Q2 2025 Cameco Corp Earnings Call
Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator.
Welcome to the Campo Corporation. Second quarter, 2025 results conference call.
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The Q&A session will conclude at 9:00 am Eastern.
I would now like to turn the conference over to Corey cough. Vice president investor relations. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. And good morning everyone. Welcome to kamo's second quarter conference call.
I would like to acknowledge that some of us are speaking from our corporate office today, which is in Saskatchewan on 36 territory, the traditional territory of the creep people, and the homeland of the mate.
today we're also dialing in from Toronto which is on treaty 13 territory and the traditional territory of many nations including the
The inab.
The Chippawa.
Theoden aoni and the wendat peoples and now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and matei peoples.
With us in Toronto are Tim gitzel, president and CEO and Grant, Isaac executive VP and CFO.
Joining from our Saskatoon headquarters. We have Heidi Shiki, senior VP and Deputy CFO and relle, Gerard senior, VP and chief corporate officer.
I will hand it over to Tim momentarily to briefly, discuss the positive momentum. That continues to drive more and more interests in the nuclear markets and the excellent financial performance. Through the first half of the year that has kept Camp. Go in a solid financial position.
After we will open it up to your questions.
Today's call will be 1 hour concluding at 9:00 a.m. eastern time.
while our goal is to be open and transparent with our communication, we do want to respect everyone's time and conclude the call by 9:00 a.m.
Therefore should we not get to your questions during this call or if you would like to follow up and get detailed Financial modeling questions about our first half results, we'd be happy to respond to any follow-up. Inquiries
There are a few ways to contact us with additional questions.
you can reach out to the contacts provided in our news release you can submit a question through the send us a message link in the invest section of our website,
Or you can use the ask a question form at the bottom of the webcast screen and we will be happy to follow up after this call.
If you joined the conference call through our website defend page there are slides available which will be displayed during the call. In addition for you referenced our quarterly Investor Handout is available for download in a PDF file on our website at cameco Dot com.
If you join the conference call to our website event page, there are slides available which will be displayed during the call.
Today's conference call is open to all members of the investment community, including the media.
During the Q&A session. Please limit yourself to two questions and then return to the queue.
Note that this conference call will include forward looking information, which is based on a number of assumptions and actual results could differ materially.
You should not place undue reliance on forward looking statements actual results may differ materially from these forward looking statements and we do not undertake any obligation to update any forward looking statements, we make today, except as required by law.
As required by Securities laws, we also need to make you aware that during todays discussion the company will make a number of references to non ifr S and other financial measures chemical believes these measures provide investors with useful perspective on underlying business trends and a full reconciliation of non F or S measures is available at chemical Dot com slash invest.
Please refer to our most recent annual information form and MD&A for more information about the factors that could cause these different results and the assumptions we have made.
I'll now turn it over to our President and CEO Tim gets old.
Well, thank you Cory and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you taking the time to join our discussion today.
Hope everyone's doing well and has had the chance to enjoy some quality time with friends and family over the summer or winter, depending on where you are in the world today.
Our industry is typically quieter during July and August, but with all the attention nuclear has been getting especially in the past couple of months.
We've had very little downtime.
In fact, as Corey mentioned, Corey Grant and I are calling in from Toronto today, where we are once again meeting with government representatives to talk about nuclear power.
We're excited to be working not only with our local provincial and Canadian governments, but with policymakers from the U S and from around the world.
These types of discussions and the actions that they generate are critical to expanding nuclear energy in Canada and abroad.
Ensuring the industry is supported by a secure nuclear fuel cycle.
Canada has significant uranium resources of nuclear service infrastructure, not only makes our country a key player in the global nuclear fuel supply chain, but it also positions, Canada as a leader in enhancing global energy security and supporting clean energy solutions.
So their operations across the fuel and reactor life cycles. We believe cameco is positioned as a central pillar supporting the wave of new nuclear plans announced in recent months.
Here in Ontario O P. G has received full approval to begin construction of the first of four planned S. M. Our units representing what could be the first commercial grid scale S. M ours.
North America.
In the U S. The resurgence of interest in nuclear as a resulted in plans to build 10, new reactors across various states, creating opportunities for Westinghouse and its AP 1000 reactor technology.
Those north American announcements are in addition to a number of others from across the globe, including three reactors in Poland.
Two reactors in the Czech Republic that are now approved to break ground.
Additional interest from the U K and consideration of new nuclear in Sweden, and Finland to name just a few.
The advancing dialogue to build safe secure and clean nuclear plants is coming amid the support of shifts in government policies alongside broadly favorable developments such as the World Bank.
Lifting its longstanding ban on nuclear financing.
With a continually improving demand picture and a growing number of newbuild announcements clean electrons have remained on the critical path to addressing global energy security concerns.
And if nuclear energy is on the critical path to those clean electrons then cameco with our tier one assets in stable jurisdictions and strategic investments across the entire nuclear fuel cycle is a key component on the critical path to global energy security as well.
It's exciting to see the market beginning to realize the value of cameco and the potential for our investment in Westinghouse.
