Cigar Lake
As announced in May, we along with Orano acquired Idemitsu Canada Resources Ltd.’s 7.875% participating interest in the Cigar Lake Joint Venture. Our ownership stake in Cigar Lake now stands at 54.547%, 4.522 percentage points higher than it was prior to the transaction.
Production for the second quarter in 2022 was 2.8 million pounds (our share) compared to 1.3 million pounds in the second quarter of 2021. Our share of production in the first six months of 2022 was 4.7 million pounds compared to 1.3 million pounds in the first six months of 2021. Production was impacted by suspensions until mid-April in 2021 as a precautionary measure due to COVID-19. Our share of production has been updated to reflect the ownership increase effective May 19.
In 2022, we now expect to produce 18.0 million packaged pounds at Cigar Lake; our share is approximately 9.5 million pounds. We have been successful in catching up on development work that had been deferred from 2021. However, the potential for supply chain impacts on construction materials, equipment and labour remains uncertain and could reintroduce production risk in 2022 and future years.
Continuing to align our production with the market conditions and our contract portfolio, starting in 2024, we will target production from Cigar Lake that is 25% below the licensed capacity, or 13.5 million pounds (100% basis) per year. This will remain our production plan until we see further improvements in the uranium market and contracting progress, demonstrating that we continue to be a responsible supplier of uranium fuel.
The collective agreement between Orano and unionized employees at the McClean Lake mill expired on May 31, 2022. Work continues under the terms of the expired collective agreement while negotiations to reach a new agreement proceed. There is a risk to the production plan if Orano is unable to reach an agreement and there is a labour dispute.
Inkai
Production on a 100% basis was 1.8 million pounds for the quarter and 3.6 million pounds for the first six months of the year, compared to 2.3 million pounds and 4.2 million pounds in the same periods last year.
Based on an adjustment to the production purchase entitlement under the 2016 JV Inkai restructuring agreement, we are entitled to purchase 4.2 million pounds, or 50% of JV Inkai’s updated planned 2022 production of 8.3 million pounds, assuming no production disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain disruptions or other causes.
Due to equity accounting, our share of production is shown as a purchase at a discount to the spot price and included in inventory at this value at the time of delivery. Our share of the profits earned by JV Inkai on the sale of its production is included in “share of earnings from equity-accounted investee” on our consolidated statement of earnings.
Presently, JV Inkai continues to experience a number of operational issues as well as inflationary pressure on production materials and reagents, which could pose a risk to JV Inkai’s 2022 production volume, impacting its costs.
The geopolitical situation continues to cause transportation risks in the region. We continue to work with Inkai and our joint venture partner, KAP, to secure an alternate shipping route that doesn’t rely on Russian rail lines or ports. In the meantime, we continue to delay deliveries of our share of Inkai production destined for our Blind River refinery. Year-to-date we have taken no deliveries from our share of Inkai’s 2022 production. While the work on enabling shipping via the Trans-Caspian route continues, we have no confirmed date for when the first shipment with our share of Inkai’s production will proceed via that route. Should JV Inkai be unable to execute its sales transactions due to its inability to ship our share of its 2022 production, our 2022 equity earnings and our dividend may be impacted, depending on how and when the issue is resolved.
In the event that it takes longer than anticipated to secure an alternate shipping route, we could experience further delays in our expected Inkai deliveries this year. To mitigate this risk, we have inventory, long-term purchase agreements and loan arrangements in place we can draw on.
Excess cash, net of working capital requirements, will be distributed to the partners as dividends. In April, we received a dividend payment from JV Inkai totaling $83 million (US). Our share of dividends follows our production purchase entitlements as described above.
26 CAMECO CORPORATION