Washington (Platts)--1Dec2009/524 pm EST/2224 GMT

As November ended, there were both bullish and bearish signals coming from activity in the uranium market, sources said.

The spot price of uranium, which had fallen below $43 a pound U3O8, rebounded in the last week of the month to at least $45.25/lb.

But the long-term price, which had not changed much since May dropped by several dollars to between $60 and $62/lb. The mid-term price -- the price for uranium in late 2010 and 2011--also dropped by $5/lb or so to around $50/lb.

Ux Consulting on Monday raised its spot price to $45.50/lb, up $2.50 from its price on November 23. TradeTech, which published its month-end price several hours later, raised its marker to $45.25/lb, up $1.25 from the price it published November 27, and up $2.25/lb from its November 21 price.

Ux said the increase reflected the exit of aggressive sellers and the entry of more aggressive buyers. Those buyers, Ux said, included some "new entrants in the market with the potential for more to come."

But some analysts said spot price would retreat before the end of December. They cited at least one purchase by a utility within the past week or so at a price well below $43/lb. "It is not end-user buying that is pushing up the price," one analyst said, but rather a number of "financial players."

While the market is growing used to volatility in the spot U3O8 price, analysts were surprised at the drop in the long-term price.

Ux dropped its price by $2/lb to $62/lb, while TradeTech dropped its price $5/lb to $60/lb. Ux said "generally depressed spot prices coupled with the greater certainty that [the US Department of Energy] will liquidate inventories have caused sellers to lower their offer prices."

TradeTech said the gap between the term price and the spot price was closing "as sellers lower their offer prices in an effort to compete with various buy-and-hold options."

An analyst said producers with uncommitted production are also realizing that demand -- even with bullish estimates of buying from China and India -- may be less than anticipated, as the start-up of a number of new nuclear plants gets pushed from the 2015-2020 timeframe until after 2020.

Market analysts and price publishers often have slightly different definitions of spot and long-term deliveries, but spot-market deliveries typically occur within about three to four months; long-term deliveries are multi-year deliveries that typically start 18-24 months in the future.

With the spot price remaining below $50/lb, utilities are now clearly seeing lower offers for uranium deliveries in late 2010-2012. This led TradeTech November 30 to drop its monthly mid-term price by $5/lb to $50/lb.

TradeTech defines this mid-term price as applying to deliveries that begin immediately beyond the 12-month spot delivery window and that occur within one to two years from that point either as standalone agreements or as part of a long-term contract.

--Mike Knapik, newsdesk@platts.com