As we get started today I wanted to highlight as we always do in this industry the importance of maintaining a long term view.
Geopolitical and trade related developments may continue to introduce short term uncertainty.
But our strategy has consistently demonstrated resilience and navigating those types of challenges.
The alignment of our marketing operational and financial decisions has proven to be a real strength as the nuclear fuel market shifts its focus towards security of supply.
First and foremost we've maintained a disciplined and patient approach on the marketing front.
We are layering in long term contracts for both uranium and conversion services that are designed to protect us from weaker market conditions, while still providing exposure to the price improvements needed to support future supply investments.
And as customers commit to those contracts it directly informs our operational planning.
We invest in supply to ensure fuel is made available in step with the band.
In the past, we've seen how unencumbered supply creates an overhang slows down contracting and negatively impacts prices.
In fact, even the expectation that uncommitted supplies will be available credible or not consult momentum.
So cameco will never front run the market.
To support our marketing activities that underpin long term operational planning, we are also dedicated to financial discipline and maintaining a strong balance sheet.
That provides us with the flexibility to invest when and where needed and allows us to be patient as the contracting cycle continues to evolve.
The bottom line is our actions are deliberate or decisions are value driven and our strategy is built to deliver long term success.
And when we see that the risk to future supply far outweigh the risks to long term demand. We're confident that we're on the right path with the right strategy.
Even with long term uranium prices holding near decade long highs were still not seeing the level of long term contracting needed to support both brownfield expansions and the new projects required to meet future demand.
Utility is still have a significant amount of uranium to secure to meet their fuel needs through 2045.
And now that we're halfway through 2025, it appears likely that it could be yet another year, where utilities consume more uranium than they contract and the forward market.
Both spot and long term contracting are down in the first half of the year relative to 2020 for pushing more material into a period of significant uncovered demand and even greater supply uncertainty.
And we don't expect to see a move to just in time delivery for nuclear fuel.
Long term contracting is essential in our market.
It enables continued investment in supply and it aligns with both the long term economics of uranium mining and the processing time, it takes to transport convert enrich and fabricate a nuclear fueled bundle.
Looking ahead, we believe that procuring uranium will become a top priority of.
A shift that is not only necessary.
But unavoidable.
Moving to briefly highlight chemicals second quarter in the first half results, our overall financial performance across a uranium fuel services and Westinghouse segments was strong.
And has improved our overall 2025 expectations.
As we always highlight quarterly results will vary and it's our annual expectations that matter.
Side from a slight increase in our expected annual average realized price driven by a rise in market prices.
The most notable shift was in our full year expectations from our Westinghouse investment.
We now expect our 49% share of westinghouse's adjusted EBITDA to be between 525 million U S and 580 million U S driven by the $170 million U S increase in our share of Westinghouse's second quarter revenue.
That improvement was tied to westinghouse's participation in a construction project for two nuclear reactors at the Duke Cavani power plant in the Czech Republic, which I mentioned earlier.
While all of the recent nuclear project announcements have the potential to positively impact our core uranium and fuel services business. We believe the check the project in particular points to significant prospective growth opportunities that lie ahead for Westinghouse.
That's what was expected at our uranium operations. This year's second quarter timing of planned maintenance at the key Lake mill resulted in lower uranium production and a higher unit cost of sales compared to the second quarter and the first six months of last year.
We continue to expect both Mcarthur River key Lake and cigar Lake to each produced 18 million pounds. This year on a 100% basis.
However, uranium mining isn't easy.
And as we've highlighted at the beginning of this year. Our current uranium production plan assumes that ground freezing in development and new mining areas advances as planned that.
We maintain access to adequate skilled labor and that new equipment is commissioned on time.
So as we monitor those risks we will plan accordingly to ensure we meet our commitments.
In addition to the production sources, we operate JV income and Kazakhstan remains on track for its target production volume of $8 3 million pounds on a 100% basis.
From that volume or purchase allocation is $3 7 million pounds. This year.
And shipments from J P and K are expected to begin in the second half of 2025.
Similar to our Canadian operations, no mining method or production source is ever without risk.
JV anchor as annual production target requires it to successfully manage the availability of sulphuric acid procurement and supply chain risks.
<unk> challenges construction delays.
And inflationary pressures on production costs.
At our fuel services Division, our annual production outlook, which includes you have six conversion.
Two conversion and heavy water reactor fuel bundles remains on track for between 13 million and 14 million kg you have combined fuel services products.
Looking at our financial position, we remain diligent in managing our liquidity and our capital structure to deliver on our strategy to take advantage of opportunities and to self manage risk.
We're maintaining a strong balance sheet guided by our investment grade rating and supported by strong cash flow generation.
So from a financial perspective, we are in excellent shape with $716 million in cash and cash equivalents 1 billion in total debt and a $1 billion undrawn revolving credit facility.
These are incredibly exciting times for the nuclear industry.
We're seeing a global shift in how nuclear energy is perceived with nuclear power included as a critical part of the solution to energy security and the clean energy transition.
The face of ongoing geopolitical uncertainty and increasingly complex global trade dynamics.
