Key Australian uranium stocks have regained about half of the ground they lost over the past fortnight as investors fled the sector due to the nuclear power plant crisis in Japan.

The day before the strongest earthquake in Japan's history struck on March 10, shares in Energy Resources of Australia finished at $9.43.

But they fell as low as $7.07 on March 15 as fears intensified about a full meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant.

Workers are still trying to stabilise the plant.

Shares in the Rio Tinto-majority owned miner had retraced to $8.53 on Friday at 12.18pm, up 48 cents, or 5.96 per cent.

Paladin Energy was up 14 cents, or 3.77 per cent, at $3.85, still down from its March 10 finish of $4.83, but an improvement on its March 15 close of $3.26.

Uranium explorer Extract Resources, which fell to a low during the Fukushima crisis of $6.50 on March 17, was up 21 cents, or 2.55 per cent, at $8.44.

Extract shares closed on March 10 at $10.50.

"They obviously copped an absolute hammering and are coming back slightly, but it's a sentiment driven thing," CMC Markets analyst Ben Le Brun said.

"Most of what these companies have said in response to the crisis in Japan is that it is not going to affect long term demand for nuclear energy in China and so forth.

"But they've still nowhere near recovered.

"It will take some time before the crisis clears from people's minds."

Two uranium explorers that cut through the negative sentiment towards the sector on Friday were Uranex and Peninsula Energy.

Uranex was up 21.21 per cent at 40 cents at 12.13pm, after announcing it would soon commence a drill program at its wholly owned Mkuju project in Southern Tanzania.

Peninsula was up 5 per cent at 10.5 cents after reporting high grade intersections from drilling at its Lance project in Wyoming, United States.