article in the west australian 14.5.07, page-2

the article:

Uranium hopefuls must act to maximise prices

14th May 2007, 9:00 WST

The race is on for uranium companies such as Deep Yellow and Marathon Resources to develop their projects within the next three years to cash in on the booming uranium market, according to a Far East Capital report to be released today.

After comparing the potential profitability of emerging yellowcake producers based on standard industry economics, Far East Capital uranium analyst Warwick Grigor said there was fundamental value in emerging producers but companies needed to fast-track projects if they were to maximise the peak of the price cycle.

The spot price for the radioactive ore has climbed nearly 180 per cent in the past 12 months to a record closing price of $US120 a pound last week, while Nymex December uranium futures are trading at $US153.90/lb.

“Overwhelmingly the conclusion is that the economics are real and companies should be pushing ahead full steam to develop their projects,” Mr Grigor said.

“The biggest winners on our table and in the stockmarket are those lowgrade companies that we had been dismissive of two years ago. Since then the uranium price has quadrupled, catapulting these companies into enviable positions.”

He estimates that if all 19 Australian potential uranium producers were to reach production it would increase uranium supply by 17,000 tonnes a year, or up to 30 per cent over the next five years. If combined with increasing global supply, this could drag the uranium price back below $US100/lb.

“This means that the highly leveraged, low-grade companies will need to be up and running as early as possible to maximise the peak of the uranium price cycle, sometime between today and three years time,” he said.

One of the hurdles will be the high capital costs of up to $300 million to develop many of the low-grade projects.

The report suggests that this could be a significant issue for Acclaim, Bannerman, Deep Yellow, Toro and Uranex, while better-placed companies include Contact, Energy Metals, Monaro and Uranium King.

Mr Grigor warned many of the floats now hitting the market were opportunistic plays and that it would be difficult for even potential producers to negotiate their way through regulatory and compliance issues in the three-year time frame. “The ones in the USA are probably the most likely to go ahead because of the greater reliability of the data and the historical information ... but those mines are unlikely to big ones,” he said.

Mr Grigor said he was constantly being asked if the uranium sector was “another dotcom boom” and the unreserved answer was no because it was possible to run fundamental analysis.

“You can estimate rates of production, you have a market price for the product and you can reasonably estimate capital and operating costs,” he said. “This is a bull market based on hard factual economics, not fantasies and what-ifs. The conclusion is that at these uranium prices there are enormous cash flows that can be made.”

Mr Grigor said there were still a number of unknowns in trying to determine the numbers for some companies.

The main assumptions used in the absence of official numbers included capital expenditure per tonne of capacity of $85 and a spot price of $US113/lb.