Top 3 Uranium Stocks on the TSX and TSXV (Updated November 2022)

Year-to-date gain: 60 percent; market cap: C$11.59 million; current share price: C$0.12

Marvel Discovery is focused on projects for many different metals throughout Canada. While uranium is not one of its top commodities, the company has been working on acquiring and exploring uranium properties in the Athabasca Basin in 2022. It now has the Highway North claims, the KLR claim group and the Walker claim group in the basin; these are contiguous with Cameco’s (TSX:CCO,NYSE:CCJ) Key Lake property, which is past-producing and now hosts the Key Lake mill, as well as Fission 3.0’s (TSXV:FUU,OTCQB:FISOF) Hobo Lake uranium properties. Marvel also has properties with rare earths, gold, platinum-group elements, nickel and copper.

In late February, Marvel received approval from the TSXV to acquire Highway North, and completed a ground magnetic survey at the property in early March. Later that month, the company entered into an option agreement to acquire the KLR and Walker claims. Its share price spent March trending upwards, opening the month at C$0.10 and closing it at C$0.15.

“We are extremely fortunate to have acquired the KLR and Walker claim groups being directly tied on to the north and south of our recently acquired Highway North Project,” Marvel President and CEO Karim Rayani said. “This brings our new total to over 16,000 hectares along a trend that hosts some of the highest-grade uranium mines in the world.”

After Marvel Discovery completed an airborne survey at KLR and Walker, the company defined the DD zone, which it calls an area of “high merit and potential for success." It plans to perform diamond drilling at the zone to explore it further. On October 5, Marvel signed a joint venture agreement that will allow Carmanah Minerals (CSE:CARM) to earn a 50 percent interest in the Walker claims. To do so, Carmanah will need to fund C$1.5 million in exploration, pay C$400,000 in cash and issue 3.5 million shares and warrants. Marvel Discovery said in the release that both companies share the goal of a tier one discovery at the site.

Year-to-date gain: 11.03 percent; market cap: C$12.92 billion; current share price: C$32.32

Cameco is a top global uranium miner with active operations in Canada and Kazakhstan and suspended mines in the US. Its Canadian mines are the Cigar Lake joint venture, the world’s highest-grade uranium mine, and McArthur River/Key Lake, the world’s largest high-grade uranium mine and mill. Both are in Saskatchewan’s Athabasca Basin. Although McArthur River/Key Lake was previously on care and maintenance, it’s been slowly brought back online in 2022 due to strengthening uranium market conditions. Cameco’s Inkai mine in Kazakhstan is a 40/60 joint venture between it and national operator Kazatomprom (LSE:KAP).

The company’s H1 share price high came early in Q2, when it reached C$39.68 on April 13. In May, Cameco and Orano Canada, the majority owners of the Cigar Lake joint venture, bought out Idemitsu Canada Resources' 7.875 percent participating interest in the mine. Cameco’s ownership stake is now 54.547 percent. Although the company's share price traded lower after April, a spike in the uranium price in late August coincided with a similar spike for Cameco, which hit a year-to-date high of C$40.10 on September 8.

Q4 has brought significant news for the company. On October 11, Cameco and Brookfield Renewable Partners announced that they were forming a strategic partnership to acquire Westinghouse Electric Company. Cameco will own 49 percent of the company, while Brookfield and its institutional partners will own 51 percent. According to a press release, “Westinghouse services about half the nuclear power generation sector and is the original equipment manufacturer to more than half the global nuclear reactor fleet.”

A week later, Cameco shared that it had completed a C$747.6 million bought deal offering. The company said it intends to use the majority of the funds for its approximately US$2.2 billion portion of the aforementioned acquisition.

On October 31, Cameco released its Q3 results, in which it shared updates on many parts of its business. In November, the company announced it had signed a uranium supply agreement with China Nuclear International for an undisclosed amount. Its most recent news came on November 9, when it announced that the first pounds of uranium had been packaged from the McArthur River/Key Lake mine restart. According to the company, it expects 2 million pounds of uranium to be produced there in 2022.

Year-to-date gain: 1.14 percent; market cap: C$408.32 million; current share price: C$1.77

Ur-Energy is a uranium miner with two primary projects. Its Lost Creek in-situ uranium recovery facility has been in production since 2013 and has produced 2.7 million pounds of U3O8 in that time. It also has the Shirley Basin project, which has received all necessary permits and is nearly construction ready.

The company’s share price also hit an early year-to-date high of C$2.37 on March 9, in sync with uranium’s spike. It reached those heights again on April 13, although it has since fallen, staying lower throughout the year.

Significantly, in early August, Ur-Energy entered into a multi-year sales agreement to supply uranium to a leading US nuclear utility company. Ur-Energy will deliver 200,000 pounds annually for a six year period to the utility company. Ur-Energy also shared in that release that it has entered a bid with the US Department of Energy to supply uranium towards the national stockpile. The company’s share price began moving upwards again in the weeks following this news.

Ur-Energy released its Q3 results on November 1, with operational updates, as well as the promotion of a new chief operating officer.

"We continue to steadily advance construction and drilling at our Lost Creek Mine in preparation for a ramp up as we seek to layer in additional sales contracts,” Ur-Energy CEO John Cash said. “U.S. and international support for nuclear power continues to strengthen as countries recognize the carbon-free attributes of reliable nuclear power and increasingly desire to be energy independent.”