Peak uranium gold, silver, copper or nickel, uranium is not widely traded on an organized commodity exchange such as the London Metal Exchange. It is traded on the NYMEX but on very low volume. Instead, it is traded in most cases through contracts negotiated directly between a buyer and a seller. The structure of uranium supply contracts varies widely. The prices are either fixed or base on referenced to economic indices such as GDP, inflation or currency exchange. Contracts traditionally are based on the uranium spot price and rules by which the price can escalate. Delivery quantities, schedules, and prices vary from
Commodity pathway diversion to identify in which phase of its life an object is considered a commodity. Appadurai defines a commodity situation as "the situation in which [an object's] exchangeability for some other thing is a socially relevant feature." In his introduction to "The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective", Appadurai references the work of Nancy Munn and Igor Kopytoff as influential to the discussion of commodity pathways and diversions. Both scholars advocate analyzing the entire trajectory or "social life" of a commodity to understand its full value. In her article "The Spatiotemporal Transformations of Gawa Canoes", anthropologist Nancy Munn, argues