Cameco to restart production at McArthur River uranium mine

President and CEO Tim Gitzel said Wednesday was a good day for Cameco, after the company announced an increase in company profits and a lot more job openings in the months ahead.

The company announced fourth-quarter net earnings of $11 million, and adjusted net earnings of $23 million.

As well, Cameco revealed it will be restarting production at its McArthur River mine and Key Lake processing plant in 2022.

The mine closed in July 2018 because of low uranium prices and a weak global market. Right now, the company has contracts to produce about 160 million pounds of uranium.

“We’re taking steps now to put the wheels in motion to restart McArthur River and Key Lake,” Gitzel said.

And that means a lot of jobs.

“We’ll be looking to rehire the workforce there,” he said. “We had probably about 900 people when we had to take it down. We were as low as 200 people.”

Cameco laid off 550 employees when it extended the shutdown of the shuttered facilities in 2018. About 200 employees were kept on for care and maintenance.

Over the next 18 months, Gitzel said the company wants to get back up to 900 employees.

“I’m concerned a little about labour – and that’s a good concern …,” he said. “The benefit we have, the competitive advantage we have, is that we hire Indigenous people from northern Saskatchewan.”

The company also announced that, starting in 2024, McArthur River/Key Lake will operate at 40 per cent below the annual licensed capacity and its Cigar Lake operation will run 25 per cent below its annual licensed capacity,

“We are taking a portfolio approach to our supply discipline,” Gitzel said in a media release. “In 2021, we were operating at about 75 per cent below productive capacity (100 per cent basis), which came at a significant cost to our business. By 2024, we plan to be operating at about 40 per cent below productive capacity (100 per cent basis).

“This will remain our production plan until we see further improvements in the uranium market and have made further progress in securing the appropriate homes for our unencumbered, in-ground inventory under long-term contracts, once again demonstrating that we are a responsible supplier of uranium fuel.”