In the immediate aftermath of the Japanese disasters, the hardest hit of all sectors, apart from the Japanese stock market itself, has been uranium.
The world’s largest uranium producer, Cameco, is down by around 30%, as is the uranium miners’ exchange-traded fund (US: URA). The smaller cap uranium stocks fell by as much as 50% in just two days.
It’s no surprise. Fear of a nuclear fall-out is everywhere.
So is that it? Is it all over for uranium? Or should we taking the opposite side and buying back in?
The reaction to Japan’s disaster could do even more harm
At the moment, we are verging on mass hysteria.
First, in the papers. The Telegraph says ‘the spectre of nuclear nightmare’ is being raised. The New York Times talks of a potential ‘nuclear catastrophe’.
Second, among policy-makers. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has declared the country will shut down its seven oldest nuclear power reactors and may not restart them. Germany and Switzerland have suspended plans for new reactors. Italy and Poland are now ‘rethinking plans’ to invest in nuclear energy.
Then yesterday, after a meeting of the State Council, China announced: “We will temporarily suspend approval for nuclear power projects, including those that have already begun preliminary work, before nuclear safety regulations are approved”. The impact will be considerable. China is currently building 27 new reactors – about 40% of the total number being built around the world.
Third, on the ground. In Tokyo locals are panic buying and hoarding. “Every day the stores provide a certain amount, but as soon as a shop opens, the products disappear,” said Hirotake Henmi, a spokesman for Seven & I, (Japan’s biggest retailer). The hoarding is hurting those who need it most. In the stricken areas there are shortages of food and water.
And in China, even although the State Council has assured people that China will not be affected by the radioactive leaks, shoppers have been buying up vast quantities of salt in many parts of the country, partly in the belief that it could protect them against radiation. “Don’t let Japan’s nuclear crisis become China’s salt crisis,” said an online commentator.
The impact of past nuclear disasters
I suspect this is all too much of a knee-jerk reaction. The situation is extremely urgent and dangerous, but I wonder if there is too much speculation as to what might happen? Unlike the earthquake and tsunami, which have actually happened, much of this nuclear threat is still potential. But that’s easy for me to say from the comfort of London.
The trouble is, there is a widespread fear of nuclear energy. Although it’s not entirely misplaced, it is a fear born of the unknown and the improperly understood, and also a fear of the intangible. You can’t see radiation.
Unconsciously, many also confuse the idea of a nuclear energy accident to the fall-out from a nuclear bomb. Thanks to the Cold War, this fear is still embedded in our pysche. And in Japan of course, memories of Hiroshima linger.
A proponent of nuclear energy would argue that oil-related accidents are far more damaging in terms of human life and the environment than nuclear.
Two people died as a result of the initial explosion at Chernobyl, widely regarded as the worst nuclear accident in history. A further 28 of the firemen and emergency clean-up workers died in the three months after. Then there were something like 2,000 cases of thyroid cancer linked by some to the accident.
The accident at the Thee Mile Island plant in 1979 is regarded as the next worst. According to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, there were no deaths as a result.
Compare that with the deaths and consequences of oil spills, chemical explosions and other fossil fuel disasters, and there is still a case for nuclear power.
The problem is there is still a deeply felt, widespread prejudice against nuclear power. And it takes very little for that prejudice to come out. It may well turn out that that prejudice is not misplaced. I don’t know.
What does all this mean for uranium investors?
But yesterday’s announcement by China is a hammer blow to uranium investors. The Chinese were to be the buyers of all this newly-mined uranium.
A short-term speculator might try and play a bounce from oversold levels, but it would take an investor with very strong convictions to put new long-term money to work now, in the face of all this anti-nuclear sentiment.
But how high does the price of energy have to go before the world re-thinks its anti-nuclear prejudices? $150 oil, $200 oil?
I don’t know. But if the world’s oil reserves really are running out, then we are going to have to find an alternative to power our modern lifestyles. The only other alternative is, as the satirical website the Daily Mash says, to charge our phones with ‘stuff that hasn’t been invented yet’.
It’s surely inevitable that nuclear power will have a role to play. I would have thought we’d be better off accepting and preparing, rather than rushing things through nearer the time, and thus heightening the risk of accident.
Remember it takes something like nine years to build a uranium mine. It’s a long process.
But I am not a policy-maker. I don’t have to get re-elected. For my own part I’m not putting any more new money to work in uranium. But nor am I selling my existing positions. The uranium market has a habit of quietly going to sleep as investors forget about it. When it slumbers, that will be the time to make your investment.
Category: Market updates