Title: Per Jander: Insights on the Uranium Market Show: Jimmy Connor (YouTube) — interviewer Jimmy Connor; recorded in London during WNA Symposium week Guest: Per Jander — uranium trader, WMC Energy (executes most of the Sprott Physical Uranium Trust's physical purchases) Date: 2026-09-10 (YouTube publishDate, Pacific) URL: https://youtu.be/Zdz4T1B_C7Q Length: 14:07 (847 s) Note: YouTube auto-captions pasted by Stephen. Fillers (uh/um, interjection "you know"/"like") and stutters/false starts removed; wording otherwise verbatim, every (mm:ss) cue kept. Caption garbles: "Pierre" = Per (Jander); "U308" = U3O8. At 03:35 the caption reads "the 2020 million pounds" — he later 04:20 says "around 18 20 million pounds", so likely 18–20M lb; left as captioned. "that in cell" at 11:56 is unclear and kept as captioned.
00:09 Pierre, thank you very much for joining us today. So, you trade uranium for WMC, so you're the perfect person to speak with in terms of what's happening within the uranium market both in the short-term and the longer-term. How would you characterize the uranium market so far in 2026? >> Well, for me personally, though cuz most of the uranium trading that I do or buying that I do, I do on behalf of Sprott.
00:33 And I think I'm sure you're aware it was a bit of a tear in the start of the year. They raised over half a billion dollars and we bought 6 million pounds in the first 2 months. So, it was a very intense start of the year, I would say. And then of course, when the conflict in the Middle East started, then investors basically just went risk-off.
00:55 A lot of money went out of the equities. Some of the investors sat on physical material and they also liquidated in that. So, we did see quite a bit of material coming into the market and of course, all the investors on the buy side disappeared as well. So, it got into the triple digits early on and then it's kind of slowly went back down again.
01:13 And even though the investors are still to a large extent on the sideline, the interesting thing over the summer is that prices held up at mid-80s. And it's sort of like even where normally you see kind of slow drift down, but here we're seeing a very hard floor at 85. And even now, it's even gone back up to 90. So, that's spot market.
01:32 And I think to a large extent, that spot market is driven by the term price cuz we're at an all-time high, 96 and 97 on the two price reporters. And we've never seen those levels before and that effectively creates a floor at 85 because as soon as you drop down below that at these levels on term prices, you can just do a carry trade and a finance deal.
01:54 So, as soon as you get down to that level, we've seen utilities step in. We've seen traders step in and even some of the larger producers have come in and bought as well. So, when we sit at 90, I see very little downside and we're set up for a rather interesting fall. >> And maybe you could speak about the depth of the marketplace.
02:15 Like right now at 90 bucks, is there a lot of buying? Would you be able to buy 500,000 pounds or how high do you have to take it up to get that much in? >> It all depends on timing and if you want me to buy 500,000 pounds in an hour. Well, actually right now everybody's in London so I have to run around and chase them down.
02:33 But if you do it in a morning, you probably would move the price a little bit. If you give it a couple of days, I'm sure you can find it. Also, price will probably jump a dollar or two, but it's still there's some material there. There hasn't been huge volumes in the spot market over the summer, but I think now people are just going to digest what's happening this week.
02:56 And then kind of reset after this. But normally September is a very busy month and almost without fail it's been an increase in price regardless as well cuz everybody's getting back from the summer hiatus. Discussions kick off on bilateral trades, but also all the traders are here to get a sentiment of things and seen a couple of bullish signs so far. So.
03:16 >> And what about the term market? What's happening there? I believe thus far or year-to-date 37 million pounds has traded. >> Yeah, that number is always you got to take it a little bit of a pinch of salt cuz like early this year there was two very large transactions kind of under the radar by the Indians.
03:35 So, well played India. No one really saw that coming. Both with Kazatomprom and with Cameco. I think the Kazatomprom one might have been in last year's numbers but the Cameco one has not been in those volume and that's going to be to the 2020 million pounds I think. So, there is some very large transactions that hasn't showed up in this 37 million pounds.
