Uranium miners sink as Inkai resumes production; DeepSeek raises doubt on energy demand
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The news: Uranium miners tanked in morning trade on the ASX after Canadian producer Cameco said its Inkai joint venture in Kazakhstan had resumed production.
Also, the nuclear energy miners tracked energy falls on Wall Street after Chinese-AI startup DeepSeek raised doubts on the forecasted surge in electricity demand for data centres.
The numbers: Uranium stocks Deep Yellow (-16.8%), Paladin Energy (-12.4%) and Boss Energy (-10.4%) were the three worst performing ASX 200 companies by 11:30am AEDT.
Energy, down 1.36%, was the second worst performing sector as the ASX 200 index traded roughly flat.
The context: Shares in Deep Yellow, Paladin and Boss all surged at the start of the month, after Toronto- and New York-listed Cameco said Inkai production was unexpectedly halted due to a lapse in authorisation from the government.
Cameco and its joint venture partner Kazatomprom are now working together to determine the impact of the production suspension on the operation's 2025 production plans.
State-run Kazatomprom holds a 60% interest in JV Inkai, while Cameco owns a 40% share.
Nuclear energy had been tipped as a power solution for data centres.
What they said: "The release of Chinese AI company DeepSeek’s open-source reasoning model R1 has raised questions about how much electricity will be required to power future data centres," Morningstar analyst Travis Miller said.
"We still believe data centre growth will result in more electricity demand, but not as much as market valuations suggested."
The sources: Cameco media release, Morningstar research