The importance of sourcing nuclear fuel from trusted experienced and sustainable suppliers like cameco has never been more clear.
It's about more than just fuel, it's about enabling a future energy system that is secure reliable and carbon free.
With our world class tier one fuel cycle assets and our strategic investments across the reactor lifecycle. We believe cameco is uniquely positioned to help power that future.
So before we move to Q&A I wanted to highlight a few changes to our senior management team that will go into effect on September one, which we announced this morning.
Brad Isaac will be appointed Chemical's, President and Chief operating officer with our current Chief operating Officer, Brian Reilly retiring in 2026.
In the meantime, Bryan will be assuming the role of senior adviser operations in order to retain and transfer his operational experience and knowledge to the team over the coming months.
Shockey currently senior Vice President and Deputy Chief Financial Officer will be appointed senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.
Liam Mooney currently our vice President of safety Health and environment will be appointed senior Vice President and Chief Legal officer.
And Sean Quinn, our outgoing Chief legal officer, who will also be retiring in 2026.
We will assume the role of senior adviser of special projects. So we can capture his expertise as well.
I will remain as CEO and will continue to guide this company through the most exciting times that any of us have ever experienced in this industry.
So thank you all for joining us today, both on the line and via webcast. We appreciate your continued interest and we will now open the floor to your questions.
We will now begin the question and answer session.
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Okay.
Sure.
Yeah.
The first question today comes from or.
<unk> with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning.
Question about Westinghouse.
The acquisition, obviously the outlook for nuclear globally has improved considerably.
Yet your five year CAGR guidance for the business Hasnt changed at 6% to 10% can you give us some color on why that is and if it's just a function of that most of the debt.
Is it more of a timing issue, where you expect most of the upside from new business to show up after that five year, Mark or is there anything else. We should think about in that and I do recognize that excludes the that windfall IP settlements from the Korea, but just curious on how to think about that growth range in the context of.
Of how all these positive announcements on new killer. Thank you.
Or says Tim Thanks for the question, it's a great question.
And we're going to pass it over to grant in a minute to grant it sits on the board. He's one of our directors on the Westinghouse Board. So he.
He has a deep into that subject, but before I do I just if you'll allow me I just wanted to make a statement on our last night, we got some news.
From one of the communities up North you know we've been fighting a forest fires up there. It seems perpetually since may they just keep coming and coming and there's an ongoing welfare situation.
Evacuation that we heard about last night.
Yesterday at the northern village a pie in house Spinose as a community we're very close to a we had to fortunately as they had to evacuate the community last night and a good friend Mayor, Mike Norton Morgan and everyone are living up there we're thinking of you today.
At Cameco, we've been fortunate that our sites have remained safe during the wildfire season.
Many of our employees contractors partners have indeed been impacted and we're certainly always mindful of the challenges they face and continue to face and I just wanted to say to our workers who are helping in those communities. Thank you for the work that youre doing and we're thinking of them everyone up North and then hopefully we get a law.
Reading them pretty soon so I just wanted to start with that or sorry to interrupt and grants I'm going to turn it over to you on the Westinghouse question. Yeah. Thank you, Tim or you actually did a great job answering your own question. When you think about Westinghouse. There is there is no doubt that whether it's the core of the biz.
<unk>, that's responding to reactors being restarted reactors going through subsequent license renewal and all the exciting.
Business that has generated for Westinghouse because of that then there is the energy systems piece and the Utica body units.
The first indication of that strong.
Prospect for Westinghouse's technology, either directly through the AP 1000 or through the Korean offering really playing a critical part in growing nuclear power. It's all very exciting, but when you think about our forward guidance.
Doug on the basis of that conservative approach that cameco always uses.
What I mean, there is.
A lot of projects looking at new builds at energy systems have not yet hit F. <unk>.
And that for US is a is a critical moment for starting to build it into the business plan. So whether it's debt six reactors in Poland or the two in Bulgaria, or Slovenia has a valuation or that can announce for the United States or the evaluation of gigawatt scale reactors in Canada.
Which could be up to as many as 14, depending on which is S estimate you look at.
None of those have hit us yet and therefore, they're not in the forward plan.
Once they are in the forward plan, we would start.
I would say significantly have increases to that outlook that they're just not there yet and even some of them as they start to hit would be outside that five year look so there is a.
There is a wall of business that's building for Westinghouse, but from a very conservative point of view. We don't include it until things are at final investment decision.
If we didn't there would be a really silly upside growth rate that that just I think would be eras.
Irresponsible for us to do continue to be very happy and in fact, maybe the final comment I would make on Westinghouse the only part of the business that is underperforming. The acquisition case is the part of the business that would've been doing decommissioning and reactors that are shutting down. So we are delighted that that part of the business is effective.
<unk> been all rolled up because nobody is even considering doing that anymore. So thank you for your question.
Thanks, and just as a quick follow up I mean, the 170 million U S IP with Paul this quarter.
That looks to be repeatable, how should we think about that in terms of potential cadence on when we could see that.
Come again over the next couple of years like is this something we should be baking into our estimates in terms of upside.
