Actionable insights — The Eastern Engine: Russia, China & India

3:08 1. Segment demand by buyer behaviour, not geography

1. Model the market globally first, even when it has politically bifurcated — the pounds still move across blocs.
2. Split buyers by ownership and objective: state-owned operators buying security of supply (price-insensitive, decade-long horizons, equity stakes in mines) versus investor-owned utilities buying within a budget (price-sensitive, deferring, optimising coverage).
3. Track each group's contracting separately; the price-insensitive group sets the terms, the price-sensitive group sets the timing of the squeeze.
4. Flag hybrids (France: democratic but state-owned and mine-owning) rather than forcing them into a bloc.

• The share of annual term volume attributed to state buyers; any Western utility signing at Eastern-style terms (the acceptance stage he describes).

5:42 2. Read contract floors and ceilings, not just the price print

1. For market-referenced term contracts, collect the disclosed floor and ceiling alongside spot and the long-term indicator.
2. Treat the ceiling as the price the buyer has already agreed to pay in a squeeze, and the floor relative to spot as a gauge of who holds leverage.
3. Watch the direction of ceilings across successive negotiations: rising ceilings mean producers are pricing in the future deficit before spot does.

• Floor/ceiling disclosures in CCJ and KAP results and in developer offtake announcements.

10:57 3. Haircut feasibility-study supply — and don't assume new supply dumps

1. Pull developers' feasibility studies from 5–7 years ago and compare their promised start dates with today's status; use the observed slippage as your default delay for current studies.
2. Rebase study costs for today's diesel, labour and tax regime before trusting the stated incentive price.
3. Even when a mine arrives, model its pounds as term-contracted, not sold into spot — producers don't suppress their own market.
4. Recognise that buyers who believe the studies will under-contract, which delays but enlarges the price move.

• Revised start dates and capex in developer updates; utilities citing specific new-mine volumes as a reason to wait.

14:14 4. Price out the buyer's deferral tools, and when they expire

1. Quantity flex: blend the legacy contract's fixed and market-referenced legs to get the price of the extra (flexed) pounds; while that is well below market, assume every buyer exercises it.
2. Carry trades: short-dated forward deliveries at a modest premium plus escalator — useful in hundreds of thousands of lb, never millions.
3. Count both as inventory top-ups that deplete producers' stock and defer term contracting.
4. Mark the expiry: as fixed-price legacy contracts roll off and deliveries become fully market-referenced, flex stops lowering cost and the deferral channel closes.

• Producers reporting fewer or smaller flex provisions in new contracts; carry-trade premiums widening.

29:09 5. Convert coverage percentages into uncovered pounds

1. Take maximum contracted coverage by delivery year (assume full flex, so it's a best case) from the EIA's uranium marketing report and its European equivalent.
2. Multiply the uncovered share by projected burn for that year — including restarts and uprates, not today's fleet.
3. Compare cumulative unfilled requirements with maximum contracted deliveries over ten years.
4. Compare forward coverage with its long-run mean: coverage at the average during a supply shock is under-coverage.

• The next EIA Uranium Marketing Annual Report; the first utility told "sold out" for 2032–36 delivery.

32:50 6. Track contracting against burn — and add the unreported deals

1. Sum reported term volumes year-to-date and compare with annual reactor consumption (the replacement rate).
2. Add large disclosed-but-unreported deals separately (sovereign contracts often land in the data late).
3. Remember today's burn was bought years ago; a sub-replacement year shows up as a deficit in future delivery years, not today's supply.

• UxC/TradeTech year-end term volume; India's contracts appearing in reported totals.

18:57 7. Treat a producer-enricher turning buyer as a feed-deficit signal

1. Note when a vertically integrated player that historically sold (or self-supplied) starts buying uranium or UF6.
2. Infer the enrichment consequence: a feed-short enricher can't run low tails assays (underfeeding), so it consumes more natural uranium per SWU — less secondary supply, more primary demand.
3. Cross-check with its domestic mine pipeline and its export fuel obligations.

• Rosatom/Uranium One purchase disclosures in Kazatomprom reporting; Russian share of EU conversion and enrichment deliveries.

35:32 8. Model the swing supplier's depletion curve and its bottlenecks

1. Identify the jurisdiction both blocs depend on and its share of each bloc's deliveries.
2. Map its mines by decline stage (declining now, within 3–4 years, by the mid-2030s) to find peak output.
3. List the consumable or infrastructure that gates growth projects (here sulphuric acid) and track that project's schedule, not the mine's.
4. Note who its buyers are and whether management states any obligation to supply a particular region.

• KAP production guidance and acid-plant commissioning dates; the share of its sales going to China.

37:56 9. Convert enrichment tenders into pounds of uranium

1. Take the tendered SWU and delivery window; at a stated tails assay (e.g. 0.25%), convert to natural uranium feed equivalent.
2. Check who can bid once sanctioned suppliers are excluded, and their spare capacity in the delivery window.
3. If the tender allows a bundled EUP bid, the uranium demand is embedded; if not, expect a follow-on uranium tender — either way it is primary demand.

• Award terms of the KHNP tender; any follow-on uranium tender; SWU price indicators.

42:48 10. Price the producer's replacement cost, not its current cost

1. For each major producer, list mine end-of-life dates and the annual volume that must be replaced.
2. Estimate replacement capex at today's costs and the term price needed to justify it (the incentive price).
3. Expect producers to hold out for ceilings near that incentive price while demand is strong ("stack when times are good") — current all-in cost is the wrong anchor.

• Developer FIDs announced below the $120 term threshold (would falsify it); producers' disclosed contract ceilings.

45:06 11. Model the window utilities are contracting for — that is what prices today

1. Build supply/demand only as far as demand is confidently knowable (operating fleet, life extensions, shutdowns, first-criticality dates): ~5–7 years.
2. Compare with an outside model (a broker's) and ignore single-year disagreements; look for where both show a deficit.
3. Assume the deficit years being contracted now feed into the term price within 2–3 years; update the model as supplier and life-extension news lands (weekly).

• The long-term price indicator's trend; new life-extension and construction announcements that shift 2031–35 demand.