Uranium revs up

The Australian |
May 04, 2015 12:00AM

Robin Bromby
Business columnist
Sydney

Uranium revs up

“A new era for Canada’s uranium industry”, proclaimed the latest commodity note from Toronto-based Scotiabank, referring to the new five-year deal to deliver the fuel to India.

The bank notes that China has revved up the nuclear pace, too, with eight new reactors coming on stream this year as Beijing battles to replace coal-fired power and clean up its skies. Spot uranium is up from a low of $US28.25 a pound last June to $US38.25/lb now and Scotiabank sees it as high as $US55/lb by 2017.

Some local hopefuls continue to try to get the message through in their latest quarterlies. Manhattan Corp (MHC) points out that China, Russia, India, the US, the United Arab Emirates, South Korea and Japan will also be helping lift demand from either new reactors or restarts (as in the case of Japan’s 43, all of which are still shut). The Koreans operate 24 nuclear plants, have four more under construction and there are eight on order or planned.

Manhattan sees to its advantage that Queensland has decided to reimpose the ban on uranium mining — a decision that’s enough to make you take to drink, isn’t it? — because MHC has its project in Western Australia, with a supportive government and an inferred resource at Ponton of 7800 contained tonnes and large exploration upside.

Toro Energy (TOE) is still bravely battling to get its ready-to-go Wiluna project on the development path. Its quarterly points out the French have decided to put the mockers on a proposal to wind down nuclear (which supplies 75 per cent of their power) while just in the past three months Russia’s Rosatom has signed deals to build nuclear plants in Jordan, Egypt, Finland and Hungary.