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Decline in uranium market hits URENCO

Urenco hit by slowdown in uranium enrichment market By Sylvia Pfeifer Ft.com 22 Jan 14 Urenco, the uranium enrichment company being privatised by its government and utility owners, expects revenues for the past 12 months to be down “around 5 per cent” on record levels of €1.6bn in 2012.

It blamed a continued slowdown of the enrichment market but stressed that despite the expected drop for the year to end December 2013, there had been “a substantial rebalancing of revenue” in the second half of the year.

Last September Urenco announced that revenues for the first six months of 2013 had declined 45 per cent to €384m and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation had dropped 31 per cent to €319m due to the phasing of customer deliveries.
“The enrichment market is facing short-term pricing challenges,” the company said in a trading update on Wednesday
News of the tough trading environment comes amid questions over the timing of the privatisation. Urenco is owned by the British and Dutch governments and two German utilities, RWE and Eon. Previous attempts to privatise were frustrated by its complex ownership structure and the sensitive nature of its business. …..
The final obstacle to full privatisation was finally removed last May when the Dutch government said it had decided to sell its stake. The UK government had confirmed it planned to sell its share a month earlier, while both RWE and Eon had signalled their intention to exit following the German government’s announcement to phase out nuclear power…….
Any sale would be sensitive because enriched uranium can be used for military purposes as well as in civilian nuclear reactors……
Potential bidders include Cameco, a Canadian uranium miner, Toshiba, the Japanese conglomerate, and private equity groups. Urenco will report its full-year results in March. http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/21dec02c-8369-11e3-aa65-00144feab7de.html#axzz2rFdU7GMk

January 24, 2014 - Posted by | business and costs, Uranium

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