Justin Huhn Says Uranium Stocks May Be Entering Their Strongest Season

Key Takeaways:

• Supply Deficit Math: Huhn puts mine production at roughly 175 million pounds this year against about 204–205 million pounds of reactor demand in Uranium Insider's models, leaving the market roughly 20–25 million pounds short after secondary supply and demand. He sees a briefly balanced market around 2028 if Kazatomprom ramps as planned on its new sulfuric acid facility — which he expects online in the later part of next year — before the gap widens steeply through the 2030s.
• Term Market Leadership: He notes the long-term price is not driven by utilities buying 100,000 pounds on spot but by 5 to 10 million pound purchases for delivery in the 2030s. Both Trade Tech and UXC reported no change for July at $95.50 (a split between UXC at $94 and Trade Tech at $97), with activity already picking back up in August ahead of the World Nuclear Association conference in the first week of September, and Huhn says base-escalated contracts are being signed in the triple digits.
• Spot vs. Term Narratives: Asked which sector narratives are wrong, Huhn names two opposing claims — that the spot price is irrelevant, and that it is the only thing that matters. He points to spot trading in roughly a $2 range for about five and a half to six months while the term price has continued climbing, a divergence he says Uranium Insider anticipated when it took money off the table between December and February.
• AI Demand Correlation: In Huhn's estimation the largest uranium-specific driver from the AI story is reactor life extensions in the United States, with operators securing 60-year licenses and some applying for 80-year operation. Hyperscaler commitments to SMR developers — he cites Amazon and X-energy in Washington state — help the narrative but in his view will not move the uranium price for three or four years.
• Dawn Lake Exploration: Huhn describes Dawn Lake, the Cameco and Orano underground high-grade deposit adjacent to ISO Energy's Hurricane, which holds 50 million pounds with its highest-grade core sitting against the property boundary. From what he can tell anecdotally, the joint venture has drilled up at least as much as ISO Energy has found and possibly more, making it in his view the most likely development project to replace Cigar Lake given its proximity to the McClean Lake mill.
• SMR Front-Runners: Among publicly traded SMR developers, Huhn considers X-energy the most credible on licensing, construction progress and customer quality, citing its TRISO-X fuel facility under construction in Tennessee, its Xe-100 industrial heat use case, and Dow Chemical and Amazon as first customers. On a global basis he places GE Hitachi and GE Vernova's BWRX-300 as the front-runner, with the first unit under construction at Darlington in Ontario and early-stage licensing activity for Tennessee Valley Authority projects.
• Sentiment and Positioning: On a scale where zero is the worst possible and ten is euphoria, Huhn rates current sentiment at roughly three or four, up from about two in July, which he treats as the low point for this move. He says the bottom is probably in without ruling out another pullback, and notes Uranium Insider has been deploying cash for members over the past six weeks and is considerably longer than it was six to eight weeks ago.