Uranium supply concerns associated with EEU
Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan signed an agreement to form a Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) on May 29. Uranium market watchers should pay close attention and understand the potential implications of the alliance on the stability of the world’s uranium supply, even though the alliance has been dismissed as unimportant by some media pundits.
For example, a May 29, 2014 BusinessWeek article titled Putin’s Eurasian Union Looks Like a Bad Deal, Even for Russia includes the following quote.
Creation of the union “won’t really register on the radar of the global economy,” says Nicu Popescu, an analyst at the EU’s Institute for Security Studies in Paris.
Mr. Popescu appears blissfully unaware of the fact that the combination of Russia and Kazakhstan controls approximately 50% of the world’s uranium market.
Both countries have openly publicized plans to continue increasing production, even though the market has been weak since March of 2011. (Ref: Russia to Triple Uranium Production in Next 2 Years – Rosatom and Kazakhstan tops uranium league)
As a result increased Eurasian production and lowered uranium demand from both Germany and Japan uranium prices continue falling to significantly less than $30/pound, a level not seen since the 1990s.
Russia and Kazakhstan seem determined to capture an increasing share of the market as other producers announce production cutbacks and exploration deferrals.
In many ways, the 2011-2014 uranium market includes echoes of 1973-1975, when a lengthy period of low uranium prices led to complacency among customers. Many buyers deferred physical purchases, expecting that they would always be able to purchase their product sometime in the future at a favorable price.
Those deferred purchases led to a continued slide in prices and a growing number of suppliers dropping out of the market due to mounting losses. A few well-capitalized suppliers bided their time. After enough competitors dropped out of the market, they coordinated a response.
In 1975, the trend line for uranium prices sharply reversed. Though they had remained below $10 per pound for several years, they reached $40 per pound by the middle of 1975.
Westinghouse, one of the companies with a large deferred need to purchase uranium in the early 1970s, cried foul and loudly complained about the uranium cartel. Robert Kirby, who had just become Westinghouse’s CEO, realized the financial risk to his company and began devoting the majority of his time to damage control.
In the end, responding to the uranium price increase consumed the better part of five years at a time when Westinghouse’s leaders should have been investing their valuable attention on more productive pursuits.
It would be a mistake for today’s uranium buyers to fail to learn lessons from history and assume that the prices will stabilize at today’s low level or to fall even further.
There is evidence supporting the notion that Kazakhstan has been engaging in a uranium price war specifically designed to drive out marginal suppliers and to capture a larger share of the market.
There is also some evidence suggesting that this action has been done with Russian assistance. The two countries, neither of which is known for their love of western-style capitalism, not only control about half of the raw uranium market, but also a growing portion of the market for separative work units and fabricated uranium dioxide fuel pellets.
Both countries can afford to squeeze the uranium market since both of them are substantial oil and gas suppliers. Demand for those fossil fuels would inevitably increase if there were a shortage of uranium that led to a reduction in nuclear power plant output.
Historical footnote: The early 1970s action by the uranium cartel also had a close tie to oil and gas producers. A 1977 article by the LA Times/Washington Post news service published in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune titled Uranium Cartel Threatens Carter’s Energy Plans: Prices Skyrocket, Squeeze Put on Westinghouse mentions the involvement of subsidiaries of the following oil companies – Gulf, Getty and Kerr-MeGee. It also includes the following perceptive quote that qualifies as a smoking gun.
Finally, in terms of current political sentiment, the yellowcake cartel may provoke more congressional interest in questions of who controls energy resources — the issue of the oil industry’s major acquisitions in uranium and coal and other fuel sources.
The cartel, by no stretch of the facts, could be blamed on Big Oil, but some in the industry fear that Gulf’s prominent role will become a cautionary tale of how oil domination of other resources threatens the future.
“It’s a perfect case,” said one oil industry source, “to prove you can’t trust the oil companies.”
End Historical footnote.
Neither Russia nor Kazakhstan is very worried about the possibility of being accused of cartel behavior.
At a time when many people in Europe worry about the potential impact of a decision by the Russian leadership to restrict gas exports, few mainstream observers are talking about the related threat to uranium supplies.
Fortunately, uranium buyers have a much more straightforward response available than natural gas consumers. They do not need to invest in long-term projects like new exploration or new pipelines. Uranium, unlike natural gas, is not difficult to stockpile.
When uranium customers notice what is happening on the world stage, they should take advantage of current low prices to add physical inventory. That action will firm up prices and probably result in a gradual price increase.
That would be good for customers over the long-term by encouraging more diversity among suppliers and less concentrated market power in the hands of countries that do not share the same goals as their customers.
