S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) uranium share NexGen Energy Ltd (ASX: NXG) is marching higher today.
NexGen shares closed yesterday trading for $15.90. In afternoon trade on Thursday, shares are changing hands for $16.08 apiece, up 1.1%.
This sees the NexGen share price up a whopping 147.0% since hitting one-year lows on 9 April.
For some context, the ASX 200, which plumbed its one-year lows on 7 April, has gained 18.9% since its own low water mark.
Amid the sharp increase in the company's market cap, NexGen officially joined the ASX 200 on 22 December as part of the S&P Dow Jones Indices quarterly rebalance.
What's been lifting the ASX 200 uranium share?
NexGen shares have in part been racing higher amid the miner's own operational successes at its flagship Rook I uranium project, located in Canada.
The ASX 200 uranium share, and its stockholders, have also benefited from resurgent uranium prices. The nuclear fuel is currently trading for US$82 per pound, up from US$64 per pound in early April.
Investors have been pushing up uranium prices as an increasing number of countries, including the United States, are ramping up their nuclear power ambitions. With a growing global population and surging energy demand from power hungry AI data centres, more countries are seeking reliable baseload power amid the clean energy transition.
And looking at the year ahead, Argonaut's David Franklyn forecasts more outperformance from NexGen shares (courtesy of The Australian Financial Review)
"We are most bullish on NexGen Energy, the emerging major in the uranium space," Franklin said.
He added, "Its Arrow project in the Athabasca Basin, Canada, is an emerging global leader with final environmental approvals likely to come through in the first half of 2026."
The Arrow project sits within NexGen's broader Rook I project.
What's the latest from NexGen?
On 2 December, NexGen announced its highest-grade assay results to date from a drill hole at the miner's 100%-owned Patterson Corridor East (PCE), located nearby the Arrow project Franklin mentioned above.
Commenting on the strong results that helped lift the ASX 200 uranium share on the day, NexGen founder and CEO Leigh Curyer said the "high-grade assay results, consisting of ultra-high grade 0.5 metres 74.8% U3O8, takes PCE into a rare mineralised category on a world scale for uranium deposits".
Curyer added:
This type of basement-hosted mineralisation is synonymous with Arrow, only 3.5 kilometres to the west. It is clear, the frequency of this ultra-high-grade category of intercepts at Arrow and now PCE, is evidence of a very significant mineralising event occurring at Rook I and in the surrounding region of the southwest Athabasca Basin in Saskatchewan.
