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Uranium Price Rise... Still No Need for New Mines

Uranium prices have doubled in the past year and half, rising more steeply than the price for oil or any other metal, including gold. The jump is in the spot market price for uranium oxide, which is also known as "yellowcake," the form of uranium produced at uranium mills and in situ mines. It went from $10/pound in July 2003, to more than $20/pound in October 2004, raising concerns among people in the Eastern Navajo Agency of northwestern New Mexico that long-proposed in situ uranium mines at Church Rock and Crownpoint could possibly become economically viable.

However, based on a review of world uranium market analyses available on the World Nuclear Association (WNA - formerly the Uranium Institute) website at: www.world-nuclear.org, the recent price rise does not appear to reflect either short-term or long-term shortages of uranium to provide fuel for nuclear power reactors. Instead, the price rise seems to reflect the increasing importance of the secondary, or pre-mined and processed market, as sources of uranium for use in the reactor fuel market. This market had previously been supplied almost exclusively by uranium from mines and mills.

As an indication of the adequacy of short and long-term uranium supplies as of 2004, WNA reports indicate that the world uranium supply will remain within 5% of world uranium demand for the next five years, and that demand from new nuclear power stations is not likely to grow significantly before 2010. For the long-term, extensive "recoverable" reserves of unmined uranium remain available. The amount of unmined uranium ore resources, identified as reserves mineable at a cost of $80/pound or less, are more than 50 times the current yearly uranium demand.

Comparison of the enormous amount of recoverable uranium resources identified to global demand leads the World Nuclear Association to state:

"The world's present measured resources of uranium in the lower cost category (3.5 million tonnes) and used only in conventional reactors, are enough to last for some 50 years. This represents a higher level of assured resources than is normal for most minerals."

Data from the 2004 World Nuclear Symposium and the U.S. Department of Energy support this discussion of the future availability of uranium.

Known recoverable uranium resources in unmined ore deposits by country as of 2004 are shown in Table 1. The data show that uranium ore deposits yet to be mined contain more than 3,500,000 tonnes ("tonnes," or "metric tons," weigh 1000 kilograms or 2200 pounds, 10% more than a 2000 pound "ton") of uranium. This amount is more than 50 times the 2004 projected uranium demand of almost 70,000 tonnes. Australia (989,000 tonnes), Canada (622,000 tonnes), and Kazakhstan (439,000 tonnes), are the three countries with the largest amount of identified uranium resources. The United States is eighth on the list with 102,000 tonnes of known recoverable uranium resources. For comparison, the Church Rock and Crownpoint uranium deposits hold about 20,000 tonnes of uranium.

Table 1: Known Recoverable Resources* of Uranium in 2003
	TONNES U	PERCENTAGE OF WORLD
Australia	989,000	28%
Kazakhstan	622,000	18%
Canada	439,000	12%
South Africa	298,000	8%
Namibia	213,000	6%
Brazil	143,000	4%
Russian Federation	158,000	4%
USA	102,000	3%
Uzbekistan	93,000	3%
World total	3,537,000
SOURCE: "Reasonably Assured Resources plus Estimated Additional Resources - category 1, to U.S. $80/kg U, 1/1/03," from OECD NEA & IAEA, Uranium 2003: Resources, Production and Demand.

This current uranium resource information contrasts sharply with that from 25 years ago when New Mexico was one of the major uranium producing regions in the world. In 1979, U.S. reserves of uranium at the $50/pound cost of recovery were 979,000 tonnes, and New Mexico uranium reserves were 511,500 tonnes, or 52% of that total. Most of those reserves, nine times the 102,000 tonnes currently identified for the U.S., are no longer considered "known recoverable reserves" because they would cost more than $80/pound to produce, the estimated cost of production used in Table 1.

World uranium demand and supply projections are presented in Table 2. That projection forecasts that in 2004, world uranium demand will reach 66,658 tonnes and world uranium supply will reach 66,374 tonnes, leaving a very small supply deficit of 284 tonnes, less that 1% of total world demand.

"SECONDARY" SOURCES OF URANIUM

A major change in the source of world uranium supply in the 21st century will be the extensive use of "secondary sources" of uranium to meet reactor fuel demand. Table 2 shows that in 2004, more than 45%, 30,332 tonnes of the 66,658 tonnes of uranium supplied to reactor operators, came from "secondary sources."

