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Uranium miner Cameco Corp. announced Thursday it would cut 85 jobs in Wyoming and Nebraska.

The Canadian-based company said the move was a response to a prolonged downturn in prices, which have remained depressed since the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan in 2011.

The majority of Cameco’s American operations are in Wyoming, where the company operates the Smith Ranch-Highland mine near Glenrock and the North Butte mine south of Gillette. The company also has an office in Casper and operates the Crow Butte mine in Crawford, Nebraska.

Ken Vaughn, a Cameco spokesman, said all three of the company’s Wyoming locations would be affected, though he said exact numbers for each facility have yet to be determined. Employees will be notified personally about their status with the company before the end of May, he said.

“It’s an unfortunate reality of the uranium market right now,” Vaughn said.

The layoffs at one of Wyoming’s largest uranium producers come within a wider downturn in the energy market, which has pushed up the state’s unemployment rate in recent months. Wyoming’s unemployment rate was 5.2 percent in March, up from 3.9 percent over the same time in 2015.