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Chart: Can Uranium Be Great Again?

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Chart: Can Uranium Be Great Again?

Can Uranium be Great Again?

Uranium miners up 59% since election on pro-nuclear hopes

The Chart of the Week is a weekly Visual Capitalist feature on Fridays.

Uranium’s spot price had a rough ride throughout the course of 2016, but for many investors there is suddenly a new aura of optimism around the troubled metal.

It all starts with Donald Trump’s “America First” strategy, which is being perceived by many as a potential boon to the uranium sector. Official details are slim, but industry executives are currently speculating that the Trump administration will be better for nuclear power than the previous government.

If that’s true, then it would mean far less regulatory hurdles for nuclear power, and likely even funding to bring more power plants online in the United States.

A Shot in the Arm

Perhaps such a catalyst is just what the metal needed. Both the spot price and the share prices of uranium miners have been in a gruesome bear market ever since the 2011 Fukushima incident in Japan. The prolonged pain has weathered down investors and companies alike, but everything has to bottom at some point.

As David Erfle from Kitco pointed out last week, the chart for the the Global X Uranium ETF (URA) makes any other downturn look like a piece of cake. The ETF, which tracks global uranium miners, has lost a whopping 90% of its value over the last six years, including two rollbacks (in 2013 and 2015).

Lately, thanks to the “Trump bump” and a 10% production cut in Kazakhstan announced earlier this month, the URA is suddenly buzzing with volume. The ETF is now back up on its feet, gaining a solid 59% since the election.

But Can Uranium Be Great Again?

A bounce in uranium stocks is something that was way overdue. However, if nuclear-related announcements aren’t made soon from the Trump administration, the newfound optimism could fade pretty fast.

Statistically speaking, the World Health Organization says that nuclear power kills less people per terawatt hour than any other major source of power, even rooftop solar. Nuclear is also friendly from an emissions perspective: using a life-cycle emissions analysis, nuclear generates similar emissions to wind or hydropower.

The problem, of course, lies in the fat tail risk of a nuclear catastrophe, which is something that is still fresh in people’s minds in the wake of Fukushima.

Whether nuclear and uranium can be great again depends on the public’s tolerance for such projects, as well as a significant amount of support from the government to push new projects through. The rally is much welcomed by uranium investors – but it will remain unclear if it has any long-term legs until these two considerations are met.

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Energy

The World’s Biggest Oil Producers in 2023

Just three countries accounted for 40% of global oil production last year.

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Donut chart showing the biggest oil producers by country in 2023.

The World’s Biggest Oil Producers in 2023

This was originally posted on Elements. Sign up to the free mailing list to get beautiful visualizations on natural resource megatrends in your email.

Despite efforts to decarbonize the global economy, oil still remains one of the world’s most important resources. It’s also produced by a fairly limited group of countries, which can be a source of economic and political leverage.

This graphic illustrates global crude oil production in 2023, measured in million barrels per day, sourced from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

Three Countries Account for 40% of Global Oil Production

In 2023, the United States, Russia, and Saudi Arabia collectively contributed 32.7 million barrels per day to global oil production.

Oil Production 2023Million barrels per day
🇺🇸 U.S.12.9
🇷🇺 Russia10.1
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia9.7
🇨🇦 Canada4.6
🇮🇶 Iraq4.3
🇨🇳 China4.2
🇮🇷 Iran3.6
🇧🇷 Brazil3.4
🇦🇪 UAE3.4
🇰🇼 Kuwait2.7
🌍 Other22.8

These three nations have consistently dominated oil production since 1971. The leading position, however, has alternated among them over the past five decades.

In contrast, the combined production of the next three largest producers—Canada, Iraq, and China—reached 13.1 million barrels per day in 2023, just surpassing the production of the United States alone.

In the near term, no country is likely to surpass the record production achieved by the U.S. in 2023, as no other producer has ever reached a daily capacity of 13.0 million barrels. Recently, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned Saudi Aramco scrapped plans to increase production capacity to 13.0 million barrels per day by 2027.

In 2024, analysts forecast that the U.S. will maintain its position as the top oil producer. In fact, according to Macquarie Group, U.S. oil production is expected to achieve a record pace of about 14 million barrels per day by the end of the year.

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