TABLE 2: World Uranium Demand and Supply
	2004	2005	2006	2007	2010	2015
Demand	66,658	68,400	69,600	70,800	74,800	79,400
HEU	10,700	10,600	10,700	11,100	12,400
US DOE Inventories	385	1192	1192	1192	2154	2346
Commercial Inventories	7876	7000	7000
Russian Inventories	2900	3500	3800	3900		0
MOX	2500	2500	2600	2800	3000	3600
Uranium from other reprocessing sources	1500	1500	1700	1700	2000	2000
Russian UET	4250	3650	3300	3000	1500
Production	36,263	36,575	36,094	42,286	48,014	50,321
Total supply	66,374	66,517	66,386	65,978	69,068	58,267
Uranium Shortage	-284	-1883	-3214	-4822	-5732	-21,133
SOURCE: WMA 2004 Symposium at: www.world-nuclear.org/sym/subindex.htm

"Secondary sources" are recycled uranium or previously mined uranium and currently include:

• blended-down highly enriched uranium (HEU) or "weapons grade uranium;"
• existing uranium inventories held by corporations or the U.S. and Russian governments;
• commercial inventories held by reactor owners - stockpiles of previously purchased uranium;
• mixed (plutonium-uranium) oxide fuels;
• other sources of reprocessed uranium and
• uranium enrichment tailings (UET) from Russia.

While extensive supplies of "secondary source" uranium are held by the U.S., Russia and other countries, secondary source uranium has yet to included in WNA projections of future uranium supply. These projections show continued growth in uranium mine production from "primary sources" in the next ten years, with an apparent steep drop off in uranium supplied from "secondary sources" in the near future. For 2010, uranium supply is projected to rise 4% to 69,048 tonnes and uranium demand to rise 11% to 74,800 tonnes, leaving an apparent uranium supply shortage of 5732 tonnes - about 8% of supply projected for 2010. For 2015, uranium demand is projected to rise to 79,400 tonnes and uranium supply is projected to fall to 58,267 tonnes, resulting in projected shortfall of 21,133 tonnes or almost 27%. That projected shortfall is very, very small (less than one percent) when compared to the 3,500,000 tonnes of "known recoverable reserves" shown in Table 1.

The drop in "secondary sources" projected in Table 2 reflects a lack of committed secondary resources, not necessarily a lack of available secondary resources. Currently, a small secondary source is "uranium enrichment tailings" from Russia. Table 3 shows that U.S. UET, as reported by the Department of Energy, contains more than 470,000 tonnes of uranium. Compared to the information in Table 1, this resource is more than 13 times world uranium mine production in 2004 of 36,263 tonnes, and more than seven years of total world uranium demand in 2004 of 66,658 tonnes. U.S. UET contain more than 20 times the amount of uranium in the yet-to-be mined Church Rock and Crownpoint deposits. However, U.S. government policy is to handle UET as wastes, not a uranium resource, and to build multi-billion-dollar conversion plants to remove the depleted uranium and to dispose of that waste through shallow land burial at low-level nuclear waste disposal sites.

TABLE 3: Depleted UF6 Inventory and Storage Locations
LOCATION	TOTAL CYLINDERS	TOTAL DEPLETED UF6 (METRIC TONS)
Paducah, Kentucky	36,191	436,400
Portsmouth, Ohio	16,109	195,800
Oak Ridge, Tennessee	4,822	54,300
Total	57,122	686,500
NOTE: U.S. DOE's inventory of depleted UF6 consists of approximately 700,000 metric tons of depleted UF6, containing about 470,000 metric tons of uranium, currently stored at the Paducah Site in Kentucky, the Portsmouth Site in Ohio, and the East Tennessee Technology Park (ETTP) in Tennessee (formerly known as the K-25 Site). This inventory of depleted UF6 is stored in about 57,000 steel cylinders. The inventory is listed on Table 2. SOURCE: http://web.ead.anl.gov/uranium/mgmtuses/storage/index.cfm

UET also exists in Russia and other countries with enrichment facilities. As of 2003, Russian UET resources total 500,000 tonnes, containing about 311,000 tonnes of uranium (assuming that one tonne of UET equals 0.62 tonnes of uranium as is the case for the U.S.).

Other "secondary sources" of uranium include uranium previously processed to make nuclear weapons cores or reactor fuel, but never consumed. "Highly enriched uranium" (HEU) is made for use in nuclear weapons and is created when the content of uranium-235 (U-235), the isotope of uranium that is fissionable and therefore necessary to make nuclear weapons and nuclear reactor fuel, is enriched. "Enrichment" describes the process of increasing the concentration of U-235 from 0.7% found in natural uranium. For nuclear weapons, the enrichment is to a concentration of 90% or more. Reactor-grade uranium is only enriched up to three to five percent U-235, and is sometimes referred to as "low-enriched uranium."

