Why Cameco Could Be One of the Biggest Winners in America's Nuclear Renaissance

Cameco (NYSE: CCJ) is a Canadian uranium miner operating in a $10 billion industry. It is the second-largest in the world, and it's been on my radar for a while now.

The stock has had a fantastic 60% run this year, and it's a top performer in my own portfolio (even after the last few weeks) as I write this. And I think it's just getting started.

So, what's Cameco's secret sauce?

Image source: Getty Images.

The spiciest yellow rocks west of the Mississippi

Cameco's success comes down to the quality of its reserves and its 49% ownership stake in Westinghouse, the engineering and manufacturing company that currently manufactures the most advanced nuclear reactor on the market, the AP1000.

Of interest first is the uranium, the yellow rocks that make nuclear power possible. Cameco produces 17% of the world's uranium. The only company that produces more uranium each year than Cameco is Kazakhstan's National Atomic Company Kazatomprom JSC.

Now, Kazakhstan has larger total uranium reserves than Canada, but its ore is of a much lower quality (usually less than 1%) and requires more refining to turn into usable fuel.

However, Canada has some of the highest-grade uranium reserves in the world at its McArthur River/Key Lake and Cigar Lake mines, which have average grades of 6.55% and 15.87%, respectively. This positions Cameco as a major uranium supplier, and to grow its market share.

Cameco mines, refines, and converts uranium from its mines into yellow cake uranium, which is then enriched and converted into fuel by Westinghouse.

Westinghouse designs and builds the AP1000 nuclear reactor, as well as the AP300 Small Modular Reactor (SMR), and gives Cameco a presence through almost the entire nuclear fuel cycle.

And it's that presence from uranium mine to nuclear reactor that makes Cameco and Westinghouse such attractive partners for the U.S. government's nuclear efforts. However, I need to talk about the elephant in the room.

Even a brief meltdown can't break Cameco's momentum

Cameco's Q3 2025 results were released on Nov. 5, and while they weren't catastrophic, they certainly weren't great. Let's get the bad out of the way first.

Revenue dropped 15% to $441.7 million compared to Q3 2024, and the company reported a small loss per share and an earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) drop of 5%. This was mostly driven by some production difficulties at its Canadian mines, but Cameco is on track to meet its delivery commitments for 2025.

This looks to me like one bad quarter that won't buck the long-term trend of Cameco's growth. The long-term trends and FY 2025 estimates still look great for Cameco, as shown in the tables.

Data source: Cameco filings.

Data source: Cameco filings. E = estimate.

The good news is that for the first nine months of 2025, revenue was up 17%, EBITDA was up 33%, and EPS climbed 203% over the year-ago period. Uranium production was up 2% for the quarter as well. I expect the year-end 2025 results will look much better, especially given the planned $80 billion investment in Westinghouse reactors from the White House.

An $80 billion vote of confidence from Uncle Sam

The U.S. government might be about as bullish on Cameco as I am. In October, the Trump administration announced an $80 billion partnership to build several new Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactors across the country.

The AP1000 is the only Gen III+ nuclear reactor that has gotten past the presentation stage. China has four of them, with 14 under construction, and America has two, with another 10 in the works now because of the White House's investment. Poland, Bulgaria, Ukraine, and India all have contracts with Westinghouse for one or more AP1000 reactors to be used in the nuclear power stations each country has planned or under construction.

In all, the deal enhances Cameco's position to provide uranium and fuel services to the American energy market, especially considering the ban on Russian uranium imports that the U.S. has had since the war in Ukraine began. It also notably makes buying uranium from Kazakhstan difficult for the U.S., as the easiest export route from Kazakhstan to the U.S. is through Russia.

The United States has native uranium reserves, but they are largely untapped and small in the grand scheme of things. That leaves Canada as the obvious uranium partner, since it's uranium-rich, friendly, and with a vast amount of trade infrastructure set up between it and the U.S.

A profitable chain reaction

The U.S. government is already fostering a strong relationship with Westinghouse, Cameco's subsidiary, so it follows that a relationship with the parent company to supply those shiny new AP1000 reactors with fuel is likely.

And I doubt any such relationship would end there, seeing as President Donald Trump's Department of Energy has set a goal to quadruple America's nuclear output by the middle of the century. That's going to take a lot of uranium (and new reactors) to manage.

It's also worth noting that Canadian energy exports like uranium have a carveout in the president's tariffs. They're only taxed at a 10% rate, as opposed to the 25% every other Canadian export is.

So, taking all that into consideration, I think Cameco is worth a look.

James Hires has positions in Cameco. The Motley Fool recommends Cameco. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.