There was an excellent article this week by Andrew Walker, the BBC World Service Economics correspondent, regarding Russia and its nuclear ties with the EU. You may have read some guest blog posts here by Anthony Milewski, who sits on Fission’s Advisory Board, regarding security of supply. The BBC article feeds right into Anthony’s point, which is that a very large percentage of the world’s uranium production comes from countries that, for one reason or another, have political issues. In other words, at any given time a large percentage of world supply could go offline.
If you’re not convinced, read the article. What I find the most compelling is that those countries with the most to lose (should Russia hold off on uranium supplies) are treading very softly regarding the political turmoil between Russia and the Ukraine. Those countries include Finland, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. To quote the article: there is a significant role in Europe’s energy sector for Russian nuclear supplies and the potential for significant disruption in the EU.
Of all the factors that can and do affect the uranium sector, I consider security of supply to be one of the most important and it’s not just Russia that has the potential to cause problems. Kazakhstan and Niger both have their own political issues as we’ve seen during the past twelve months. I believe this is one of the of the factors driving Chinese interest in Canadian uranium assets and has led to the agreements signed by the Canadian and Chinese governments in the last few years. Considering Fission’s world-class discovery happens to be sitting in the Athabasca Basin, Canada, this is a good thing for us and our investors.
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Dev Randhawa
