Third Quarter Market Update

摘要

In our second quarter market update, we noted that a cloud hung over the uranium market in anticipation of President Trump’s decision in mid-July on the Section 232 investigation, which we expected would limit the activity of U.S. utilities, in addition to traders and financials. As expected, transaction volumes in June and July were fairly low at 2.9 million pounds U_3O_8e and 4.0 million pounds U_3O_8e, respectively. While the spot uranium price touched its low of $24.00 during the first week of June on the low volume, it subsequently increased to a peak of $26.15 on July 15 when the president decided to neither impose a quota nor tariffs in the 232 investigation. By the end of July, the spot price slipped to $25.50 as the decision failed to spark much utility demand. To date this month, spot volume has totaled only 3.1 million pounds U3O8, but the spot price has only slipped $0.20 to $25.30, which is certainly commendable given such lackluster volume. For June through August, aggregate spot volume has totaled 10.0 million pounds U_3O_8e, which is only about one-third of the 31.1 million pounds U_3O_8e transacted in the comparable period of 2018.