Marcelo Lopez Invests 70 % in Uranium

The Commodity Supercycle

Our partner Marc Friedrich presents a new video series “The Commodity Supercycle” on his Youtube channel.

The term supercycle means the longest period, or wave, in the growth of a financial market as described by the Elliott wave principle, originally conceived and formulated by Ralph Nelson Elliott.

Marc Friedrich believes that a new supercycle has already started and calls it “The Commodity Supercycle”.

In a series of video interviews, Marc will give deep insights to commodity trading, timing and “financial intelligence”:

As a result of the Corona crisis, central banks have pumped more money into the system than ever before. In parallel, governments have put together fiscal packages at historically unprecedented levels to buffer the recession and the effects of the crisis. All of this has caused prices for building materials, energy and raw materials to soar and for the first time in 40 years we are seeing strong inflation. Marc Friedrich believes that we are seeing a turning point and are at the beginning of a Commodity Supercycle that holds huge opportunities.

With his new series “The Commodity Supercycle” Marc Friedrich has once again gathered the brightest and most famous minds in the world of finance and commodities to recognize and seize the great opportunities now. A series, which looks for its equals in Germany, yes in Europe. Financial intelligence of the Champions League!

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Marcelo Lopez Invests 70 % in Uranium

The second interview in this new video series is with Marcelo Lopez:

Marcelo Lopez is one of the best known commodity hedge fund managers in the world. He has been active in the uranium market for several years and sees it as the biggest investment opportunity of his life. What attracts him to it and how he reacts to criticism, you will learn in this new episode of the Commodity Supercycle!

Marcelo Lopez on Twitter: https://twitter.com/malopez1975

Complete video transcript (auto-generated):

wow

welcome to a new episode of the

commodity

super cycle it’s 6 00 a.m in sydney and

10 p.m in germany marcelo got up

really early and i stayed up very late

i’m tired i can tell you that

so we do everything to bring you the

best content available on

commodities on earth actually so martin

lopez is a guy who bets his savings and

career

on uranium yes you heard it right

i think you even mentioned around 70

percent you are

invested in uranium aren’t you marcelo

yep

uh well it was 70 when i started today

is way more than that because of the

100 year price appreciation yeah so

additionally you stated that the market

cap of

all uranium equities amounts to roughly

20 billion dollars which is ridiculous

you know that an investor can buy all of

a

key power source for about 135th in the

valuation of tesla which is crazy

so yeah this is marcelo lopez from

brazil right now in australia so please

give us a little background about you

who is marcelo lopez

sure well first of all thanks mark for

for the invitations a pleasure to to be

talking to you

i am a mechanical engineer and i i did a

trainee program at lights bank

in brazil in the late 90s lloyds was an

investment bank at that time

and and i always like the stock market

so i went to a brokerage company close

by every lunch time to

to learn more about stocks so

when when the russian crisis happened

and in the long term capital management

collapsed uh brazilian stocks crashed

big time

yeah and i thought it was the best time

to start an investment fund focused on

brazilian equities

so i resigned from lights bank and

started my first investment fund at the

end of 1998.

uh well and i did really well with this

fund it was a huge success it returned

over 200

to investors in in just over a year year

and a half maybe

um and i tell people it wasn’t because

it was a genius but

the the opportunity was just too great

yeah

and uh and soon i believe we’re going to

talk about another great opportunity

uh just before our eyes but um anyway

at that time some brazilian equities

were trading for less than the cash they

had in the bank

and and i’m talking about profitable

companies that pay double digit

dividends and and all that so

um after after this fund i i thought the

market was

was a bit toppy and i needed more

knowledge so i

returned the money to investors and i

went to spain to do

my mba and after the mba i went to

finland to do a specialization in

finance and after finland

i moved to london and i worked for a big

hedge fund focused on emerging markets

called gartmore

until the end of 2006.

