A brief study of the world trade in Uranium and the major stakeholders

1. Rajesh Sinha
S Gayathri
Arjun Srivastava
2011SMN6502
2011SMN6509
2011SMN6518

2. Uranium:
 Naturally occurring with several isotopes
 U235 is fissile and used as a fuel in nuclear reactors
 Concentration to be increased to 3 to 4% for use in
civil nuclear reactors
 Mined in form of uranium oxide U3O8

3. Uranium extracted through mining of natural mining
deposits
2. U235 extracted from decommissioned nuclear
weapon warheads and blended down to
commercial enrichment
1.

4. Mined Uranium

6.  US-Russian
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Highly
Enriched
Uranium
(HEU)
Agreement
Government-industry partnership
Russia is dismantling a portion of its old Soviet-era
nuclear warheads
HEU is removed from warheads and blended with
uranium of lower U235 enrichment to produce LEU
Shipped to USA

7.  The Uranium market has a history of volatility
 Not only moves with supply and demand forces, but
also with geopolitics
 Presently the economically recoverable price of
Uranium is US$ 130/kg
 World’s measured Uranium resources will last 80
years at this price and current consumption

9. 1. Specified Pricing

Either fixed price, or base price plus adjustment for
inflation
2. Market-Related Pricing
 based on the uranium market price at or near the time of
delivery, and/or some other published market index
 price is the market price less a discount (or plus a
premium)
 greater level of uncertainty

10.  Negotiated Pricing contracts in which prices are
agreed to periodically (usually annually) by the buyer
and seller
 Hybrid Pricing
involves a market index which is
averaged with either a base-escalated, fixed, or costrelated price
 Cost Related Pricing defined by a price that is tied
to the cost of production from a uranium mine
 Portfolio or Realised Prices Suppliers and utilities
generally operate a portfolio strategy by concluding
contracts periodically over the long term

11. Graph courtesy of UxC

12. Source: http://www.uxc.com

13.  Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime
 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
 International Framework for Nuclear Energy
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Cooperation (formerly Global Nuclear Energy
Partnership)
Fissile Material Cut Off Treaty (FMCT)
Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG)
Indian Nuclear Liability Law
Australian Government Policy on Trade in Uranium

14.  Period between Signing of Contract and Shipment
 Long-term contracts signed well before first delivery under
the contracts
 Take a year or more to finalise after acceptance of the
relevant commercial terms like quantities, delivery
schedules, price, and delivery location
 Delivery Formats
 Natural uranium (U3O8 and UF6) is nearly always sold by
“book transfer”
 It is delivered to the facility, sampled and weighed by the
processor
 A “delivery” under a sales contract is then made by the
seller giving notice to the facility owner that the uranium
ownership is to be transferred

15.  November 1991 - imports of uranium products from the
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
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
then-Soviet Union were being dumped in the US market
October 16, 1992 - governments of the six uraniumproducing CIS countries signed quota-based suspension
agreements
March 1994 - amendment to the Russian agreement was
finalized
December 7, 2000 - US enrichment company, USEC
Inc., petitioned DOC to conduct an investigation of
dumping into the USA of enriched uranium imports from
Europe
December 31, 2001 - DOC ruled that both European
enrichers, AREVA NC and Urenco Ltd, were receiving
unfair subsidies and, in the case of Eurodif, dumping LEU
in the US market

16. Australia
 31% of the world reserves
 World's third-ranking producer, behind Kazakhstan
and Canada
 2012 Australia produced 8,244 tonnes of U3O8
 Uses no nuclear power

17. Source: http://www.world-nuclear.org

18. Source: http://www.world-nuclear.org

19.  15% of the world's uranium resources
 28% of world production in 2009, then 33% in 2010
and about 35% in 2011
 Kazatomprom- national atomic company
 set up in 1997 and owned by the government
 controls all uranium exploration, mining and imports
and exports of nuclear materials
 forged major strategic links with Russia, Japan and
China

20.  Uranium exploration in Kazakhstan started in 1948
 Uranium production and revenue in Kazakhstan is
tabulated below
Source: Kazatomprom, currency KZT million

