Forsys Metals: RT-Kurse und RT-Kommentare (Seite 106)

[CSE66]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 65.951.304 von Serengeti am 04.12.20 17:03:14

da ist jemand seine Teilchen schnell losgeworden, auch in US Volumen

[Serengeti]

Jetzt auch mit mehr Volumen

[CSE66]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 65.940.585 von Pommes112 am 03.12.20 20:06:10

weiß nicht was du meinst

[Pommes112]

Was passiert hier.
Übersetzung nicht möglich

[CSE66]

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4392336-cameco-corporation-…

Transcripts | Basic Materials
Cameco Corporation (CCJ) CEO Tim Gitzel Presents at the Scotiabank Mining Conference (Transcript)
Dec. 1, 2020 1:39 PM ET|
2 comments
|
About: Cameco Corporation (CCJ)
Subscribers Only
Earning Call Audio

Cameco Corporation (NYSE:CCJ) The Scotiabank Mining Conference December 1, 2020 11:30 AM ET

Company Participants

Tim Gitzel - President & CEO

Conference Call Participants

Orest Wowkodaw - Scotiabank

Orest Wowkodaw

Hi, good morning and welcome back, I’m Orest Wowkodaw with Scotiabank. Our next fireside chat today is going to be with Cameco Corp and we've got Mr. Tim Gitzel, President and CEO joining us today. Tim, thank you very much for making the time to join us virtually today. We very much appreciate it. I thought maybe, we could start out today just talking a little bit about the uranium market itself and can you give us some insight in terms of what you're seeing on the uranium market? I mean, clearly, the spot price has been softening for the last couple of months. And just, I think everybody's wondering, is there much to read into that as demand saw thing, or is just this more something else to play?

Tim Gitzel

Yes, well thanks, Orest, good to see you as well. We can be I guess, we're certainly all looking forward to the day when we can get together in person. And I hope you and the team there, and everybody that's on call today is safe and healthy. And so we've continued to run through this COVID pandemic, we've had our operations up and down a bit. But we're here every day watching the market. So where's the market at today?

Well, we've been through I think we're into month nine, I think post-COVID. And, I think COVID has really slowed things down and are looking forward to a fairly, I would say healthy 2020, 2021 in the uranium space. And this COVID has just put a damper on a lot of things. I think we've seen utilities interested, but unwilling to commit the long-term contract. So they've been playing in the spot market, they've been taking pawns off the spot market and saying, can we kick some of these long-term contracting issues down the road for another year? Can we see what COVID is going to bring? Can we see what 2020, 2021 earlier going to bring? Is a vaccine coming? Are we going to be back?

And so we've seen the spot market obviously, it took a good jump, I think there's about a 30% jump in the spot price, early in the year when COVID came in and we had to back off production at Cigar Lake and the Kazakhs backed off their production, that in Kazakhstan but we've seen the price hold there, it's in the $29 to $30 range, it seems to be holding there, whether that's a $29 floor, I'm not sure. But we're just in this kind of holding pattern right now with the utilities allowance, I think played on the spot market over $80 million this year. That's a significant amount. Well, the long-term market about £45 million, £46 million. So next to nothing. So we see utilities just waiting it out, waiting to see some cards. Yet at the same time, I just say we're optimistic about where things are going and going to get out of this COVID piece at some point.

And we're going to get back to what we were talking about nine months ago or 10 months ago, which was climate change and decarbonisation and electrification of the grids as to our nuclear, because we’re going to need a lot of uranium and a lot of nuclear power if we're going to meet any of the commitments that countries are making these days. So I'll stop there, but I will go on, but I just want to say we're really bullish.

Orest Wowkodaw

And I remember like just before COVID started, you talked about pounds kind of under discussion with utilities at their highest level since Fukushima. How is that evolved? Are you still seeing a high level of pounds under discussion? Or is it just maybe could you give us some insight in terms of why utilities aren't that interested or haven't been aggressively pursuing new long-term contracts?

Tim Gitzel

Yes, So we said, we had a full pipeline of discussions going on, in the end of the COVID outbreak, I can tell you those discussions haven't stopped. And that's because those utilities know they're going to need supply going into the future. And you look at numbers, I've seen your numbers which correspond pretty good with ours, which correspond pretty good with the UX numbers, there's about 700 plus million uncovered pounds from now to 2030. And if you go another five years, it’s over billion, another five years, it's over billion pounds. So there's lots of material to be contracted for in the next period of time. Utilities, due to COVID due in part maybe to the RSA have just been sitting on the sidelines and saying is now the time to commit to a five or 10-year program with Cameco, with the Kazakhs with anybody, when we really don't know what the future is going to look like.

