U3O8 Uranium.

[shasta]

Interesting U308 article on how old nuclear weapons are being used to fill the gap in supply & mostly ex Russia.

There is huge potential for "U308" companies to get involved with the disposal of nuclear waste, & Uran (ASX: URA) is in negotiations with several former soviet countries, about being involved in Uranium projects & handling waste etc.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/04/19/markets/uranium/

What's behind the red-hot uranium boom
Supply crunch, demand from nuclear power plants push metal prices higher; NYMEX getting in on the action.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Uranium is hot, and it's not just because of its protons and neutrons.

Two years ago the metal, used mostly to power nuclear reactors, traded around $20 a pound, according to the research firm Ux Consulting Co., which tracks uranium prices in the market by surveying buyers and sellers each week.

Last week prices hit $113 a pound and the pace of increase isn't slowing but rather accelerating. Last week's prices were up 19 percent jump from the prior week - the biggest weekly gain since Ux began tracking prices back in 1968.

"You haven't had a down week since 2003," said Christopher Ruppel, a senior geopolitical analyst with the energy consulting firm John S. Herold.

The runup is due partly to basic economics.


While demand for the metal has been steady, it's expected to surge as a host of new nuclear plants come online in coming years. And supplies are running short, thanks to severe flooding at two of the world's biggest mines and a dwindling amount of element number 92 that can be salvaged from old nuclear warheads.

And, oh yeah, speculators, did we mention them? There's been a fair amount of interest from hedge funds, according to Ruppel, who said the funds have exploited legal channels, once used only by utilities and suppliers, to win ownership rights to uranium stored in repositories in North America and Europe.

Until now, investors interested in the uranium boom were limited to buying a handful of funds in Canada and England that purchase the metal, or buying stock in outfits that mine uranium such as Australia's Rio Tinto (Charts) or Canada's Cameco (Charts).

But on Monday the New York Mercantile Exchange said it would begin offering a uranium futures contract. The contract, for 250 pounds of the metal, begins trading May 7, and will be available via the electronic trading platforms in most brokerages.

A NYMEX spokeswoman said there are no current plans to offer a half-sized contract similar to the half-sized crude oil contract targeted to retail investors.

For users of uranium, like utilities, trading on the NYMEX is probably good news.

"Trying to figure out uranium supply and demand is a black box," said Peter Tertzakian, chief energy economist at ARC Financial, a private equity firm based in Calgary, Alberta.

Tertzakian said public trading of the metal should result in more public interest, which should spark more research into the market and a greater degree of clarity in how prices are set.

"There's only one (group tracking) prices in what has become a multi-billion dollar market," he said.

A renewed interest in nuclear power, sparked by global warming fears and surging electricity use in the developing world, is the main driver behind the expected boost in demand.

Worldwide, there are 28 new nuclear reactors being built, 64 on the drawing boards and another 158 proposed, according to John S. Herold's Ruppel. If all those reactors get built, it would mean 57 percent more reactors from the 435 in operation.

Factor in supplies that aren't growing, but actually declining, partly due to flooding at two of the world's largest mines. Last October workers at Canada's Cigar Lake mine, half owned by Cameco, mistakenly hit water, flooding the mine. Ruppel said production at the unfinished mine will now be delayed another two years and won't come online until 2010.

And heavy rains this spring flooded a big mine owned by Energy Resources of Australia that could result in a production los

[trendy]

Actually there isn't a shortage of uranium at all in the US. The problem is most of it is locked up as spent fuel in dry casks at power stations all across the country. You see the US doesn't allow reprocessing as do France and other countries to extract out the plutonium (for weapons) and the other fissionable products that can be used to make more and "cleaner burning" nuke fuel. Once the shortage/price is acute enough and the nuke industry starts lobbying in Washington, then reprocessing will be allowed again.

[Torrero]

Labor to dump uranium policy: Evans

Sydney Morning Herald
April 23, 2007 - 1:32PM

Federal Labor resources spokesman Chris Evans says he expects Labor will overturn its 25-year opposition to new Australian uranium mines.

Mr Evans says he will support Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd's plan to dump the ALP's uranium policy at the party's national conference which starts on Friday in Sydney.

"The current Labor Party policy has failed," Mr Evans told reporters in Perth today.

"During the life of the policy uranium mining has trebled, three new mines have opened and we are about to become the largest uranium miner in the world.

"I think there is a mood for a change in the Labor Party ... we have been debating it for 30 years ... the policy hasn't worked."

The party might be divided on uranium policy but it was united in support for strengthening international nuclear safeguards, he said.