03:55 So I don't think it's completely showing all the activity. But yeah, it's like last year I think we were even lower than this and you had a very strong Q4. And it could also be we might see some of that this year, too. When some of the utilities they might have a lot of material to buy, they may not report the volumes right away because they will probably want to be a little bit more comfortable with their position and then maybe they report things at the end of the year.
04:20 But yeah, remains to be seen. >> And I'm sorry, the two contracts with the Indians, how large were they? >> I think they were just under two billion dollars each. But I don't know the exact details of them. But I think the expectations is that they're around 18 20 million pounds. So. >> And so of course we're in London and you're meeting with a lot of fuel buyers or people chasing you down saying, "Pierre, help me out here.
04:43 I need 5 million pounds or I need 10 million pounds." >> No, actually I've been running around with Sprott talking to investors cuz they also want to know what's happening in the market. But my colleagues at WMC, they are certainly running around talking to utilities and we've actually been speaking to a few SMR companies or embarking on building some of their units and at least thinking about or they've been involved in some announcement in some countries and as their plans are progressing,
05:12 I just have a chat with them like, "Hey, have you thought about fuel yet?" And some of them have, some of them haven't. So we're probably going to see some demand coming from that space fairly soon as well. >> And so as I mentioned earlier, we're at 37 million pounds for the year.
05:28 Even if you add on the Indian contracts, still a low number. Do you expect a big run-up as we go into year-end in terms of contracting? >> I actually don't know if it could be cuz some of it is yeah, again some of it's reported, some of it could drag out that they don't actually report the numbers until the ink is dried on the contract.
05:46 And these contracts because they are significant size, they may take 6 months for them to be signed. So, even discussions now, they might not actually be reported until Q1 or even Q2. So, that number, I mean, of course, it is an indicator of what's going on, but I would say the term market actually feels like it's been pretty active this year.
06:07 So, that's why that 37 number feels a little bit misleading. Now, some of the deals can be fairly small, so that's why that total number is not that big, but it feels like at any given time, you have four or five active tenders, and we know that there's at least a handful of them that will be launched right around now or in the coming month or two.
06:27 So, it should be an active term market in the fall. And we'll see if the price keep marching up. I think one of the problems the price reporters have that if you're a supplier, you're pushing for as much index-related as you can. So, there's no base price in there. And if you have no base price to hang the hat on, like pin your market to, then they can't really report on a base price.
06:51 So, I do feel a little bit for the price reporters that it is going to be some not necessarily guessing, but they're going to have to come up with a price, but then there might be a floor and a ceiling on the market-related side that is up at a $160 ceiling, and then you can have a sort of a $75 floor, and clearly that's up quite a bit from where we were before, but you can't really directly translate that into a firm base price number.
07:18 But whenever I talk to the price reporters, it's like, "Well, there's nothing but a bullish sentiment." So, they see the terms of the term contract going up, whether that is a base price or the floor and ceiling, but they're not really reporting on a floor and ceiling. But overall, the sentiment is that things are still some way to go.
07:38 >> You mentioned active tenders, and we saw an announcement out of the US government recently. Maybe you can just speak to that and what it means. >> Yeah, just basically came out yesterday. I don't think like either people have been too busy running around. They haven't noticed it. I just read it briefly on the way over here almost and as we understand it, it will be 4 million pounds a year starting as early as 2030 and running for 10 years.
08:01 So, and it has to be US origin because it's for NNSA, the US government for military purposes. So, I mean, all US assets to date this year has produced 2 million pounds. So, clearly there's going to be some mines that needs to ramp up in the US to even meet this need and the 4 million pounds a year, say that's a run rate of eight AP1000s.
08:25 So, you basically just have a very significant utility just entered the market. So, it'll be interesting to see how the market digests this, how the US government is going to go about buying this as well, but I think it hasn't percolated in cuz they will have to have an effect on equities and on the uranium prices so. So, that remains to be seen.
