影片大部分在講2024 Kazakhstan 處理sulfuric acid plan硫酸工廠處理大量硫酸倒入土壤，受到鄰近國家抗議
哈薩克鈾礦多使用現地淋溶法（In-situ
Leach, ISL）法開採，因此大量硫酸為淋溶液，所以前幾年硫酸發生供應短缺，直接影響鈾礦產量。因此加拿大為該國興建一座年產能120萬噸的硫酸工廠，已於去年6月順利開始生產，對於改善硫酸短缺現象有極大幫助。該廠位於Balkhash 的Kazakhmys煉銅廠內，並裝設由歐洲重建開發銀行（European Bank
for Reconstruction and Development, EBRD）貸款興建的二氧化硫脫硫設備。該國還計畫設置更多硫酸廠來滿足未來激增的產能
机会来了？2023矿业股系列1 I 铀股投资 Opportunity is knocking?
Kazatomprom: Major Uranium Sector Player,
More Attractive Than Cameco
Summary
- The nuclear energy sector has begun to revive, thanks to which uranium prices may return to $70-80 from the current $40-45.
- Uranium miners will benefit from the atom development. Kazatomprom is the major producer with the lowest cost.
Kazatomprom looks more attractive than its
closest public peer - Cameco.
Many nations have already begun to assign a big position to the atom in plans to cut back CO2 emissions:
- The EU is getting ready to incorporate nuclear vitality within the inexperienced record (EU inexperienced taxonomy). This may assist entice funding within the nuclear vitality sector, in addition to make the financing of NPP tasks cheaper. The EU commissioner for the interior market, Thierry Breton, mentioned the bloc might want to make investments €500 billion ($586 billion) in new nuclear vitality amenities by 2050.
- China has large-scale plans for the event of nuclear vitality. The nation is planning to extend nuclear capability by 40% by 2025, it will require the development of 20 new nuclear energy crops, now there are about 50 working within the nation. And by 2030, China can develop into the world chief in nuclear capability, the expansion will quantity to 160-200%.
- Japan assigns a decisive position to the atom to be able to cut back carbon emissions. The nation will restart 30 reactors shut down after the Fukushima accident. Presently, solely 9 are working within the nation. Nuclear vitality can have a share of 20-22% of complete electrical energy technology by 2030 in Japan.
Nuclear technology can also be safer than different vitality sources. For each terawatt of nuclear energy generated, there are solely 0.07 untimely deaths. For vitality obtained from coal or oil, the indicator is on common 24.6 and 18.4, respectively.
Institutional traders have entered the uranium market
Institutional traders Sprott Bodily Uranium Belief (OTCPK:SRUUF) and Yellow Cake (OTCPK:YLLXF) have emerged on the uranium market, which have accrued reserves equal to 40% of annual uranium manufacturing. Emergence of enormous traders in bodily uranium makes the market narrower, as a result of which the value of vitality is rising. The arrival of enormous traders within the spot market is upsetting rising costs, because it was, for instance, in gold. From the event of the nuclear vitality sector will profit the miners of uranium – gas for nuclear energy crops.
Summary
- The war in Ukraine has increased sector-specific risk substantially.
- Cameco’s contract portfolio is forcing it to reopen shuttered mines. 關閉礦坑
- Restarting production at McArthur River mine will be a slow process.
If the measures Cameco Corporation (NYSE:CCJ) had to take during the industry downcycle will continue to hinder 擾亂 share performance for several quarters to come. These issues are related to mine closures and the company’s contract mix and will eventually be resolved. But in the meantime, investors would be better served by staying away from the stock. The operational issues are also overshadowed by the macro risk, as fighting in Ukraine continues the risk of a nuclear accident is much more elevated than usual and adds to the probability of a pullback in the stock
Cameco is one of the largest uranium producers in the world and has operations in Kazakhstan, Australia, and the US, but its largest properties are in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It focuses on both mining as well as refining, conversion and fuel manufacturing services.
