Cameco Owns the Refinery at the Center of Canada's Uranium Threat

Ontario Premier Doug Ford told The Associated Press on Monday that Canada should be ready to cut off U.S. access to electricity and critical minerals if the trade dispute continues to escalate. He named high-grade nickel and uranium refined in Ontario in particular, and he said Ontario powers 1.5 million U.S. homes and businesses.

Uranium refined in Ontario mostly means uranium refined by Cameco (NYSE:CCJ). The company owns the Blind River refinery (by its own description, the world's largest commercial uranium refinery), and Blind River sits in Ontario.

Nuclear stocks jumped Tuesday, with the growth stock rising about 4.6% to about $107 as of this writing. Whether that jump had much to do with Ford is hard to say, and I don't think it matters much.

But what would a Canadian export restriction do to Cameco?

Image source: Getty Images.

Two steps in the fuel chain run through Cameco

Blind River opened in 1983, and Cameco owns 100% of it. The facility refines uranium concentrate from mines into uranium trioxide, a powder that sits partway between mined uranium and finished reactor fuel.

Its licensed production capacity is 18 million kilograms of uranium a year, with room to expand to 24 million once certain conditions are met.

From there, the refined uranium moves to Cameco's Port Hope conversion facility, which is also in Ontario. In other words, two consecutive steps in the nuclear fuel chain run through one company in one province, and Ontario's premier just named that province's output as leverage.

The business built on those plants is Cameco's smaller segment, fuel services. It produced 3.0 million kilograms of uranium in the second quarter, down 6% year over year, and the company expects production of 13 to 14 million kilograms this year.

Segment revenue was 152 million Canadian dollars in the quarter, next to 659 million Canadian dollars in the uranium segment. The segment's average realized price, however, rose 13% year over year.

How much U.S. fuel depends on Canada?

More than on any other country.

U.S. reactor operators purchased 46.9 million pounds of uranium in 2025, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Canada was the origin of 32% of the uranium delivered -- the largest share of any country, ahead of Kazakhstan at 28%.

Meanwhile, uranium of U.S. origin covered just 7% of deliveries, down from 8% the year before.

And the trade backdrop worsened over the weekend. The U.S. imposed 50% tariffs on about $20 billion of Canadian goods on Saturday after talks between the two governments collapsed. Canada has said its retaliation will begin Sept. 8. Ford's comments landed in the middle of that escalation.

Cameco, notably, has been describing demand in similar terms all year. CEO Tim Gitzel said in the company's July earnings release that contracting activity has increased as customers focus on "security of supply."

The threat lands on Cameco's customers

An export restriction would be aimed at the U.S. government. But the buyers it would cut off are the American utilities Cameco has spent years signing.

The company has contracts in place for average annual deliveries of more than 28 million pounds of uranium over the next five years, with commitments above that average from 2026 through 2028. A restriction could push uranium prices higher. But it could also put Cameco's own deliveries, and its standing as the Western supplier utilities count on, at risk.

And prices are already moving Cameco's way without an embargo. The company's average realized uranium price was $67.79 per pound in U.S. dollars in the second quarter, up 18% from $57.35 a year earlier. Its first-half average of $66.96 was up 12% year over year. The direction is steady: as higher market prices feed through its market-related contracts, each period's average climbs.

So the threat itself is likely worth more to Cameco than an actual restriction would be. After all, every escalation reminds utilities that most of their fuel starts somewhere else, and long-term supply contracts are what Cameco has been patient about signing.

The stock, meanwhile, gives the company a lot of credit. Cameco's market value sits near $47 billion in U.S. dollars.

That heft comes against second-quarter net earnings of 25 million Canadian dollars and first-half net earnings of 156 million Canadian dollars. Those results were held down by weaker earnings from Westinghouse, the nuclear-technology company Cameco owns a stake in.

Even after Tuesday's gain, shares are about 21% below their 52-week high of $135.24. But this is not a value stock, and the price arguably assumes years of growth.

Of course, a restriction may never come. Ford's warning was a threat, not a policy. But it pointed at what Cameco owns -- and at why utilities keep signing long-term contracts with Cameco.

Daniel Sparks and his clients do not have positions in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Cameco. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.