and my job at garthmore was to to look

for opportunities in emerging markets to

invest in

and at the end of 2006 i believe i’d

have found another

a miscible investment opportunity which

was real estate in brazil

so again i left my job and decided to

invest in real estate in brazil and i

co-founded a company that meant to grow

into one of the biggest

real estate firms in brazil today this

company is owned by julius bayer and

and as i said it’s it’s one of the

biggest real estate

asset management companies in the

country and uh

in 2013 i decided to go back to the

financial markets and i founded l2

capital

an asset management company so the idea

was to look for opportunities but

instead of focusing on emerging markets

we would look for opportunities

and asymmetric asymmetric investment

themes

uh globally and well i believe we’re

going to talk about nuclear energy and

obviously the

the metal that powers those reactors

which is to me

the best investment opportunity i’ve

seen in my life

yeah and you mentioned also the most

symmetric trait you’ve ever seen in your

life but

before we um get to uranium so how did

you end up in australia actually um

how is this situation there right now

with covet and everything

so tell us something oh i think well

i mean sydney new south wales and and uh

well it looks like kofi didn’t show up

here at all life of go

goes on as normal people are uh going to

the shopping malls going to the

restaurants

uh kids are at school i think school was

suspended last year for a couple of

weeks if that but

um life is normal i can tell you that

yeah it’s a blessed country and you you

ended up in australia because

of the yellow cake this was this was

personal reasons we

we ended up moving here a few years ago

and uh

we we stay here personal reasons all

right okay perfect so

yeah let’s um dip into the uranium

sector

so um um remember we’re talking to

german audience

and and we shut down all no we will shut

down all nuclear plants so

this is something totally totally crazy

so give us an elevator pitch

um why are you so excited about uranium

and nuclear power

sure um well let me talk about the

benefits of nuclear

energy because as you mentioned germany

has decided to shut down all its nuclear

power plants

and i think it’s important for people to

know

what the benefits are so they can at

least weigh the situation right

so nuclear energy is it’s

clean energy and it provides reliable

abundant and safe energy unlike most

people

would think nuclear energy is just the

best and most advanced form of energy

ever invented so if the world is really

serious about the environment

nuclear must be a part of the solution

the idea is very simple though the

execution is complex

but you basically um split an atom and

it generates energy to hit water that

powers a turbine that will generate

electricity

so um if if you compare

uh nuclear to other other sources of

energy

uh you know nuclear energy just

killed all of them uh it’s it’s

it in any way shape or form you look at

it it’s uh it’s

better than the other forms of energy it

has more energy density

so and i have even these noted here

just to just to to to mention to you

because i knew we’re going to talk about

it

but uh firewood when you when you

burn firewood you generate 16 mega jaws

per kilo

yeah when you burn coal you generate 23

mega jaws per kilogram

diesel it’s a big improvement it’s 44

mega jaws per kilogram

and uranium is 3 900

giga jaws per kilo so

it’s almost 100 000 times better

than the others in in terms of safety

which is an item that mo

most people would like to discuss yeah

nuclear gain comes way ahead

now i i actually use this data in my

presentation to investors and i got it

from the u.s

energy information administration um

you you have an in on one extreme code

with a hundred thousand

deaths per trillion kilowatt hour

and on the other one you have a nuclear

with with less than a hundred

so the the comparison is cruel and uh

i’m sure we we we we end up going to

talk about the two major accidents

fukushima and

uh but let me just talk about the other

things before

uh if if the subject is reliability uh

surprise surprise

nuclear also comes ahead nuclear

reactors work

most of the time with planned shutdowns

for refueling and maintenance

which which is now happening every 18

months in a few reactors

so a nuclear reactor can provide clean

energy with a capacitive factor

of over 93 percent

natural gas is less than 60 percent co

is less than 50

wind is just over 30 percent and solar

energy has a capacity factor of

25 percent yeah it’s that

people think that the so-called

renewables

uh wind and solar will be able to save

the planets but

they’re highly unreliable they need a

backup

and you know as the sun does not shine

all the time the wind does not

blow all the time and you would be

surprised

monk to know that the big oil companies

like

total bp chevron and all that

they spend billions of dollars in

supporting solar and wind

and you might ask why is that aren’t

they

shooting themselves in the foot but

the reality is that they know the

so-called renewables

are not reliable and they need a backup

in this case a dirty backup

being natural gas or or oil or or even

coal

so the more money people spend on these

so-called renewables

more power they will give to fossil fuel

producers

