Cameco Restarts Cigar Lake


The timing of the production restart at the Cigar Lake mine will depend on how quickly Cameco can mobilize miners.
Cameco restarted production in April at its Cigar Lake uranium mine located in northern Saskatchewan. Production at Cigar Lake was temporarily suspended in December due to increasing risks posed by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, according to the company. At that time, the availability of workers in critical areas was shrinking due to the pandemic, with more individuals screening out or residing in communities with pandemic-related travel restrictions.

“The safety of our workers, their families and communities is always our top priority,” President and CEO Tim Gitzel said. “In recent months, we have implemented several enhanced safety protocols for Cigar Lake, including increased distancing between passengers on flights, mandatory medical-grade masks for all workers, and increased sanitization and physical barriers in our eating areas. We also worked with the Saskatchewan Health Authority and have established a licensed COVID-19 testing facility at the mine site.

As the restart process begins, Cameco said it will closely monitor the COVID-19 case counts and the ongoing success of the vaccine rollout, and will continue to have regular dialogue with public health authorities and northern Saskatchewan leaders.

The timing of production restart and the production rate at Cigar Lake will be dependent on how quickly the company can remobilize the workforce. Cameco is not providing updates to its outlook at this time.

As featured in Womp 2021 Vol 05 - www.womp-int.com