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“There’s just today too much uranium out there,” Cameco President and CEO Tim Gitzel said in an interview Wednesday evening, hours after what he described as “sombre” meetings at the two affected sites.

“We didn’t think adding to that was helpful. We have a good inventory of uranium at Cameco that can sustain us that we can put into profitable contracts … We can actually buy uranium cheaper than we can produce it.”

Photo by Gord Waldner / The StarPhoenix

Gitzel said the company will do its “utmost to soften the blow” for the employees and contractors left without work, because it expects to need them when the mine and mill are restarted next year. O’Hara acknowledged that Cameco is a fair and compassionate employer.

At the same time, the shutdown will be especially devastating for the roughly 49 per cent of Cameco’s northern Saskatchewan employees who are from local communities, largely because there are fewer opportunities in the region, he said.

O’Hara is also worried because it’s not clear what will happen when the union’s contract expires at the end of December. At the moment, preparations for collective agreement negotiations are in limbo, he added.

Gitzel said negotiations will continue as planned.

“This has really nothing to do with that. This is a bigger-picture issue, just the world market … We’ll continue to deal with the union in good faith. As I say, it’s a temporary suspension.”

Cameco has been struggling since the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster drastically curbed demand for reactor fuel and sent prices spiralling downward, to around US$20 per pound from over US$70 per pound at the time.