And they're trying to keep their plants open. They're trying to keep their people safe, people coming to the plant. So it's just been a time out. And we hear that from, I could tell you, our utilities in North America and in Asia and Europe all pretty much the same story. Let's see a few more cards here. In the meantime, where we'll use some of our inventory that we've got, we'll draw that down a bit. And we know that's been happening, we've been doing it ourselves, we'll buy some spot pounds if we need some short-term pounds, just to see us through for another year or so. And then we'll see what the future looks like. And then we'll commit to those long-term debt. So a bit of short-termism, I would say in 2020. But that doesn't dampen our view that going forward, if nuclear continues to grow this electrification decarbonisation move continues, this decarbonisation by every country and state and province and company by 2030, 2040, 2050 you're going to need nuclear, so we can read the demand leaves and supply.

Not so clear, you've got the Ranger going down in what six weeks from now, you've got COMINAK has got a couple of months left. And so that's production has been around for 30 years, gone, gone. It's not on the market anymore. And so nobody investing right now, because the market doesn't, we're not getting any signals, that we should do that. So I've been around a long-time decades, I've seen this movie before. We wait, wait, wait, we take supply off. We don't invest in any new projects, we wait too long. And then they say, well, where's the uranium? We say, well we just haven't invested for a long-time. It takes us time. And then you get that inflection where people say, wow, I'm getting nervous about my future supply of uranium, I better lock some in and we'll get to that point. It's coming.

Orest Wowkodaw

And speaking of that supply and the supply discipline, I mean you've shown, Cameco has shown a ton of supply discipline over the last few years here. Why in this market, just given that demand is still near-term demand is still seems uncertain. Why bring back Cigar so quickly?

Tim Gitzel

Yes, Orest, we never plan to take it down. That wasn't part of our plan. I mean, we have contracts in place, you know you've seen our books from the last number of years, you know about how many pounds we sell on an annual basis. And so we said this year going in, we were doing our share of the cigar about £9 million, and then our share of Inca and buy the reps. And so that was our plan March, April, May, June that through sudden we lost a source of supply, that we had low cost supply that helps keep our balance sheet solid as it is today.

And so and we have partners in Cigar Lake, and so all of those things, so we had never planned to keep it down to the long-term, we need that supply to fill the contracts, we still have to buy some pounds. So that was never our plan. Our plan was always to run Cigar at £18 million, we're trying to ramp it back up. Now to that level, you saw we had some COVID issues. It's kind of day-to-day on operations on anybody's operations get us here in the morning, you need to say we got a COVID case, and can we deal with it and you have enough workers showing up? So we're working to ramp it back up. But we need that production. It was never our plan to take it down. So we brought it up at the first safe, available opportunity.

Orest Wowkodaw

Okay, and do you see I mean, you're restarting obviously and ramping back up. But do you see or have you committed to returning back to full capacity at Cigar, say next year and ’22 or potentially you may run below nameplate given the state of the market?

Tim Gitzel

Well, that's a good question, voluntary or involuntary? Not sure. Yes, those are discussions we have with our partners. Like I say, we don't know we're nor an outbreak away from having to take other decisions. But so far we've got great protocols in place. Our people are very observant and obedient of the rules. Yes, we had a case, you saw on the weekend we were able to manage it, but Saskatchewan is not a great place at the moment for COVID, I can tell you we're going the wrong direction.

The province is a bit locked down again. So there's the whole involuntary piece that I can't tell you tomorrow ask me again tomorrow and then Thursday and Friday. And from an operational point of view, it runs optimally at £80 million and but that's a decision the partners take together every year and so for this, for the time being we've committed to ramp back up to £80 million, but we'll look at that going forward.

Orest Wowkodaw

Okay. And with some of the developments in the United States, they seem to becoming a little bit more protectionist about their sources of supply, when it comes to uranium for their nuclear industry, do you see a potential opportunity there for Cameco whether it be Canadian material or potentially restarting some of your U.S. material?

