changes in the uranium industry

The turning point in the health of the uranium industry was the Fukishima nuclear accident in Japan.There, of course, had been previous accidents but the press coverage was quite a bit larger in Japan.Suddenly there was a blanket over the uranium industry and the price of nuclear fuel took a nosedive.The price had been hovering around $70 and moved fairly quickly down to around $40 to $45 a pound.This affected the health of the entire industry.Production of uranium went down as the price fell.
Consolidation 
          A lot of small companies had to curb production because of lack of buyers.Revenues started to drop for many small producers.Gradually some of these juniors started to buy up each other.Consolidation was taking place.This happened particularly in the Athabasca Basin in Alberta.There were small claims and only one mill in the area to process raw uranium.There were one and now two mills in the U.S.A.
A company called Mega Uranium  has been adept at acquiring small companies in the basin and recently bought a chunk of shares in Bayswater and Toro Energy(Australia).Energy Fuels bought a chunk of shares in Mega and Denison bought Rockgate Capital outright.
There are only two processing plants in U.S.A;Energy Fuels has one and now there is a new one in Wyoming owned by Ur-Energy.Cameco has a mill in Canada and there is a new joint venture in Mclean Lake.
Small producers 
Many small producers are not in production at all.Yet they are starting to see the value of their resource go up.Now producers can buy other "small cap" stocks by transferring parcels of land or by all share deals.There are less cash deals around.These deals also have conditions on expenditure on developing lands they buy.Many deals have a royalty fee attached to the price of uranium.As the price of uranium goes up the royalty goes up.This saddles small companies with payments over quite a few years.Then they become targets for larger companies themselves.
Catalysts
These changes in the industry have come about because of the 33% drop in price in a short period of time.Also other countries have followed the Japanese lead.Germany has plans to mothball up to seven nuclear reactors.France, in contrast,has built a couple of new reactors.There have been a couple of small American and Canadian  utilities that are in need of new uranium and made purchases .Japan will likely go back to nuclear plants in the future largely because of economics.Both China and India intend to use nuclear plants but have built few plants.Nevertheless both countries will have to stockpile uranium  soon before

plants are built.Overall demand will likely increase slowly from foreign plants but North America may see increases in demand.The price of coal is up 25% since August and natural gas is up about 33%.Alternative sources of energy cost more now and will not drop much this winter.
Price is an indicator
   All uranium stock prices have moved up since August and even since October.Cameco has moved from $18 a share to around $22.This increases market capitalization by at least $1.5 billion.It seems that investors are counting on the price of uranium to  move further ahead in the coming months.