Australian Uranium News

Long haul for uranium players

December 22, 2005 by Mark Mentiplay in WA Business News: New $8 million float Valhalla Uranium Ltd is the latest to seize the glamorous, almost golden, uranium baton and head off into the blue sky. In scenes reminiscent of past gold booms, the year has been characterised by the stock market successes, stumbles and falls of a raft of new uranium exploration floats and existing companies that have decided to top up with some uranium pasture. Perth-based Valhalla — a spin off from WA gold producer Resolute Mining Ltd, which retained 83.3 percent — saw its 40c shares hit 63.5c this week, before easing back to 55.5c, taking the explorer’s market capitalisation from $48 million to $66.6 million. Valhalla has a half stake in its namesake project at Mt Isa in Queensland, tenements which operator and 50 per cent partner Summit Resources Ltd has said contained over 75 million pounds of uranium oxide resources, making it “the most advanced uranium exploration resource in Australia. Only BHP Billiton at Olympic Dam and Rio Tinto subsidiary ERA at Jabiluka in the Northern Territory, control larger uranium resources.” Summit and Resolute shares failed to join the Valhalla ride; Summit’s price having drifted from 90c at the end of September to 56c and Resolute’s from $1.55 to $1.14 in the same period. The run on uranium hopefuls is based on some pretty good fundamentals, but the reality of another uranium mine getting up and running in Australia in the next 10 or more years is remote...

Call to build nuke plants

December 22, 2005 by Sarah Wotherspoon in The Herald Sun: Australia should embrace nuclear power as a cheap and environmentally friendly energy source, according to a Melbourne University study. The six-month study found Australia has much more uranium than was thought ... The study's head, Associate Prof Martin Sevior ... claimed the research debunked the widely acclaimed nuclear study by researchers Jan van Leeuwen and Philip Smith that found the costs of building nuclear power plants outweighed their benefits. Prof Sevior claimed that research had overestimated the energy costs and carbon emissions of building nuclear power plants and mining uranium. He said there was a case for using new, untested types of nuclear power reactors in Victoria...

Uranium freight future unclear

December 20, 2005 in ABC News Online: The freight operator on the Adelaide-to-Darwin rail line says it is still unclear whether it will carry uranium oxide from the Olympic Dam mine in South Australia on a regular basis. Freightlink was involved in a three-month trial this year carrying uranium oxide on rail to Darwin. Freightlink chief executive officer John Fullerton says the company is still waiting for a decision from the mine's owner, BHP Billiton.

SA Govt branded hypocritcal over nuclear waste proposal

December 19, 2005 by Nancy Haxton in PM: The South Australian Government has been accused of hypocrisy by the Federal Government for proposing a new nuclear waste site in the state's far north. A year-long feasibility study has recommended that the Olympic Dam mine site would be an appropriate repository for low and intermediate level radioactive waste, as long as the mine's new owners BHP Billiton agree to the idea. The Government is now negotiating with the company over the plan. Conservation groups are worried the proposal could become part of a deal to expand the uranium mine. Federal Liberal MP Christopher Pyne says the plan reeks of hypocrisy because of the State Government's fight against housing a national radioactive waste dump.

Nuclear dump for the north: Olympic Dam to store state's radioactive waste

December 19, 2005 by Laura Anderson in The Advertiser: South Australia's nuclear waste will be stored at Olympic Dam, under a plan agreed to by the State Government and the Environment Protection Authority. A 12-month study has recommended that low-level and intermediate radioactive waste - now housed in 134 locations across the state, including hospitals and universities - be moved to the Far North uranium mine. Eighteen months after the State Government won the fight to stop a national low-level radioactive dump being established near Woomera, it now will begin talks with mine owner BHP Billiton...

Uranium miner lists at big premium

December 19, 2005 at news.com.au: in Uranium miner Valhalla Uranium has debuted on the bourse at a 50 per cent premium to its issue price following a $7 million float. Shares in the company began trading on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) at 60 cents at 1300 AEDT, a premium to the 40 cent issue price. Valhalla is owned by Resolute Mining Ltd, who spun off its yellowcake interests in several advanced uranium projects in Queensland and the Northern Territory to form the new company. The company has said a separate listing will allow Valhalla to get funding to take advantage of a considerable improvement in the outlook for the uranium sector in the past year...

Foes of nuclear power may soon run out of steam

December 18, 2005 by Ivan Maldanado in The Cincinnati Enquirer (USA): ...Worldwide, expectations for nuclear power are also rising, in large part because of a sense of urgency over climate change. Great Britain and Canada are moving toward building a new generation of nuclear power plants, and Australia is giving serious consideration to launching its own nuclear power program. Countries already committed to building new nuclear plants include France, which gets 78 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, and Japan, China and South Korea...

French Appeal Court dismisses Australian fuel plea

December 14, 2005 in Nuclear Engineering International: The French Supreme Court of Appeal (Cour de Cassation) has dismissed an appeal lodged by Cogema over a ruling that requires reprocessed spent nuclear fuel to be returned to Australia. The Supreme Court of Appeal ruling does not call into question the reprocessing of used Australian fuel which began on 9 June, 2005 but under the provisions of the law, any waste resulting from the reprocessing will be returned to Australia. The uranium will be recycled...

Contentious waste dump gets go-ahead

December 12, 2005 By Ashleigh Wilson in The Australian: After six months of passionate, hyperbolic, divisive and sometimes illogical debate, the Howard Government this week went through with its plans to impose a nuclear waste dump on the Northern Territory. It was press releases at five paces as politicians, environmentalists and Aboriginal landowners rushed to put their own spin on the Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Bill 2005 that passed through the senate on Thursday. In short, the legislation means that a nuclear waste dump — or nuclear waste "facility", as Coalition Territory MP Dave Tollner insists — will soon be a reality in the Northern Territory...

