ASX uranium shares have been shooting the lights out over the past month.
With nations around the world gripped by an unprecedented energy crisis and largely intent on moving away from fossil fuels, nuclear energy is back on the agenda to provide reliable baseload power.
To name a few examples… India is planning a series of new nuclear plants. France is working to restart plants closed for maintenance with plans for 14 new plants.
Japan is reopening nuclear power stations shuttered since the Fukushima disaster in 2011. The Japanese government is also investigating developing next-generation modular reactors.
With news of nations' expanded nuclear power ambitions hitting the headlines regularly this past month, ASX uranium shares have trounced the index.
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How have ASX uranium shares been performing?
Since this time last month, the All Ordinaries Index (ASX: XAO) is down 2.2%. Meanwhile, leading ASX uranium shares have all charged higher.
The Paladin Energy Ltd (ASX: PDN) share price, for example, is up 21.2% over the month.
Over that same time, Boss Energy Ltd (ASX: BOE) shares are up 16.1%, and the Deep Yellow Ltd (ASX: DYL) share price has surged 48.2%.
With those gains already in the bag, is there more growth to come?
Demand expected to ramp up
For some expert insight into the outlook for ASX uranium shares, we defer to the analysts at Macquarie Equities.
According to Macquarie analyst Jon Scholtz (courtesy of The Australian):
A ramp-up in demand is expected with recent news that Japan ordered the development of new nuclear reactors, and 17 existing reactors to be reactivated and that France stated its nuclear will be at full capacity by the winter. Germany also appears to be rethinking reactor decommissioning in light of energy security.
Scholtz said that both Boss Energy and Paladin were "fully licensed in known uranium jurisdictions and have a near-term path to market buoyed by a positive uranium outlook".
With the resurgent global interest in nuclear power, Macquarie Equities raised its price forecast for uranium by 17% for the 2024 financial year and by 21% for FY25.
With those higher prices in mind, the broker also increased its price targets for the leading ASX uranium shares.
Macquarie has a new target for the Paladin share price of $1.10. That's 15.8% above the current price of 95 cents.
The new target for the Boss Energy share price is $3.30, 14.2% above the current price of $2.89 per share.