You might be skeptical about this risk. If so, it is not difficult to learn more about the behavior and motives of Vladimir Putin, Russia’s current leader and one of the key players in this potentially important drama.
It takes a little more digging to find informative coverage of President Nursultan Nazarbayev’s of Kazakhstan. Not too long ago, the Guardian ran an article titled Kazakhstan is an abusive dictatorship – the UK should not court it that should be required reading for people interested in the uranium market.
The article is about the five-year imprisonment of Mukhtar Dzhakishev, the former head of Kazatomprom as told by his daughter. It is a cautionary tale about a regime that has assumed an outsized importance in the uranium market.
If history is any guide, it is time to take action to reduce the market power of Putin and Nazarbayev. The potential cost of inaction is worth taking a modest paper loss in the event that uranium prices fall a few more dollars in coming months.
Buyers might miss the opportunity to buy at the absolute bottom of the market but that beats trying to find needed supplies in a rapidly tightening market or during a possible embargo.
How often does a moderately sized nuclear facility need to refuel? And for us dummies, who purchases raw uranium, and what is involved in turning it into fuel?
Conventional light water reactors refuel every 18-24 months in the US. For a good overview of the fuel cycle, including mining, conversion, enrichment, fabrication and installation, see http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Introduction/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle-Overview/
@POA – Here are details about specific fuel cycle lengths:
https://www.roadtechs.com/nukeout.htm
Outage duration depends on what is going on, from a simple refueling (2-3 weeks), to steam generator replacement (several months). Secondary (steam) side work is obviously done in parallel, and may or may not be critical path (most limiting as to schedule).
As much maintenance and plant modification as possible is done during the refueling outage, with the goal being a subsequent “breaker-to-breaker run” – no forced shutdowns due to maintenance issues until the next RFO.
A large portion of the recent excellent performance of the US fleet is due to minimizing outage duration by aggressive pre-planning and strict schedule adherence. Every plant worker has an Outage job, as well as their Regular job, and often works a 6×12 hour schedule during that period.
But seeing as how the original topic was uranium, I digress… 😉
Typo? In the penultimate paragraph, “it is time to take action to reduce the market power of Putin and Dzhakishev” — should read “reduce the market power of Putin and Nazarbayev.”
@Keith Pickering
Thank you for the good catch. Much appreciated.
You gave some historical precedents but there is so much uranium around, it’s hard to believe it will be a problem. I was just looking for an article I read recently about the McArthur River mine in the Athabasca region of Saskatchewan. The amount of uranium there is truly amazing. I believe the ore is something like 20% uranium oxide. It is so high, it requires special processing equipment for safety. And, they just opened Cigar Lake nearby, plus the region probably contains much more. Then there is the Olympic Dam mine in Australia.
I know a mine is not developed overnight, but I think the supply of uranium is going to be more than adequate for quite some time, even if nuclear power takes off in China, and other countries.
I think Russia has much broader goals for establishing an economic union (as an offset to EU/NATO expansion), than somehow ‘cornering’ the supply of uranium.
@SteveK9
Over the long term, I agree with you. Short term tightness in available uranium, however, is quite possible if there are insufficient above ground resources under the control of people who are willing to sell.
Yes. How much economic impact would there be on any short-term price rise, since it isn’t a large component of the cost of electricity? Also, they aren’t running now, but it seems there are several mines that could be put into operation fairly quickly if needed.
It’s not a good thing for the uranium mining industry, but uranium mining is never going to be a business like fossil-fuel mining, since you need so little (very good for us though).
@SteveK9
Both of these mines have taken several decades to develop. Cigar Lake is just coming on-line now (and is at least a decade overdue). First proposed at $450 million to develop, current costs are estimated at $2.6 billion (and it is currently in early start-up phase, with full production another three years away). The last time the mine flooded in 2006 we saw a soaring bubble in uranium prices. This doesn’t speak to a well supplied market, but a severely constrained one (prone to speculation, uncertain boom and bust cycles, and long lead times on developing new supplies and many in very remote and expensive places to work).
While the ore grade is a huge benefit to making the economics of these mines work (these are very technical and complicated mines), and prone to many uncertainties (as McArthur River and Cigar Lake have shown). I’m not as impressed with the numbers as you. Estimated recoverable and proven reserves are 360.5 million pounds at McArthur and 216.7 million pounds at Cigar Lake. At current consumption levels for global nuclear civilian reactor fleet (78,000 tons of uranium oxide or 172 million pounds), that’s some 3.4 years (meeting a current 13% of global electricity needs). At projected higher levels (260 million pounds in 2023), that’s some 2.2 years. I don’t see where McArthur River or Cigar Lake are going to be a game changers in uranium supplies (or boost prospects much for long term availability). These aren’t open pit mines that can be expanded indefinitely. Sandstone is porous, and they have to freeze the surrounding geological unconformity to get to the ore (mined by remotely operated machines). Once these mines are tapped, they are shut down.