Upside additions on an annual basis now.
That particular mechanism applies to markets that the Koreans are leading the development here. So when the Koreans are pursuing newbuild opportunities those newbuild opportunities.
Bring with them.
Westinghouse's participation through these.
These kind of upfront arrangements through our scope of work that Westinghouse would be delivering alongside the Korea and then obviously through the growth of the core of the business as you know a fuel fabrication reactor contract for 80 years kicks in after the Newbuild has died.
The first Korean project is the Duke Avanti sites, but remember what the Koreans actually captured was a four reactor plant in the Czech Republic to at Newco Bonnie.
Two a tablet so in fact, we are expecting more news just to come out of the check yet.
Newbuild project alone over over the next couple of years, and then watch any other market that the Koreans are continuing to develop because it would be a very similar structure.
Perfect. Thank you for the color.
Thanks <unk>.
The next question comes from Brian Lee with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hey, guys. Good morning, Thanks for taking the questions and kudos on the nice execution.
Maybe real quick question on the model to start.
<unk> noticed a quite significant.
Upside and strong results on the EBITDA performance for the uranium segment I think part of that was the.
The the low cost inventory can you can you kind of walk us through the mechanics in the quarter of that draw down.
And and what maybe the.
And the trend line could look like for that part of the.
Segment into the second half of the year.
Right.
Yeah, Brian I'm going to ask Heidi to jump in there.
But before I before Heidi jumps in.
It really you need to think about that uranium segment performance as this.
MS incumbent advantage that cameco has I will remind folks that we responded to.
Weak market condition.
We saw in the past by by leaving inventory in the ground by going into supply discipline and I would also remind folks we're still in supply discipline and that we don't even have our tier one assets running at.
At full production and the reason for that is really simple is that the demand on the uranium side hasnt shown up yet in order to justify that so all of that means as we capture more and more demand and we have the opportunities to really develop that tier one production base, it's just going to.
Continue to improve our cost structure more produced material from lower cost sources flowing into our financials in the uranium segment. This is the very positive consequence of having as much standby capacity as we do which was deliberate and strategic and responsive.
To the market. So just wanted to provide that strategic context, but highly if you want to speak to the dynamics.
Sure. Thanks Grant.
And thanks for the question I guess I would just point out first of all that our inventory will vary so as much as our inventories a little lower this quarter. It's just a matter of kind of the timing of when production falls and also when our supply other purchase commitments for them in terms of the cost overall, I guess I would point a little bit too.
To our to our purchase power so in our outlook, we're guiding to about <unk> 11, or 12 million pounds to be purchased this year and year to date, we've only purchased about to sell them a lot of purchasing yet to come we've where you're seeing the benefit in the first half of the low cost.
Production is grant pointed out some of that will balance out to that through the remainder of the year and so if you look at our outlook of where our unit cost of sales is that expected to land.
That might be helpful and if youre looking at your model.
No that's super helpful. I appreciate that.
And then just second question and then I'll pass it on is.
There's clearly a lot of activity in our in the new nuclear.
Development space are you you talked through a number of them geographically.
And I think it's it's well appreciated you guys don't want to sort of front run and put it into your numbers without seeing they're.
They are being moved and F I D and so forth and so on can you give us a sense though of.
You know, whether it's region by region or specific areas, where theres been more advanced development kind of what are the gating factors are to some of this activity materializing into.
Projects that you would consider putting into your official guidance and maybe I think in the past you've talked a little bit around timing for some of the potential ones in Poland Bulgaria.
No one wants to talk about in Slovakia, just recently, but maybe a little bit more color around kind of.
The cadence and what.
What developments you're expecting here in terms of those getting to the finish line. Thanks guys.
Yeah, Brian it's Tim.
Its almost overwhelming to some extent the number of different countries and companies and industries that are today talking about nuclear and I think were drawn in many different directions as we try to get to those countries and companies are I mean.
Just generally and I'll, let grant speak about what Westinghouse is looking up because thats a different movie but.
The U K, France, Hungary, Czech China, India, Canada Big player U S. We were just down a grant and I were down two weeks ago.
In Pittsburgh with the with the President of the United States and the Secretary of energy.
Talking about new nuclear you know he signed for executive orders are calling for a quadrupling of nuclear power in the United States 400 units by 2050. He wants a 10 <unk> thousands started.
By 2030 have bit of a monumental task that we're going to try and undertake.
You can go Egypt, Turkey and in the countries. The three you mentioned I think of companies, Google Amazon Microsoft met AWS.
It's quite a it's a load for sure so lots of interest in nuclear lots of projects moving forward and Westinghouse right in the thick of it Greg I don't know if you want to add anything Brian I think you were right and identify that some markets just feel more traditional and they seem to have.
An advantage so for example.
What's going on in central and Eastern Europe. This is a part of the world that has is actually always been very familiar with nuclear it's a part of the world that never stopped building nuclear it's just they were building Russian reactors and now are looking for an alternative to the Russian reactors, but but that means that there is almost a.
Bit of an advantage for those markets because you've got state owned utilities with strong state support.