um now let’s let’s talk about land

requirements

uh solar panel solar panels in general

need an

area of up to 400 times bigger

to produce the same amount of

electricity as nuclear

they demand 18 times more steel and

produced

300 times more hazardous waste

imagine the impact of this kind of

construction in the natural landscape

the human footprint is is devastating

and not only steel you spend way more on

concrete on

rare earth and in other materials uh

making it not only a pollutant but also

expensive

and uh and and i’m not even gonna

mention that wind and solar uh

rely heavily on government subsidies uh

the

they are still uh pollutants um

and uh you know the wind can can can

also

kill rare birds bats uh they can be

noisy

the their productivity decays very

rapidly with the passage of time

and they have to be disposed somewhere

creating more toxic

rubbish as far as i know there’s not a

proper place for this for these items to

be disposed

um another thing people think that they

will use batteries and that will solve

all the problems

but but the issue here is base load it

doesn’t matter if your car runs on

batteries

if you recharge those batteries using

the electricity that was produced

using coal you are actually polluting

more

way more i should say you you’d better

off of owning a a diesel car

yeah um now i i said to people that the

the so-called renewables wind and solar

are unreliable and

what what many people do not realize is

that it

increases the cost of electricity and

increases the risks to the grid

so bear with me let me try to explain

this a little further

just to to to make it easy so sorry

about the oversimplification

but electricity produced

now is being consumed now it can be

consumed tomorrow next week or next

month it has to be consumed now

so imagine a couple of scenarios the

first one we need electricity now

but the wind is not blowing the sun is

not shining

so what are we going to do well we have

to turn on the backup

which is normally gas or co so the idea

that you’re not polluting

just go through the window uh but

there’s a different scenario which is

not good either and no one talks about

and that’s when you don’t need

electricity now but the wind is blowing

and the sun is shining

so now you have to dispose this

electricity somehow and

you you first you have to shut down

whatever source of energy is feeding the

grids

and you have to do it in a haste so

imagine you have a coal plant or gas or

even nuclear

they have to shut down so the grid can

use electricity provided by the

so-called renewables

in california and i’m pretty sure it has

happened in germany too

a few times but you might be able to

to check this and you know uh

but they they um they needed

electrician at a certain period

of time and the sun was not shining and

the wind was not blowing

so they have to buy expensive

electricity from nearby states

france even worse when they can produce

electricity from

from these so-called renewables and they

don’t need electricity

they have to sell it to someone else or

what is going on

i have to interrupt you in in in the

southern part of germany we even

paid other countries that they would

take our electricity

because we didn’t want to danger the

grid you know

it’s crazy that’s exactly what i was

going to say it’s a complete nonsense in

california it happens over and over

again

and people don’t understand why the

electricity bills are so high and

you know it’s and and the pollution goes

up too because the backup has to be

turned on

and and you increase the risk to the

grid

so that anyway mark whichever way you

look at nuclear energy it comes

way ahead of the others now the feud

that

nuclear really loses is the information

battle

there’s a lot of misinformation out

there and people just don’t

they just don’t want to see it and

that’s the problem and

um i believe people have to educate

themselves and and

that’s what we’re doing here right we’re

bringing new information so people can

think about those issues

uh independently and stop accepting

being spoon-fed misleading information

yeah that’s why i was so keen talking to

you know to give the people financial

intelligence to have an insider who is

really deep in the

in the topic and we talk about some some

points

somebody else never mentioned you know

the media or the politicians

sure listen i i for once i was against

nuclear energy i thought those

nuclear reactors could explode and kill

everyone around but i’m here

but they they only explode on tv series

yeah yeah so yeah but you know that the

critics always come with

channel bill they come with fukushima so

what do you reply to them if they say

hey but they can blow off they can

explode and can waste all the country

and

all the people yeah yeah well

they do say that actually but you know

people talk about fukushima and and i

say that fukushima is the best

reason why we need to have more nuclear

reactors

almost 20 000 people died because of the

tsunami

around 1 000 people died because of the

evacuation process

and no one zero had any injuries

because of the nuclear accident and it

somehow acts uh

you know it’s interesting to see because

fukushima just entered the map because

of the nuclear accident

but the nuclear accident didn’t hurt

anyone

actually nuclear reactors are so safe in

japan that

and and they are so well built that when

