Over the next five years, Cameco is selling 3,000 tonnes of uranium to India. Cameco Corporation CEO Time Gitzel said that while it is a small percentage of the company’s production, it is a significant step.
“From a sales point of view it’s getting our foot in the door; opening a new port of entry for us into India, said Gitzel.
He also said that the deal does not create new jobs; however, it does support the work Cameo is already doing. This includes plans to increase production at the company’s new Cigar Lake mine.
It is a small deal, but there are potential benefits for the whole province.
“In this era of declining oil prices, I think it is good news. It’s not a large sum of money, about $100 million a year, but that will still employ a lot of people at Cameco and, as a result of that it will also have an impact on other parts of our economy,” said Suren N. Kulshreshtha, professor of bioresources and economics at the University of Saskatchewan.
Kulshreshtha says the sale will mean money for the hospitality and transportation industries. It will also bring in more cash for the provincial government which, given the falling oil prices, he says, is a good thing.
Some are skeptical of the deal given India’s nuclear history. India has not signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
Mark Bigland-Pritchard, a freelance energy consultant says that India is one of the four nations in the world that has not signed the treaty because it wanted to leave open the possibility of nuclear weapons.
“It actually got its first nuclear bomb after using Canadian technology back in the 1970’s,” said Bigland-Pritchard.
This is Cameco’s first sale to India and Gitzel says he hopes to travel overseas to work on the business relationship which he says will hopefuly lead to more deals in the future.
With files from CTV’s Jamie Fischer
