The uranium market, like all commodity markets, has a history of volatility, moving not only with the standard forces of supply and demand

Supply and demand

Supply and demand is an economic model of price determination in a market. It concludes that in a competitive market, the unit price for a particular good will vary until it settles at a point where the quantity demanded by consumers will equal the quantity supplied by producers , resulting in an...

, but also to whims of geopolitics

Geopolitics

Geopolitics, from Greek Γη and Πολιτική in broad terms, is a theory that describes the relation between politics and territory whether on local or international scale....

. It has also evolved particularities of its own in response to the unique nature and use of this material.

The only significant commercial use for uranium

Uranium

Uranium is a silvery-white metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table, with atomic number 92. It is assigned the chemical symbol U. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons...

 is to fuel nuclear reactor

Nuclear reactor

A nuclear reactor is a device to initiate and control a sustained nuclear chain reaction. Most commonly they are used for generating electricity and for the propulsion of ships. Usually heat from nuclear fission is passed to a working fluid , which runs through turbines that power either ship's...

s for the generation of electricity. There are 440 reactors operating worldwide, and a total of 60 new reactors that are under construction, with over 150 power reactors (with a total net capacity of some 172,000 MWe) planned and over 340 more proposed (as of August 2011).

Before uranium is ready for use as nuclear fuel

Nuclear fuel

Nuclear fuel is a material that can be 'consumed' by fission or fusion to derive nuclear energy. Nuclear fuels are the most dense sources of energy available...

 in reactors, it must undergo a number of intermediary processing steps which are identified as the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle

Nuclear fuel cycle

The nuclear fuel cycle, also called nuclear fuel chain, is the progression of nuclear fuel through a series of differing stages. It consists of steps in the front end, which are the preparation of the fuel, steps in the service period in which the fuel is used during reactor operation, and steps in...

: mining

Uranium mining

Uranium mining is the process of extraction of uranium ore from the ground. The worldwide production of uranium in 2009 amounted to 50,572 tonnes, of which 27% was mined in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan, Canada, and Australia are the top three producers and together account for 63% of world uranium...

 it (either underground or in open pit mines), milling it into yellowcake

Yellowcake

Yellowcake is a kind of uranium concentrate powder obtained from leach solutions, in an intermediate step in the processing of uranium ores. Yellowcake concentrates are prepared by various extraction and refining methods, depending on the types of ores...

, enriching it

Enriched uranium

Enriched uranium is a kind of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 has been increased through the process of isotope separation. Natural uranium is 99.284% 238U isotope, with 235U only constituting about 0.711% of its weight...

 and finally fuel fabrication

Nuclear fuel

Nuclear fuel is a material that can be 'consumed' by fission or fusion to derive nuclear energy. Nuclear fuels are the most dense sources of energy available...

 to produce fuel assemblies or bundles.