By Greg Peel

The now familiar geographical and price differential in the global spot uranium market has continued to narrow, notes industry consultant TradeTech, such that the premium offered for European U3O8 is not as wide as it was a couple of weeks ago over the pervading sell price for US UF6. Yet this hasn't meant potential buyers have been sparked into action.

There are producers and speculators sniffing around current spot price offers, TradeTech reports, but they are showing no urgency to commit. Hence it was another quiet week of spot activity last week with only three transactions concluded totalling a mere 400,000lbs.

Possibly frustrated by smug bidders, one seller decided just to dump and in so doing knocked TradeTech's indicative weekly spot price down US80c to US$51.00/lb.

There are also still plenty of sniffers looking for term supply contracts but again no trades were reported last week, with TradeTech's term prices remaining at US$54/lb (medium) and US$60/lb (long).

As we mark the first anniversary of the Fukushima disaster ? that which fundamentally changed the face of global nuclear energy policy ? we reflect that were it not for China there would be little if any growth in global uranium demand.