Weak market conditions have forced Uranium-miner Cameco to sit on a number of assets while it waits for world market conditions to right themselves.
At an investors conference yesterday in Florida, company CEO Tim Gitzel outlined Cameco’s position in the midst of weak market demand.
He says in a typical year they usually see around 170 million pounds of uranium committed under long-term contracts, however in 2013 that number stood at just 20 million, a historic low.
Gitzel had expected some nuclear reactors to resume production in Japan by late 2013, but so far that hasn’t happened.
Still, he expects demand to increase over the long-term and as a result they’re holding off on developing projects in their “bull-pen” for now:
“Today we have, in our portfolio, something like 1.2 billion pounds reserves and resources so we’re in pretty good shape in that regard so quite frankly we’re not looking to add another 100 million pounds at the back end of that.”
Gitzel adds one of the big reasons why they’re not entering into long-term contracts though is because the current spot-price is so low.
He expects the price to eventually rebound.