Copper smashing $14,000/ton on the LME with nearby contracts trading at a steep $99.50 backwardation is wild to watch. On one hand, Dan Yergin and S&P Global are saying this 50% surge is structural due to AI data centers, grid expansion, and 15-year mine permitting lags; on the other hand, a massive chunk of this price action is pure speculative stockpiling before a tariff that may not happen.

If the US Commerce Department stalls or waters down the tariff, that massive US inventory hoard could unwind quickly, but the underlying physical deficit for AI hardware and power transmission isn't going anywhere. How are you guys viewing copper right now, legitimate structural supercycle or a temporary front running bubble?

Despite war in Ukraine, Western countries still import Russian uranium to fuel nuclear reactors

Everyone is focused on the US AI data center trade, but India scaling from 7.9 GW today to a 100 GW target by 2047 is a huge demand story in the making. They just finalized their long-awaited export deal with Australia to secure long-term feed.

Because India doesn't have the domestic mining reserves to support this, they are contractually forced to import, and their state-owned NTPC is already looking to acquire uranium assets overseas in Canada and Australia.

Do you expect the spot market to re-price to match this long-term reality? Are you front-running them or still holding mining equities?

This is preaching to the choir here, but still a great overview.

They cited research showing US data center power consumption is on track to balloon from 176 TWh to a mind-blowing 580 TWh by 2028, a more than threefold increase in just two years. We've been talking about the AI demand narrative every day, but seeing the actual scale of it compared to the physical limits of our grid is a huge reality check.

Most people don't realize uranium barely trades like a normal commodity at all. There's a small spot market for one-off volumes, sure, but utilities buy the vast majority of what they need through long-term contracts negotiated directly with suppliers like Cameco. That structural quirk is basically the whole reason this market moves so differently from oil or gold, and it matters more than people give it credit for.

Cameco's contract book is actually a pretty clean window into what buyers think prices are doing. As of Q1 2026 they'd locked in contracts requiring average annual deliveries of more than 28 million pounds over the next five years. President Grant Isaac said on a podcast in April that roughly 70% of the volumes contracted in 2025 were already pricing uranium near a $120/lb midpoint, built through floor and ceiling mechanisms, floors in the high $70s, ceilings around $160, both escalating over time. That's utilities, the actual buyers, effectively underwriting sustained triple-digit pricing years out. Not just Cameco talking their own book.

Demand side backs it up too. Cameco just signed a nine-year, roughly $2.6B deal to supply India's Department of Atomic Energy with nearly 22 million pounds of uranium, part of India's push toward 100GW of nuclear capacity by 2047. Westinghouse's AP1000 pipeline has 91 potential reactors in it, backed by a conditional $17.5B DOE commitment to speed deployment. Supply just hasn't kept up with any of this, a decade of underinvestment in new mining plus shrinking secondary supply sources will do that.

Here's the catch management actually admitted on the Q2 call though. Contracting still isn't happening at replacement-rate demand, meaning utilities as a group aren't yet signing enough uranium to fully replace what they're burning through. If that gap stays open, price growth could stall even with supply this tight.

Feels like Cameco is basically a bet that the contract terms getting signed right now are the real signal, not hype. Anyone actually follow the contracting cycle closely enough to know how fast that replacement-rate gap is closing, or is this still mostly a wait-and-see story?

• Copper hit a record high, but the rally appears to reflect tight supply and disruptions more than a broad acceleration in global growth.
• Electrification, power-grid investment and AI-related infrastructure are supporting demand.
• The result of the demand and supply story means “Dr. Copper” may not be a good indicator of economic health this time.

The Committee on Public Undertakings' comments came in a report covering the progress of India's planned nuclear energy expansion.

It included the recommendations from an earlier report and the responses received from Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) and the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE). The report notes DAE's assurance that by 2036 "Uranium Corporation of India Ltd (UCIL), Jaduguda plans to double the production by enhancing the existing mine capacity as well as setting up uranium mining projects in Jharkhand, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh".