The stock has been on a bit of a roll over the last year and a half, going from the nine-dollar range to now trading in the low to mid-twenties. But when pulling up a longer-term chart one can see that it hasn’t really gone anywhere in the last 10 years.
This poor performance was due to the Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011 which devastated the industry and resulted in depressed demand and low uranium prices for most of the last decade. For Cameco this resulted in having to mothball many of its properties including Tier-one operations at McArthur River/Key Lake in Canada, as well as a number of tier-two operations at other sites in Canada and the US. In 2021 the company was operating at only 25% of productive capacity. A small proportion of that capacity reduction was due to a Covid-closure at its Cigar Lake property for a few months. But the reason for the bulk of the underutilized capacity came from having so many properties shut down and not producing anything all year.
However, the demand picture for uranium has begun the change and prices have begun to rise and this has brought renewed interest to the industry.
Commodity Cycle
But unfortunately for Cameco, the protective measures that had to be taken during the industry downturn will take some time to reverse. This may prevent the company from benefitting during the first innings of this new commodity cycle.
That’s because after the price spike of 2007-2008 and the post-Fukushima collapse, the discount between the spot price and the long-term uranium price widened substantially. For readers who are unfamiliar with the industry, the spot price is for uranium bought on the open market for delivery within a year while the long-term price is usually set through negotiations between producers and utilities for multi-year supply agreements.
Market oversupply and the low spot price led to utilities turning to the spot market for a greater proportion of their supply resulting in producers being squeezed even more. These conditions led to Cameco suspending production at the aforementioned properties including the McArthur River and Key Lake operations which ceased production in January 2018.
Lower production due to mine closures resulted in Cameco turning to the spot market to fill many of its fixed-price contracts. This wasn’t a problem when spot prices were low but as prices have begun rising over the last year this has become an issue. The company now finds itself in a situation where spot uranium is higher than the prices it locked in through fixed-rate contracts.
Client Contracts
Market-related contracts are based on either the spot price or the long-term price at the time of product delivery. These contracts may also include some sort of escalator clauses, discounts, floors, and ceilings, but they do leave Cameco with much greater market exposure to changes in the price of uranium.
The company has stated that it aims for a uranium contract mix of 60% market and 40% fixed. However, in the last couple of years it has fallen short of that goal, coming in at just under 30% fixed and over 70% market. This can be seen in the exhibits below under Contract type for Uranium. The company’s Fuel Services are almost all fixed-price contracts.
But in spite of the fact that 30% of its sales are being made under fixed-price contracts, in 2021 the company only produced 25% of the uranium it sold and went to the spot market for the balance, as can be seen in the exhibit below.
This wasn’t a problem when uranium prices were low and there was a favorable discount between spot and term prices. That’s why in 2020 it only produced 16% of the uranium it sold even though 29% of its sales were made under fixed-price contracts. The company would buy cheap at spot and sell dear at term, but last year spot price surged and the discount disappeared, which forced Cameco to buy high at spot and sell low at term in order to fill those orders.
The company was forced to purchase uranium at CAD$42.30/lb or USD$33.84/lb if we use a 1.25 USD/CAD conversion rate, the average rate in 2021. Far below its production cost of CAD$33.35 or USD$26.68.
And while US$33.84/lb was less than the US$36.81/lb that it was reselling it at to fill fixed-price orders, the ~$3/lb margin turned into a steep loss once overhead was factored in. That overhead also includes costs of over $180 million per year related to maintaining the properties where production has been suspended. This led to Cameco’s uranium sales division posting a loss of over $100 million last year.
Cameco Gross Profit
Cameco Filings
Having fixed-price sales commitments that it can’t fill with current production essentially means that Cameco has a short position in the uranium market. This served it well in times of depressed prices but will be a drag on earnings during a bull market. The amounts needed to service these fixed-price contracts will also be quite steady until 2025.
Cameco Future Sales Commitments
Cameco Filings
This makes the recent announcement that Cameco intends to re-open McArthur River mine and Key Lake mill welcome news. The company will become a net buyer by adding a net 11.5 million pounds of production per year as it simultaneously scales back some production at Cigar Lake.
