{"id":1176881,"date":"2020-04-08T06:24:29","date_gmt":"2020-04-08T11:24:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/?p=1019705"},"modified":"2020-04-08T06:24:29","modified_gmt":"2020-04-08T11:24:29","slug":"worlds-top-uranium-miner-cameco-halts-canadian-plant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/?p=1176881","title":{"rendered":"World\u2019s top uranium miner Cameco halts Canadian plant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Canada\u2019s Cameco (TSX:CCO)&nbsp;(NYSE:CCJ), the world\u2019s largest publicly traded uranium miner, is placing its&nbsp;plant at the Port Hope conversion facility, in Ontario, in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cameco.com\/media\/news\/cameco-announces-temporary-operational-changes-in-ontario\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">a temporary safe shutdown<\/a> state for four weeks.<\/p>\n<div class='d-flex justify-content-center d-xs-block d-sm-block d-md-none'>\n<div id='div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0'><script>googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-1561499308230-0');});<\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>The move comes as the company faces<br \/>\nthe increasing challenge of maintaining an adequate workforce as a result of<br \/>\nscreening protocols and other measures put in place to combat the covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>Since the majority of the UO<sub>3<\/sub>&nbsp;produced at the Blind River refinery is used to produce UF<sub>6<\/sub> at the conversion facility, the refinery\u2019s production would also be temporarily suspended and, where possible, summer maintenance work brought forward.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe UF<sub>6<\/sub>&nbsp;plant is designed for continuous operation, and we need to prevent unplanned interruptions arising from personnel shortages,\u201d president and chief executive,&nbsp;Tim Gitzel,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cameco.com\/media\/news\/cameco-announces-temporary-operational-changes-in-ontario\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">said on Wednesday<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>While production at the refinery is<br \/>\ntemporarily suspended, the operation will remain open to receive uranium<br \/>\nconcentrate deliveries, Cameco said.<\/p>\n<p>The news come a day after uranium giant Kazatomprom said it expected to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mining.com\/kazatomprom-annual-output-to-drop-by-up-to-4000-tonnes\/\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">produce about 4,000 tonnes or 17.5% less<\/a> this year as measures designed to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus has hit operations.<\/p>\n<p>The Kazakhstan-based&nbsp;producer\u2019s<br \/>\nguidance for 2020 was 22,750 to 22,800 tonnes, on a 100% basis.<\/p>\n<p>The producer said it would provide<br \/>\nupdated production revenue, capital expenditure and costs targets on May 4. Last<br \/>\nyear, Kazakhstan accounted for more than 42% of the world&#8217;s uranium output.<\/p>\n<p>Cameco <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cameco.com\/media\/news\/cameco-responds-to-announcement-by-kazatomprom\"  rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">had said on Tuesday<\/a> the Kazatomprom cuts would also weigh on its 40% ownership in the Inkai Joint Venture, an in-situ recovery uranium mine in Kazakhstan. The mine is expected to produce about 12% fewer pounds this year, translating to about 600,000lb less uranium oxide for the miner&#8217;s account.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, the uranium major announced the closure for a month of Cigar Lake, which<br \/>\nproduces about 13% of global uranium mine supply. This was followed by a 21-day<br \/>\nlockdown of mines in another important uranium supplier, Namibia.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Before the announced output cuts, Cameco expected to buy 4.9 million pounds of uranium on the spot market this year.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Price revival<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Uranium prices have been on the<br \/>\nrise in the past two weeks as investors worried about ongoing disruption to<br \/>\nsupply, which is divided between a handful of major companies. Year to date,<br \/>\nhowever, prices have dropped more than 15%.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to Kazatomprom&#8217;s<br \/>\nannouncement, BMO Capital Markets was forecasting a deficit in uranium supply\/demand<br \/>\nbalance of about 30 million pounds. The experts now experts that figure to<br \/>\nclimb up to 40 million pounds.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe additional 10 million removed from the<br \/>\nmarket will only accelerate the depletion of above ground inventories and<br \/>\npotentially result in more utilities reclassifying excess inventories as<br \/>\nstrategic,\u201d BMO analyst Alexander Pearce, said in a note on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>With construction of nuclear power plants at a<br \/>\n10-year low, however, uranium demand remains weak.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Move comes as the company faces the increasing challenge of maintaining an adequate workforce at the Ontario-based facility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1035,949,369,2640],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176881"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1176881"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1176983,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1176881\/revisions\/1176983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1176881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1176881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/juniorminingnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1176881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}