For one Cameco employee, the company shutting down production at two sites in Saskatchewan is not all that surprising.
After all, the uranium market has been poor.
“I’m shocked, but I’m not that surprised, and I’m not too concerned yet,” said Bernie Clavelle, a maintenance planner at the uranium company’s Key Lake site.
Cameco announced Wednesday that it plans to shut down production at two of its sites in Saskatchewan — McArthur River and Key Lake — in January. It predicts 845 jobs will be affected.
[…]
“Overall demands just trended downward, with the exception of some promising areas such as China and India, but all-in-all demand has been pretty flat.”
Indeed, at the end of October the raw uranium, or U3O8, spot price was $19.95 per pound, according to UXC.
When the cores began to melt in the Fukushima reactors, the price was over $60 per pound, Carter said.
“The market is sitting in an over-supply situation,” he said.
“Probably 15 million pounds or so, on an annual basis.”
Read more at Hundreds of jobs cut, dividends slashed as Cameco shuts 2 Sask. uranium sites