there’s an earthquake

people move move closer to to to nuclear

reactors

now if we talk about chernobyl which was

the only nuclear accident in

history with victims and we look at the

facts

we are also going to come to the same

conclusion

um you know now a couple of years ago i

interviewed dr

jerry thomas who is a phd and post

doctor in pathology

and she works for the imperial college

in london and it was a great

conversation the the

the podcast is actually available in in

our website to

whoever is interested and i really like

to talk to dr thomas because

she knows a lot about cancer molecular

pathology

and the health effects of radiation so

she told me that uh like many of her

friends

back then she she she was left wing and

uh she was leaning towards

well she was actually she has a lot of

prejudice

against nuclear energy so she decided to

write about the horbones that

was nuclear energy and after her

research

she fell in love with it uh now she

travels around the world to talk to

everyone about the benefits of nuclear

energy

so here are the facts um 134 people

died because of the fire so um

these were people who were there at the

time of the accident

or or people who arrived soon after or

you know

in in these people who suffered acute

radiation exposure or got

burned um the

the who the the world health

organization

estimates that the increase in

thyroid cancer will be around 16

000 people by 2006

so the accident happened more than 30

years ago and they’re projecting another

the 44 40 44 years ahead

uh if we take these numbers as as

reality

and and there is dispute around them but

we know that thyroid cancer is the

easiest curable form of cancer

on average only one percent of the

patients die because of feds

so the the total death count will get to

160 people

overall over all this period of time

and curiously enough thyroid cancer

treatment is based on doses of radiation

so there’s a story of what happened and

what happened

and the story is obviously way more

interesting i i’ve heard this this

phrase a while ago

and i love it and it it goes like that

don’t you

hate when the facts get in the way of a

great story

now people claim that nuclear energy has

uh has it is bad but it actually has

saved

millions of life by preventing the

burning of fossil fuels

uh you you probably heard me saying that

before but

i like to compare it to sharks and

insects

insects kill more than six hundred

thousand people every year on

average around the world being made from

uh transmission of diseases

allergies or poison whatever

um but in in if we if we talk about

sharks now

guess how many people on average around

the world

die every year because of a shark attack

i think it’s five or fifteen ten

yeah look hey i was good yeah you were

very good

very good but you know when when it

happens oh it’s a big thing people

closely

come up with all sorts of proposals and

new regulations

put nets on the sea to protect swimmers

and all that

but they are quite tranquil around

insects that kill 60

000 people 60 000 times more people

yeah it’s their reality versus the the

perception right

and uh in in and also i think there’s a

high association between

nuclear reactors and nuclear bombs which

are complete

different things but but people get

scared and

i believe the first step is to educate

people

yeah i think germany uh suffers uh

with this way more than other countries

for historical reasons

and and and obviously this waited a lot

on on german sentiment

and uh well please correct me if i’m

wrong uh but it’s just my opinion

yeah but no not yep

you’re not wrong you’re not wrong it’s

it’s it’s it’s insanity what happened

here because of fukushima

and i hope we step back from this

idiotic

um plan to switch off all the nuclear

plants and get in more dependency

from other countries and by expensive

electricity from

czech republic or france and uh they

they create this electricity from coal

or oil or gas

or nuclear power you know that’s the

thing and

yeah which i just hope we will um step

back so

which which countries are the most

focused ones on nuclear energy

well i think the growth is coming from

uh

china mostly but asia asia is

where the action is happening people

tend to look at

the western world and and think that

nuclear is a dying industry

yeah but it’s actually a growth industry

and it’s it’s

booming in asia china is building

a fleet of nuclear reactors if um uh

you know the they are building on on

average

uh six nuclear reactors every year and

they’re going to

keep up this growth until 2025 and then

they

they will scale it up yeah

according to the sinchwa university

uh china has to build uh has to grow its

nuclear fleet

by 382 percent uh by

2060 to achieve the goals that they want

to achieve to be carbon neutral

so it’s an impressive growth and uh same

thing with india russia

uh you know uh turkey saudi arabia

brazil argentina

egypt many of these countries are

building nuclear reactors

but people tend to focus on on on on

europe and

in the u.s and think it’s a dying

industry it’s not it’s a growth industry

yeah yeah definitely is so um and it’s

necessary for the

green revolution we have now to to um

reach the goals of the paris treaty we

need actually

um nuclear energy so i think i hope

germany will see this as well soon so

um i’ve got two big concerns we already

