# Nuclear fuel transport: Correlation Prices it moves with, and why Source page: https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/e_nuclear_transport/correlation/ Moving nuclear fuel needs licensed casks, specialist ships and trains, security escorts and approvals in every country crossed. A handful of companies provide it, so costs depend on regulation and limited capacity rather than on fuel prices. No public price Nuclear fuel transport has no public monthly price series: Specialised shipments under private contracts; no public price. #### What its price moves with Energy [U Uranium](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/uranium/)Cargo Shipments carry uranium concentrate, hexafluoride, enriched product and finished fuel through the supply chain. Higher uranium prices encourage new mines and more shipments, but transport is a small part of total fuel cost. Not enough overlapping price history to measure. Energy [NFR Nuclear fission reactors](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/e_fission/)Customer Reactors need regular fresh fuel deliveries and later send spent fuel to storage or reprocessing. Growth in reactor fleets, including in India, increases demand for these specialist transport services and the casks they need. Not enough overlapping price history to measure. Chemical [HF Hydrofluoric acid](https://www.materialinsights.org/chemicals/hydrofluoric_acid/)Conversion chemistry Uranium is shipped between conversion and enrichment plants as uranium hexafluoride, made with hydrogen fluoride. The compound is corrosive and toxic, so special cylinders and handling rules add to transport cost. Not enough overlapping price history to measure. Commodity [St Steel](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/steel/)Cask material Spent fuel casks are thick forged steel or steel and concrete containers weighing many tonnes each. Their cost is driven by forging capacity and licensing far more than by the steel price. Not enough overlapping price history to measure. Commodity [B Boron](https://www.materialinsights.org/commodities/boron/)Neutron absorber Casks and fuel baskets use borated steel or aluminium sheets to absorb neutrons and keep fuel safely subcritical. Boron is a small input, but nuclear qualified material comes from few suppliers. No public price for boron, so the link is explained in words only. How to read these numbers **Correlation of monthly changes** (the number in the coloured pill) compares how much each price moved, month by month, since 2006 or the first month both series exist. It runs from −1 to +1: near +1 the two usually rise and fall in the same months, near 0 there is no link, and a negative number means they tend to move in opposite directions. Above 0.7 is strong, 0.4 to 0.7 moderate, 0.2 to 0.4 weak. **12-month changes** compare year-on-year moves, which shows whether two prices share the same cycles even when the month-to-month noise differs. **Price function** is a straight-line fit of the two prices on logarithmic scales: price ≈ k × (partner price)^β. β is how much this price moves, in per cent, for a 1% move in the partner over the whole period, and R² is the share of the variation the fit explains. Two prices that both drift up with inflation can fit well without any real link, so read it together with the monthly correlation. **Lead or lag** checks whether the monthly correlation is clearly higher when one price is shifted by 1 to 6 months. Correlation is not cause. The reasons on each card explain the economic link; the numbers show how strongly it has shown up in prices. Proxy series are US producer price indexes or related prices and can blur the real link. Data: World Bank Commodity Price Data (Pink Sheet), October 2026; US Bureau of Labor Statistics producer price indexes, IMF primary commodity prices and US EIA prices via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, retrieved November 2026. Calculations by this site. ## Other sections - [Summary](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/e_nuclear_transport/index.md) - [Overview](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/e_nuclear_transport/overview/index.md) - [How it works](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/e_nuclear_transport/explain/index.md) - [Efficiency and losses](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/e_nuclear_transport/efficiency/index.md) - [Technology advances](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/e_nuclear_transport/advances/index.md) - [Value chain](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/e_nuclear_transport/valuechain/index.md) - [Geopolitics and regulation](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/e_nuclear_transport/geopolitics/index.md) - [Unit economics](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/e_nuclear_transport/economics/index.md) - [Impact on the biosphere](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/e_nuclear_transport/biosphere/index.md) - [Relationships](https://www.materialinsights.org/energy/e_nuclear_transport/links/index.md)