no rebound in uranium price for 12-18 months , page-11

Gavin,

Looks like the PEN faithful give far more credence to your views than they do to those of Tim Gitzel! Or perhaps its just that they like them more! Time will tell who is closer to the mark.

Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems you are making two simple points:

1. Tim Gitzel has ulterior reasons for being publicly pessimistic about the turn in sentiment (to save his hide, look good when the turn comes, justify layoffs etc). By implication, the turn in sentiment should come much sooner than the 12-18 months he is predicting.

2. The Japanese Government may be engineering a no-nuclear summer with the intention of causing enough discomfort to turn the politics towards a faster redeployment of nuclear energy.

Interesting angles, and credible, but I think those outcomes being realised are long shots.

For one thing, the views being expressed by Tim are being expressed across the board - by large and small companies alike. Uranerz and Ur Energy, for example, have both announced production cutbacks until the U price improves.

As well, there is much shelving/postponement of projects going on. That is much more consistent with a view that a turnaround is 12 months plus away rather than 3-6 months. You just wouldn't do it if you thought sentiment was going to change significantly in just a few months.

Re Japan, I don't think the 'first' non-nuke summer will be overwhelmingly challenging. After all, they have just survived 3 summers (albeit expensively) with just one nuke plant. And even with the last one now shut down, they are still working on a 3% excess capacity (down from 10% pre-Fukushima) buffer from non-nuclear alternatives. As quoted in the article you kindly provided a link to, "Fujitsu Research’s Takahashi said the 3 percent reserve margin should be sufficient to ward off any severe shortages".