Uranium price to crash --CCO articleMoving on the Middle Ages. As the 1970’s came to a close, the uranium rush was beginning to lose some of its luster. Confidence in the nuclear industry was shaken by the partial core meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, despite there being no injuries, illness or loss of life. The resulting re-engineering of existing plant designs and increased regulatory oversight, caused many reactor projects to experience prolonged construction delays. Public opposition mounted as the anti-nuclear movement took hold. The high interest rates of the early eighties combined with these construction delays caused the costs of new reactors to skyrocket to unacceptable levels. A number of projects were abandoned at various stages of partial completion and additional previously ordered plants were cancelled outright. The secondary market emerged. Brokers sought out utilities with excess or unneeded uranium and wheeled it into willing buyers at deep discounts. The result was a prolonged period of inventory driven prices which bore no relation to the production economics of uranium mining. During this period, the uranium mining industry contracted, with production falling from a peak of 177 million pounds in 1982, to a low of 81 million pounds in 1999. With the outlook for nuclear looking meager at best and uranium prices below $10 per pound, operating mines simply shut down, and worldwide exploration expenditures dropped dramatically. Industry consolidation was as equally dramatic as scores of uranium mining companies left the business, in some cases giving away their assets in exchange for relief from the reclamation liabilities
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