Uranium names gain as Trump nixes import limits, begins nuclear fuel review

• U.S. uranium producers recoup a little of last Friday's losses that followed reports Pres. Trump would decline to issue quotas for domestic uranium production, which the White House later confirmed; UUUU +2.3%, URG +4.9% and UEC +6.1% after all lost more than a third of their value on Friday.
• Trump created a working group to review the U.S. nuclear fuel supply chain over the next 90 days, asking to find other ways to boost the domestic uranium industry.
• Petitions from UUUU and URG had sought quotas requiring 25% of the U.S. uranium market be sourced domestically.
• The action could mean uranium production in the U.S. will "effectively disappear," but it also could bring utilities, which had largely stopped buying uranium because of the uncertainty about whether use of non-U.S. uranium might be curbed, back to the spot market, says Dustin Garrow, managing principal at Nuclear Fuel Associates.
• Electric utility companies with nuclear power plants including Duke Energy (DUK +0.7%), Entergy (ETR +0.4%) and First Energy (FE +0.3%) had fought against the miners' petitions, arguing their costs would rise if they were forced to source U.S. uranium.
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