At MM we are very bullish the “Uranium Trade” over the coming years as AI sends energy demands soaring higher and although nuclear is not on the menu in Australia, it’s coming to the fore around the world with Small Modular Reactors (SMR) the focal point. SMRs promise to build in years what conventional nuclear takes decades to deliver, hence the demand for uranium is set to step higher sooner, rather than later. Supply won’t be able to meet the needs of demand in our opinion, pushing up prices in the coming years.
- The uranium trade has been fraught with danger in recent years with ASX names taking it in turns shocking investors.
Paladin’s Langer Heinrich Mine (LHM) in Namibia appears to have put its 2024 woes behind it. The two key prior concerns, stockpile quality and water availability, are now largely mitigated. Their ramp-up is on track, erring conservative on guidance. With 2.3Mlb delivered in 1H FY26 against full-year guidance of 4.0–4.4Mlb. Importantly, PDN expects to reach nameplate processing capacity by June, setting the operation up to run at full capacity through FY27. Official FY27 guidance is due at the July quarterly update. The remaining bottleneck is optimising the mining front-end and the blending strategy across varying ore profiles.
Also, Water risks have been materially reduced; the Erongo region remains operationally challenging on water access, but things are improving. System improvements by Namwater over the past year, combined with increased on-site redundancies, mean water availability is not a constraint for current operations or peak nameplate. The one residual watch point is whether water supply becomes contested if competing projects move into development in the region.
PDN is a volatile stock that has already rallied +44% in 2026. We are likely to trim our position if it punches out to fresh 2026 highs, but we have no plans to cut our uranium exposure, and if we had none, we would be looking to buy dips.
- We can see PDN testing the $15-16 area in 2026– MM is long PDN in our Active Growth Portfolio.
MM is long and bullish toward PDN around $13.80
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