The committee welcomes the "concrete project roadmap" provided but says "nevertheless, the Committee notes that the timeline for full realisation stretches to 2036, whereas NPCIL's massive capacity additions are front-loaded over the next decade. Any delay in the commissioning of these mining clusters will prolong the strategic sensitivity of relying on imported fuel lines".

Canada has the resources and project pipeline needed to achieve the federal government’s goal of doubling uranium exports by 2035, but success will hinge on execution, according to a mining risk expert at Marsh Canada.

The country is the world’s second largest producer behind Kazakhstan, and uranium is sourced entirely from high-grade operations like McArthur River and Cigar Lake in northern Saskatchewan, the sole producing jurisdiction. Both mines are operated by Cameco. McClean Lake, operated by Orano Canada, also processes ore from Cigar Lake at its local mill. 

Canada produces yellowcake and uranium dioxide and does not have domestic enrichment facilities because its flagship CANDU reactors run on natural, unenriched uranium. 

For everyone stressing over the spot price chopping around the mid-80s, keep in mind TradeTech has their Long-Term Price Indicator to $97.00/lb. That’s an 18-year high and a $10 jump just since December. While retail is obsessing over algorithmic noise on the spot screen, utilities are quietly panicking about the 2028-2030 supply cliff. They know AI hyperscalers are coming for their baseload grid, so they are aggressively locking in term contracts at a steep premium just to guarantee their reactors stay online.

This term-market panic acts as a massive magnet for physical inventory. As utilities drain the future supply pipeline, the underlying physical rock will inevitably move upward to match it. Do you guys think the term price officially breaches $100 by the end of the year?

The U.S. has not yet been able to completely phase out Russian enriched uranium, which is used as fuel for nuclear power plants. Despite plans to end such purchases by 2028, the U.S. energy sector still relies heavily on supplies from Russia. According to Bloomberg, Russian uranium enrichment services accounted for about a quarter of all such purchases by U.S. nuclear power plant operators in 2025.

Long-term uranium contract prices climbed to an all-time high this year, reaching roughly US$97 a pound. Thirty-eight countries pledged to triple nuclear capacity by 2050. Hyperscalers kept signing power purchase agreements to feed data centers with electricity appetites that grow faster than anyone can build baseload to serve them. Washington moved uranium onto the critical minerals list and set a Section 232 review running that could impose domestic-sourcing requirements on the entire fuel supply chain.

By any reasonable reading, this was the year the uranium thesis stopped being a thesis and started being policy.

And the stocks fell anyway. Oklo is down roughly 42% year to date. Uranium Energy Corp has given back more than 26%. Centrus Energy, which enriches the fuel that advanced reactors cannot run without, sits 36% below a 52-week high above US$464. Through the first half of 2026 the speculative end of the nuclear complex was sold off week after week, in what one market commentator described as a momentum unwind rather than a thesis break, while profitable nuclear-adjacent utilities barely moved.

That gap, between what the physical market is saying and what the equity market is paying, is the most interesting thing in energy right now. It is also the backdrop against which a small company filed a quarterly update on Monday, a workmanlike one, which may be exactly the point.

Between the DRC effectively halting cobalt hydroxide exports and Indonesia slashing HPAL nickel output due to surging sulfur costs, Chinese smelters are down to 8 days of inventory. But the absolute peak of Western bureaucratic stupidity is the US expanding Cuba sanctions and accidentally idling Canada’s only major cobalt refinery (Sherritt's Fort Saskatchewan plant) by cutting off their raw Moa feed.

This is a great example of why holding junior mining equities is a trap, Sherritt is a great operator but a single regulatory move in DC just completely mothballed their entire cash flow. By holding xCo, you get pure exposure to the massive scarcity premium automakers are forced to pay for IRA-compliant cobalt, without the corporate risk

Am I missing something or is this almost too good to be true? Or are you guys sticking strictly with Gold and Uranium right now?

Nuclear energy stocks are back in focus as investors weigh stubborn inflation signals, rising government bond yields and renewed attention on reliable power sources. With oil prices influenced by geopolitical tensions and energy feeding directly into inflation worries, interest in long term, steady electricity supply is building. The Nuclear Energy Stocks screener highlights companies across uranium production, fuel enrichment and reactor operations that sit at the heart of this theme. In this article, you will see three stocks from the screener that offer different ways to gain exposure to nuclear energy as a potential part of a diversified portfolio.

