27 Realising Australias uranium potential Chart 6 Estimated economic beneft in 2040 at 195TG W billions 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Source Authors calculations 10 15 20 25 30 Low nuclear case Current policies New policies High nuclear case 450 scenario Australias regulatory environment is unlikely to facilitate a substantial increase in market share as evidenced by the decline in market share over the past decade State and federal regulation need to be harmonised and simplifed to ensure that uranium production and supply decisions are commercial decisions and not quasipolitical decisions The Australian uranium mining regulatory framework needs to be aligned with worlds best practice as discussed further in section 6 Australia needs to compete on both price and nonprice factors Given the economic structure of the global market it is very likely that a massive increase in Australian supply would substantially drive down global uranium prices That may or may not be in the best interests of individual Australian producers On the other hand Australia could compete as a preferred supplier on nonprice characteristics such as being a stable liberal democracy with a well diversifed exports portfolio that will ensure that uranium is not diverted into military applications Of course this implies that there needs to be broad political consensus within Australia that further developing the uranium trade is in Australias best interests and that Australia playing a greater role in the global market is in the global best interest too Finally future prices have not been modelled in this analysis The analysis simply assumed a conservative real price in 2015 dollars of 90 per kilogram or around 41 per pound for illustrative purposes This is in between spot and term prices at time of writing and below the Australian Governments forecast real price in 2015 dollars of 58 per pound 20 The same price was assumed for each scenario that of course is entirely unrealistic as uranium prices would very likely vary by scenario In some scenarios it may well be the case that future market prices will be too low to justify Australian expansion in the global uranium market That is a risk facing every business and every industry Commercial decisions are best left to the private sector the role of government is to ensure that those best placed to make commercial decisions make those decisions Challenges