Cameco says Cigar Lake mine is proving to be a high point in a market flooded with too much uranium.
On Monday, the uranium mining giant held a conference to discuss some highlights from its third quarter financials, which covers the end of July to the end of September.
Cameco President and CEO Tim Gitzel says since they’ve ramped up production at Cigar Lake, its output has exceeded expectations.
In fact, Gitzel says the company has already produced its 2015 target at Cigar Lake.
Gitzel says they’re going to be prudent, considering how little they produced in 2014 and some of the pauses needed to deal with equipment issues.
“We were really testing the mining machine at that time so to go from 400,000 pounds last year, to we’re at 8 million pounds this year, looking towards 10 (million) we’re quite delighted with that, so it’s a bit of a game changer for us,” he said.
Its original projections for Cigar Lake was to produce 18 million pounds of uranium by 2018.
But Gitzel says they may adjust that heading into 2016.
Overall, Gitzel says they’re still seeing an oversupply of uranium on the market, which makes the unexpected boost from Cigar Lake so positive.
Revenue is at $649 million in this quarter, which is up 11 per cent from the same period last year. The gross profit is $133 million, which is down seven percent from that period last year.
Cameco an update on a court case launched by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) in 2008.
The CRA is accusing Cameco of tax evasion, saying it sold uranium to its Swiss subsidiary then resold it at a higher price to world buyers
Senior VP Grant Isaac says there’s not much chance of settling out of court before a September 26, 2016 trial.
“We just reject this view that there’s something wrong with our overall governance structure, our overall inter-company structure, so we just challenge that notion and as long as we’re facing that kind of argument it makes it kind of difficult,” Isaac said.
Cameco firmly says once the case is done, it shouldn’t affect future financials for shareholders.