CCJ - Cameco restarts McArthur River Key Lake after four-year shutdown

Cameco ( NYSE: CCJ ) said late Wednesday the first pounds of uranium ore from the McArthur River mine in Colorado have been milled and packaged at the Key Lake mill, marking initial production as the facilities transition back into normal operations.

Production was suspended at McArthur River and Key Lake for four years starting in January 2018 due to persistent weakness in the global uranium market; this February, Cameco ( CCJ ) announced the planned restart of both operations, citing a notable market improvement and an increase in long-term contracting activity.

The company expects McArthur River/Key Lake will produce up to 2M lbs of uranium concentrate in 2022, with plans to produce 15M lbs/year of U3O8 from the operations beginning in 2024.

Cameco ( CCJ ) expects the return to production at McArthur River/Key Lake will lead to a significant improvement in its financial performance, but until a "reasonable production rate" is achieved, it expects to incur $15M-$17M in monthly operational readiness costs, which will be expensed directly to cost of sales.

Cameco ( CCJ ) and Brookfield Renewable are teaming up to buy Westinghouse, and government efforts to lock out Rosatom provide an opportunity to become an exceptionally dominant player within the nuclear space, The Methodical investor writes in an analysis posted recently on Seeking Alpha .

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