Delegates at this week’s World Nuclear Fuel Market (WNFM) conference in Lisbon were exposed to something of a tale of two markets: a uranium conversion market where the shuttering of primary supply and buying up of excess material has pushed the conversion price to levels unseen in years, and a yellowcake market where similar efforts have done little to shift the spot price. For market participants, the questions now are to what extent the conversion price will push further north, and if and when continued cutbacks in primary production and inventory drawdown will prompt the uranium price to follow suit. “We found it difficult to sign long-term contracts over the last few years: the gap in expectations was just too large,” Malcolm Critchley, the president and CEO of US-based conversion marketer ConverDyn, told the Lisbon conference about his company’s strategy over the past several years. “We had to try something different. What we have tried to do is let the market make the case, which speaks louder and with more authority than any ConverDyn PowerPoint presentation.”
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