The mid-2010s doldrums: In the mid-2010s, uranium prices languished below USD 20 per pound. This was a small fraction of the over USD 100 per pound prices reached in the heady days before the global financial crisis of 2007–2008. In the post-crisis years, the uranium spot price was weighed on by the Fukushima disaster in Japan—which led to some developed countries going off nuclear power—rising uranium supply and a tapering of the irrational market exuberance that marked the 2007 price bubble.
Impressive resurgence: Over the last decade, however, uranium has made a comeback, with prices increasing more than fourfold between 2017 and 2024. Multiple factors have been at play. Asian countries, in particular, added nuclear power capacity at a brisk rate during the period—China’s was up around two-thirds, for instance. This was coupled with producers reining in output in the face of low prices. In addition, the Russia-Ukraine war fueled many countries’ concerns over the security of fossil fuel energy supplies, sparking renewed interest in nuclear as an alternative and reliable energy source. Another key development has been the increasing financialization of the market. Most notably, the Sprott Physical Uranium Trust launched in 2021 and has since rapidly accumulated tens of millions of pounds of uranium, tightening spot market supply.
Price outlook for the rest of this decade: The Consensus among our panelists is for uranium prices to remain well above the levels that prevailed in the 2010s for the rest of this decade, with prices forecast to hover between USD 65 and 80 per pound. The latest edition of the World Nuclear Association’s Nuclear Fuel Report penciled in a 28% increase in uranium demand from 2023 to 2030 vs an 18% increase in supply. Higher demand will be driven by several factors: Rising economic development levels in emerging markets, higher electricity demand caused by AI, greater interest in modular nuclear reactors, and governments’ ongoing desire to ensure energy security in a more uncertain world. That said, panelists don’t see a return to the highs of 2024, a period when the spot price likely got ahead of underlying market fundamentals due to investor exuberance.
Insight from our panel of analysts
Economists at Goldman Sachs said:
“Supply/demand dynamics are supportive of higher uranium prices: We forecast a structural supply deficit of ~20mn lbs in 2025 to grow to ~130mn lbs by 2040, or representing 40%-45% undersupply. This view is supported by increasing demand for uranium as the global nuclear fleet expands to support growing power needs amid a lack of meaningful potential supply to come online.”
Our latest analysis
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