However, McArthur River will only be fully operational by 2024. During the company’s Q4 earnings call Tim Gitzel, Cameco’s CEO, attributed the slow ramp-up to supply chain challenges that are impacting the availability of materials and difficulty in finding skilled labor. For those reasons investors may want to wait before committing capital as the company won’t be able to fully take advantage of changing market conditions until then. By buying the stock now potential investors are taking on the risk of any slow-downs or problems in the ramp-up of production.
Postscript
Another reason for staying away from the stock is the heightened levels of risk resulting from the war in Ukraine. As I finished writing this article, news broke that Russia had attacked the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine. Nuclear power is an excellent source of energy but the added risk of a war raging in a country with as many nuclear plants as Ukraine will lead me to avoid the sector altogether until the situation stabilizes. As per the case argued above, I was initially going to rate the stock a hold but the increased risk of an accident has led me to change the rating to a sell.
The EU’s green
rules will do too little to tackle climate change
Investors’
enthusiasm for financing the green transition is growing—Yet if you look more
closely, you will find huge problems. If the world is to reach net-zero
emissions by 2050, investment will need to more than double, to $5trn a year.
And fund management is rife with “green-washing”. Sustainability-rating schemes
have proliferated but are wildly inconsistent, while many funds mislead
investors about their green credentials 計畫章程.
Countries have
different energy sources, so the exercise was bound to be political. Still, the
classification looks sensible. Labelling nuclear energy as green—subject to
conditions including the safe disposal of toxic waste—has been met by howls
from the Green party in Germany. But nuclear can play an important part in
getting to net-zero; indeed, by deeming it green only during the transition,
the taxonomy is, if anything, too timid. The plan to label natural gas as green
has been controversial, too. But the rules reflect a hard-headed assessment
that it will be a vital transition fuel in the next decade. They treat gas
projects as green for a limited period, if they replace dirtier fossil fuels,
receive approval by the end of the decade and contain plans to switch to
cleaner energy sources by 2035.
The plan’s flaws
lie in its bureaucratic outlook. The simplistic nature of the labelling may
lead to a purity test in which funds exclude assets that are dirty. In fact a
key job of capital markets is to own polluting companies and manage down their
emissions. The classification is static, whereas changes in technology will cut
the carbon-intensity of some activities and lead to inventions the classifiers
have not envisioned預想的到. It fits a pattern of European climate-finance ideas that
are well-meaning but marginal, including using the European Central Bank to buy
green bonds (which could overstep its mandate), and imposing green “stress
tests” on banks, even though the lifespan of their assets is shorter than the
horizon for the most devastating climate change.
What else to do?
The goal should be to make it easier for investors to track the carbon
emissions of their portfolios (today this is hard to do accurately). Funds with
zero emissions would be virtuous, but those that cut their footprint fast might
be even better. This will require new disclosure, so that investors can track
emissions and avoid double-counting across supply chains. Such a system would
be simpler to administer, and ask less of countries that struggle to agree on
what counts as green. A new global green-disclosure body has been set up but it
needs to act faster.
The eu’s broader
aim should be to use carbon pricing to alter how capital is allocated. Relying
on investors to save the planet using a taxonomy has obvious limits. Less than
a third of global emissions stem from firms that are publicly listed and
controlled by institutional investors. And investors do not have a clear
incentive to be green. If you don’t mind the stigma, owning polluting assets
can be profitable, which is why they are increasingly held privately.
By contrast,
putting a price on carbon sends a signal that reaches across the whole economy,
not just into listed firms, and fully aligns the profit motive with the
objective of cutting emissions. The eu’s main carbon-pricing scheme is the rich
world’s largest but, although work is going on to expand it, it covers only 41%
of emissions. If the eu wants to lead the world by unleashing the power of
finance to combat climate change, the carbon market is where it should be
focusing its efforts.
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