"We are very worried about (Prime Minister John) Howard's plans to sell uranium to India, outside the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, but my expectation is that the conference will change the policy.

"I have been wrong before but am hopeful that we will change the policy."

AAP

[tricha]

And U is worth more than its weight than Gold[}]

Myra Saefong's Commodities Corner
Uranium's set to make waves in futures
New York Mercantile Exchange, Ux Consulting to launch uranium futures
By Myra P. Saefong, MarketWatch
Last Update: 7:27 AM ET Apr 27, 2007


SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- It's hard to ignore any commodity that's seen a more than 1,000% price climb over the course of five years, especially one that's about to be traded on a futures exchange for its first time ever.
Weekly spot prices for uranium stood at $113 a pound on April 23 -- that's an 11-fold increase from the $5 price it cost in 2002, according to data from Ux Consulting Co., LLC. See the Web site for the latest price.
It's no wonder that the uranium industry and potential investors are all abuzz following an agreement between Ux Consulting and the New York Mercantile Exchange, a unit of Nymex Holdings (NMX : nymex holdings inc com
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9:31am 04/27/2007

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NMX130.00, +0.99, +0.8%) , announced last week to introduce on- and off-exchange traded uranium futures products on May 6.
"The fact is, there's a need for a uranium futures market," said Sean Brodrick, a contributing editor to MoneyandMarkets.com, who has often written about the uranium rally. Read his related Internet blogs.
"The way things are now, most uranium is sold under long-term contract and some is sold under short-term contract," he said. "But liquidity can just dry up [and] it's hard for utilities to make plans if they don't know what the real price of uranium is."
"It's about giving transparency to a very illiquid market," said Kevin Bambrough, a market strategist at Sprott Asset Management.
'Since we are moving off the age of oil and into a nuclear era, it's about time we had some liquidity in the uranium market and some visibility into pricing in outer months.'
— Kevin Bambrough, Sprott Asset Management
And Nymex has "correctly identified that the nuclear power industry is undergoing a renaissance with tremendous growth ahead, as the world struggles to deal with strong emerging market and Asian growth, while facing the reality of peak oil and an energy-constrained world," he said.
Sprott predicts that "the combination of high energy prices, pollution and global warming will compel the world to attempt to build as many nuclear reactors as possible going forward," said Bambrough.
"You can say what you want about nuclear power but you're if worried about global warming, one of the ways to deal with that is nuclear power," said Phil Flynn, a senior analyst at Alaron Trading.
"Since we are moving off the age of oil and into a nuclear era, it's about time we had some liquidity in the uranium market and some visibility into pricing in outer months," said Bambrough.
Limits to the trade
The lack of a public-trading platform for uranium as a commodity had been a key complaint of prospective investors. Read a related archived story.
"Nymex uranium futures will now make speculating in uranium fast and efficient," said Scott Wright, an analyst at financial-services company Zeal LLC. And "the price of uranium could really jump from today's levels with this new flow of capital."
The uranium futures products will be introduced next month on the CME Globex and Nymex ClearPort electronic platforms, Nymex and Ux Consulting said in a joint press release.
They will be financially-settled contracts and there are no restrictions related to that, according to Randolf Warsager, vice president of marketing at Nymex.
Traders won't take possession of the commodity, but they can take title of it and get some exposure to its price, he explained.
That separation from the physical market could end up being one of its biggest flaws.
Gene C

[tricha]

Got your U, be carefull, compare apple and oranges, there is a difference []

That could take time. "When uranium futures start trading in May, they will probably be as liquid as granite -- much like natural-gas futures were when they started out," said MoneyandMarkets.com's Brodrick.
"But once some volume picks up, we might be surprised who gets involved -- certainly utilities, hedge funds and professional traders," he said.
And with the Nymex doing this, "I wouldn't be surprised to see other exchanges do the same thing, much as gold and silver [exchange-traded funds] are now offered around the world," he said.
Benefits for a changing climate
At the moment, more than 500 companies claim to be exploring for uranium, developing one or more uranium projects or producing uranium, according to online news service StockInterview.com.
And the current offering of uranium-mining stocks presents investors with "a large menu for their portfolios," said James Finch, a senior editor at StockInterview.com.
But as 2010 approaches, 90% of those companies will have changed their name and/or moved into something new, so less than 25 uranium companies will likely become new miners by 2011, according to Finch.
That could "hurt investors who are unfamiliar with the nuances of uranium stocks and new to this sector," he said.
StockInterview.com conducted a uranium-investor survey of a small, random portion of its subscribers.
The survey found that the company's subscribers expect the major beneficiaries of the uranium-futures contracts to be the current uranium miners and the near-term producers, said Finch.
"We expect very little futures trading from the retail investor. The strong interest in futures will come from speculative funds, hedge funds, some utilities and funds holding physical uranium," said Finch.
And "the climate will change with the arrival of many hedge funds," which will likely employ multiple strategies using Nymex futures contracts, he said.
Because of the limited number of current and near-term producers, "we expect more liquidity and volatility in producers such as Cameco (CCJ : Cameco Corporation
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9:39am 04/27/2007

