New approach needed to boost Canadian output: Sprott CEO 

Canada’s next prime minister had better be serious about expediting permitting reviews to speed up mine construction, according to the world’s biggest holder of physical uranium. Both leading contenders for the prime minister’s job touted the merits of a “one project, one review” system during the most recent federal election campaign, which is set to conclude with Monday’s vote. Liberal Party leader and PM Mark Carney pledged to approve resource projects within two years through a dedicated office, while Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre vowed to open a Rapid Resource Project Office with an even shorter time limit – one year – to get “shovels in the ground” as fast as possible.  Drawn-out permitting timelines have been a long-standing irritant for miners. Canada is the third-slowest jurisdiction in the world when it comes to the amount of time required to develop a mine, S&P Global found in a study released last year. At 27 years, the average lead time for Canada trailed only that of the United States, at 29 years, and Zambia, at 34 years. “I sure hope that the talk of shorter timelines is real because it’s a serious problem in Canada,” Sprott Asset Management CEO John Ciampaglia said in a mid-April interview. “Whether it’s new mines, new infrastructure or new pipelines, the timelines to permit new projects are beyond reasonable. Everybody is talking about wanting to be open for business but I need to see it. So far, nothing has changed.” Largest fundWith holdings of about $4.3 billion (C$5.95 billion) as of April, Ciampaglia’s Sprott Physical Uranium Trust (TSX: U.U for USD; U.UN for CAD) is the world’s largest physical uranium fund. Units of the trust have lost about 12% of their value in the first quarter of 2025, dragged down by a decline in the uranium spot price. They’ve fallen about 31% in the past year. Mine construction delays have hit the uranium market particularly hard in recent years as demand climbed on electrification and artificial intelligence’s insatiable appetite for power. Uranium stockpiles help sustain supply as demand outstrips production by 50 million to 60 million lb. a year, according to World Nuclear Association data. Demand for uranium is projected to triple by 2040, underscoring the urgent need to develop mines. “There is a structural supply deficit, and it won’t be fixed unless the world builds a lot of new greenfield capacity – and sooner rather than later,” Ciampaglia said. “New projects are quite critical. They need to come online.” Athabasca basin Canada’s biggest opportunity lies in Saskatchewan’s Athabasca basin. As companies such as Cameco (TSX: CCO; NYSE: CCJ) Denison Mines (TSX: DML) and NexGen Energy (TSX: NXE) look to advance uranium projects in the province, Ottawa should follow Washington’s lead in fast-tracking mine approvals, Ciampaglia says. “Canada has a huge opportunity,” he said. “Saskatchewan’s Athabasca basin has all sorts of undeveloped projects that have been stuck for 10 or 15 years. Politicians can talk all they want about reshoring the supply chain from China but the lead time for these projects is too long. We clearly need to take a different approach.” Ciampaglia is especially irked to see setbacks pile up for NexGen Energy’s Rook I project, a long-awaited C$2.2 billion capex uranium mine and mill that could produce up to 30 million lbs. annually for at least 24 years.  Although Rook I has a provincial permit and full support from multiple Indigenous nations, a final federal approval is still lacking, two years after Saskatchewan gave the project the go-ahead. ‘Inaction and deceit’ Two rounds of Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) hearings are scheduled to take place next fall and in February 2026, with a final approval decision set to follow soon after – some seven years after NexGen began the permitting process. With construction expected to take three and a half years, that would push the start of operations out to late 2029 or early 2030. The hearings “come much later than anticipated,” Red Cloud Securities head of research David Talbot said in a note in March. “This is contrary to what was conveyed to NXE and Indigenous communities.” The elongated permitting timeline is “an ominous read-through for any other projects just entering the process,” he added. Delaying Rook I’s approval until after the second hearing is “beyond comprehension, inconsistent with previous direction from the CNSC and extremely detrimental to the interests of our communities, the people of Saskatchewan and Canadians across the country,” the Clearwater River Dene Nation, Metis Nation-Saskatchewan and Metis Nation-Saskatchewan Northern Region II said in a joint statement in March. Canada’s regulatory process has become “a tyranny of inaction, deceit and dishonesty,” they said. For Ciampaglia, Rook I is “a case study in delays” typical of Canadian mining projects.  “The mine originally was supposed to come online in 2028. Now it’s 2030. Why 2030? Is it the capital or the deposit? No, it’s the federal permitting process. The provincial permit came quickly and it’s been bogged down with the federal permit ever since,” he said. Construction boom Global utilities aren’t waiting for Canada to pick up the pace. Some 65 nuclear reactors are being built worldwide. By 2030, they could generate an additional 70 gigawatts of additional power – assuming enough uranium is available. “People sometimes get distracted by the new shiny object in the room, whether it’s AI or data centres, but the reality is that out of the 60-plus reactors that are under construction today, half of them are in China,” Ciampaglia said. “China and India are driving the growth. For them it’s business as usual.” Even Europe, which had seemingly sworn off nuclear power, has changed course. “Since 2021, almost every Western country that was going down the path of letting nuclear reactors close prematurely and focusing on renewable energy has stopped and shifted,” he said. “The Netherlands, Belgium, France and the U.K. have all done complete flip-flops back to nuclear and have signalled they want to build more capacity. Countries like Poland are going to be building reactors for the first time. The shift has been monumental, and it’s been driven by net zero decarbonization goals, energy security and the growing realization that you cannot run highly industrialized economies on renewable energy.” Long-term bull These long-term trends are the main reason Ciampaglia remains bullish about uranium – despite the current spot market dynamics.“We’re frustrated by the spot price right now but we remain very constructive on the medium and long-term fundamentals, which we think ultimately will pull the price higher,” he said. “Obviously we’ve had a correction in the last few months, but we think it’s transitory,” he said. “With all the uncertainty going on in the world, our sense is that utilities have stepped away from the market waiting for more clarity on tariffs. They should get back to buying uranium in larger quantities.” How high could spot prices go? While uranium’s “geopolitically charged” nature makes predictions risky, Ciampaglia points out that the spot price hit an all-time high of $136 per lb. in 2007 during the last boom cycle. When adjusted for inflation, that translates to about $200 per lb. today, he calculates. With the spot price hovering around $64 as press time neared, “we’re a long way off from peak-cycle pricing,” he said. A nuclear accident, of course, would change all that. “Having a large-scale accident that shifts public sentiment away from the technology is always the bear case,” Ciampaglia said. “After (the 2011 accident at) Fukushima, we went into a 10-year bear market.” Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com