Our Strategy

We are a pure-play investment in the growing demand for nuclear energy, focused on taking advantage of the near-, medium- and long-term growth occurring in our industry. We provide nuclear fuel and nuclear power products, services and technologies across the fuel and reactor life cycles, augmented by our investment in Westinghouse, that supports the generation of carbon-free, reliable, secure and affordable energy. Our strategy is set within the context of what we believe is a transitioning market environment. 

• Increasing populations, 

• a growing focus on electrification and decarbonization, 

• and concerns about energy security and affordability 

are driving a global focus on tripling nuclear power capacity by 2050, which is expected to durably strengthen long-term fundamentals for our industry. Nuclear energy must be a central part of the solution to the world’s shift to a low-carbon, climate resilient economy. It is an option that can provide the necessary power in a reliable, safe, and affordable manner, and in a way that is expected to help avoid some of the worst consequences of climate change.

Our strategy is to capture full-cycle value by:

• remaining disciplined in our contracting activity, building a balanced portfolio in accordance with our contracting framework
• profitably producing from our tier-one assets and aligning our production decisions in all segments of our business with our contract portfolio and customer needs
• being financially disciplined to allow us to
  • execute on our strategy 
  • invest in new opportunities that are expected to add long-term value
  • self-manage risk
• exploring other emerging opportunities within the nuclear power value chain that align with our commitment to manage our business responsibly and sustainably, contribute to decarbonization, and help to provide secure and affordable energy 

We expect our strategy will allow us to increase long-term value, and we will execute it with an emphasis on safety, people and the environment.

Our vision – “Energizing a clean-air world” – recognizes that we have an important role to play in enabling the vast reductions in global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions required to achieve a resilient net-zero carbon economy. We support climate action that is consistent with the ambitions of the Paris Agreement and the Canadian government’s commitment to the agreement, which seeks to limit global temperature rise to less than 2⁰ Celsius, a target that climate scientists believe will require the world to reach net-zero by 2050 or sooner. Our uranium and fuel services are used around the world in the generation of safe, reliable, zero-carbon, base-load nuclear power. 

We believe we have the right strategy to achieve our vision, and we will do so in a manner that reflects our values. For over 35 years, we have been operating and delivering our products responsibly. Building on that strong foundation, we have set a target to reduce our combined Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG emissions by 30% by 2030, from our 2015 baseline, as our first major milestone in our ambition of being net-zero. In 2023, we targeted to refine the calculations to quantify our Scope 3 emissions to further understand our value chain GHG emissions. We successfully met this target, and for the first time, in our 2023 Sustainability Report, we have disclosed our estimated Scope 3 emissions value and quantification method. We remain committed to our efforts to transform our own, already low, greenhouse gas footprint, and we continue to identify and address the risks and opportunities that we believe may have a significant impact on our ability to operate sustainably and add long-term value for our stakeholders.

You can read more about our strategy in our 2023 Annual MD&A and our approach to sustainability in our 2023 Sustainability Report.

Uranium

Uranium production is central to our strategy, as it is the biggest value driver of the nuclear fuel cycle and our business. We have tier-one assets that are licensed, permitted, long-lived, and are proven reliable with capacity to expand. These tier-one assets are backed up by idle tier-two assets and what we think is the best exploration portfolio of mineral reserves and resources that in some cases can leverage our existing infrastructure. Currently, we believe that we have ample productive capacity with the ability to expand as the demand for nuclear energy and nuclear fuel grows.

We are focused on protecting and extending the value of our contract portfolio, on aligning our production decisions with our contract portfolio and market opportunities thereby optimizing the value of our lowest cost assets. We also prioritize maintaining a strong balance sheet, and on efficiently managing the company. We have undertaken a number of deliberate and disciplined actions, including a focus on operational effectiveness to allow us to operate our assets more efficiently and with more flexibility.

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Fuel services

Our fuel services segment supports our strategy to capture full-cycle value by providing our customers with access to refining and conversion services for both heavy-water and light-water reactors, and CANDU fuel and reactor component manufacturing for heavy-water reactors.

As in our uranium segment, we are focused on securing new long-term contracts and on aligning our production decisions with our contract portfolio that will allow us to continue to profitably produce and consistently support the long-term needs of our customers.

In addition, we are pursuing non-traditional markets for our UO₂ and fuel fabrication business and have been actively securing new contracts for reactor components to support refurbishment of Canadian reactors.

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Westinghouse

Westinghouse, is a global provider of mission‐critical and specialized technologies, products and services for light-water reactors across most phases of the nuclear power sector. Our investment brings additional nuclear fuel cycle assets, that augment the core of our business, to offer more solutions to customers across the nuclear fuel cycle. Like Cameco, Westinghouse has nuclear assets that are strategic, proven, licensed and permitted, and that are in geopolitically attractive jurisdictions.

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Global Laser Enrichment

We interested in the second largest value driver of the fuel cycle, enrichment, and have a 49% interest in Global Laser Enrichment LLC (GLE). GLE is the exclusive licensee of the proprietary SILEX laser enrichment technology, a third-generation uranium enrichment technology. We are the commercial lead for the GLE project with a 49% interest and starting in 2023, an option to attain a majority interest of up to 75% ownership.

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Additionally, we have signed a number of non-binding arrangements to explore several areas of cooperation to advance the commercialization and deployment of small modular reactors in Canada and around the world.