The classic model for building nuclear so watch Poland.
Think Bulgaria is really eager to you know they had the second announcement, but I think they are really eager to get to before Poland. So watch that space closely it and watch Slovenia. They just have that inherent advantage of that strong state orientation and strong state focus on supporting.
The grid other markets.
Are really starting to evolve new models in the United States.
<unk> for things like multi utility multi investor multi customer fleet models as opposed to.
The one utility that steps out and says we're going to do it we're going to we're going to build gigawatt scale.
We do it in a two pack so it's a pretty big undertaking and we're going to do it on that.
On the back of our rate base. For example, so new models are being worked out and some of the new markets Thats, taking I would say a little bit of time, it's not diminishing the enthusiasm in any way, but it's taking a little bit of time in and then ultimately when you start to add up these numbers and you get that dozens of planned gigawatt scale reactor.
<unk> between Westinghouse and the Koreans can do what are the questions that often gets asked is can we do it and just.
You didn't ask it but if you had a third question I am pretty sure that Thats, where you were going to go. So I just wanted to preempted a little bit just to say, yes, we can the key the key to newbuild in the west and in the regions like Central and Eastern Europe is standardization and sequencing and what we see over and over again as utilities.
Looking at what is the right sequence looking at a reactor that's already designed already licensed already been built they can go in they can look at it they can see it operating and this commitment to standardization and sequencing will be the key to a successful launch of gigawatt scale newbuild.
Everybody Fortunately seems to be United on capturing those two key components.
Thanks for all that color guys I appreciate it.
Thanks, Brian.
The next question comes from Lawson Winder with Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much operator, and good morning, Tim and Greg and congratulations to everybody as starting new roles with today's announcement.
I would like to ask about.
The.
Commentary in the release on.
On Mcarthur so.
There was some commentary along the lines of some slow development in the first half of the year and potential risk to guidance.
Could you maybe just elaborate on what's going on there and kind of the range of potential outcomes and bottlenecks through age too that will ultimately.
Determine your ability to hit that 18 million pounds guidance.
Yes Lawson Tim.
Mining not an easy adventure, we've said it a million times in doing that.
Anyone ever tell you that mining is easy because it's not so we're going into some new areas in Mcarthur, we've mentioned that and in our MD&A in some of our other disclosure whenever you go into a new area. There is potential new risks and so you know our you've seen our new nor grown freezing method, we have to make sure it's frozen tight to before.
We get in there to start mining. So we're working on that you heard me also talk about our availability of labor or at least indirectly. The fires. This year have not been easy on us and.
We've lost a little bit of electricity got it back we lost communications got it back in.
Then unfortunately, some of the communities who are employees live like Pine House.
When there are when there are fighting fires, we send the employees home to help out at home. So availability of skilled labor is always a.
The tricky part for US and then we're just commissioning some new equipment, so I'm not making any excuses here I'm, just saying mining's hard that's what we're doing we have not changed.
Changed our guidance on on production for this year.
We're all things are going well, but there's just risk in mining. So I think that's where I can tell you Lawson.
Okay. Thanks for flagging it.
And just walking through that detail is helpful.
Just as a follow up I'd like to ask about <unk> you provided some some disclosure in today's release that ultimately you continue to expect first production in 2030, you have reached a level six.
Readiness is the Tesla facility.
What I wanted to actually ask about is <unk>.
<unk> selection for the.
Department of energy funding can you just talk to that process.
What what the potential upside is and how you expect that funding to look like could it be grant money or could it be some sort of.
Repayment on Capex.
Any color there would be really really helpful. Thank you.
Yeah, we haven't reached euro level, yet, but Greg go ahead, yes, <unk> is under way on TRL six evaluation and just a reminder to everybody why that's important is because it's technology that we know works it enriches uranium, but but ultimately what you need to.
Prove as it works at that nuclear reliability level, meaning when you turn on the machines. They are they are doing what they're supposed to be doing at that sort of six sigma level of nuclear reliability and that becomes the basis that.
We're really getting into serious conversations about investing in the technology and serious conversations about contingent contracts for example for the output.
A new nuclear technology, so very exciting we continue to be.
Really committed to finding an entry point into the enrichment space as cameco. So so all of that is going well you ask you about the Dod programs and I can provide a bit of color, but I, probably can't provide a lot of a lot of really strong direction on the Doe has not.
Really made any decisions yet and I think I think the industry is getting a little bit.
Frustrated that they havent made those decisions and then in terms of the mechanisms.
Industry pushback on what they might look like and maybe just give you. One example, the deal we had proposed that may be the best mechanism.
For them to support new Western fuel cycle technologies is to kind of stand in the breach as the buyer of last resort, meaning if if industry wasn't yet prepared to support our new technology through a contingent contract that the dose might be there to buy.
That material.
In the absence of industry demand.
And on the surface it sounds like a great idea Lawson, but it's something that we're just not huge fans of cameco, because we've seen in the past what happens with.
The Doe has excess material and we've seen what happens when they sell it into the market in a way that's not attuned to the commercial timing in the market. So the last thing we want to see is the buildup in inventory ahead of industry demand and then live with the uncertainty of what Theyre going to do with it so to your question.
