Cigar Lake
- Cigar Lake is the world's highest grade uranium mine and is located in northern Saskatchewan, Canada.
- Since commissioning in 2014, the site has produced a total of 174.5 million pounds (100% basis). Commercial operation began in May 2015.
- As the operator, Cameco developed an innovative jet-boring technique specifically for this challenging deposit.
- Cigar Lake's ore is processed 70 km northeast, at the McClean Lake mill, operated by Orano.
Operation
Production
2025 Q4 Update
- Production
Cigar Lake Production
Cameco's Share (million lbs)Three months ended
December 31Year ended
December 312025 2024 2025 2024 2025 Plan 2026 Plan1 2.6 2.5 10.4 9.2 up to 9.8 9.5 to 10.0 1 Production ranges are rounded to the nearest half-million.
Total packaged production from Cigar Lake in 2025 was 19.1 million pounds U3O8 (10.4 million pounds our share) compared to 16.9 million pounds U3O8 (9.2 million pounds our share) in 2024. The operation exceeded our forecast of 18 million pounds (100% basis) as a result of higher productivity and our ability to temporarily adjust annual mine production to make up for past annual production shortfalls, as permitted under our CNSC licence and provincial approval.
During the year, we:
- produced from and continued development work in the CLMain orebody in alignment with our long-term production plan
- successfully executed a planned 28-day annual maintenance outage
- completed construction outfitting activities on one production tunnel that will support production targets in 2026
- substantially progressed physical surface work for development of the CLExt portion of the orebody initial mining zone
- crushed concrete aggregate to support backfill operations and development activities
- Underground development
Underground mine development continued in 2025. We completed development of one production crosscut in the western portion of CLMain and continued development of one production crosscut in the eastern portion of CLMain. Development also continued for access to the CLExt orebody on both 480 and 500m level.
- Planning for the future
In 2026, we expect to produce 17.5 million to 18 million pounds (100% basis) at Cigar Lake; our share is approximately 9.5 to 10.0 million pounds.
In 2026, we plan to continue production and development activities in CLMain, as well as development drifts to access CLExt in alignment with our long-term mine plan. We will start freeze hole drilling and freeze hole activation for CLExt and continue earthworks and construction of surface services to support the expansion of freeze activities required for future production from CLExt.
Environment & Safety
Worker safety, protection of the environment and proper decommissioning after mining is completed, are of the utmost importance to Cameco.
Reserves & Resources
Our mineral reserves and resources are the foundation of our company and fundamental to our success.
Caution about Forward-Looking Information
This page may contain forward-looking information that is based upon the assumptions and subject to the material risks discussed on page 2 of Cameco's most recent Quarterly MD&A.
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