Hundreds of jobs cut, dividends slashed as Cameco shuts 2 Sask. uranium sites
For one Cameco employee, the company shutting down prolongation during dual sites in Saskatchewan is not all that surprising.
After all, a uranium marketplace has been poor.
“I’m shocked, though I’m not that surprised, and I’m not too endangered yet,” pronounced Bernie Clavelle, a upkeep planner during a uranium company’s Key Lake site.
Cameco announced Wednesday that it skeleton to close down prolongation during dual of a sites in Saskatchewan — McArthur River and Key Lake — in January. It predicts 845 jobs will be affected.
Clavelle has been during Key Lake for some-more than 14 years.Â
Cameco CEO Tim Gitzel said they will top adult approach employees’ benefits, that is why Clavelle said he still has hope.
He’s not looking for another pursuit yet, though he has some concerns.
“What’s successive year going to demeanour like? There’s no guarantees if prices stay low … There’s a possibility we competence have to demeanour for other employment.”
Dividend payments slashed
“We bewail a impact on employees,” pronounced Cameco CEO Tim Gitzel during a discussion call Thursday.
Today it creates a many clarity to leaves those pounds in a ground.
– Tim Gitzel, CEO, Cameco
Premier Brad Wall pronounced a supervision will yield fast response teams to assistance employees confronting layoffs who wish to transition into a opposite career or who competence need counselling, “because it’s sincerely traumatic, even for proxy detriment of job.”
Gitzel said a association was formulation for a shutdown duration of 10 months, though didn’t provide a clear date for when work would resume.
“Today it creates a many clarity to leaves those pounds in a ground,” said Gitzel.
“We only demeanour during this marketplace and we contend it’s got a prolonged approach to go before it’s sufficient pricing uranium,” chimed in Grant Isaac, a company’s CFO.
“We don’t consider that’s where it needs to be to lift those pounds out of a portfolio.”
Cameco said Wednesday that it will change a division remuneration schedule to annually from quarterly while concurrently shortening a altogether annual payment to eight cents per common share from 40 cents.
The approach impact of a shutdown on a province’s revenues will be “negligible,” Wall said.
‘Over-supply situation’
Nicolas Carter, executive vice-president of uranium for a American chief consulting firm UXC, said shutting down production is a savvy one. After Japan’s Fukushima disaster, and a successive phasing out of Germany’s chief program, a direct for uranium has suffered, Carter said.
“Overall final only trended downward, with a difference of some earnest areas such as China and India, though all-in-all direct has been flattering flat.”
Nicolas Carter thinks a Fukishima disaster was obliged for starting a downward trend in uranium prices, that has now resulted in a intensity detriment of 845 Saskatchewan jobs. (Submitted by Nicolas Carter)
Indeed, during a finish of October the tender uranium, or U3O8, mark cost was $19.95 per pound, according to UXC.
When a cores began to warp in a Fukushima reactors, a cost was over $60 per pound, Carter said.
“The marketplace is sitting in an deluge situation,” he said.
“Probably 15 million pounds or so, on an annual basis.”
Companies like Cameco shortening prolongation should move change to a marketplace and a cost of uranium should rise, he said.
The bigger doubt in a prolonged term, he said, is either a uranium marketplace will see any serve rebate in demand.
“That’s been an issue, generally here in a U.S. We had inexpensive shale gas, renewable energies, and generally in deregulated markets it’s been most harder for chief appetite to compete.”
Article source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/cameco-feeling-fukushima-economic-shockwave-1.4394719?cmp=rss