Cameco posts bigger Q1 loss than expected

SASKATOON • Cameco Corp. posted a worse-thanexpected first-quarter loss Friday as it felt the latest effects of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

The results pushed the company’s already depressed stock price down $1.19 or 8.33 per cent to $13.09.

A major contract cancellation by a Japanese utility, low uranium prices, expenses from staff cutbacks and a higher Canadian dollar, all weighed on Cameco’s results in its latest quarter.

The uranium miner lost $18 million or five cents per diluted share for the three months ended March 31, compared with a profit of $78 million or 20 cents per diluted share in the same quarter a year earlier. Revenue slipped to $393 million from $408 million a year ago.

With adjustments, Cameco lost $29 million or seven cents per share in its most recent quarter — six cents more than analyst estimates compiled by Thomson Reuters.

“Just over a month ago, we marked the sixth anniversary of the Fukushima accident in Japan,” Cameco chief executive Tim Gitzel said Friday.

“An event that has really determined the course of our business for the past six years, and an event that has driven uranium prices to levels that are neither rational nor sustainable,” he said.

Gitzel said uranium prices have fallen from US$73 per pound the day before the accident to US$22 today, as all but three of Japan’s 54 reactors remain off-line.