Tim Gitzel

Yes, I would say lot going on down in the U.S. and has been this year, we got through the 232, Section 232, pretty much unscathed, the Secretary Brew yet at the time, came up with the Nuclear Fuel Working Group Report, which was a lot of really good language in there, really supportive of the nuclear industry and a commitment to put some money on the table. He was on bus to restart some U.S. production. So that's been out there hanging out there. Then the Russian Suspension Agreement was going on at the same time that kind of froze everybody down there to say, is it on? Is it off? What's happening with it? How much of the market will the Russians end up getting?

And we now know the answer to that it's about 20%. It's actually less overtimes but 17%. So if you look at from a uranium perspective, 17% or 20%, if you want to do the math of £50 million, £10 million, that leaves a lot of space for Cameco and you know those utilities, we've had them all as customers, we still have most of them, they're going to have to come out for some more material, it looks like the Biden administration is going to put the trillions into their Clean Energy program. And so there's bipartisan support for nuclear down there, there was before the Election, and there is now.

So things are looking pretty interesting in the U.S., if they commit to the Paris accord, again, and I think I've heard President Elect Biden say they're going to be carbon neutral by 2035, when two-thirds of your energy is carbon based, you've got a lot of work to do in a short period of time. So plus, and let me just put one more marker on the table. There's a country that consumes 50 million pounds of uranium a year and produces under almost nothing. I mean, that's one of the kind of strange pieces of our industry is that the countries that produce most of the uranium don't need it. So there has to be trade between countries. And that's been in question as you know around the world what the relationships Canada, China, China, U.S., India, China, Canada.

So I mean, all of that is in place. So it's a tricky piece right now. We think the U.S., North American, let me put it that way. Market is a great opportunity for Cameco. We have already great customers in Canada, we've got lot of our supply goes down to the U.S. And a lot of talk now about these strategic minerals that are in North America and good North America be a bit of a critical minerals hub, where there's a good agreement between the countries that we should keep some more critical minerals here and not rely on farther away country. So yes, lots of opportunity for us sourced in North America.

Orest Wowkodaw

Okay, I guess especially if the U.S. approves stockpile budget as well to purchase uranium. We shall see there.

Tim Gitzel

Yes, well we have got good assets in Wyoming.

Orest Wowkodaw

Right, how much if you -- I mean, if you got the right price, how much uranium could you bring back in the U.S.? If it's like a two tier market developed?

Tim Gitzel

Yes, sure. If we got the right price, I mean our Smith Ranch-Highland, and Crow Butte and North Butte operations, we have I think we have approval to run up 5 million or 6 million pounds permitting, it would take us some time to get up there. But we could, we could get up to 2 million to 3 million to 4 million pounds annually within a relatively, relatively short 18 month period of time. And so we were the largest producer before everyone shut down. And we have the assets to be that again, should the market develop in our favor. And I just remind everybody, the day before, Fukushima, March 10, 2011 the price of uranium spot and term was $73 U.S., that makes our U.S. operations look pretty good. So whether we get back there or not, I'm not sure but we've been there before.

Orest Wowkodaw

Okay, and can you remind us on how you're thinking about the restart criteria for Cigar Lake or sorry for McArthur River. What do you need to see happen?

Tim Gitzel

Yes, so we've I think we've been fairly consistent on this, we've been down now I think it's 27, almost four years, I guess, which is amazing at McArthur, but we said, we're not going to bring it back. Even though those are very low cost pounds for us that we could make money at spot prices today, we're not going to bring them back just to spray those pounds onto the spot market because that kind of unprimed to do over the last four years by shutting down, we've taken I think we've taken about 87 million pounds and left it in the ground that we would have brought onto the surface, and then you add 50 million we bought, we put 140 million pounds swing into the market, that's a lot.

So we're not going to bring back McArthur just to have the market tank. And you don't have to shut it down. Again, it's not fair to the people that work there to the Northern Community. So we said we want to refill our contract book, at prices that are acceptable, where we can get a good return for our shareholders, we're working on that, those are those pipeline discussions with our big, long-term customers, we're making some progress, we had some good progress last year, and we're working on more.

