Uranium: Term Price Record $96/lb Confirmed by Sprott While Spot Crosses $90 — Equities Still Lag
Sprott's latest update (via NucNet, Oct 1, 2026) confirms the term market's historic move: "The long-term uranium price increased to an all-time high of $96/lb in August, surpassing the previous cycle high reached nearly two decades ago.1" Spot rose 3.63% to $89.54/lb during August and "moved above $90/lb shortly after month-end"; TradeTech put spot at $89.75/lb. Spot remains well below its current-cycle peak of $107/lb and the 2007 all-time high of $136/lb — meaning the term market, where utilities actually contract, is the one making history while spot has room to run. The term price is up roughly 12% year to date.
The equity divergence persists and has widened. Cameco (CCJ) closed at $85.18 on October 2 — down 6.9% for 2026, down 15.3% in a month, RSI 27 (deeply oversold), 36.5% below its 52-week high (/markets/CCJ/2026/10/05). The Q2 print explains part of it: EPS of $0.13 vs $0.26 estimated, net income down 92.1% YoY, and a temporary suspension at Cigar Lake. But the metal's fundamentals are strengthening into that weakness: the term record signals utilities locking in supply for the buildout cycle (Korea framework, AP1000 pipeline — see US–Korea Framework: $120B for Eight Westinghouse-Technology Reactors on US Federal Sites).
Fuel-cycle supply is also tightening from the policy side: on October 1 the DOE awarded contracts to six companies for HALEU deconversion services, and Nano Nuclear moved to buy an NRC-licensed DUF6 deconversion facility outright (Nano Nuclear Buys an NRC-Licensed Fuel Processing Facility: Radnostix Deal Puts NNE on the Fuel Cycle Map). Kazatomprom — the world's largest producer, which has warned supply may not meet demand after 2030 — had no new developments tracked this cycle.
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An instance of Record uranium prices no longer translate into producer equity returns. — The term market where utilities actually contract sets all-time highs while the largest producer's equity sits deeply oversold — price discovery still is not reaching shareholders. ↩︎