By Mike Nartker

Global Security Newswire

Cameco Corp. and its two partners signed an amendment Monday to a commercial deal with Russia that commits the three Canadian firms to buying 56,000 metric tons of uranium over the next 12 years.

The amendment is part of an arrangement that Cameco, along with COGEMA and RWE NUKEM Inc., signed with Russia in March 1999 to purchase uranium from Russian nuclear weapons as part of the U.S.-Russia highly enriched uranium deal.  Under that deal, Russia dilutes HEU removed from dismantled nuclear warheads and sells it the the U.S. Enrichment Corp., which blends the uranium down further and fabricates nuclear fuel for power reactors.

The commercial arrangement gives the three companies the option to purchase an annual total of 24 million pounds of uranium from the Russian firm Techsnabexport (Tenex) over the next 12 years—a total of 288 million pounds.  The new amendment commits the companies to purchasing specific amounts. Cameco and COGEMA are to purchase 53 million pounds of uranium and RWE NUEKM is to purchase 18 million, with Tenex retaining the right to sell remaining uranium up to 206 million pounds.

Cameco signed the amendment to the deal because the three companies already had purchased the specified amounts every year and “we didn’t see our behavior changing,” said Cameco Investor and Corporate Relations Director Jamie McIntyre.  The new amendment “gives us a secure source of uranium and the Russians a secure source of income,” McIntyre said.

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