Uranium stocks soar as Constellation agrees Microsoft deal
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The news: Uranium miners gained on the ASX as Nasdaq-listed uranium play Constellation Energy announced a 20-year power purchase agreement with Microsoft.
The numbers: Uranium majors Boss Energy (8.4%), Paladin Energy (6.9%) and Deep Yellow (6.8%) were the three best performing stocks across the ASX 200 by 12:10pm AEST.
The context: Last week, Baltimore-based Constellation signed its largest-ever power purchase agreement with Microsoft, in a deal that will support the launch of the new Crane Clean Energy Center and the restart of a unit of Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, which shut down five years ago.
Under the agreement, Microsoft will purchase energy from the renewed plant as part of its goal to help match the power used by its data centres in the Pennsylvania-New Jersey-Maryland Interconnection with carbon-free energy.
What they said: "Powering industries critical to our nation’s global economic and technological competitiveness, including data centres, requires an abundance of energy that is carbon-free and reliable every hour of every day, and nuclear plants are the only energy sources that can consistently deliver on that promise," said Constellation's president and CEO Joe Dominguez.
"Before it was prematurely shuttered due to poor economics, this plant was among the safest and most reliable nuclear plants on the grid, and we look forward to bringing it back with a new name and a renewed mission to serve as an economic engine for Pennsylvania," he said.
Microsoft's vice president of energy, Bobby Hollis, said: "This agreement is a major milestone in Microsoft's efforts to help decarbonise the grid in support of our commitment to become carbon negative. Microsoft continues to collaborate with energy providers to develop carbon-free energy sources to help meet the grids' capacity and reliability needs."
The source: Constellation Energy media release
