The CEO of uranium miner Cameco Corp. said the winds have shifted on nuclear fuel, particularly as the war in Ukraine has created demand in countries that had previously relied on Russian supplies. 

Tim Gitzel, president and CEO of Cameco, told BNN Bloomberg on Thursday that interest in nuclear power had already been picking up as the world sought to decarbonize and reduce emissions, and the Russian supply gap has sped things up.

“Nuclear is back on with a vengeance (and) the Russia situation has just really pushed it forward,” Gitzel said in a television interview. “Things are looking really good for us.”

He made the comments as the company reported its earnings for the latest quarter, reporting a loss in the last quarter and revenue 10 per cent higher than a year earlier.

The growing appetite for nuclear represents a shift from much of the previous decade, Gitzel said, when his company had to scale back after the 2011 Fukishima nuclear accident in Japan gave rise to wariness around the power source.


Now, the conflict in Ukraine has created new concerns about power supply, particularly as Russia was once a major supplier of nuclear power to much of the world.

Gitzel said eastern European countries like Ukraine, the Czech Republic and Poland are “looking for help” on power sources, and this week, Cameco announced a supply agreement with Ukraine’s state-owned nuclear energy utility to provide uranium power until 2035.

“It's more than a commercial transaction,” Gitzel said. “Those are our friends over there and we see what they're going through and we wanted to step up and help.”

As for ramping up operations, Gitzel said his company has a competitive edge over some other companies because it does not have to build new infrastructure, and can make use of formerly shuttered facilities.

“We have the facilities already built. We just have to turn them on and that's what we're doing now,” he said.

With files from The Canadian Press.

Cameco nears deal to supply nuclear fuel to

Ukraine’s Energoatom


Reuters | February 8, 2023 |

Khmelnytskyi nuclear power plant. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Cameco Corp said on Wednesday that it has agreed on the commercial terms to supply nuclear fuel to Ukraine’s state-owned nuclear energy utility Energoatom.


Under the contract, expected to be finalized in the first quarter of 2023, Cameco would supply natural uranium hexafluoride to the Ukrainian company between 2024 and 2035.

The deal would see Cameco supply the total fuel required at nine nuclear reactors at Energoatom’s Rivne, Khmelnytskyy and South Ukraine nuclear power plants, the company said.

The contract will also contain an option for Cameco to supply up to 100% of the fuel for six reactors at the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, currently under Russian control, should it return to Energoatom.

Russian forces seized the Zaporizhzhya plant in early March last year, soon after invading Ukraine. Russia and Ukraine had accused each other of firing around it near the front lines, prompting the International Atomic Energy Agency to place experts at all of Ukraine’s five nuclear stations.

(By Sourasis Bose; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)