Cameco cuts McArthur River/Key Lake production forecast to 14-15M lb of U3O8

The company states: “Cameco (CCJ) provided an operational update today regarding its 2025 production plans. Development delays in transitioning the McArthur River mine to new mining areas are expected to defer the extraction of pounds planned in 2025 and therefore impact our 2025 production forecast. However, strong performance at the Cigar Lake mine provides an opportunity to partially offset the deferred McArthur River production. We believe our balanced and disciplined strategy and embedded risk management, which includes diversified production assets and access to multiple sources of supply, position us well to effectively mitigate the impact of these types of disruptions, meet our delivery commitments, and continue to deliver long-term value. At the beginning of 2025, we highlighted several potential risks to the McArthur River mine’s production schedule that could impact the timing of packaged production from the Key Lake mill and our consolidated production outlook for 2025. The risks included development delays and the expected timing of ground freezing as the mine transitioned into two new mining areas, as well as access to adequate skilled labour, and the timing of commissioning for new customized equipment. The impact of these risks was dependent on the magnitude of the delay, the McArthur River mine’s ability to substitute feed for the Key Lake mill with production from alternative mining areas, and our ability to offset reduced production from McArthur River/Key Lake with additional production from the Cigar Lake mine. We have determined that we are unable to fully mitigate the expected impact of the delayed development and slower than anticipated ground freezing in the first half of 2025. Production from the McArthur River/Key Lake operation is now anticipated to be between 14 million and 15 million pounds of uranium concentrate (U3O8) (100% basis; 9.8 million to 10.5 million pounds our share) in 2025, down from our previous forecast of 18 million pounds U3O8 (100% basis; 12.6 million pounds our share). At the Cigar Lake mine, we continue to expect to produce 18 million pounds U3O8 (100% basis; 9.8 million pounds our share) this year, however performance to date at Cigar Lake has been strong, creating an opportunity to potentially offset up to 1 million pounds (100% basis) of the shortfall at the McArthur River/Key Lake operation.”