We and others in the industry have been pushing for more direct support we've been saying things like.
If we in the West don't Wanna be standing on January one 2028, scratching, our heads and going where is all the western capacity that we were supposed to be investing at than the deal. We should think about deploying some of the budget monies that have been allocated to those who are prepared to put their balance sheet to work through co investments the 50 50.
Cost share of the advanced reactor development program is a great model for something like GLA.
Industry is prepared to put its balance sheet government is prepared to support those first movers. So more to come on this space, but I would say it really comes down to the deal we just hasnt made decisions yet.
Until then we continue to evaluate this on its technical capability and its commercial case and just like every other segment. We would have no intention of front running high quality industry term demand with supply that didn't have a whole. So we remain disciplined.
Thank you very much.
Thanks Lawson.
The next question comes from Alexander Pearce with Bank of Montreal. Please go ahead.
Great. Thanks, Good morning, all.
So my first question is just just around inventories and Youll see drilling inventories down to just over 7 million pounds now and you.
Highlighted in the next quarter you've got a.
The maintenance shutdown at cigar lake potential delays around Macarthur deliveries also towards the end of the year.
How comfortable are you with that level is that.
A new normal or should we assume.
More purchases in this quarter to try and.
Push that number up.
So thanks for the question Alex Grant.
Yes, you always need to think about our sourcing into our contract portfolio is something that we do on a.
On a much longer term basis than even just the calendar year the advantage.
Our focus on we do not produce unless we build a home for it means we actually have a lot of line of sight for a long period of time.
And on what our commitments are and win and therefore, how we need to source. It. So we always talk about sourcing from production.
As obviously our preferred preferred.
Preferred method, we carry an inventory for when there are moments, where there is a mismatch between delivery and production or if there's risk to production we carry an inventory just for that.
We also make purchases in the market at times, when we feel uranium is cheap and we buy forward if somebody's willing to fix the price We act like a very greedy utility in those circumstances and then we always reserve the right to bring those long term purchases for ward and take possession of them.
If we need them for sourcing in the more immediate term we can buy in the spot market for immediate delivery. That's just yet another tool we can use.
We have the ability to borrow material fraud from those who have material on account with us if we needed to and then obviously, we could always get into a conversation with the utility.
And what I, what I mean, there Alex is that.
We run the company from a risk mitigation point of view said that were never like a clumsy buyer in the market, but we will be a very strategic buyer in the market and.
We've seen we've seen some supply come in in the face of no demand that spot prices come off and quite frankly people want to sell material at 70 to holders with all of the tailwind facing nuclear with the reality that todays uranium price.
It does not yet reflect the fact that uranium as the product for which there is no substitute it does not reflect the fact that the risks to supply are way greater than the risk to demand. It doesn't reflect the fact that restarts are proving to be really really tricky at our industry. It doesn't reflect the fact that greenfield.
This is not going to happen on the times, great Timeframes and budgets that people are proposing so if people want to part with uranium today.
He will be a very strategic and deliberate buyer, we do have pounds, we have Dubai.
But we will always pull those other sources in a way that makes the most sense for us and and just be very opportunistic and continue to I would say run the best trading book in the uranium space as we take advantage of those who are selling when we quite frankly think they shouldn't be.
Yeah.
Great. Thanks, and then maybe I can just build on <unk> question at the start in terms of that guidance range, you provided for Westinghouse to 6% to 10%.
Is it fair to say that the upper and lower bounds for that range has more to do with the timing of the existing pipeline that you see coming in obviously, there's some flex in terms of when that happens rather than.
Number of reactors for the kind of off of another.
Yeah.
I wouldn't say, there's a whole lot of flex on the lower part of that range that lower part really reflects the core of the business picking up the fabrication of reactor services because.
Because of restarts because of subsequent license renewals.
Core actually has some potential upside to it as well things like the conditions for bringing back the Springfield conversion service in the UK well that would actually sit in the core of the business the energy systems piece, which captures the new builds it's got a lot more upside to it if the reactors that are being.
Evaluated hit.
So for US we look at it as a floor. The ceiling is just really subject to capturing some of these stated interest in building new reactors turning them into revealed interests through final investment decisions. We just continue to be very very excited with Westinghouse is going and.
We really are grateful everyday that we're part of this business.
Great. Thank you.
Thanks, Alex.
The next question comes from Andrew Wong with RBC capital markets. Please go ahead.
Yeah.
Hey, good morning, Thanks for taking my questions.
Yeah, just going back to like the nuclear new build opportunity, obviously, a lot of significant opportunities here for both the Michigan Westinghouse So I guess two questions here one is.
The nuclear industry have the capacity right now to meet that potential build pipeline.
That's a neighbor or heavy equipment or for Jane.
And then just also similar for Westinghouse.
There's a lot of opportunities here potentially.
You look across all the projects 20, plus <unk> 1000 builds are you been.
Going to 30% if you exclude everything.
Is there enough capacity for Westinghouse to meet that.
Andrew earlier.