So once we get that portfolio, it doesn't have to be completely full, but we want a good portion of it. So that when we do produce the pounds, they have a home, and they just don't go laying in the spot market. And then that's when we'll make the call on McArthur and bring it back. And that's going to be a big event. I mean, we let all of our workers go. So we probably let 1,000 people go between McArthur and Key. So we're going to have to get them back and get the facility up to running order, get the people trained and safety precaution. So it'll take us a while, take us a year, year and a half to probably get back up to production, but look forward to that day, but it's not in the cards right now.

Orest Wowkodaw

Okay. Is there potential that that could wait in sequence, after Cigar kind of Phase 1 actually exhaust but you're not really adding material pounds to the market, if it's more of just a replacement of Cigar?

Tim Gitzel

Orest, I just can't see that happening. I just can't see, there's going to be a recovery. And I think it's going to be much sooner than that. There's going to be a recognition that even the middle of this decade, demand for uranium, even if it stays on that trajectory it's on now, it's growing and supplies going down and secondary supplies going down as well. And utilities that are building and I just noticed there's some new builds coming in India, China, and they don't care about uranium this year or next year, but they sure do in ’25, ’26 and then they're going to run those units for 60 years after that. Cigar is gone. I can tell you long before that, the Kazakhs are in depletion, McArthur's probably, there's some issues coming here.

It's just a question of when and so I think you're going to see the recognition and some sense of urgency come back into the market sooner than that. And that will allow for what we call it incumbents recovery. So those of us that have pulled back on our production, but have the facilities built and permitted and almost ready to go, we'll come back first, the utilities want to secure that. And then going forward, certainly into the next decade, there's going to have to be new production sources, and quite a few of them, and there's going to have to be price recognition before anybody is going to invest a dime. At today's prices, I can tell you nobody can make money, so you won't see investment.

So today's coming, I think COVID through a kind of a cloud over things for 2020. Hopefully, we can get that resolved in the first months or half of 2021 and get some clarity going forward. But I think there's good days ahead for all of us in the nuclear space.

Question-and-Answer Session

Q - Orest Wowkodaw

And then shifting to just the CRA. I mean, it has to be disappointing to see the CRA try to appeal for a third time, I guess two lower court rulings that were clearly in your favor. I mean, any idea on when you can actually recollect the $300 million with the CRA of yours that the CRA sitting on and is this just, when could we get some visibility on whether the Supreme Court decides to hear this case?

Tim Gitzel

Yes, well to say we were disappointed that they decided to appeal would be an slap for employees and especially our Northern employees it's causing a lot of hurt for us, we've got a lot of money tied up and having an effect on our company, but they don't seem to really care about that. And so, yes, after two crystal clear rulings by the Trial Court, Court of Appeal, Four judges, two courts completely in our favor, yes, they feel they have nothing to lose, and so have applied for leave. So you have to get leave to appeal. The Supreme Court doesn't hear everything they've applied for that, we will reply to their application by Wednesday. And then I would say would be in the next three to six months, the Court will decide whether they will hear the appeal first.

And then if they don't, it's solved, and then we get our money back. And if they do, then you probably into it for another 18 months, the two years. So we'll see where it goes. We've applied to get some of our money and our costs back now. We haven't heard from that on that. And I'm sure they'll try and hold out as long as they can until they find out whether they get leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Orest Wowkodaw

Okay, we've run out of time for today. I very much appreciate you spending the time with us. Thank you very much.

Have a great day.

Tim Gitzel

Orest, it's been my pleasure, thanks to you, all the best to you to the end of the year and may 2021 be kinder to the whole world.

[Serengeti]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 65.909.142 von CSE66 am 01.12.20 17:49:26

Zumindest nehmen allgemein Volatilität und Umsatz zu, das ist die nächste Stufe.

[CSE66]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 65.900.736 von Serengeti am 01.12.20 10:06:45

sieht nicht so aus, Spot fährt auch wieder runter, war wohl zuviel auf einmal - also wohl doch 2023

[Serengeti]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 65.898.861 von CSE66 am 01.12.20 08:31:59

Geht jetzt alles ganz schnell? 🤠🤠🤠

[CSE66]

Antwort auf Beitrag Nr.: 65.872.995 von CSE66 am 28.11.20 10:00:30

Spot #uranium 3000/3050 USc/Lb #U3O8 (Delivery at CMO , Chg +105c, +3.47%)

unglaublich

[CSE66]

Spot Uranium: 2910/2930 USc/Lb U3O8 (-25c, -0.86%)

unglaublich