Transcript
I’m Greg Cochran, the managing director of Aurora Energy Metals.
Interesting times that we’re facing in the uranium and the nuclear market at the moment.
Makes me think back to a broader historical perspective of what’s gone on in the industry going back 40 odd years.
I’m in the fortunate position that I was a scholarship holder in the mid-80s with a large company that built the first underground dedicated uranium mine in South Africa. They developed it, they commissioned it, reached full production, and in 18 months they closed it.
That was a salutary lesson in what can happen in the uranium market then.
Things are totally different now because for the first time in history, in uranium mining history, we have a significant shortfall and that supply-demand imbalance is only getting bigger by the year as we move forward into the future.
That future is looking very rosy for nuclear, and that’s why we’re in such a good position, because the USA is way ahead of the game when it comes to nuclear power being the largest fleet in the world. And there, of course, we have the largest mineable measured and indicated deposit in the USA, a country that is desperate for local supply and has almost no current uranium production.
So it’s desperate to see what’s called onshoring again a boost in its uranium production to not only supply its existing reactors, but also there’s this whole new trend of SMRs small modular reactors which can take the place of coal-fired power stations building into existing infrastructure, and we’re targeting those as well.
So we’re really well positioned for the new future. The reality is supply demand is way out of kilter, and that’s where we’re going to benefit when we bring our operation into production one day.
