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Second contract signed by Uranerz for the sale of uranium to a U.S. utility Uranerz Energy Corporation has announced that it has entered into an agreement for the sale of uranium to one of the United States' largest nuclear operators, with plants located in several states. This is the second contract signed by Uranerz for the sale of uranium to a U.S. utility; the Company announced its first such contract in July 2009. This agreement is a long-term contract with deliveries over a five year period and pricing which contains market referenced prices, with combined spot and long term indicators, to set the final sales price. The agreement's pricing structure contains floor prices to provide Uranerz with downside protection and ceiling prices which protect the buyer from unlimited upside price risk. Uranerz continues to pursue additional uranium off-take sales opportunities to develop a portfolio that reflects a balance between market-related and fixed price contracts thus providing appropriate security to market price fluctuations, production cost fluctuations and pricing diversification.

The spot uranium price fell to $46 a pound U3O8, Ux Consulting said late Monday. The latest estimate is $3 below the company's October 6 price estimate and marks the lowest spot price since June 2006. Another price-reporting firm TradeTech on Friday dropped its price $4 to $47/lb U3O8. One US utility, Baltimore-based Constellation Energy, is said to have let it be known that it would purchase about 50,000 pounds U3O8 at a price of $42/lb. But so far, no sellers have shown any interest in pursuing a deal at that price.

As a result of uncertainty created by the Kazakh government's investigation of uranium supplier Kazatomprom, the spot price of uranium has rebounded slightly and stands at $49.50/lb U3O8, according a report by Ux Consulting Monday. The price publisher observed that the 50 cent increase in price compared with its May 26 report was significant, given that the price was clearly trending down before the impact of the Kazakh news "sank in." TradeTech, which dropped its published price $1/lb to $49/lb on May 29, said that prices had dipped below $49/lb early in the week of May 25, but recovered by the end of the week.

The spot market price of uranium continues to fall and now stands at $42.50 a pound U3O8, according to the latest reports from TradeTech and Ux Consulting. TradeTech lowered its price 50 cents/lb March 13, while Ux lowered its price by $1/lb Monday. A number of analysts believe is likely that the price will drop a bit more over the next several weeks. Some said the price could drop below $40/lb, but others said a bottom was forming and that a slight rebound in the price would occur at, or slightly above, $40/lb. For now, the spot market continues "to be oversupplied," said one. And unfortunately for sellers, the buying interest that is emerging, especially among utilities, is very discretionary, TradeTech said.

The spot price of uranium dropped 25 cents a pound to $43.50/lb U3O8 over the past week, according to Ux Consulting. TradeTech lowered its spot price $1/lb to $43/lb in its March 6 report. Both price publishers said sellers are lowering their offer prices in order to attract buyers that are in the market for discretionary purchases. Analysts have said they are uncertain whether the price will continue to drop. TradeTech said demand in the spot market remains "highly discretionary," but noted that the lower prices have "stimulated" some buying interest.

The spot price for uranium continued its decline over the past week despite transactions totaling several million pounds of U3O8, according to price publishers TradeTech and Ux Consulting. TradeTech dropped its price 75 cents/lb to $41.25/lb on April 3 and, on Monday, Ux lowered its price by $2/lb to $40/lb. Both price publishers questioned whether the recent activity is an indicator that a price floor may be in the offing.

Toshiba Inc. has shaved about $1.4 billion off its price to build two nuclear reactors, but it's unlikely to ever reach an amount within San Antonio's price range, NRG Energy executives said Thursday. "We would expect ... the price estimate that Toshiba will come back with may be outside the affordability range for their ratepayers," Steve Winn, CEO of the NRG-owned Nuclear Innovation North America, said at a financial analysts' meeting in Houston. At issue is the cost San Antonio's CPS Energy and NRG Energy are willing to pay contractor Toshiba to build two nuclear reactors outside Bay City. CPS Energy has promised ratepayers and the City Council that it will pursue the deal as long as it can limit power bill increases to 5 percent every other year for the next decade. This can be done if the total project, with financing, will cost about $13 billion, utility officials say. To hit that amount, Toshiba's costs need to come in about $8 billion. But the Japanese contractor, NRG confirmed, estimated its price at $12.3 billion in October.

Toshiba Inc. has shaved about $1.4 billion off its price to build two nuclear reactors, but it's unlikely to ever reach an amount within San Antonio's price range, NRG Energy executives said Thursday. "We would expect ... the price estimate that Toshiba will come back with may be outside the affordability range for their ratepayers," Steve Winn, CEO of the NRG-owned Nuclear Innovation North America, said at a financial analysts' meeting in Houston. At issue is the cost San Antonio's CPS Energy and NRG Energy are willing to pay contractor Toshiba to build two nuclear reactors outside Bay City. CPS Energy has promised ratepayers and the City Council that it will pursue the deal as long as it can limit power bill increases to 5 percent every other year for the next decade. This can be done if the total project, with financing, will cost about $13 billion, utility officials say. To hit that amount, Toshiba's costs need to come in about $8 billion. But the Japanese contractor, NRG confirmed, estimated its price at $12.3 billion in October.