What I thought might have been bryan's question to say does the industry have the capacity to do it in.
I look back through the <unk> and <unk> at a time when.
We were building 20 reactors 25 reactors a year.
Can be done and it can be done as long as there is a really strong commitment to standardization and sequencing and if there is.
The ability to develop a long lead item platform the ability to.
Prepare the labor at the ability to sequence the construction programs.
Means that we can deliver.
All of this promise and and I would just say for those of you that are in Ontario look no further than the Refurbishments of the can do reactors they are demonstrating <unk> and Bruce power.
What happens when you standardize and sequence and the achievement that can be made in the west. So we can do it. It really is just about getting started and getting started in a smart standardized and sequenced way and as I said to Brian.
Great News about all of this talk of nuclear Newbuild is everyone understands standardizing to a common design and sequencing properly is the key and as long as we stick to that.
I don't know what the upside case is but it's tremendous.
Okay, great. Thanks for that additional color and then maybe just turning to the uranium market.
Can you just provide some more insight into your contracting discussions today are we still seeing floors and ceilings at that 78 to $1 30 level.
And then just on just the contracting activity in general understand all the volumes are low and each one because of the macro uncertainty.
Let's call them, a bit, but I think macro uncertainties, probably the environment that will be in for quite a while here. So.
What do we need to see happen.
Contracting activity pick up.
Yes, Andrew.
Im amazed, we're 49 minutes into our call and this is the first question about the uranium market. So thank you for that.
Im prepared to answer it.
Sure.
The radio market, I said little bit earlier, and I just want to reiterate that.
When youre looking at how things are setting up.
Some folks are inclined to say well the term contracting is pretty low year to date.
Even the spot market is pretty low year to date.
And look at that as bad news and I actually look at it through a very different lands. It just simply means that demand is being delayed it's being deferred.
Accumulating into a future window, where there are even greater risks to supply and therefore that means or suggests that pricing power is going up not going down.
I look at the reasons for the uranium.
<unk> market to be a little bit slow.
Still point to.
The geopolitical bifurcation, a multiplication of the market. There are there is more attention being paid downstream right now than there is upstream theyre just theyre remains more concern about where the critical services are coming from relative to uranium and I think some in the uranium segment.
Actually harming themselves.
We do continue to see new entrants or restarts that are being hyper promoted and of course not.
Criticizing anybody I understand why they do it but if you're a fuel buyer. There you know that enrichment is really short and every time you turn around you are being told.
<unk> is going to start producing massive amounts of uranium or are these new projects are going to come on in the next two years you are inclined to go okay, maybe I shouldn't worry about uranium quite yet.
I would worry.
We haven't seen that fully transfer transpire in uranium.
So we remain patient and we remain actually really optimistic that when the demand starts to come and utilities realize that the volumes theyre looking for art, there or they realize that the duration or the tenor of the available material isn't what they thought.
We're going to find ourselves in a very similar situation that we went through and conversion.
So that to me is the really good analog so all of that means is we remain patient. We remained disciplined the market knows what we want for market related callers, we want those floors that start with sevens, we want those ceilings in 130 escalated when theres been such little turn.
Demand in the market. It means that others are willing to be more aggressive but that doesn't include us rebuild our contract portfolio to protect us from these kind of softer market moments and we hold out to capture the value of our incumbent advantages we're more bullish on where this is <unk>.
Than we were this time last year the longer the contracting has delayed the more demand thats going to come into the market all at once and we love those moments from uranium contracting point of view.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thanks for your question Andrew.
The next question comes from Mohammed <unk> with National Bank Financial. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Tim and grant Thanks for taking my question. So my question, mainly relates to the entire deliveries are expected in the second half of the year could you maybe talk about some of your confidence level in receiving your portion of that production in the second half and maybe as it specifically relates to the transportation risks in the region. Thank you.
Yes.
Over the last number of years, we had been flagging that while the trans Caspian corridor was working.
It really lacked predictability and certainty.
We're never sure, but but I would say our partner because Adam problem has just become better and better at utilizing that channel that's given us the confidence to suggest that our deliveries for the 2025 production as well as the remaining 2024 production wells.
We will start to flow in the second half of the year, we obviously will update in Q3.
If that's not the case.
It goes back to our sourcing conversation, we have multiple ways to deal with making our commitments and so when there are delays coming out of that part of the world will just use alternative sources and then we'll capture the full economic value of that material, but but in general the trans Caspian route is becoming little more.
Certain a little more predictable, but nothing like producing from cigar Lake and moving it out of northern Saskatchewan, which is probably the highest reliability uranium on the planet.
Great. Thanks for that answer and then if I can.
Maybe follow up on specifically the core business in Springfield, and just as it relates to the entire geopolitical situation. There have you seen enough development within the European.
Market that could potentially get you thinking about restarting springfield or going towards that direction.
Certainly a very constructive conversion space and certainly.
A lot of interest in additional western conversion to come to the market.
Generally what we need to see is a closing of the bid and ask spread on new conversion capacity and what I mean, there is not necessarily the price there are.
