Justin Huhn, Founder and Publisher of the Uranium Insider, joins me for yet another very comprehensive macro update on the supply and demand fundamentals for uranium and the nuclear fuel sector, how the longer-term contracting cycle is setting up with utility companies, and what he is watching and how he is positioning in the uranium equities as we’ve started to see a bounce across the sector the last 2 months. This is a longer-format discussion building upon our prior conversations in 2024, because even more key news and developments have been announced in the nuclear and uranium sector.
We start off reviewing the 4 executive orders out of the Trump Administration in May that deal with the nuclear and uranium industries, and what this means for the sector and public perception. We spend some time discussing both the tailwinds from the broader generalist interest in Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and nuclear stocks, but also make the larger point about the attractive supply/demand fundamentals that already existed and still exist, even without AI datacenter electricity demand or even modeling in the SMRS. The global reactor fleet is only continuing to grow, with more new reactor builds in the East, plus mine restarts and mine extensions. There are growing initiatives globally, coming out of the COP29 conference for many nations to triple their nuclear power capacity by 2050.
Transitioning over the supply environment from the uranium mining companies, we’ve seen a flurry of news all year out of US and African producers struggling to ramp up production, noting the slower than anticipated restart of the Langer Heinrich Mine operated in Namibia by Paladin Energy (ASX: PDN) (OTCQX: PALAF). Additionally, with Kazakhstan being the largest uranium swing producer via Kazatomprom, we’ve seen guidance lowered the last couple years due to a shortfall of sulphuric acid, and increased taxes on production, with both expected to crimp output. Then, there were even more surprises when Kazatomprom announced a big decrease in their JV production for Canada with Cameco (CCO.V) (CCJ).
Next we point out that large development projects in the Athabasca Basin of Canada, like the Phoenix Project held by Denison Mines (TSX: DML) (NYSE: DNN), and in specific the Arrow Project from NexGen Energy (TSX: NXE) (NYSE: NXE), initially anticipated to start bringing on production by 2028 are also seeing timelines get pushed back to 2030 or later. There is very little new supply coming online globally, with the exception of some smaller production out of the US and Australian producers. All of this points to a much more constrained output from global uranium producers, even in face of growing demand.
Wrapping up, Justin weighs in on which types and what stage of uranium mining stocks have his interest, and why he remains bullish on US producers and developers, and select Canadian developers and explorers.