08:45 >> And once again, those pounds have to come from a US producer? >> Yes, they have to be US origin pounds. Yeah. >> Okay, so you mentioned that both the spot market and the term market are very tight. How would you characterize the conversion and enrichment markets? >> Yeah, they're not as liquid of course, but you got the enrichment price is at an all-time high as well.
09:06 I don't think spot is $215 a SWU. Now, is there a lot of spot transactions? Not really, but even the term price is also as high as I've ever seen it anyway. And conversion prices I think they sit around $60 a kg, which is of course I mean, by now it was a chemical as like four five sometime and maybe it was parked around 11 12 and they were like, "Oh, we just accept that.
09:31 " So, it clearly has gone a long way, but I think the bulk of the contracting after the conflict in the Ukraine when Russia invaded Ukraine, that's sort of when there was a rush for conversion and enrichment because Russia is such a big player in that market. That has probably subsided a little bit.
09:54 So now it's more of a regular run rate. If anything, it's probably leaning more towards U308 contracting. >> You mentioned that you've been speaking with a lot of investors this week in London. Any interesting comments or insights that have these conversations? >> No, it's like some of them are saying that they're on the sidelines still.
10:11 They obviously a little gun-shy from what's happening. A bit of a wait-and-see cuz I mean, how do you make any kind of decisions in this environment? You have no idea what's going to come out of the White House or that phone. And also there's some not-so-helpful rhetoric between Canada and the United States.
10:28 I was at the launch of a IAEA initiative for maritime applications in DC and there was a US delegation and a Canadian delegation. They're very friendly with each other. They obviously have a working relationship. So I think there's a lot of posturing, a lot of noise on the media level, but on the working level these people work with each other.
10:48 They're obviously countries are neighbors. I mean, you're a Canadian. I see like, yeah. To me it just seems stupid. But I cannot see a reality where the US and Canada are not friends. But I also think that Canadians to certain points like Scandinavians like me, you can push them, you can take a lot, but at some point enough is enough.
11:07 And once you're mad, it takes a while for you to calm down, right? So I think I don't know. My gut feeling is I don't know if Americans really realize how close to fed up Canadians are with this, but I might be wrong, but it feels like I do have a connections with Canadians and my sister is married to one, so I've been working with Canadians for almost two decades now.
11:33 And I do feel like I'm very close to them on a mental level and yeah it feels like it's not helpful where we are right now but hopefully that all subsides and I do think that I mean clearly Canadian origin material will be at a premium it should be at a premium because it's a very good jurisdiction there's a lot of material there and the West is going to need every pound they can get from Canada.
11:56 >> I wonder too if given the move that we've seen in oil this year it's up 50 to 60% but if investors are allocating more money toward oil and that gas as opposed to uranium. >> It could also be what we did hear from a couple of investors that admitted doing that in cell has been a little bit of a rotation from copper cuz copper is always doing very well and from copper into uranium.
12:23 So there's been a little bit of an uptick over the last couple of weeks. And that's been interesting to see if that keeps going. I hope they will cuz it still feels like uranium is under invested. But yeah remains to be seen for now anyway but I mean obviously I would love for us to raise some capital and go back into the market.
12:46 But yeah again we'll see. >> So before I let you go one more question we are in London one of the great cities in the world what do you love most about coming to London? >> I used to live here so it's still like coming home and this year there's so many things going on you obviously have the symposium so you have the big event here and I think they have 11 or 1200 delegates which is the biggest it's ever been.
13:12 But there's so many side events I was a TD conference full day yesterday I was over in the city for a conference on nuclear maritime applications so there's a lot happening in that space and then there's investor events and receptions all around the place. So, it's really turning into a nuclear week.
13:30 So, it's not just about nuclear fuel anymore. You look around here, you have reactor vendors, you have engineering companies, and you can really feel the momentum behind the industry that is not just these few fuel bars anymore. It really is an industry on the march, and it's a very positive vibe, I would say.
13:48 So, it's yeah, upwards and onwards, I think. >> Let's hope so. Per, once again, thank you for stopping by and sharing your insights. >> Yeah, thank you very much, Jimmy. Thank you. Thank you.