talked about security because all the

critics bring always the security

um point and of course the waste the the

radio

tech active waste so and please give me

your thoughts on this

sure uh no that’s a that’s a that’s a

good point it’s worth mentioning and and

talking about

nuclear waste i i think this is one of

the

sale points for nuclear honestly and and

by a mile first of all let’s clarify

this we shouldn’t call it

waste because the vast majority of the

spent fuel can be

recycle and enter the the fuel cycle

again

so let’s call it spent fuel now if you

put together

uh the the the dispensed view

producing the world since the 60s until

today

you won’t be able to fill two soccer

fields

because uranium has a very high energy

density

the spent fuel is minuscule compared to

other sources

another very important thing uh you tell

me what other source of energy produces

waste that is contained where’s the

waste from from the coal plants or or

the gas glands

it’s in our lungs and and seven million

people die

every year because of pollution more

people dying in japan uh of pollution

uh caused by the closure of the nuclear

reactors than because of the accident

itself

and and they are continuing to die

thanks to fossil fuels

now um you know so to to to have a

waste that is minimal secured and

contained

to me is one of the selling points of

nuclear energy

yeah so what about the the progress in

technology there are new

forms of of um what’s it called i think

mini reactors so can you tell us

something about that

pardon me small modular reactors yeah

exactly

exactly yeah a small modular reactors

are

a type of reactor that is uh smaller and

manufactured somewhere and assembled uh

on site

uh so this one has a few

advantages over the normal nuclear

reactor

so first of all you need less capital to

assemble one

uh that’s that’s pretty good

secondly they are considered way safer

than normal designs

and thirdly they can be put in places

that cannot accommodate

big nuclear reactors and and i think

people will accept them more

they they they are scalable too meaning

that you can build more than one of

these

smrs in in the same place increasing the

power generation capacity

uh oh in in in in the time you spent in

construction is also much less

says let’s say you call let’s say you

you previewed uh a few parts of uh

of of the nuclear reactor and you just

assembled them on site

now uh uh with smrs i believe we’re

going to achieve a much bigger

proportion of

nuclear energy producing the world this

is because

people’s acceptance to small nuclear

reactors

will be greater than the acceptance of

acceptance of of the of the big ones

okay uh

besides for for entrepreneurs the cost

will go down and it makes it

and makes the returns more more enticing

um you know it’s it’s uh it it should be

commercial viable uh

from you know 2027 onwards so we’re

talking about the second half of this

decade

okay cool what about thorium people talk

about

thorium yeah there hasn’t been any

commercial

viable reactor the powered light that i

know of so i

you know thorium has been um talked

about for many years

but you know that again it’s uh

okay it’s a technology that’s years

ahead years

if it ever comes to to to to be

developed

what about the reactors who can use

and the radio active waste again

to create energy yeah well that that

that would be great for for for it

because the

the spent fuel will be recycled and it

happens already in

certain parts of the world france and

and uh russia japan as well

they they they can’t uh they can’t the

the spent fuel

and then put it back onto the nuclear

fuel cycle and and

and reuse that um and and

i think uh the bill gates is trying to

develop this technology a few other

other companies are doing the same that

that would be awesome for for the world

can you imagine that

yeah sure it would be like a perpetua

mobile so it would be like never ending

that would be great

so okay let’s talk about the price why

is it so damn low the iranian price

dropped

60 80 90 percent even over the last

decade

so how is it possible yeah well

uh market was uh it was a perfect storm

for miners

everything that could go wrong for them

went wrong

um fukushima was obviously the most

impactful event

so um after the accident japan shut down

all its nuclear reactors

so the world lost a big buyer of uranium

and gained a seller

uh you know because japan started

selling part of its uh

inventory yes it was taking delivery of

some of the contracts but it was also

active in the spot market

and uh because japan has a lot of

inventories it didn’t help us

at all and and miners didn’t stop mining

at that time they they thought japan

would be back online very quickly and

they

kept on producing shooting themselves in

the foot and

obviously didn’t help the prices at all

uh besides the sentiment was very

negative at that time

uh you know as as as i mentioned japan

shut down all its nuclear reactors

spain said they were going to shut down

all its nuclear reactors to by 2020

germany 2022

belgium in 2025 and

and on top of that uh there were a lot

of pressure from environmental groups

for politicians to either shut down

existing reactors or at least not not

let any more be built

um in addition kazakhstan was ramping up

its production

in the beginning of the century