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CCJ45.22, -0.12, -0.3%) , Denison (DNN : denison mines corp com
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9:38am 04/27/2007

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DNN12.17, +0.01, +0.1%) , Uranium Resources (URRE : uranium res inc com par $0.001
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9:43am 04/27/2007

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Sponsored by:
URRE9.87, -0.14, -1.4%) and Uranium One (CA:SXR: news, chart, profile) , and in near-term producers such as Energy Metals (EMU : energy metals corp com
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Last: 13.25+0.06+0.45%

9:39am 04/27/2007

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EMU13.25, +0.06, +0.5%) , Uranerz Energy (URZ : uranerz energy corporation com
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Last: 6.93+0.03+0.43%

9:38am 04/27/2007

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Sponsored by:
URZ6.93, +0.03, +0.4%) and Strathmore Minerals (CA:STM: news, chart, profile) ," he said.
Sink or swim?
So what's the reaction of the investment community?
Out of 364 responses to the StockInterview.com survey, more than 97% said they were currently investing in uranium-mining stocks, but the majority said they had no plans over the next 12 months to trade the new physical uranium-futures contracts.
Only 6.9% said they plan to trade the contracts in the next year, and almost 30% provided a "maybe" response.
Out of 359 responses, 83.8% said "yes" when asked if the futures contracts will attract more interest in uranium, while

[etrader]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/...459984311.html

Update on uranium conference

[shasta]

http://www.acnnewswire.net/press/en/...nt-Review.html

Uranium's Big Weekend
Australasian Investment Review

Sydney, Apr 27, 2007 (ACN Newswire) - The Australian uranium industry might be about to join the rest of the resources sector in having a free hand to explore, mine and sell its core mineral if this weekend's Federal ALP conference votes to lift the party's bans on any more than three mines.

That's looking increasingly likely with the left wing of the party conceding it doesn't have the numbers to keep the three mine policy in place.

The stockmarket is certainly reflecting that confidence with the prices of actual and wannabe miners firming, new floats doing well and a general air of optimism.

A vote to lift the policy and perhaps replace it with a more liberal regime, but one not as unfettered as that from the Howard Government, should not be discounted.

After all it is the Labor Party, and faction deals and backroom arm twisting is a fact of life.

There are three operating uranium mines in Australia, Ranger in the Northern Territory, Olympic Dam and Beverley in South Australia while a fourth mine is cleared to start construction: Honeymoon, in South Australia once the ALP policy changes (hence the eagerness of the SA Premier, Mike Rann to have the policy changed).

There are at least 25 other identified deposits and probably as many more possible deposits being investigated. None come anywhere near the size of Olympic Dam which has the largest reserves of uranium in the world and would be the biggest mine in the world if the BHP Billiton expansion plan gets the go ahead.

Olympic Dam has a total resource of 1.6 million tines of uranium oxide, much of it low grade but which would be mined with copper, gold and sliver which means lower the production costs.

World uranium prices are currently around $US113 /lb according to US company UxC whose pricing information is now accepted around the world.

That is about to be turned into the most significant market move for the metal in years: early next month a futures market will start trading in New York which will be based on the UXC price and be financially deliverable, allowing producers, consumers and others to use the contract (see below for more details).

That new contract is due to start trading Monday week on Nymex (where oil is traded in New York)

That will provide a more transparent and liquid pricing mechanism for everyone including the ALP.

Key left-winger Anthony Albanese, has been quoted this week as saying his faction could only muster 180 of the 397 delegates scheduled to attend the conference which starts today.

The left faction will have about 177 delegates at the conference, enough to cause some controversy on industrial relations and perhaps environmental policies but not enough to stop the uranium mining policy from changing.

Leading left members including Martin Ferguson, Julia Gillard and Chris Evans, will vote against their faction to abolish the policy and support Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd.