The spot price of uranium continued to decline over the past week and is currently at $44/lb U3O8, pricing group Ux Consulting said Monday, a $2/lb drop over the price Ux published a week earlier. TradeTech also dropped its price by $2/lb, to $45/lb U3O8 late October 17. TradeTech said the bulk of material sold in the past six weeks -- as the price dropped from $63/lb on September 12 -- "was in the hands of sellers under pressure due to the current credit crisis or other cash constraints."

EDF Energy will scale down plans to build a new generation of nuclear reactors in the UK unless the government fixes the price of carbon, its chief executive, Vincent de Rivaz, has warned. De Rivaz said that EDF's business case to build four new reactors depended on a carbon tax or minimum carbon price being introduced. The government will publish a wide-ranging white paper this month detailing plans to meet the UK's new carbon budgets. It is expected to discuss measures to prevent the carbon price fluctuating wildly. Two years ago prices fell to as little as €0.10 (£0.08) a tonne. Experts say that a far higher price - at least €60 (£51.40) a tonne - is necessary to make low-carbon technologies, such as nuclear power generation or carbon capture and storage, economic.

"SNP Energy and Climate Change spokesperson Mike Weir MP has warned UK government plans to fix carbon prices amount to a hidden subsidy for new nuclear power stations - despite an explicit assurance by the coalition government that no public subsidy would be used. After an exchange at energy questions in the Commons Mr Weir said: "Fixing the carbon price would amount to a hidden subsidy for new nuclear stations and blows wide open the bogus coalition claim that there will be no public subsidy for nuclear power. "There are already problems within the EU emission trading scheme over free permits and it is ludicrous to pretend the EU will agree to a carbon floor price. This leaves the UK Government in the ridiculous position of attempting to impose a carbon floor price in the UK alone. This is simply unsustainable and legally dubious."

The spot price of uranium tumbled for the second week in a row, ending late Monday at $58 a pound U3O8, a $4 drop from the previous week, according to Ux Consulting. TradeTech late Friday dropped its price $3 to $60/lb U3O8. The continuing financial turmoil in the US and elsewhere has not helped support uranium prices, which already were facing some near-term downward pressure as discretionary buyers refused to pay $64.50/lb, the published spot price for over two months.

At present, Ignalina nuclear power plant buys the nuclear fuel for about 80% higher price than over the previous year. Network distribution companies are also preparing plans for raising prices. Ignalina nuclear power plant intends to present the request to the State Control Commission for Prices and Energy until October 2008 on the increase of the sale price for the produced electricity.

The tender for Turkey's first nuclear tender is likely to be cancelled due to the high price offer and a shift in the location of the plant from the south of the country to the northern Black Sea region, Vatan daily reported on Wednesday. Turkey's first nuclear tender to be cancelled due to high price-report Turkey's state-run power company, TETAS will submit a "negative" report for the price bid in the nuclear tender and submit it to cabinet for approval, the daily said.

Colorado uranium mining operations are being shut, postponed or scrapped as stock and commodity prices plummet and financing dries up. In the past six weeks, two mines - Whirlwind and JBird - have temporarily shut. A project in San Miguel County has been scrapped, and the development of the Van-4 mine in Montrose County has been postponed. "There have been lower prices, but there hasn't been this precipitous a drop in the last 25 years," said Stuart Sanderson, president of the Colorado Mining Association. The ingredients for the market free-fall are a 40 percent drop in uranium prices this year, a sharp decline in mining stock prices and a lack of financing for projects.

Colorado uranium mining operations are being shut, postponed or scrapped as stock and commodity prices plummet and financing dries up. In the past six weeks, two mines - Whirlwind and JBird - have temporarily shut. A project in San Miguel County has been scrapped, and the development of the Van-4 mine in Montrose County has been postponed. "There have been lower prices, but there hasn't been this precipitous a drop in the last 25 years," said Stuart Sanderson, president of the Colorado Mining Association. The ingredients for the market free-fall are a 40 percent drop in uranium prices this year, a sharp decline in mining stock prices and a lack of financing for projects. Behind those trends are hedge funds that had bought up uranium and banks no longer willing to lend money, mining industry executives said. "Industrywide, everyone is suffering," said Greg Barnes, an analyst with TD Newcastle Inc. in Toronto.

