Monday, January 22, 2007

Previous Uranium Bear Weighs in on Cigar Lake

Paul van Eeden, president, Cranberry Capital

They probably at Cigar Lake now already have the ability to freeze from underground. So I don't know that the warmer temperatures -- I do not know to what extent the warmer temperatures are impacting them. But certainly if you do not have freeze up on surface then it would complicate matters for exploration drilling. But I am -- I do not know whether it is going to hamper the rehabilitation of Cigar Lake. But the rehabilitation of Cigar Lake is a very serious issue for both Cameco and to the uranium market. It is not going to be easy. -- For Cameco and to the uranium market. I am skeptical on Cigar Lake only because people forget only about three years ago Cameco had flooding at McArthur river and it was a very similar incident. Now they had essentially a similar event at Cigar Lake shutting down Cigar Lake, in my opinion, almost undetermined period of time because I think it is going to take a long time for them to figure out how to deal with that. It is not going to be easy. Until they deal with it I think the uranium market is, is going to be under pressure except for the fact that there was so many investment funds coming into the uranium space. And that all the uranium that they bought in the last two years, which caused the uranium price to move up before Cigar Lake flooded, that inventory that these investment funds now hold is potential supply. If that potential supply was to be coaxed into the market then you could see the uranium price doing the opposite of what people would expect. It can soften even though Cigar Lake isn't resolved. If I were not for Cigar Lake I would be an incredible bear on uranium prices. But Cigar Lake is very material. In my mind changes a lot. Cigar Lake takes out about 12% of worldwide demand. And demand is about almost twice as much than mine supply. So Cigar Lake accounts for almost 20, 24% of what we banked on as supply post 2008. That has now been postponed. This is a very major event.
 

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