Nuclear Fuels | enCore Energy | CanAlaska Uranium | Laramide
Uranium‘s 3-year price catch-up continues with this week‘s catapult in spot prices and reports of a near-$70 per pound price.
U-equity prices as measured by ETFs are climbing, too.
Below-fair-value explorers in
The Calandra Report/TCR: see here please.
Uranium’s spot price, read: instant demand by short-handed utilities, is notching its largest gains in decades. So are 3-year and longer contract prices for the nuclear fuel. This week, an already lofty $60 price looks to be nearing $70, industry execs say.
“Current spot price must increase to incentivize the fuel needed for future energy build-outs. This is not a blip. This is a step-change,” says Cory Belyk, CEO of Athabasca Basin project starter CanAlaska Uranium. Cory, a geologist, has been in the uranium business for 30 years.
[See YELLOW CAKE TRUST chart above please.]
TCRs, Large users of uranium are attempting to fill 2024 gaps, and the world’s handful of large producers do not have the goods.
“The believable estimate (World Nuclear Association) is 30% growth in uranium demand by the end of this decade,” says Bill Sheriff, pictured here. Bill is founder of enCore Energy EU, a South Texas producer as of next month at Rosita. He also chairs and started new-co explorer Nuclear Fuels NF URVNF in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin.
“What keeps us up at night? A Fukushima-type event (Japan), but that was mostly a fluke that is not possible to forecast. Maybe supply chain, but being on the border with Mexico, say, with well casings, we get them faster at bulk than most buyers,” Bill Sheriff says.
Once again, TCRs, mea-stupido. I dropped the yellow-ball re: the catapulting uranium prices (and demand); I dropped the ownership ball, with small profits, in 2018 or so.
"The U price has continued to march higher, and I think there is still room to move over the coming months. As for the equities, I think you saw a bit of profit-taking this week but new money is clearly coming into the sector (today-Friday SEPT. 22, 2023). Whether at the WNA (LONDON) or recent inbound interest, there appears to be new institutional capital coming into the space looking to get positioned." -- JORDAN TRIMBLE, SKYHARBOUR RESOURCES
Had I just stayed in for a few years here, with producers such as Cameco, select explorers and physical trusts (Yellow Cake chart above; Sprott Physical, etc.), and in the ones I owned and sadly sold for minute gains (Fission Uranium; Energy Fuels; F3 Uranium; Uranium Energy Corp.; enCore Energy; CanAlaska Uranium; SkyHarbour Resources), well, but for that hasty trading, I would have your nuclear street-cred.
What a chump, yes?
This week and last, playing catch-up, I am buying shares of three that still look cheap and have yet to catch the catapult, as indicated here in this TCR report .
Based on private, non-insider and meaningful in-person and Zoom-etc. discussions with principals: CanAlaska Uranium CVV CVVUF; Laramide Resources LAM LMRXF; and most recently, highly speculative , nearly impossible to buy shares of, Wyoming explorer Nuclear Fuels NF URVNF, Bill Sheriff chairing it.
More here re: Laramide Resources and founder Marc Henderson, who is one of my five go-tos in the everything uranium industry — uranium USA , uranium Australia and uranium Athabasca Basin (Canada). See TCR report please.
“Compared to gold, uranium is a very small club in the West, and even as small when you slot in Kazakhstan, Australia, Africa,” says Marc Henderson at Laramide.
Marc Henderson is in Australia right now on site at the Westmoreland uranium development, northwest Queensland.
"Uranium demand curves DO NOT account for the ongoing and looming Small Modular Reactor (SMR) build-out that is happening now. A fine example is in small town Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, home of the Saudia Arabia of uranium, the Athabasca Basin, where a population of 300,000 people will have installed and be generating clean electricity from an e-Vinci (Westinghouse owned largely by Cameco now) SMR micro reactor by 2028," says CORY BELYK of CanAlaska Uranium.
How many small uranium explorers have yet to catch the valuation catapult? If I tagged even half of them, I would be logging them ’til next Tuesday.
Sub-$200 million market-caps (USD or CAD) among explorer-developers (genuine producers in most parts of the world, i.e., Cameco, et al, already have gained 300 to 400% of dollar-weight these past three years) look to be fundamental and chart-supported values here.
F3 Uranium FUU FUUFF sports a $160 million USD market value. Its four projects each are in NE Athabasca Basin, AN EXTREME-HIGH-GRADE uranium pocket in lake beds across the province of Saskatchewan in Canada.
“It’s made the best discovery since ISO (Isoenergy),” says founder Dev Randhawa, CEO.
Dev, who used to run Fission Uranium FCU, has been on me for two years and some months to track F3 Uranium.
“We will go up with a higher-U price and finding more uranium as its done since our discovery,” he tells me today-FRIDAY. “How do you beat 18 meters of 8% uranium?” Assay here.
(Plus: Azimut-Exploration, Osino Resources, Orford Mining, Banyan Gold, others]
For those unwilling to wait for the U-collateral (direct quotes, notes) from Bill Sheriff re: enCore and Nuclear Fuels; from Cory Belyk at CanAlaska; and outside the nuclear biz, from the gold-copper-nickel-etc of my Colorado discussions with Jean-Marc Lulin at Azimut-Exploration AZM AZMTF (copper, gold, lithium in Québec); Heye Daun at Osino Resources OSI (gold in Namibia); David Christie at Orford Mining (Québec gold, nickel, lithium); Tara Christie at Banyan Gold BYG BYAGF (Yukon gold developer) — ping me and I will send rough verbatim notes.
I own all of these but for Fission and F3; Skyharbour; Uranium Energy Corp.; and Energy Fuels.
I am attempting to purchase Nuclear Fuels shares, which are thin and highly speculative at a sub-$20 million market value.
* Hasta la vista, John Adams
John Adams, a miner, rancher, preservationist, was 76 when he died in August.
John Adams was a Flying Diamond. That is the name of his Colorado ranch.
See: Steamboat Pilot remembrance here please.
Rancher, rancher, skier, preservationist, Dad, husband and NFL sports fan, John, (and his family), introduced me to Steamboat Springs in Colorado.
John was a model rancher and curator of the finest beef cattle. A miner, too, as was his father — in coal and uranium here out west.
I met John first in Guyana at his Sandspring Resources, forging his own gold doré, burners blazing and in shorts and a t-shirt.
Toroparu mine is now on its way to becoming a full fledged copper and gold mine.John was spirited; so is his family, including my friend Wes Adams.‘Hasta la vista,’ John.
— Thom Calandra
Thom Calandra is a writer and an investor. Research and material are meant as editorial opinion. He is not a professional investment adviser. Please do not consider his reporting as a recommendation to buy or sell securities.