kazakhstan was responsible for less than

10

of the global uranium supply and now

it’s around 40 percent

uh moreover there was a program in place

called megatones to megawatts in which

russia was dismantling part of its

nuclear arsenal

uh they were down blending the the

highly enriched uranium and selling it

to

to the us um and it was good for russia

because they made some money

and it was great for the u.s because

they not only avoided that this highly

enriched uranium fell into the hands of

a

rogue government or a terrorist

organization but they also had plenty of

you of

you know cheap uranium to power uh their

their nuclear reactors

it was just bad for the miners uh and

and

last but not least secondary supply and

under feeding were increasing

uh now do you want me to explain what

underfeeding is or

yes please just short introduction yeah

okay so

um uranium is found in different

isotopes

and um the the most common is the 238

which corresponds to around 99.3 percent

uh uranium-235 corresponds to 0.7

and that’s the one we want because it’s

unstable you can bombard the nucleus it

can explode and generate all the energy

so when people say that they’re going to

win rich uranium

enrich uranium is just to increase the

content of the isotope two three five in

the mix

from 0.7 to three four five percent

whatever the nuclear reactor needs yeah

and and if you want to to build a

nuclear bomb you can

you can enrich uranium to 90 plus

but the the way you do it today is using

centrifuges

uh this centrifuges spin at high speeds

and they cannot stop

so these enrichers have an incentive to

do what’s called

under feeding and underfeeding occurs

when you feed less uranium into the

centrifuges

hence the name underfeeding yeah but

these centrifuges spin for longer

and they produce the same amount of

enriched uranium using

less uranium and that uranium that they

didn’t use

is theirs so they can go to the mark and

sell this uranium

as long as it makes commercial and

financial sense to them

so it is as if they create a whole new

mind out of the blue

um now i i have to to use this method

for because it it

it it helped me a lot to to understand

underfeeding when i started uh

imagine a miner has been a producer of

oranges

yeah the enriques will be the guy who’s

going to squeeze the oranges

and the nuclear reactors are the ones

who are going to drink the orange juice

so the thing works like that uh the

miners uh

give them richards four oranges the

richards

squeeze these oranges and give the

nuclear reactor one glass of orange

juice

now uh imagine suddenly that these

enrichers have a lot of

of unused capacity uh it was a mixture

of new technology with the centrifuges

and and less demands

uh remember japan was offline and many

other projects got suspended

so now they can take their time to

squeeze the oranges

and they realize they don’t need to

squeeze four oranges they can ski

squeeze really well three oranges

and they can produce the same amount of

orange juice

and that one orange that’s left is

theirs so they can

just go to the market and and sell this

extra orange and this extra orange

represents underfeeding

um so as i mentioned it was the perfect

star

uh storm for miners um i mentioned

japan which was obviously the biggest

event uh the narrative kazakhstan under

feeding

uh uh the the miners lack of discipline

in in the megatons to megawatts program

so where are we now well

now we are in a whole new world uh japan

is back online there are nine reactors

that have restarted

three more should restart this year and

14 more are waiting for approval to get

started

the program megatons to megawatts is

over it ended in 2013 and i

doubt we are going to see anything like

it over the next few years

so this is the reason why you think this

is the biggest investing

opportunity of our lifetime so you

expect the price will

go up it is it is um

i it’s it’s the

biggest opportunity i’ve ever seen in my

life in terms of risk return

it’s it’s it’s what do you think where

will the price go

in the next five years in the next

decade

well listen i i don’t know where the

price is going to go but i know it has

where it has to go and we mapped every

single mine on the planet

and the pot the price has to go to at

least

60 dollars a pound it’s double

right now we’re at 30 32

i’m sorry we are at 30 or 32 i think

but double at least there you go at

least

double from here to to give miners

incentives to

to to start producing again um

you know it’s it in and what what’s the

incentive for a miner to

to produce something for 45 50 or even

60

if they can only be sold for for you

know 30 35

no one’s going to start a mining uh or

or even keep in mind in producing

under those circumstances yeah

so the usual investment and pitch goes

as follow actually

the demand for uranium is so high and

most iranian miners

need a price over 60 bucks so in order

to produce profitable

surprises have to go up actually so

otherwise

most of them will go out of business so

but

is this really the case right now two of

the largest uranium mines

run by carmeko are shut down cigar lake

and make other river what have happens

if they come back online will prices

stay low

yeah uh well cigar lake is actually back

online

that’s cool but uh the prices listen the

the the let’s put this into perspective

so last year uh the world consumed

