RE:Scotia's Flawed AnalysisThanks Greenday. The big flaw is that the US producers did not ask for tariffs, Why would tariffs work? Since the cost of operating a nuclear plant is almost unaffected by the cost if U3O8 even putting a 100% tariff on it will not deter US utilities from buying. What they want is security of supply and they do not much care about the U3O8 input price...it is a small part of a manufactured fuel assembly.
Since I am quite sure tariffs will have little effect the US Administration will find some other mechanism to force US utilities into buying US produced Uranium. Even so I think it will be quite difficult for the USA to ramp production up from 5% of US demand to 25% in the short term.
Good point that Kazakhstan will then have a surplus of Uranium to sell but Russia is busy expanding its fleet both at home and abroad so that will get absorbed into the wider market.
The key to remember is that whoever produces it there are not enough mines to meet future demand for U3O8. Also...and this is an unnoticed but vey very important point...the Chinese are building a new "silk road" across Asia and guess which country it passes through....Kazakhstan. So guess who will be the replacement market for Uranium currently sold to the USA....well that is going to be China and transported to them by the new silk road.
Demand growth is not coming from the USA...it is coming from China and the rest of Asia.
Great buying opportunities bein g presented, Make the most of them as they will not last long.
Malcolm