From Bloomberg:
Larsen & Toubro Ltd., India’s largest engineering company, aims to win 60 billion rupees ($1.3 billion) of orders a year building nuclear reactors by 2015 as a global shift to cleaner energy spurs demand for atomic plants.
“The first orders for the foreign reactors will start coming in 2011,” M.V. Kotwal, Larsen’s senior vice president, said in an interview in New Delhi late yesterday. “We can cater to the needs for critical equipment for any of these technologies, whether Russian, French or American.”
Atomic energy companies led by Areva SA and GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy are flocking to India after a three-decade global ban on nuclear trade was lifted last year. Global spending on new reactors may reach as much as $1.05 trillion by 2030, according to management consultants Capgemini, as fossil-fuel generators are retired and governments seek carbon-emission cuts.
Meanwhile the commodities market for radioactives makes the news in Globe +Mail:
A supply glut could see uranium prices tumble over coming months, but that will be a buying opportunity as demand from nuclear reactors over coming years is expected to surge.
Governments around the world are sizing up nuclear energy – a means of generating electricity – as an alternative to expensive fossil fuels such as crude oil and coal, which pollute the atmosphere when burned.
Uranium on the spot market could fall to $35 (U.S.) a lb over the next quarter, to its lowest since late 2005 from around $45 a lb currently and $136 a lb in June 2007.
Over the next year it is likely to be capped at $55 a lb, but beyond 2011 some analysts expect it to rebound to $80 a lb.
“Uranium will be oversupplied in the short term. Utilities have more than they need for this year,” said John Wong, portfolio manager at New City Investment Managers.
“Next year the uranium market – estimated at about 180 million lbs – will be oversupplied by about 10 million lbs.”
Reasons for the oversupply include strong production growth in Kazakhstan, one of the world’s top uranium producers, which said this month it will aim to produce 15,000 tonnes next year compared with 13,800 tonnes this year.
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