almost 180 million pounds of uranium

yeah and it reduced via uh via the

miners

uh around 120 million pounds so there’s

a huge gap

between primary production and um

and and consumption so even if casaton

prom

ramp up production if chemical bring

back macarthur river and

and all that there’s still not enough

uranium and remember uh cigar lake which

is the biggest mining operation today

we will we’ll get to the end of its um

life in another seven years and well

where’s the replacement

and who’s gonna come up to to to fill up

the gap

yeah there’s not many projects that look

like they’re they’re gonna be ready by

then

wow okay but marcelo miners are right

now

seem a little bit overvalued because um

yeah especially a lot of the small

developers

have risen to a market cap of a couple

of hundred million dollars

so um even they are like 10 years away

from a production

so what what are your thoughts on this

um did people miss the boat for an

investment in the sector or were still

early yeah i i i still believe we are

very early in the cycle

share prices have gone up a lot as you

mentioned our fund is up by almost 450

percent over the last uh 12 months

but i still think it’s very early in the

cycle there’s going to be a lot of

volatility it’s not going to be like

that smooth ramp up

never is but but you listen you you

mentioned this in the

in the beginning of our conversation

if you you you can pretty much buy all

the listed companies for

for for around 25 billion dollars and

you know it it’s funny because i’ve been

saying that since i started the fund you

say well listen you can buy all

listed companies for uh eight billion

dollars oh yeah

the funny thing is you know when i i

wrote a whole chapter in my

new best-selling book about uranium and

when i started researching it

the whole market cap of the uranium

sector was 30 billion dollars

and at the end when i published a book

it was like 18 billion but still

super cheap if you look back in at the

last uranium bull market

we had a market um cap of i think over

100 billion

so we dropped 140 yeah even even more

yeah

so we dropped like 90 percent and

it’s still crazy so what is for you the

best way to invest into the sector

well there are a few ways that people

can get exposure to

to to the sector they’re they’re the

physical funds uh

they can buy uh yellow cake in london

they can buy uh

upc and and i can talk about upc a bit

more because there’s

some interesting developments happening

there sure please

um so if they don’t want to run the risk

of the miners uh the operational risk

and all that

they they can buy the physical the metal

they can have exposure to the physical

metal that yeah

via this these two funds they can buy

the etfs in the sector

which i caution people to look at them

before they are not as as

straightforward as most of us would hope

um there are they’re the miners

themselves so people can

can do a little bit of work and decide

which ones are the best ones and and buy

and again i would caution people because

most of the uranium

shares that are traded today will never

produce a nouns of uranium

there’s a lot of promotion going on so i

urge people to look carefully into

uh into this this uh shares

and there’s obviously the the the funds

like uh

like mine that look for the best

investment opportunities within that

sector

and let’s talk about your fund is it

possible to buy it in europe or in

germany

yeah yeah uh it is uh the fund is closed

now

uh we open every quarter so

it will be open towards the end of this

month

uh the the minimum investment is 250 000

u.s dollars

and everyone can can buy into the fund

but u.s investors unfortunately

[Music]

well so what are the costs what what are

the costs of the fund

like it’s one and a half percent per

annum and 20 percent of uh

of performance fee okay all right um

what’s your biggest holding right now

uh sorry mark we we don’t talk about uh

okay

about individual stocks or holdings or

anything okay

yeah okay i i can imagine but okay so

and um what about

would you recommend people to buy um um

yeah mining stocks directly like a major

or mid tier or junior or would you say

nah go better to a fund or buy your etf

sure um well

well i don’t recommend anyone to do

anything i’m not i’m i’m not in the

above making recommendations and and i

can’t make a recommendation

but for people who would like to to look

more into the sector

uh i i think the the biggest premium

are on the on the the biggest rewards i

should say

are uh in the miners uh the etfs i

you know uh they they have a few

positions that i wouldn’t

that i don’t agree with and uh some of

them have positions that shouldn’t be

there at all like barrick gold and

and macquarie group and and hyundai

engineering and

you know things that shouldn’t be there

so i i’ll caution people uh again

um in in in regards to the etfs and

the miners again if you have to spend

the time to get to know the sector to

get to know which ones

you use and which ones are not and and

look at the project

which ones you think can fly or not

and invest based on on that

okay so what about the u.s um do you

think they will protect and push

american uranium miners

they will well listen uh joe biden’s

first act as president

is to reintroduce the u.s to the

to the paris accord and uh it means that

the u.s

has to be carbon neutral by 2050.

