full article is on pdn but it holds up well for blr. i really...

full article is on pdn but it holds up well for blr. i really would like to buy 5 or so more million of these if i had some spare cash.

Conclusion

There is no shortage of uranium in the ground - there is enough to meet expected demand for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, a lot of it is just not economic to dig up at current prices. Exploration for new deposits seems to be falling drastically and with lead times approaching a decade or more, the mining industry looks like it is not going to have enough supply to meet the increased demand.

Many analysts expect demand to start exceeding supply in early 2014, if so we should soon see spot prices start moving up towards the current long term contract price of roughly $60/lb. Most uranium, 80 to 85 percent, is sold directly under long-term supply contracts between buyers and sellers, just 15-20 percent of uranium is sold at the quoted spot price.

A source of U.S. market vulnerability is the relatively low level of inventories held by buyers and sellers. Supply price shocks and market disruptions could happen if there are problems (terrorist attack, NGO interference, natural disaster) with any of the major supply sources.

In 2012, U.S. suppliers and civilian owner/operators (COO) purchased 56 million pounds U3O8e - the United States mined just 4.1 million pounds of uranium. Current annual global uranium consumption is 190 million pounds, annual global mine production is 140 million pounds, stockpiles are dwindling and the HEU agreement with Russia ends this year.

The inevitable, the unpreventable U.S. and global mined uranium shortage should be on all our radar screens. Is it on yours?

If not, it should be.