Print Email Add to My Stories Bright future for uranium, Paladin boss says By Alan Kohler Posted Mon Sep 10, 2007 7:22am AEST Updated Mon Sep 10, 2007 7:36am AEST John Borshoff says despite some recent instability, the price of uranium is trending upwards. (File photo) (ABC TV) Video: Interview with Paladin Resources CEO John Borshoff (Inside Business) Map: Subiaco 6008 After struggling for a few months, the uranium sector was given a boost last week by two of the world's most powerful men, US President George W Bush and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, who were in town for the APEC meeting. Mr Putin signed up to buy Australian uranium to help fuel 30 new power stations Russia plans to build, while Mr Bush said nuclear power is the key to combating climate change and put his signature to a joint nuclear energy action plan with Prime Minister John Howard. One beneficiary of all this is one of the handful of companies on the planet with some uranium to sell, Paladin Resources, although this week the company reported a net loss for the year of just over $37 million, largely thanks to teething troubles at its Namibian mine. During APEC, Mr Bush said that if you care about climate change, you will support nuclear power. Paladin chief executive John Borshoff told Inside Business the statement has been a long time coming, and believes the price of uranium will continue its upward trend. "I think the dynamic of the volatility is just a five-year almost continuous rise," he said. "There's been an over-rapid increase in uranium from $100 to $138 or so in a couple of months and that sort of exponential growth was impossible. "So it's just coming back, it will adjust, and it will continue on its upward path and I foresee it will surpass the peaks within 12 to 15 months." Mr Borshoff has played down talk of an over-supply of uranium. "In the last two or three years there has been only a 5 per cent increase in overall production at a time when most of those companies are selling product for $20 a pound, and they would really have liked to ha6ve got some free available uranium to sell at higher prices and they couldn't," he said. Mr Borshoff says the problems associated with the Langer Heinrich mine in Namibia, are an example of the growing pains Paladin is experiencing. "We had some bad luck on some vital pieces of equipment and they effectively have delayed us for five months and we believe we will be at full production early 2008. "Essentially we aren't that worried in terms of the mid-term, it's just our step up where we try and catch up those five months lost," he said. The Paladin boss has rejected the assertion that he "stuffed up" the Namibian project. "We have gone with the very clear objective to get Langer Heinrich moving," he said. "I mean, when you look at it, three years ago, Langer Heinrich was a bankable feasibility study project and Kayelekera in Malawi was just a bit of a dream. "Now we're producing out of Langer Heinrich, we've got the credentials on the board, we're building our second mine and that is a huge achievement which is recognised in the industry that we've got this going and we will optimise, de-bottleneck, and we'll be in the position we deserve which is to be a leader in the emerging uranium producers." Queensland prospects Paladin recently took over Summit Resources in Queensland, and Mr Borshoff says he has no doubt Paladin will eventually be allowed to mine uranium in Queensland and Western Australia. "It's one of those inevitabilities that you cannot have a whole world starving in the biggest, hugest energy crisis that's ever faced civilisation, and we're exporting as much coal and gas as one likes and then making some statement about uranium, when the federal Labor is saying that this has to stop," he said. "I just think it's a matter of time and a bit of sense coming back into the system. Which is happening, by the way." Mr Borshoff says the market is wrong if it thinks Paladin paid too much for Summit. "When you look at what we paid for Summit and six months previous to that we paid for Valhalla $165-odd million," he said. "With Summit we paid about $1 billion, when you average that out they are essentially the same properties joined together, we've got a great value out of that, certainly if it was only just Summit and we hadn't bought half those reserves at such a cheap price it would have been a different story." Mr Borshoff says the ups and downs in Paladin's share price are no greater than those experienced by any other company in the uranium mining sector, and he rejects the prospect that Paladin could become a takeover target. "But certainly we have a vision for Paladin, we believe there is an opportunity to come out of this huge vacuum that was caused where essentially the industry was asleep at the wheel for 20 years and if Paladin does get absorbed into somebody else I think it would be a shame for the supply industry," he said. And Mr Borshoff says Paladin is keeping its eye open for other takeover opportunities. "We have always specified that we want a more global footprint and that is in keeping with our whole strategy that we will probably postpone for a little while, but we are always on the lookout for opportunities, particularly how we see the market and I don't believe the market will be in supply balance for 10 to 20 years," he said. paladin=langer-heinrich ist nachbar von forsys ! haben wir hier eine gezielte kursdrückerei zwecks übernahme gesehen ! ich denke wenn übernahme dann bestimmt nicht zu diesen aktuellen preisen zum vergleich! URAMIN SRK Consulting has estimated an NI 43-101-qualified Measured and Indicated Mineral Resource of 18.4 million pounds of U3O8 (61 million tonnes at a grade of 0.014%) and an Inferred Mineral Resource of 139.2 million pounds U3O8 (502 million tonnes at a grade of 0.013%), both estimated using an 80-ppm cut-off grade.
und wir wissen zu welchen preis uramin über den tisch gegangen ist !!! vergleicht man das mit forsys ergebe sich ein sehr,sehr,sehr viel höherer preis für forsys --- fazit es bleibt spannend |
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