Mart Wolbert: Uranium Bull Thesis Intact, "Half-time Break" Ending Soon

A most informative interview. Very well done to you both. Having been in the nuclear energy business for well over 50 years I have witnessed the many ups and downs of the nuclear industry during that time. As Charlotte mentioned it is not an easy subject to explain to people and it is a world chock full of technical jargon that is daunting to the average investor. Mart does a wonderful job of making a complex investing subject understandable and his stadium analogy is a very thoughtful way of explaining what is going on. I think he is quite correct when he says there will be a parabolic rise in uranium prices but I do not think (this time) that it will be parabolic on the downside at least not for several years. My thoughts are that the price will stay much higher for much longer. The logic is that there are no Uranium mines of the capacity required to fill the gap coming on line for at least 4 years and when they do come on stream demand will have risen to consume the output of those mines. It is estimate that three to six new Arrow mines are required. We have only one. Also remember that the current big mines like Cigar and McArthur River have already consumed all of the easy to get at Uranium and in 4 years time will have only 5 or 6 years of mine life left. There is nothing to replace them. Mart mentioned the impact of SMR's which in my view has been entirely underestimated. They will have a very large impact on this current market cycle. The reason is that the construction timeline is short. A big nuclear plant takes 10 to 15 years to build and fuel is only ordered in the last part of the construction period. It takes about 2 years to make the fuel so it is ordered about three years before fueling is scheduled. SMR's on the other hand take 4 years to build but the fuel still takes 2 years to make. Essentially that means SMR fuel must be ordered almost as soon as construction starts so that it is available for the first fuel loading. OPG is building 4 such SMR's at Darlington Site in Ontario Canada and has ordered fuel for them this year. Now consider that there are hundreds of new SMR orders waiting in the wings. As soon as they are ordered the fuel for them also has to be ordered and that will have a dramatic impact on all aspects of the fuel cycle from U3O8 supply to Conversion to Enrichment since all SMR designs use enriched fuel. U3O8 prices will rise parabolically and stay there for several years while supply catches up to demand. Charlotte made the point that what happens when there is not enough Uranium to supply the demand? A very astute question and I think one that deserves an honest answer. What will happen is that some reactors will be forced to shutdown or take extended maintenance outages. That is how dire the Uranium supply situation really is. There is both a financial price to pay and an operating price to pay for chronic underinvestment in an essential commodity. I think we are about to see the playing out of that scenario in the next few years. A really great interview and well worth watching. My sincere thanks to you both.