now when you put a date uh to something

it becomes serious so if you say oh yeah

let’s

chat let’s chat sometime in the future

yeah but it doesn’t mean we’re

ever gonna chat again but if we say

let’s chat next monday at

three o’clock in the afternoon boom then

there’s a there’s a

there’s a time yeah yeah and and now

it’s serious right

yeah so the us has to first of all

save the nuclear plants they’re

scheduled to be shut down this decade

and we are having uh we are seeing this

right now in illinois

there are a couple of plants from

axalone that

might be shut down might not um i i

hope they won’t be shut down i think

they’re going to be

saved but but let’s see yeah so i think

the first step

is to save the nuclear power plants and

then

to give incentives to the miners to

produce uranium again

so obviously the most important thing is

to save the jobs and to save the

the clean energy produced by nuclear

reactors yeah okay

cool so we talked about the bulk case

which is really

actually great but let’s talk about a

potential beer case so five years from

now

uranium price is still at 30

on the spot so what went wrong can you

think of any scenario

where there is no bull market in the

coming years

yeah well i i think uh

only if there’s a nuclear accident uh

and you know did

a nuclear accident would dampen

sentiment and

it would most likely delay the recovery

in the prices we expect

now again uh nuclear accidents are not

something that happened every day

there were three in history one with

victims and and and this one was a

series of errors uh one on top of the

other

so i don’t think we’re gonna see

something like it again

um another risk uh to to consider is

china not implementing its plan to build

more nuclear reactors and but again it’s

that’s not something that worries me too

much it’s unlikely

or maybe even a great deposit being

found and developed

uh but you know how how would you

develop the deposits at the moment

who who would look at something that

would cost the 60 or

plus to produce uh just to sell it for

thirty dollars

yeah again prices have to go up to give

miners incentives to produce

uh and and and look if even if we assume

that there’s

no more uranium uh no no more nuclear

reactors

uh being built there’s still more

demands today than supply

so this imbalance has to be sorted out

and i think the

only ways is when the prices go up yeah

definitely okay that’s good so marcelo i

have to

sum it up um you actually the most

bullish uranium investor

australia has ever seen i guess so final

question

um you mentioned 70 of your net worth is

invested in uranium

so what about the other 30 percent

well uh a big chunk of it is is in

in cash uh by you know

if you if you take that amount of risk

and again i don’t think it’s a big risk

when you have

those kinds of imbalances and today is

more than 70

when i started this uh late 2018

it was 70 percent but today the fund

went up by so much that it’s uh

this tomorrow okay again

and we reinvest the the the proceeds

from uh that we get from the fund into

the fund as well so we invest alongside

our investors

okay uh and the other 30 percent i have

to put in cash just to

you know just to to to be safe and

and but but i think that listen mark

it wouldn’t make sense for me to find

such a great investment opportunity

and put three percent of my money into

that because it wouldn’t it wouldn’t

make a difference

yeah and i had three calls in my life

that made a difference in my life

uh which was um the the stock market in

brazil in the late 90s

the real estate market in brazil and

345 and uh and now

uranium and you you don’t need to have

many good calls in your life

you with a few you get there but as long

as you understand then you understand

the risks you’re comfortable with that

and you you think they are really

disproportionately

good yes you can you can bet heavily

congratulations for this investment in

uranium

so you made it actually so thank you

very much for

for the interview for getting up so

early in australia

any closing uh closing thoughts

uh listen uh well first of all it’s not

uh it’s not early at all for for me i

normally wake up at 4 4 30. that’s one

of the benefits of

living in australia and i have three

young kids as well so i’ve been

accustomed to wake up

very early for for a while now okay

but uh mark listen i i hope this

conversation has been useful to to your

listeners i’m always happy to chat and

and i i think we covered briefly the

uranium sector

and again it’s one that i think

i believe investors should look at

definitely

uh the the funny thing about uranium is

that if you do a little work

it’s worse than doing no work at all

yeah you

probably arrive at the wrong conclusions

you you either focus on it and go deeper

or you just leave it aside uh because

everything in uranium

is different from the other commodities

the buyers

contracts pricing cycle everything

i i look at uranium in the beginning of

2017

and thought it was not worth it then i

really look into it towards the end of

2017 and

most of of 2018 and i fell in love with

the sector

so yeah that that would be my advice to

people in a gay mark

thank you so much for the invitation

it’s a great pleasure to to talk to you

definitely definitely was great talking

to you marcelo it’s it’s definitely an

honor and um i learned so much and i’m

i’m i’m sure

all the listeners the audience learned a

lot and you helped to

create um financial intelligence and i

hope we do this pretty soon

again there’s so much to talk and and

time just went by like nothing

so and where can people learn more about

you are you on on twitter or

just tell us your website yeah i’m on

twitter i’m on linkedin

and if people want to to to discuss the

uranium market i’m always keen to

to discuss further it’s it’s something i

i love is a passion now and

and um you know i i went from someone

who was against nuclear energy to

someone who loves it so

if if anyone wants to discuss that i

would be more than happy to do so

yeah and we definitely put all the links

um in the show notes

and my last and definitely final

question is what is the

meaning of life for you for marcelo

lopez

well it’s it’s to be happy to to find

something you like and and go

go deep into that and have some time off

to to enjoy with the ones you love

family and friends and that’s that’s

what we

we try to do too cool listen it was

great talking to you i learned a lot and

i definitely want to do this

again and thank you very much for your

time for getting up

late not early and take care have a nice

one

bye thank you you too bye-bye