Ever wonder who the top uranium miners are? Here are top 10 uranium-producing countries by tonnes U, and the top 5 uranium miners by market capitalization. You’ll notice some interesting relationships in the country data, and may recognize a name or two in the market cap section. These are just some ideas to get you thinking about possible uranium investments. It’s not too late to make some money off the uranium surge.
Top 10 Largest Uranium Miners by country
- Canada
- Australia
- Kazakhstan
- Russia
- Namibia
- Niger
- Uzbekistan
- USA
- Ukraine
- China
(Source: World Nuclear Association)
Canada and Australia combined produce 51% of the world’s uranium from uranium mines. Notice that China is far down on the list at position #10. The growing demand from China for uranium in order to power their nuclear plants will provide growth opportunities for Australian and Canadian uranium miners. Don’t forget about the US as well. Clocking in at position #8, the United States must take similar actions as did the Chinese to support their growing nuclear demand.
Top 6 Largest Uranium Miners by Market Capitalization
Minimum Criteria:
- Must trade on a US Stock Exchange. I plan to calculate the market caps in terms of US dollars for foreign traded stocks in my next uranium post.
- Must actively operate in uranium production/mining industry.
- BHP Billiton LTD (BHP) - $135 billion
- Rio Tinto plc (RTO) - $72 billion
- Cameco Corp. (CCJ) - $13 billion
- SXR Uranium One - $2.4 billion
- USEC Inc. (USU) - $1.26 billion
- Fronteer Development Group Inc. (FRG) - $800 million
There are two ways to go about uranium investing: either invest in pure uranium miners or diversified industrial miners. Small cap uranium stocks may offer a larger upside, but your risk is much greater. Diversified miners can take advantage of economies of scale, plus they own more capital, helping to preserve and operate existing uranium mines. A safer investment would be in a diversified industrial metals and materials miner that’s highly levered towards uranium.
Will uranium stocks outperform in 2007?
Update: SXR Uranium One (SXR) has been added to the list.
Your company list is a bit busted. It would be more interesting to input how much each company generates from their uranium sales/production. BHP, RIO dont make that much from the uranium operations as the smaller competitors.
Will uranium stocks outperform the market in 2007 you ask? Well we think so. However we prefer the smaller uranium stocks to those on the list above, with the exception of Fronteer.
It is difficult to strip out just how much the bigger companies have in the uranium sector. Therefore you are investing in many things, if this is the exposure you want then thats fine. However, if you require exposure to uranium or say uranium and gold, then you need to look a little further down the list, at some of the smaller operations.
Thanks for the input. I will work on a list of uranium miners, according to sales/production. This would reveal potential long-term pushers in the fast growing uranium industry.