Protests in Kazakhstan push uranium, oil prices higher

By Al Mayadeen
Source: Agencies
8 Jan 2022 19:05

Uranium to Kazakhstan is what oil is to Saudi Arabia - and the price is hiking in both resources amid unrest.

Uranium stocks in Kazakhstan (Image: Kazatomprom)

As Kazakhstan goes through a political crisis, uranium and oil prices have increased.

Kazakhstan produces over 40% of the world's uranium - as prices soar from $42 to $45.25 a pound as of Wednesday, according to UxC data, there will be an increasing reliance on other suppliers in North America and Australia.

If Kazakhstan's oil prices were to face severe issues in the long run, the situation, according to Jonathan Hinze, president of UxC, will be akin to "Saudi Arabia having issues in oil," and “even if there isn’t a shortage right now, the potential for this to create a shortage is what people now are trading on.”

Although uranium prices are rising, there isn't a shortage of power plant shutdowns. Many analysts contend that in case of any lessening of production in uranium, power plants will continue to function as stockpiles have been built over the years, in contrast to facilities that run on fossil fuels.

Kazatomprom, a uranium mining company in Kazakhstan, has seen its shares fall 10% in the last 2 days.

With the rise in violence in Kazakhstan, “people wake up to the fact that maybe we can’t rely on one major producer,” said Nick Piquard, a portfolio manager at Horizons ETFs.

Crude oil has its share of the trauma

Crude oil has also experienced a sharp increase on Thursday, remaining high on Friday as oil production in Tengiz, located in the Caspian Sea, was reduced.

Brent Crude was trading at 80$ a barrel, whereas West Texas Intermediate was trading at 82$ a barrel.

According to Reuters, some of the production disruptions were due to contractors working on the field who had declared their support for the protestors, thus creating disruption in train lines.

Kazakhstan produces around 1.6 million barrels per day of crude oil - 700,000 of these barrels are from Tengiz. In compliance with OPEC+, for February, the country's quota is 1.589 million barrels a day.