wtf has this repoter been smokin....if the ultility wants...

wtf has this repoter been smokin....

if the ultility wants delivery of Uranium I suggest they better buy of the spot or lock into a longer term contract. Otherwise the ultility might have have make steam utilising all those nymex paper contractors.

Blatantly wrong.

"The decline means utilities buying the metal for a year ahead will pay $10 a pound less on Nymex than from producers using the industry's so-called benchmark long-term price, which was set at $95 by industry consulting companies Ux Consulting Co and TradeTech LLC"


Uranium Futures May Fall for 6th Week as Investors Deterred

By Yuriy Humber

Aug. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Uranium futures may fall for a sixth consecutive week after a credit crunch led to a rout in global stock markets and deterred commodity investors.

The metal for delivery in January dropped $29, or 29 percent, to $70 a pound last week on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The September 2008 futures contract dropped to $85, from $111.

The decline means utilities buying the metal for a year ahead will pay $10 a pound less on Nymex than from producers using the industry's so-called benchmark long-term price, which was set at $95 by industry consulting companies Ux Consulting Co and TradeTech LLC. The long-term price is used by utilities to secure volumes of uranium for as many as 10 years.

``The market's extremely thin at the moment, also partly due to the credit issues,'' said Warwick Grigor, a portfolio manager with Far East Capital Ltd. in Sydney.

The January contract recorded eight trades last week, while the February contract had three trades.

Metal for immediate delivery climbed to a record $138 in June. Uranium futures rose as high as $154 that month. The contracts began trading on Nymex in May.

``I welcome the correction, as the futures market is going through a maturation phase,'' Grigor said. ``It needs two-way trading to be effective.''

A build-up in inventories by power utilities, the biggest buyers of uranium, and an increase in availability for immediate delivery has depressed prices in the past two months. The so- called spot price has dropped 24 percent since June, and was unchanged at $105 a pound last week, according to TradeTech's weekly report published Aug. 17.

To contact the reporter on this story: Yuriy Humber in Moscow at [email protected]

Last Updated: August 20, 2007 06:00 EDT