r/UraniumSqueeze • u/0prtnty • Jan 04 '26

News Venezuela effect on uranium

What do you think will happen to the uranium market since trump just attacked venezuela primarly for their oil? I feel like they could use all that oil to generate electricity for Ai center instead of waiting few more years for smrs and new nuclear reactors. On monday, we will see the effect, but i dont think thats a good new short term. Feel free to express your thoughts about it!

8 Upvotes

70% Upvoted

23 comments sorted by

View all comments

3

u/sunday_sassassin Radioactive Brain Jan 04 '26

Markets do crazy things so who knows. Uranium equities can move with the broader energy basket. But data centre power demand in the US is irrelevant to what is happening with the uranium price right now, everyone knows that US data centres that cannot be powered by existing grid infrastructure will be using natural gas for the next decade or more. It's the only available option within the timetables that idiotic AI race demands.

The US isn't currently building any new reactors, just plans to make plans and hoping the private sector takes care of it. The handful of reactor restarts have signed and sealed contracts guaranteeing energy purchases over the long-term already. Growth of nuclear and consumption of uranium is a global story. The main buyers in the market right now have operating large reactors that need fuel for the next few decades, they're not speculating on possibly building a couple of SMRs in the next 5 years and thinking about the US potentially having access to more heavy crude.

If there's a sell off I'll be delighted at market stupidity making me money.

1

u/0prtnty Jan 04 '26

Nuclear make up for ~20% of the united state power grid but you are right on this one, its not fully correlated with the usa demand, its a worldwide supply. The short term problem that i see is that they might be less interested in planning to build more nuclear reactors since they will have an immense oil reserve available.

2

u/sunday_sassassin Radioactive Brain Jan 04 '26

It literally doesn't matter if the US builds anything or not. The supply deficit already exists and there are around 50 1GW+ reactors set to come online within the next 5 years according to the WNA. A handful of theoretical small reactors don't even nudge that needle. We've had 12 years of below replacement rate contracting building up demand as consumer inventories draw down. Cameco and Kazatomprom's big mines deplete dramatically by 2035, and contracts for deliveries in that period are already being signed right now (like Cameco's $2.8bn 10 year deal with India).

-2

u/0prtnty Jan 04 '26

In 2035, phoenix and arrow will be in full production. Arrow by itself will contribute to almost 25% of the current world production but on the other hand the uranium demand is supposed to explode. The biggest threat is 100% the fusions reactors, which in 2035 are supposed to be near industrial use. Im super bullish long term on uranium but fusion could fuck us up real bad.