The Uranium Story (the looming supply crisis)

December 11, 2005 by Sol Palha at HowStreet.com: Uranium is in a major up trend and it has been putting in new multi year highs for quite some time now. One of the reasons for this rapid move is fear. The fear is based on the fact that approx 91 million kilos of Uranium will be needed but mines only produce approx 45.5 million Kilos; so far this short fall has been met with above the ground reserves. Most of this above the ground uranium has come from the decommissioning of nuclear warheads (this accounts for roughly 45% of the global supply); sooner then later these supplies are going to run out and then we are going to have a problem...

Globe Uranium lists above issue price

December 9, 2005 in The Age: Mining firm Globe Uranium Ltd has debuted on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) at a 22.5 per cent premium to its issue price. Shares in the uranium explorer opened at 24.5 cents before settling back to the issue price of 20 cents by 1320 AEDT on Friday...

Can't always have their yellowcake and eat it too

December 8, 2005: Opinion published in Tim Boreham's Criterion column in the business section of The Australian newspaper: Investors who pumped hot money into uranium stocks have realised they can't always have their yellocake and eat it too. While any promoter could cobble together a few tenements and raise a couple of million three months ago, a far more discerning attitude now prevails. True, global uranium prices are holding up. The price of uranium ore (as used in nuclear reactors) has soared 62% this year to about $US33 a pound and UBS estimates the price should average $US38 a pound in 2006. But there's the small matter of finding the stuff in mineable quantities and then pursuading the Labor state governments to dotch their "four mines" policy. (Boreham went on to rate Paladin, Summit Resources, Redport, Monaro and Energy Resources Australaia as speculative buys)...

Medical professionals join anti-nuclear push

No nuke dump campaign: a fighting spirit

December 7, 2005 by Jon Lamb and Kathy Newman in Green Left Weekly: The likely passing of the federal government’s Radioactive Waste Bill has not dampened the fighting spirit of Darwin’s No Waste Alliance. Green Left Weekly spoke to four members of the campaign group, Justin Tutty, Gary Scott, Emma King and Strider, all long-time environmental and social justice activists. According to Tutty, the campaign continues to have the public strongly on side. Scott, also a campaigner with the Environment Centre of the Northern Territory (ECNT), pointed out that this has been reflected in the large number of submissions to the Senate inquiry into the nuclear waste dump, as well as the 10,000 signatures collected on the anti-dump petition. He told GLW, “The feedback that people in the No Waste Alliance have been getting at stalls in communities is that we’re a very popular campaign”...

Uranium Majors Sell Out Of Rio Tinto's ERA

December 6, 2005: By Matt Chambers Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES at Yahoo Singapore Finance: MELBOURNE (Dow Jones) — Uranium giants Cameco Corp. (CCJ), Areva's (427583.FR) Cogema and Japan Australia Uranium Development Co. sold their cornerstone stakes in Energy Resources of Australia Ltd. (ERA.AU) on Tuesday, leaving parent Rio Tinto PLC (RTP) as the sole major shareholder. Merrill Lynch & Co. and UBS AG arranged the sale of the combined 25.1% stake, or 47.9 million shares, at A$9.50 apiece, a deep 28% discount to the last trade in ERA at A$13.13. The stake was sold to domestic and international investors, ERA said, which will make its shares traded on the Australian Stock Exchange more liquid, now that all shares apart from Rio Tinto's 68.4% holding will be on the market. The sale, which raised about A$454 million, was described by one fund manager who declined to be named as "opportunistic." It comes after surges in uranium prices and increased investor interest in the nuclear fuel helped double ERA's shares this year. The shares, which were halted pending the announcement, began the year at A$6.59...

Nuclear power: no solution to climate change

December 6, 2005 by Jim Green in Online Opinion: 2005 has seen the Federal Government reverse its position on climate change, accepting that its impact is severe and serious, and that fast action is imperative. But the government has diverted attention away from real solutions and Australia’s poor performance on curbing emissions by insisting that Australia consider domestic nuclear power generation. In short, the government proposes something which is currently illegal, inordinately expensive, relying on government-subsidised capital investments and too slow to respond to the immediate challenge of climate change. Now Brendan Nelson and Ian Macfarlane (science and industry and resources ministers) want to waste more time and money on a high level inquiry into the feasibility of a nuclear power industry in Australia...

Miners up, banks slip

December 6, 2005 by Emma Ambler in The Courier Mail: THE Australian sharemarket closed slightly higher yesterday as a brighter resources sector helped mitigate a softening among most of the major banks. ABN Amro private client adviser Bill Bishop said the bourse was pausing for breath after a very promising run in recent weeks. "The market was just having something of a consolidation day," Mr Bishop said. "The resources did all right . . . they kept things together." The top traded stock by volume was minerals explorer Deep Yellow, with 46.09 million shares worth $4.38 million changing hands. The stock rose 2.5¢ to 10.5¢...

Trevor Sykes: Uranium stocks overhyped

December 4, 2005 Veteran Australian Financial Review commentator Trevor Sykes quoted in Inside Business: "...I would say the uranium stocks are certainly getting overhyped. Why anyone would boost a uranium stock when it's at least four or five years from discovery to development and when there is no likelihood of development approval being granted politically anywhere except in the Northern Territory, I just don't know. They're certainly too hyped at the moment...

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