Washington (Platts)--31Dec2014/451 pm EST/2151 GMT

Although the daily spot price of uranium fell through almost all of December, a price increase is likely in the first quarter as demand is projected to rise, market sources said Wednesday.

Price reporting company TradeTech on December 1 put the daily U3O8 spot price at $39.10/lb. By Tuesday it had fallen to $35.65/lb. And Tuesday's price was 10 cents lower that Monday's, TradeTech said.

Price reporter Ux Consulting's December 1 Broker Average Price of $38.88/lb saw a similar pattern, dropping to $35.38/lb Tuesday, down 25 cents from Monday.

One market source on Wednesday characterized the daily spot price this week and last week as "meaningless, because there's very little activity and very little [trading] volume." Buyers, he said, "have exhausted their budgets, and suppliers have sold what they had to sell well before the end of this year."

The daily spot price should "rally in the first quarter," he said, as utilities "take advantage of relatively low [U3O8 spot] prices to meet their expected needs for 2017 and 2018."

A second market source said he expects buying activity will pick up around the time of the Nuclear Energy Institute's January 21 Nuclear Fuel Supplier Forum. This meeting, attended by utilities, U3O8 producers and financial entities, "often generates buying activity," he said.

Until then, the source said, the daily spot price could drop to as low as $33/lb. He added, however, that he expects the price to rise to around $38/lb by the end of March.

--Jim Ostroff, james.ostroff@platts.com --Edited by Jeff Barber, jeff.barber@platts.com

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