The Labor Premiers of Queensland and Western Australia have said they will not allow uranium mining in their states if the policy is abolished but Mr Beattie has had several changes of heart on this issue and faced with pro-mining South Australia getting a couple of new projects, will quickly fold, as will the embattled WA Premier who may not be around at the end of the year.

Olympic Dam (BHP Billiton) will be the immediate beneficiary of any policy change by the ALP because it plans an enormous ramp of production if the $6 billion expansion of the massive mineral deposit in South Australia.

A vote to lift all bans will remove a small niggle in some people's minds: that the size of the expansion at Olympic Dam might frighten anti-uranium supporters inside the ALP, especially if it manages to win Government at the Federal poll later this year.

ERA is already hunting for uranium outside of Ranger in the Northern Territory, in parts of South Australia, because it decided a new m

[leonchai]

http://www.skynews.com.au/story.asp?id=166555

ALP votes for uranium!!

[etrader]

quote:Originally posted by leonchai

http://www.skynews.com.au/story.asp?id=166555

ALP votes for uranium!!

In terms of where to from here, does that indicate if Labor win the next election that the Uranium ban will be lifted, where to short term does that put John Howard, will they put an instant lift to it to try and win votes. Would appreciate an update of what investors understand what is the next move now that the vote has been won.

[STRAT]

By Gemma Daley

April 28 (Bloomberg) -- Queensland state Premier Peter Beattie said Australia's main opposition Labor Party would drop its 25-year-old opposition to new uranium mines, paving the way for industry expansion.

Leader Kevin Rudd today asked Labor's annual conference in Sydney to overturn the ban, to allow the uranium industry to develop ``under the most stringent conditions.'' Those include ensuring worker safety, exporting only to nations that have signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty and strengthening powers of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Nuclear protesters dressed in gas masks blocked the entrance of the convention center in Darling Harbor to oppose the move.

``I am fairly confident there will be a change in policy,'' Beattie said in an interview on the sidelines of the three-day conference. ``But the Western Australian premier and I have made it quite clear we want the policy to stay exactly as it is.''

Mining rights are administered regionally in Australia, which has about 40 percent of the world's known uranium. Labor runs all eight Australian territories and states.

Summit Resources Ltd. and Paladin Resources Ltd. want to develop their Valhalla uranium deposit near Mount Isa in Queensland state. The state has about 14 percent of the nation's known deposits, according to Australia's Uranium Information Center.

Party Resistance

Rudd, 49, faces resistance from anti-nuclear forces within Labor who pledge to continue the existing policy, which contributed to a 174 percent increase in the price of uranium in the past year. Today's motion said every state and territory would have the right to assess, and reject if it chooses, each nuclear energy project.

``I recognize the rights of states and territories in terms of each proposal put before them,'' Rudd said.

Nuclear energy and climate change have become a central issue as Australia heads to a national election this year. Labor has led opinion polls since Rudd was elected leader on Dec. 4.

Prime Minister John Howard today announced measures to help develop a nuclear industry in Australia.

Howard, 67, said he would draft new rules that would govern the building and operation of nuclear reactors. The government will research skills and training needed to serve the industry, and it will launch a campaign to address public concerns about nuclear energy, he said in Melbourne, according to a speech e- mailed to Bloomberg News.

`Back on the Agenda'

``Uranium is well and truly back on the agenda. Around the world, people are talking about nuclear stations,'' Leigh Clifford, chief executive officer of Rio Tinto Group, told reporters in Perth yesterday. ``Rio Tinto Group, the world's second largest producer of uranium, is in an excellent position to significantly expand our capacity and its something we're looking pretty actively at the moment.''

The uranium price reached a record $113 a pound on increased demand and production delays at existing mines.

The price has soared as utilities and nations turn to nuclear energy to meet rising power demand, and on concern that coal- and oil-fired plants are raising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, contributing to global warming.

Without a broad sanction at the Labor Party conference, new projects may be restricted to South Australia, where Premier Mike Rann favors new mines, and the country's Northern Territory, where decisions on new pits will be taken by Howard's Liberal National coalition in the federal government.

Uranium Mines

Australia has three operating uranium mines: Energy Resources of Australia Ltd.'s Ranger mine in the Northern Territory, BHP Billiton Ltd.'s Olympic Dam mine and Heathgate Resources' Beverley mine in South Australia. A fourth, SXR Uranium One Inc.'s Honeymoon mine in the state, is due to start up within 12 months.

Rudd also faces opposition from Peter Garrett, former Midnight Oil musician and the party's environment and climate change spokesman, who says there are still risks over the dispos