Global investment in critical minerals declined by 9 per cent in 2025, ending several years of growth despite strong long-term demand for minerals essential to clean energy technologies, electric vehicles and advanced industries, according to the International Energy Agency's (IEA) Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2026.

The report attributed the slowdown to rising geopolitical tensions, price volatility and a more cautious investment environment, even as demand fundamentals remained strong.

"Critical mineral investment declined by 9 per cent in 2025, ending several years of growth. Amid rising geopolitical tensions and price volatility, investors became more cautious despite strong underlying demand," the report said.

Let's talk about the absolute bloodbath in our mining stock portfolios this quarter. We are seeing the third major uranium equity pullback since 2021, with most producers, developers, and explorers currently trading 40% to 50% below their early 2026 highs. The retail crowd is absolutely drowning in capitulation and calling it a "value trap."

But the actual physical market has never looked tighter. Spot is holding strong in the mid-80s, the term price is hitting $91.50, and Kazatomprom just cut their 2026 production guidance by 10% because they refuse to sell their inventory into these depressed spot prices. Furthermore, we’ve seen a massive surge in utility Requests for Proposals (RFPs) in the last few weeks, which means a wall of long-term contract awards is likely hitting the market by autumn.

What do you think explains this disconnect? Retail investors focus on daily stock tickers and get shook out by paper market liquidity cycles, while the utilities operate on multi-year contracting horizons. It really highlights why holding physical tokens is superior to holding speculative junior miners right now. You get the pure, non-dilutive exposure to the physical deficit without getting slaughtered by equity market beta. Who is using this dip to scale out of junior miners and DCA directly into physical?

If you want proof of how violently the macro environment is shifting, look at BofA’s latest commodity note here. The Fed pivoting back to rate hikes to fight sticky inflation just caused them to slash 32 price targets across base and precious metals, including a 14% cut to their 2026 gold forecast. But there is one glaring exception bucking the entire macroeconomic trend: Uranium.

BofA listed it as their absolute top conviction call, noting that current spot is trading 23% below their 2026 average forecast due to structural deficits and utility panic-buying. The AI baseload energy crisis and the Russian enrichment ban have created a perfectly inelastic demand curve that simply doesn't care what Jerome Powell does with interest rates.

South Korea’s nuclear industry stands at a critical crossroads.

Although it entered the nuclear age later than many advanced countries, South Korea has become one of the world’s leading nuclear power producers since bringing its first commercial reactor online in 1978. Today it operates 26 reactors. For decades, the country successfully relied on a model that imported all enriched nuclear fuel while storing spent fuel at reactor sites, effectively maintaining a nuclear industry without domestic uranium enrichment or spent fuel reprocessing.

That model, however, is reaching its limits. The war in Ukraine and intensifying U.S.-Russia rivalry have exposed vulnerabilities in the global nuclear fuel supply chain. At the same time, demand for carbon-free electricity has surged as countries pursue carbon neutrality and AI-driven industries consume ever more power. Future reactors will also require advanced fuels, including high-assay low-enriched uranium, or Haleu, accident-tolerant fuels and transuranic fuels. Without enrichment and reprocessing capabilities, South Korea risks falling behind in the next generation of nuclear technology.

If you've been worrying about the spot price hovering in the mid-$80s, TradeTech just officially raised their Long-Term Price Indicator to $97.00/lb. This is an 18-year high and a $10 increase since December. As retail gets caught up in algorithmic noise on the spot screen, utilities are quietly panicking about the supply cliff in 2028-2030. They understand that the AI hyperscalers will be taking their grid for granted, so they are bidding at a high price for term contracts just to ensure that their reactors do not go out of service.

The true magic in the press release is the fact that TradeTech is saying that pricing is "highly dependent on jurisdiction. Utilities are willing to pay almost $100 for secure, North American supply and are willing to discount material from Africa or Central Asia. This term-market panic is a giant magnet for physical inventory. Does anyone else believe the price will hit $100 by the end of the summer?