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Poor uranium market freezes Uranium One’s expansion

thumbs-downRosatom’s Uranium One to Freeze Expansion Moscow Times, 13 November 2013 | Issue 5255 Reuters  Canadian miner Uranium One Holding, acquired this year by state-owned reactor builder and supplier Rosatom, said it would freeze expansion projects in Russia and elsewhere due to low uranium prices.

The price of uranium, used mainly as fuel for nuclear plants, plummeted after the March 2011 meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi atomic power plant and has shown no signs of recovery.

“We cannot discount the dramatic fall in natural uranium prices, as a result of which more than 50 percent of global uranium production is currently loss-making,” Uranium One President Vadim Zhivov said in e-mailed comments Wednesday.

 “Given the unfavorable market environment, we have decided to freeze expansion projects both in Russia and abroad,” Zhivov said.

Uranium One, which Rosatom took private last month, will mothball the Honeymoon mine in uranium-rich South Australia, local media reported this week, citing high costs and unfavorable contracts with Japan’s Mitsui.

A company spokesman confirmed Wednesday that the mine would be put in “care and maintenance” mode. Zhivov did not specify which of the company’s projects had been cancelled, saying the details would be announced later…….

November uranium futures on the New York Mercantile exchange closed at $35.85 per pound on Tuesday, compared with $68 per pound before the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Read more: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/rosatoms-uranium-one-to-freeze-expansion/489582.html#ixzz2klcYXhbe

November 15, 2013 - Posted by | business and costs, Uranium

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