SudburyN,

The link you provided has good information on the resource estimate which is in the range of 100Mlbs U3O8. Link repeated below for reference.

http://www.equities.com/editors-desk/stocks/energy/what-s-the-future-for-fission-uranium

With the current renaissance of nuclear power, there would be a stronger demand for uranium and end users such as China, Japan, etc would want to lock in the price of the (nuclear) fuel for their reactors before it gets much higher.

Similarly, the producers such as Cameco (world largest exporter of U products) would want to have some kind of control over the production and pricing, hence they would not mind having the monopoly in this area. They lost the opportunity to lock up the Hathor Roughrider deposit to Rio, so they would probably not make the same mistake with FCU. Cameco previously said that they wanted to concentrate of developing what they have, especially the Cigar Lake deposit, hence chose not to enter in a bidding war with Rio for Hathor. Perhaps, they thought that they could make life difficult for Rio in the development of Hathor (by forcing Rio to spend more money building their own refinery?).

But now with a potential of FCU to become a large and high-grade deposit. It may present an opportunity for Rio to achieve a critical mass (pun not quite intended) for a building refinery for both Hathor and FCU's PLS deposit.

Bottom line, bidding war for FCU. For CCO, monopoly is good. It does not want any competition from Rio. How about 4 FCU for 1 CCO share ($26.7/4 = $6.7) as a first salvo?

goldhunter