantities as part of its effort to build new nuclear reactors and provide electricity for its power hungry populace.
The nation may purchase about 5,000 metric tons of uranium this year, more than twice as much as it consumes, Thomas Neff, a physicist and uranium-industry analyst at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, said in a July 6 telephone interview with
Bloomberg News.
India and China are gearing up for the biggest expansion of nuclear energy since the 1970s oil crisis to cut pollution and supply their economies with enough fuel to keep them growing twice as fast as Europe and North America.
"They are essentially stockpiling in anticipation of new reactor build," said Neff, who is an independent director of GoviEx Uranium Inc., a privately-held exploration company with interests in Niger. "They are stockpiling like crazy."
China's demand for uranium may rise to 20,000 tons a year by 2020, more than a third of the 50,572 tons mined globally last year, as it boosts output to 85 gigawatts, nine times its current capacity, according to the World Nuclear Association.
The boom, combined with slowing supply growth, may boost yellowcake prices after a three-year slump. Prices will jump by about 32% next year, the most since 2006, RBC Capital Markets told Bloomberg.
The spot price for uranium was at $41.75 a pound on July 5, according to Trade Tech's weekly price report. Uranium has plunged 69% since peaking at $136 a pound in July 2007 as mine operators boosted production, according to Roswell, Georgia-based Ux Consulting.