Has Uranium Run Far Enough? - Justin Huhn (Uranium Insider)

Key Takeaways:

• Sulfur Supply Shock: Huhn notes that almost half of the world's sulfur exports move through the Strait of Hormuz, and that rising input costs are already flowing through the mining industry. He argues the effect on delivered pounds is delayed but directionally clear — projects already marginal on cost will have to ask for more money, and the disruption will not push prices lower.
• African Acid Exposure: He identifies Husab in Namibia as the most acid-reliant operation, importing sulfur and converting it to acid on site under Chinese operatorship, with Rössing and Kayelekera in Malawi also exposed; Langer Heinrich uses a different reagent. Kazakhstan is largely insulated because it sources domestically and buys its small remainder from Russia rather than the Middle East. Huhn frames a few weeks of disruption as manageable and a few months as materially worse.
• Kayelekera Ramp-Up: Huhn describes Lotus trucking sulfuric acid roughly 1,800 km from a South African port while it builds its own acid plant, which would let it import sulfur through Tanzania instead. He notes the company announced its first uranium shipment reaching and being approved at Orano's conversion facility, and says that if it can demonstrate nameplate production of 2 to 2.4 million pounds a year, he views the equity as deeply undervalued and a plausible takeout target.
• Fuel Cycle Bottlenecks: He still places the tightest constraint in conversion, while rejecting the view that it is severe enough to impede uranium contracting, and points to ConverDyn's expansion plus a second entrant planning a US conversion facility. Looking out to the 2029–2031 delivery window where utilities actually buy, he argues U3O8 itself is the larger problem.
• Unprecedented Primary Reliance: Huhn contrasts the current setup with the 2004–2007 run from roughly $10 to $134 a pound, which occurred alongside underfeeding, Megatons to Megawatts down-blending, and large mobile inventories. He argues the industry now has minimal above-ground buffer and will depend late this decade on pounds from projects that have not yet broken ground — a condition he says has not existed since the 1970s.
• Cameco's Vertical Integration: He describes Cameco as the sector's only genuinely integrated company, with Port Hope conversion, a 40% stake in Global Laser Enrichment that he expects to rise toward 70–75%, and fuel fabrication and reactor construction through Westinghouse, citing Tim Gitzel's stated confidence in ten AP1000s being built in the United States. He also flags that Cigar Lake finishes around 2035 and McArthur River around 2041–2042 with no replacement development underway, and argues that if Cameco dedicates future production to fueling its own reactor builds — a Rosatom-of-the-West model — that is positive for Cameco and a problem for utilities.
• Valuation and Price Path: With spot at $83–84 and term at $90, Huhn characterizes sentiment as complacent rather than negative, noting the ETFs pulled back roughly 30% over about six weeks and some small caps were halved while large caps held up. He says he is surprised small and mid caps have not outperformed this far into the cycle, and expects the price to move through the incentive level of $110–115 toward a breach of the prior bull market high, which he puts at $200 a pound inflation-adjusted.

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