Uranium is fed into enrichment plants after conversion from a solid form of uranium oxide to a gaseous uranium compound, uranium hexafloride. Enrichment does not remove all the U-235 from the uranium feed. UET is the by-product of the enrichment of U-235. UET usually retains a U-235 content of 0.2-0.3%, or about 30-40%, of the 0.7% U-235 in natural uranium. If uranium is enriched to produce reactor fuel in a manner that leaves 0.2% U-235 in the UET, approximately 7 tonnes of UET are produced for each tonne of reactor grade uranium (at 3.5% U-235).

UET is a form of "depleted uranium." Uranium enrichment tailings in the U.S. are produced as gaseous uranium hexafloride and stored in cylindrical tanks next to the enrichment process buildings. Historically, U.S. uranium enrichment policy has kept the U-235 content of UET relatively high, in the 0.3-0.35% range rather than 0.2-0.25%. As a result, more uranium from mines and mills was needed than would be the case with more U-235 extraction and lower U-235 content of UET.

Highly enriched uranium has been a major source of "secondary" uranium for the past decade. Since the end of the Soviet Union, the U.S. and Russia have been engaged in a nuclear non-proliferation effort designed to reduce the world's supply of HEU by diluting, or "blending down," the weapons grade material into reactor grade material, sometimes called "turning megatons into megawatts." HEU can be blended with other forms of uranium in a series of complex technologies that result in dilution of the concentration of U-235 from the 90% range in HEU down to the three to five percent used in reactor fuel.

The use of "diluted" HEU for reactor fuels during the past decade is reflected in Table 2. The reduction in blended down uranium reflects a projected end of current U.S.-Russian HEU blending agreements, but not the end of HEU supplies. The U.S. and Russia, as well as other nations that have nuclear weapons, continue to retain extensive HEU stockpiles. World HEU stocks at the end of 2003 are reported as 1900 tonnes, of which civil resources total 175 tonnes and military resources total 1,725 tonnes. Of the total military uranium, 300 tons of HEU in Russia are "declared excess" - available for blending down to reactor grade.

How much yellowcake is involved in the production of reactor grade or highly enriched uranium?

Enrichment to produce one tonne of reactor grade uranium, at 3.5% U-235, requires approximately ten tonnes of "yellowcake," at 0.7% U-235, and produces about ten tonnes of UET, at 0.3% U-235, as a by-product. Enrichment to produce one tonne of HEU at 90% U-235 requires approximately 360 tonnes of yellowcake and produces about 360 tonnes of UET at 0.3% U-235.

Assuming one tonne of HEU contains the U-235 content of 360 tonnes of "yellowcake," 300 tonnes of HEU contain the U-235 content of 108,000 tonnes of "yellowcake." The "recycling" of the Russian "excess" HEU is the source of 10,000 - 12,000 tonnes of future uranium supply from HEU forecast in Table 2.

The use of uranium enrichment tailings for reactor fuel through the "re-enrichment" of UET is not yet a significant world source of uranium for reactor fuel, except in the Russian Federation. Russia has used "re-enriched" UET for the past five or so years to meet the reactor fuel demand of the domestic Russian nuclear industry. This need arose following the break-up of the Soviet Union for two main reasons. First, Russia was unable to increase its domestic uranium production to meet its domestic reactor needs as Russia has been unable to increase production from either its primary uranium ore deposits at Krasnokamensk in the Chita Region (see www.sric.org/mining/docs/Chitafin.php), or new deposits. Second, Russia lost access to uranium from Eastern Europe, particularly East Germany which closed its uranium mines following German unification, and Central Asia (Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan), previously controlled by the Soviet Union.

While other sources of "secondary uranium" are also potentially significant sources of uranium supply, this brief discussion shows that UET in Russia and HEU could be major sources of uranium supply for decades to come. Russian UET resources with 311,000 tonnes of uranium, as well as the remaining Russia "excess" HEU with 108,000 tonnes of uranium, could continue to offset demand for primary uranium from unmined ore deposits, and could reduce the likelihood that new mines such as those proposed near Church Rock and Crownpoint in New Mexico would be mined in the future.

Thus, if they were opened, the new mines in New Mexico would reflect not a "need" for that uranium, but a deliberate policy of not using the large amounts of uranium available from secondary sources to supply the U.S. and world uranium market.