21.  BN-350 fast reactor was built under Russia's Minatom
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supervision
Plant has since been decommissioned
Plans for future nuclear power include 300 MWe class
units for the western part and smaller cogeneration units
in regional cities
Proposals for new nuclear power plant near Lake
Balkhash, north of Almaty, and for one or two 300 MWe
units at Aktau
In 2012, government was reviewing draft master plan of
power generation development in the country until 2030

22.  Nuclear power is the primary source of energy
 Out of a total production of 541 TWh of electricity in
France, 75% was produced using nuclear powerhighest percentage in the world
 Électricité de France (EDF) - main electricity
generation and distribution company
 It is owned 85% by the French Government
 The company manages 59 nuclear power plants

23.  exported 45TWh of electricity to its neighbours
making it the biggest energy exporter in the EU in
2012
 success story - providing cheap energy with low CO2
emissions
 François Hollande's victory in the 2012 Presidential
Election - closing the oldest 24 reactors by 2025,
reduce share of nuclear power in France to 50%

24. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France

25.  Active
nuclear reprocessing program, at the
COGEMA La Hague site
 Undertakes enrichment work, MOX fuel fabrication,
and other activities at the Tricastin nuclear power
centre
 2/3 of the output of the nuclear plant at Tricastin
powers the domestic enrichment which meets 100%
of France's enrichment requirement
 Carried out reprocessing of fuel from other countries
like the United States and Japan

26.  Does not mine uranium for the front end of the fuel
cycle domestically
 French companies have various holdings in the
Uranium market
 10,500 tonnes per year coming from various locations
 Canada – 4500 tU/yr.
 Niger – 3200 tU/yr.
 Disposal of high level nuclear
waste planned at Meuse/Haute
Marne Underground Research
Laboratory deep geological
repository

27.  World's largest supplier of commercial nuclear power
 2013 - nuclear power provided by 100 commercial
reactors operating at 65 nuclear power plants
 Produce a total of 790 TWh of electricity- 19.2% of
the nation's total electric energy generation in 2011
 Following the "Three Mile Island" accident in 1979,
no new nuclear power plant had been started since
1974

28.  Considerable opposition to the use of nuclear power
in the U.S
 132 U.S. nuclear plants built
 52% of the 253 originally ordered
 21% were permanently and prematurely closed
 27% have completely failed for a year or more at least
once
 Surviving U.S. nuclear plants produce ≈ 90% of their
full-time full-load potential - not fully dependable

31.  Mining
 4th largest uranium reserves in the world
 In 2001, US mined only 5% of the uranium consumed
by its nuclear power plants.
 Remainder was imported from Russia and Australia.
 After 2001, with uranium prices steadily increasing,
mining has been revived
 Fuel Enrichment
 United
States Enrichment Corporation (USEC)
performs all enrichment activities for U.S. commercial
nuclear plants.
 Fuel Vendors
 All are light water fuel fabrication facilities because
only LWRs are operating in the US

32.  Reprocessing
 Potential to contribute to nuclear proliferation, and is
vulnerable to nuclear terrorism
 Obama administration has disallowed reprocessing of
nuclear waste, citing nuclear proliferation concerns
 Waste Management
 As plants continue to age, many on-site spent fuel
pools have reached their capacity
 Prompted creation of dry cask storage facilities
 Approximately 65,000 tons of nuclear waste now in
temporary storage throughout the U.S
 Plant Decommissioning
 Expensive, tedious and long process
 13 reactors have permanently shut down

33.  Pricing of uranium is usually through long term
contracts
 Notwithstanding, there is a thriving spot market
for uranium which is traded like any other
commodity amongst the countries which are
eligible for the same
 The principles of supply and demand are equally
applicable to the price of uranium
 Number of international treaties which control
and limit the trade in uranium - non-tariff barriers
to trade

34.  Australia
 Largest reserves of uranium
 It is not the largest exporter due to the anti-nuclear policies of the
country
 Kazakhstan
 Largest exporter
 Developing technologies to move up in the value chain as most
of the enrichment and fuel fabrication facilities are in countries
who are the final end users
 France
 Has negligible reserves
 Has the largest percentage of national electricity produced
using nuclear power
 USA
 Main technology was developed here
 But left behind by other countries like France due to the
strong anti-nuclear sentiment