It’s September 8th, and this week on Uranium Spotlight, a quiet week in the spot market as the industry travels to London, a look back at the third quarter and what it signals for the fourth, Saskatchewan’s deepening uranium trade with the United Kingdom, and India’s latest move to secure long term supply.
Steady Into London
Last week the spot price opened at $89.90 per pound U3O8 and closed at $89.65 per pound U3O8, a quarter of a dollar lower over five sessions and, in practical terms, a week in which almost nothing happened.
Monday carried what activity there was, largely because it was month-end and a few participants wanted transactions on the books. Three spot deals were confirmed before the daily price cut off, and the blended price slipped to $89.60 per pound U3O8, with a fourth transaction confirmed after the cut off at a slightly higher level. When that deal was incorporated on Tuesday the price ticked back up a nickel to $89.65 per pound U3O8, and there it stayed. Only a single off market transaction was reported for the balance of the week, bids and offers thinned out through Tuesday afternoon, and the price held unchanged all the way through Friday.
The reason is not complicated. The U.S. Labor Day holiday took Monday of this week out of the calendar, and much of the industry spent the week preparing to travel to London for the World Nuclear Symposium, the largest gathering on the nuclear calendar. Trading desks empty out when the buyers are on airplanes.
The more interesting movement was in the term market, which was equally quiet in terms of new business but not in terms of price. The long term price rose another $2.00 to $96.00 per pound U3O8, while the 3 year and 5 year forward prices each jumped $3.00, to $104.00 and $111.00 per pound U3O8 respectively.
So while the spot market went sideways, the forward curve moved higher again. That divergence is the story worth carrying into the fall. When the market is willing to pay a premium for a pound delivered in 2031 over a pound delivered next month, it is telling you that the perceived tightness is not in today’s inventory but in tomorrow’s production.
The Third Quarter Reset
With the third quarter now behind us, it is worth stepping back from the weekly noise and looking at what the last three months actually accomplished.
The answer is a slow grind higher. Spot began the quarter at $85.85 per pound U3O8, drifted down to $85.00 in June on weak demand, sat there through July, and then found renewed buying interest through August that carried it to $89.60 by month end. Net for the quarter, spot gained $3.80 per pound U3O8. That is a respectable move, but the way it was achieved matters more than the number itself.
Volume was thin. Spot market activity from June through the end of August totalled just 10.1 million pounds U3O8, down 17% from the 12.2 million pounds transacted over the same period in 2025. Almost all of that decline came from one source. Financial buyers purchased only 1.5 million pounds, against 4.9 million pounds a year earlier, and the Sprott Physical Uranium Trust bought just 250,000 pounds, having traded at a discount to its net asset value and been unable to raise new money since the beginning of May.
Strip the financials out and the underlying picture is actually firmer. Traders bought 5.0 million pounds, up modestly. Utilities bought 2.3 million pounds, up from 1.7 million. Producers bought 0.9 million pounds, more than double last year. In other words, the price rose roughly 4% on materially lower volume, and it rose while the most price insensitive buyer in the market was sitting on the sidelines.
Available spot supply has been relatively thin, which accounts for some of the volatility we saw despite the lower than average demand. Looking into the fourth quarter, spot is expected to find support in the $83 to $88 range as the busier autumn contracting season gets underway and utilities prepare for refuelling and maintenance outages. Resistance sits at $95 to $100, and the spot price has not traded into that band since the last week of January, when it briefly touched $101.50 before retreating into the mid to high $80s within days.
At $89.65, spot sits at a 7% discount to the long term price of $96.00 per pound U3O8. Last quarter that discount was 9%. It is narrowing, and a narrowing discount tends to pull discretionary material out of the spot market and into term commitments.
There is the takeaway. Spot advanced without the help of the financial buyers who drove the last two rallies, which means the floor under this market is now being set by industry participants rather than by fund flows. That is a healthier foundation, and a considerably harder one to knock out.
