Category: Uncategorized

Russian bid for Berkeley’s uranium may fall flat
Barry FitzGerald
December 31, 2010

RUSSIA’S efforts to lock in uranium reserves held by Australian-listed companies in overseas locations has hit a roadblock.

One of the Russian targets, Berkeley Resources, has decided it might be best to pursue financing alternatives for its Salamanca uranium project in Spain rather than negotiate an agreed bid with the Russian steelmaker Severstal.

Little known Aura Energy are sitting on a very large Uranium deposit in Sweden (Alum Shale of central Sweden).

There has been more activity in AEE recently… Makes me wonder if the Russians or someone else has spotted AEE’s uranium deposit that is most likely in the vicinity of one BILLION pounds contained U3O8 for a very small market cap of $42million.

More about AEE

This is what we the long term holders of GGG have been waiting for. The mining of GGG’s uranium will allow for its Rare Earth Elements to be mined at minus cost once the uranium credits have been booked.

This will allow GGG to mine the world’s largest, by far, rare earth element deposit. This is a major breakthrough and some expect GGG to absolutely soar. Follow this link to some earlier posts about GGG and its huge REE deposit.

Note that Greenland Energy and Minerals own the Kvanefjeld Resource on the left of the image below…
Note the ~300m lbs of uranium

Today’s announcement
• The Company would like to request a trading halt of its securities prior to the opening of market on Monday the 13th December. The company received over the weekend approval of the recent application to operate within the newly created terms and conditions with regard to radioactive materials (specifically Uranium)

• The Company is preparing a detailed announcement with respect to this landmark approval and expects to have this to market within the next two days

• The Company requests that the trading halt will be lifted on the earlier of the release of an announcement to the market or on the commencement of normal trading on Wednesday 15th December 2010

Two nice bits of news for EXT shareholders…. EXT has announced a $60m million placement to Kalahari taking Kalahari to 42.83% up from 41.2% giving EXT ~$100m to develop the Husab project which has the potential to become one of the world’s top four uranium mines by production around 2014.

The second bit of news comes from RCR who think that Uranium could reach $70 in 2011 and this will support development decisions for both EXT and Bannerman Resources (ASX BMN) both of whom have large uranium projects in Namibia.

http://www.australianuranium.com.au/Australian-Uranium-Stocks-by-Resource.html

This reads like something from the Yes Minister BBC series but seems to point to the Angela Pamela mine’s Northern Territory ban may about to be overturned… have a read.

I wonder if this will give comfort to the wider Australian based uranium miners?

Heathgate Resources one of Australia’s few uranium miners has been given permission to develop the Beverly North uranium mine.

Heathgate is is owned by the USA company Atomic Resources….The deal doesn’t seem to include Alliance Resources ASX: AGS) 4.6 Mile uranium deposit in the same area. But it could be good news for one of our listed hot rock energy plays – Petratherm

I think that we are seeing a very nice strong rise at the moment.

It is probably time to get on board!

Australian Uranium Stocks – Producers

Australian Uranium Stocks – Explorers with Operations in Australia

Australian Uranium Stocks – Explorers with Operations Not in Australia

Australian Uranium Stocks – Resources (Largest to smallest)

In June the spot price of uranium was around $40/lb and over the last few months we have seen a steady surge with the current spot being $61/lb. Several commentators have suggested that the price rise is due to China stockpiling large amounts in preparation for its rapid nuclear plant roll out. China has 13 plants at the moment and is said to be targeting 80 plants by 2020. Europe is also contemplating going nuclear and even Australia is starting to have the discussion it needs to have.

So much more demand and consequently we can ask the question: Has the increased demand translated to increased share prices for our ASX listed uranium plays.

Well according to the  Australian Uranium Share Index : which tracks the performance of all companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange that have a primary focus on the exploration and production of Uranium, the answer is yes.

This also seems to be reflected in the Global Uranium Share Index

If you look at the GURAF and the Uranium futures you will see that Marketclub has given them a buy trade triangle… the highest rating.

Personally I have found the GURAF to be an excellent forward indicator for our ASX listed uranium companies.

(if you are looking for Australia’s cheapest uranium play by far check out AEE)

Australian Uranium Stocks – Resources (Largest to smallest)

A recent presentation by James Dines a self confessed uranium bug contained a very interesting snippet: China will be building 2 new nuclear reactors a week by 2020.

And on the demand side, this week John Borshoff reckons that China has come “out of its slumber’’ and piled up 133 million pounds in long-term supply contracts. According to Businessday.com’s B Fitzgerald.

‘’Although they have sucked (up) a chunk of new production they are nowhere near their target of acquiring in the vicinity of 45-50 million pounds per annum by 2020.’’ J Borshoff Paladin CEO.

This augurs well for Australia as we have somewhere around 40% of the world’s uranium.

BUT:

It seems ludicrous that Australia doesn’t have its own cradle to grave uranium business as we have over 40% of the world’s economic uranium resources, (www.australianuranium.com.au) plus a vast amount of land providing us with plenty of places where we could build a dedicated port and processing facility.

Eventually our cheaply exported uranium will run out and we will have missed another opportunity to capitalize on what we have by value adding.

That Australia will miss out on being a vital cog in making nuclear energy safe via the oversight that a cradle to grave solution offers should shame us and our grandchildren will likely not thank us for our lazy complacency.

Interestingly the calls for Julia Gillard’s head from the right seem to to have perhaps conveniently forgotten that it was the Howard Govt’s policy to sell uranium to Russia and Gillard has followed in his footsteps.

I wonder how the Indian govt. perceives this as the Rudd govt. saw fit to block sales to India on a rather flimsy pretext.

Hopefully India will not see it as an insult as India is one of our most lucrative emerging markets and good relations going forward over the next decades seems to be a foundation stone for our future wealth.

Obviously a great deal of heat will be generated on this issue…. But perhaps Canberra and some state governments could use the opportunity to explore how Russia is making a lot of money supplying Europe with a cradle to grave uranium solution.… something that Australia with > 40% of the world’s economically viable uranium resources should be doing now.

So apart from the politics, what about the practicality of sending  non value added uranium to another country so that they can make stellar profits?

Are we that rich?

Nice to see that we have a breakout emerging. Looks to be quite strongly trending.

http://australianuranium.com.au/australian-uranium-graph.html

While you are there it is worthwhile to check the Global Uranium share index and I also check the Global Uranium Fund analysis by Marketclub.