I'd say a lot of utilities that are willing to pay today's conversion price today's long term conversion price and maybe even a slight premium in order to lock in new capacity, but utilities are smart. They are saying we are prepared to do this for three years.
Well.
Actually need a much longer contract in three years in order to do this we've seen this game before utilities love to contract with new entrance, whether it's the uranium space or conversion and they love to sort of entice them with what looked like premium contracts for a very short duration.
Because then once that capacity is in the market, it's going to bid the price down and we just simply arent going to fall for it if we're bringing this capacity back that capacity has to come back under our pricing and under a tender.
That makes sense and captures full value. So the bid ask is not so much on the price side. It's what is the long term commitment to that supply source and therefore, the strongest underwriting condition for new supply and then don't forget the longer Springfield spaced out the more value accrues directly to port hope.
So we're in a pretty good position here in the conversion space.
Alright, thank you.
Thanks, Paul.
The next question comes from Anita Soni with CIBC. Please go ahead.
Oh, My God <unk> got squeeze dinner last night.
We wouldnt leave you out.
I was like I'm going to ask the Darwin and now early today.
That concludes our conference call. This morning.
Firstly, congratulations to grants and Heidi on their promotions and and.
And great to see you Tim continuing on in your role.
And secondly, a lot of the questions have been asked and answered and great answers. The first the only nuance that I wanted to ask about was the wildfire situation.
Is that having an impact.
Is that contributing to that cautionary language that you had around.
The production in.
At cigar Lake Mcarthur.
Mcarthur River or is that just completely separate I'm, just trying to understand like how temporary or long term that.
Sort of that caution that you have.
In terms of should we be thinking about for 2026 as well as 2020.
Yeah I needed the fires are not really the principal cause as those other factors I mentioned.
We're breaking into new mining areas the ground freezing has to take.
The labor issues, that's a bit related to fires that they come and go because they are looking after their own places we're commissioning new equipment. So so those things are in play right now the fires are peripheral I'd say to that we will get through that legacy we haven't changed our guidance.
Certainly for next year has no effect on that so we're just working through some of those issues right now this summer and if Theres any news, we'll bring it to you, but we're going to carry on as we have in the past so hopefully that helps.
Okay. Thank you that's it for my questions.
Thanks.
The last question comes from Brian Macarthur with Raymond James. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, and thanks for taking my question. So I'll be quick because I know we're at the end language back to <unk> questions just on G. L E.
Jim you've talked about how tough it is to do things how confident would you be to get <unk> in by 2030 and the second part of that is the thought process still.
Youre going to treat some secondary material first or has that all changed as we go forward any color would be great. Thanks.
Yes, Brian.
Glad you're glad you got it right at the end here with respect to <unk>. We continue to work on a path that is the fundamental agreement with the department of energy by 2030 subject to obviously further discussions with the Doe around timing.
We would be in a position to re enrich the depleted <unk> six tails that are our legacy liability quite frankly of the old gaseous diffusion plants, but once re and rich are an important source.
U S uranium both uranium and conversion that would be our intention and that would be our focus right now because that is the primary obligation of GLA GLA could do.
Straight down the fairway led you to replace the Russians GLA could do higher assay enrichment in order to.
Provide fuel for some of the advanced reactor designs that require a high level if enrichment, but in those other two cases, we would need to see the demand for that service, we would need to see the appropriate contracting the appropriate pricing in order to underwrite the.
Investments required to do those two additional services, whereas the dove tails arrangement.
Is it is an agreement we have with the Doe to produce two products, we know really really well uranium and conversion and that remains our focus that's the path. We continue to beyond subject to obviously verify TRL six and then subject to putting in.
Strong investment case, because the uranium in U S. <unk> market is there for that product.
Right. So the capacity at first would be just for details and then you'd get out additional capacity like it's scalable to do the other stuff. If you wanted to yes, I mean, the only thing that could change that Brian and it kind of goes back to the question that was asked earlier about what the dose is up to if the deal realizes that it really points early you instead.
<unk> of re enrich tails, then the Doe has the ability to support that through some funding decisions. We would obviously encourage that and we would respond accordingly.
But at the moment the primary focus is their tails re enrichment.
Great. Thanks, very much for taking my question at the end, yes, Thanks, Brian Nice to talk to you.
This concludes our question and answer session I would like to turn the conference back over to Tim Goodnow for any closing remarks.
Okay, well, thank you operator, and thanks to everybody that.
With us today is Cory noted at the start if you have any detailed follow up questions related to our second quarter results were or any questions at all that we didn't have a chance to answer please.
Sandoz into us and we will be happy to answer them.
We believe that the evolution of support of government policies. The tangible actions of energy intensive industries and positive public conversations are all pointing to the same conclusion nuclear energy as a critical solution for providing clean constant secure and reliable power to electrify globe.
<unk> economies as a proven reliable supplier with decades of experience cameco, along with Westinghouse is uniquely positioned to power that safe secure energy future.
So thanks again, everybody for joining us today stay safe and healthy and have a great day. Thank you.
This spring.
Today's conference call you.
You may now disconnect your lines.
Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.
Okay.
Yeah.
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