Saskatchewan and the United Kingdom
Trade between Saskatchewan and the United Kingdom has grown by 178% over four years, from $211.5 million in 2021 to $587.6 million in 2025, and 57% of the province’s exports to the U.K. are now uranium or uranium products, whether that is concentrate, converted material, or finished nuclear fuel.
That growth is about to accelerate. Today marks Canada U.K. Nuclear Day, held alongside the World Nuclear Symposium in London, and further agreements for British utilities to buy Canadian uranium from major producers are expected to follow.
Saskatchewan’s premier is attending, as is the minister responsible for Crown corporations, and the province is making a straightforward pitch. In their words, Saskatchewan has world class uranium resources, nuclear research infrastructure, and supply chain capability, and the United Kingdom has been the gateway through which the province’s nuclear sector has grown.
The U.K. is not an isolated case. Saskatchewan concluded uranium arrangements with Czechia and Poland as recently as July, and the pattern across the continent is consistent.
Europe has quietly become a more significant nuclear region than most investors give it credit for. Across the European Union and its neighbours, including the United Kingdom, Russia, Ukraine and Switzerland, there are 162 operating reactors, with another 17 under construction if you include Türkiye. For a population of 746 million people, that is nearly as many reactors per capita as the United States, and unlike the United States, Europe is actually building. On a construction basis the region looks less like a mature market defending its fleet and more like India, which is currently building 10 reactors on top of an existing fleet of 24.
Here is where it becomes a uranium problem rather than a nuclear one. The price moves we have seen over the past two years have been driven overwhelmingly by supply constraints, not by demand growth. The demand growth is still ahead of us. Poland, Czechia and the United Kingdom will need to source uranium not only for the reactors they are building, but for the ones they already operate, and they will be competing for that material against every other utility doing the same arithmetic.
For investors, the point is jurisdictional. Every one of these agreements routes European demand toward a single geological address, and the Athabasca Basin remains the richest uranium district on earth. When European utilities go looking for secure western supply, Saskatchewan is not one option among many. It is close to the only one at scale.
India Secures Its Pounds
India has signed a new uranium supply agreement with Uzbekistan, the world’s fifth largest producing nation, and it fits a pattern that has been building for several years.
This is a country that has already contracted with Canada, Kazakhstan and Australia, including a deal with Cameco worth $2.6 billion over ten years. India now sits alongside China and Russia in a group of buyers acquiring large volumes of uranium on long dated contracts as a matter of national policy rather than as a response to price. The stated objective is 100 gigawatts of nuclear capacity by 2047, roughly equivalent to the output of 100 large scale reactors, against a fleet of 24 today.
What makes this worth paying attention to is not the size of any single contract. It is the arithmetic underneath all of them. These are ten year supply commitments being written now, against production that in many cases does not yet exist. A significant number of western mines are approaching the end of their mine life, greenfield projects take a decade or more to permit and build, and the pounds being committed today have to come from somewhere.
And the largest buyer has not fully returned to the market. American utilities have been comparatively restrained, and when they do move back in with the scale their fleet requires, they will be contracting into a market where a great deal of future production has already been spoken for by buyers who moved earlier.
The consequence eventually reaches the ratepayer. Utilities that fail to secure fuel at reasonable cost pass that cost through to electricity prices, in economies where consumers are already absorbing inflation and energy costs elsewhere.
So the takeaway this week is about sequencing. The countries expanding fastest are contracting first, and they are doing it while the west is still deliberating. For investors, that is precisely why undeveloped western resources in stable jurisdictions continue to matter, because the supply response to all of this contracting has not been built yet, and it cannot be built quickly.
Disclaimer: Uranium Spotlight is your weekly podcast dedicated to the latest developments shaping the uranium fuel market and its role in the global energy landscape, sponsored by Purepoint Uranium Group. While our passion for the sector is undeniable, nothing discussed here should be considered investment advice. Our mission is to provide a clear, balanced view of the forces influencing uranium prices and the nuclear fuel cycle. For deeper analysis and market briefings, visit purepoint.ca.