Cameco to restart production at its Ontario operations

Cameco is resuming production at its Port Hope conversion plant and its Blind River refinery in Ontario.

Both facilities will restart next week, the company said in a news release.

The operations were shut down on April 8.

But the Cigar Lake uranium mine in northern Saskatchewan, which was shut down in March, will remain closed with no date set for resuming production.

There are normally 300 workers at the site. About 35 employees are left as the operation is in what Cameco callsits safe care and maintenance mode.

Cameco said they now have "the appropriate conditions currently in place to resume normal operations" at the Ontario facilities.

"The provinces and communities where we operate are certainly not out of the woods when it comes to this global pandemic, and we must remain vigilant in how we manage our activities during these challenging times," said Cameco president and CEO Tim Gitzel in the release.

"However, we are confident that we can maintain the required roster of qualified operators to run the [Port Hope]plant going forward, enabling us to carefully bring the plant and the [Blind River] refinery back into production."