I’ve followed numerous proposals and environmental assessments for exploration or new mine sites in the Athabasca Basin. Costs are not going to decline for these operations. Many are much higher than initially proposed. Investment and development risks frequently place projects out of reach for many developers (or bankrupt those who try). For one of the world’s most attractive locations for future uranium mining prospects, I see a lot of fundamental challenges. At a high enough cost, I’m sure there will be plenty of incentives for additional risk taking (and nudge the goal posts a bit). To fuel a resurgence or renaissance (and meet significant global carbon reduction goals with new supplies) … it sounds improbable to me.
At this point in the conversation … someone usually chimes in about seawater. With rising costs (10 to 20 times more expensive than ore mining), I suppose anything is possible (or so it seems with nuclear).
@EL
We agree on something. Hurray.
The uranium market is, under current regulatory assumptions, a severely constrained one that is prone to speculation and all of the rest of the things that you listed.
That statement says nothing about the presence or absence of mineral resources. It includes such oddities as putting more than a million acres of land with proven resources off limits in the desert Southwest, a complete ban on uranium mining in my home state of Virginia despite the presence of at least one resource with a proven deposit of 119 million pounds, and continued constraints on politically determined availability of mineral deposits in Australia.
It also includes some of the manipulative actions identified in the initial post where certain market players have taken advantage of low demand to flood the market, driving prices to levels that are uneconomical for most producers.
The nearly inevitable result of that will be the temporary closure of productive mines with a long lead time of restoration required once prices start climbing again.
None of this makes me worried about the long term supplies of uranium and thorium. There is no need to talk about sea water, there are plenty of fissionable actinides on land. It would be much more logical to begin recycling when supplies seem insufficient than to think about trying to economically extract uranium from sea water.
I’m too lazy to calculate this when others probably have the number at their fingertips…
How much would a strategic uranium reserve for the G7 cost at current prices? Is there enough SWU capacity in the G7 to hold it as yellowcake, or would we need to convert some to LEU to avoid shortages?
A year’s worth of uranium inventory for the whole world would only cost about $5 billion, even if it resulted in a 30% increase in the market price.
But a year’s worth of yellowcake doesn’t help you if you don’t have the conversion and enrichment capacity to turn it into fuel. There’s more than one potential bottleneck, and a strategic reserve would need to address them all.
A zone which is self-sufficient in SWUs and conversion would only need a stockpile of yellowcake sufficient to bring new mines up to speed. A zone deficient in SWUs would need to stockpile enriched uranium, and if it lacked conversion as well it would need to hold it as UO2 and not fluorides. With every step toward finished fuel, the cost of holding inventory goes up.
You’re right about that, and Russia does have a good position there. The places where fuel is made are fewer than where it is mined. But, I think they are generally in places that are politically stable, Europe, the US, Russia (?). Isn’t China building capability as well, working with Areva? How about Japan (are they self-sufficient, able to export)? And Kazakhstan wants to move up the ‘food chain’ and are planning enrichment facilities with Russia. At the end of the day, I think Iran is going to be allowed to enrich uranium for fuel as well without continuing economic sanctions.
Oh, and although we are giving them a hard time, S. Korea wants to do this as well, and I think that will happen. I’m also pretty confident S. Korea could build up significant capacity … there is no way in which S. Korea can be considered a ‘developing’ country any more.
I dont know if any of you have figured it out and said the price at which reprocessing becomes favorable/viable. I was hoping Uranium would become more expensive so we could start reprocessing spent fuel. Its a waste to have it just sitting around. I am also not sure at what point transmutation thorium into 233U for fuel use becomes viable. Hopefully somewhere after spent fuel reprocessing and before more intrusive means of extracting U from the environment.
You cant always trust pricing in markets to make things work out well.
Also, all in all, U mining, unlike some more exotic fossil fuel extraction methods, seems to be becoming a more advanced and environmentally friendly process where regulated, as time moves forward.
I think I would favor tari
ffs where mining and production methods are lees advanced.
I think less supply, less production and higher prices would possibly be a good thing in the long haul. Not so sure about the ideal targets though and there a too many variables and things I dont know here for me to have a strong opinion.
I would be incredibly uncomfortable having to depend on Russia and Kazakhstan for supplies for what I do think are a few good reasons though.
Russia cuts off natural gas supplies to Ukraine ( http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/16/news/ukraine-russia-gas/index.html?hpt=hp_t3 )
Gazprom says no more shipments till “prepaid.” They raised prices recently too.