A new generation of nuclear plants requires a new generation of nuclear physicists MUCH more than worries about safety, the biggest obstacle to the revival of nuclear power in Britain is cost. Atom-splitting is expensive, with brochure prices for reactors starting around £3 billion, and dizzying lurches in oil prices make it hard to evaluate the industry's competitiveness. "Nuclear power works for oil prices above $60 a barrel," said a government adviser confidently in early October, when it was still near $100. As The Economist went to press, the price of oil was hovering around $64, barely above that margin of safety.

"Some of the world's biggest energy companies are stockpiling the nuclear fuel used to power reactors as they try to capitalise on rock-bottom uranium prices. An oversupply of nuclear fuel on international commodity markets has followed five successive years of rapid growth in uranium ore production in Kazakhstan, which has nearly quadrupled its output since 2004. Raw uranium prices have tumbled to around $40 per pound - almost one quarter of the levels of $140 in 2007."

CHICAGO - As crude oil prices leapt last week to over $120 a barrel, and one analyst suggested the price might soon reach $200, America would seem poised for a nuclear power resurgence. But enthusiasm for a nuclear future was muted at an industry conference last week in Chicago, as executives acknowledged that financial, regulatory and waste-storage hurdles have raised uncertainties about costs. Other factors increasing the expense of construction include high demand for nuclear plants among emerging countries, limited supplies of reactor parts and increased prices for iron, steel and concrete.

As Energy Fuels Resources (EFR) awaits Montrose County BOCC approval for a special use permit for the Pinon Ridge Mill and prepares to submit a permit application to Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment (CDPHE), it lacks capitalization to build the mill, faces a very tight uranium market with surplus uranium production capacity, a dropping uranium market price and production costs higher than market value. Today's market bears little resemblance to the first uranium boom and bust in the Colorado-Utah borderlands when the federal government paid a guaranteed base price for uranium ore to miners to feed nuclear weapons production programs. "Yellowcake," uranium oxide produced by uranium mills is a global commodity widely available at a volatile market-based price for commercial purchase for use in nuclear reactor fuel. Advertisement 1. The Uravan belt uranium is not a significant fraction of U.S. nor global uranium resources. Uranium resources at permitted uranium production sites in Wyoming, Nebraska and Texas dwarf the potential of this district.

There's still nowhere to put that toxic waste Nuclear electricity is affordable and emission free People opposed to nuclear energy applications point to the high initial price tag of enormous nuclear generating facilities that can … read more provide enough reliable electricity for several million people; they often overlook the resulting low cost per unit of power when spread over that large market. There are 104 nuclear plants operating in the US today. Many of us who are old enough to remember the controversies surrounding their construction can remember how many times we were told that nuclear power plants are frighteningly expensive and that they always cost more than predicted. We even remember that electrical power prices often increased immediately after the plants went into operation due to the effect of adding those big, expensive plants into the utility rate base. What many people who consider "news" media to be their only information sources rarely understand, however, is that the 104 plants currently operating provide the US with 20% of its electric power at an average production cost of about 1.8 cents per kilowatt hour. They also do not understand that after a few decades of operation and revenue production, the initial mortgages on those plants are largely paid off. The best information of all, which is not really "news" and does not get regularly published on the front page, is that the plants still have at least 20 years of life remaining during which they can produce emission free, low cost power. The companies that own the plants and their stock holders understand the economics pretty well; that is why 18 applications for 25 new plants have been turned into the Nuclear Regulatory Commission already with more in the pipeline. All of the used fuel - what some people call waste - is being carefully stored in a tiny corner of the existing sites, just waiting to be recycled into new fuel. It still contains 95% of its initial potential energy, but

There's still nowhere to put that toxic waste Nuclear electricity is affordable and emission free People opposed to nuclear energy applications point to the high initial price tag of enormous nuclear generating facilities that can … read more provide enough reliable electricity for several million people; they often overlook the resulting low cost per unit of power when spread over that large market. There are 104 nuclear plants operating in the US today. Many of us who are old enough to remember the controversies surrounding their construction can remember how many times we were told that nuclear power plants are frighteningly expensive and that they always cost more than predicted. We even remember that electrical power prices often increased immediately after the plants went into operation due to the effect of adding those big, expensive plants into the utility rate base. What many people who consider "news" media to be their only information sources rarely understand, however, is that the 104 plants currently operating provide the US with 20% of its electric power at an average production cost of about 1.8 cents per kilowatt hour. They also do not understand that after a few decades of operation and revenue production, the initial mortgages on those plants are largely paid off. The best information of all, which is not really "news" and does not get regularly published on the front page, is that the plants still have at least 20 years of life remaining during which they can produce emission free, low cost power. The companies that own the plants and their stock holders understand the economics pretty well; that is why 18 applications for 25 new plants have been turned into the Nuclear Regulatory Commission already with more in the pipeline. All of the used fuel - what some people call waste - is being carefully stored in a tiny corner of the existing sites, just waiting to be recycled into new fuel. It still contains 95% of its initial potential energy, but