Artemis Gold’s Blackwater mine at final commissioning stage
Artemis now expects to feed first ore to the ball mill in the next few weeks and continues to target first gold pour before year end.
Cameco announced Q1 results on Friday. Net earnings came in at $91 million compared to $143 million a year ago. The company said the decline was due to lower earnings at all its electricity, uranium and fuel service businesses and an increase in average cost of product sold.
The company said production volumes were 23% lower this quarter due to lower production at McArthur River/Key Lake.
“The removal of abandoned freezepipes from the new production chamber at McArthur River resulted in lower ore deliveries to the Key Lake mill. To optimize production for the year, we rescheduled the maintenance outage at the Key Lake mill from the second quarter to the first quarter. Our production guidance for the year is unchanged,” said the company in a news release.
Cameco says it plans to double uranium production by 2018.
The company said that uranium revenues were down 2% compared to 2010, due to a 8% decline in sales volumes partially; however, the decline was offset by a 6% increase in the realized selling price in Canadian dollars.
“Our realized prices this quarter were higher than the first quarter of 2010 mainly due to higher $US prices under market-related contracts, partially offset by a less favourable exchange rate. In the first quarter of 2011, our realized foreign exchange rate was $1.01 compared to $1.08 in the prior year.”
The company president also commented on the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster.
“Today’s first quarter results are being reported as the situation at the Fukushima nuclear complex is stabilizing,” said CEO Jerry Grandey in a news release.
“In the short-term, we may see delays as the industry pauses to learn the lessons from Fukushima. However, a number of countries have already reaffirmed that building new nuclear reactors is essential to meeting long-term energy demand in their rapidly developing economies.
“These nuclear building programs require additional global uranium supply,” Grandey explained. “That’s why our strategy to double annual uranium production by 2018 from our world-leading asset base is unshaken.”
Michael Allan McCrae wrote this story. You can contact him at [email protected] or @michaelmccrae.
