Earnings Labs

Cameco Corporation (CCJ)

Q4 2023 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 8, 2024

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Cameco Corporation Fourth Quarter 2023 Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. Following the introductory remarks, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. [Operator Instructions] Webcast participants are asked to wait until the Q&A session before submitting their questions, as the information they are looking for may be provided during their presentation. The Q&A session will conclude at 9 a.m. Eastern Time. I would now like to turn the conference over to Rachelle Girard, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Rachelle Girard

Analyst

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to Cameco's fourth quarter conference call. I would like to acknowledge that we are speaking from our corporate office, which is on Treaty 6 territory, the traditional territory of Cree peoples and the homeland of the Métis. With us today are Tim Gitzel, our President and CEO; Grant Isaac, our Executive VP and CFO; Heidi Shockey, Senior VP and Deputy CFO; Brian Reilly, Senior VP and Chief Operating Officer; Sean Quinn, Senior VP, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary; Alice Wong, Senior VP and Chief Corporate Officer; and Dominic Kieran, Global Managing Director of Cameco U.K. Ltd. I'm going to hand it over to Tim in just a moment to briefly discuss the current nuclear market environment, our 2023 performance, and how it provides the basis for Cameco's plans and outlook for 2024. After, we will open it up for your questions. Today's call will be approximately one hour concluding at 9 a.m. Eastern Time. As always, our goal is to be open and transparent with our communication. However, we do want to respect everyone's time and conclude the call on time. Therefore, should we not have time for your questions during the call, or if you have detailed questions about our quarterly financial results, we will be happy to follow-up with you after the call. There are a few ways to contact us, with additional questions. You can reach out to the contacts provided in our news release. You can submit a question through the contact tab on our website, or you can use the Ask a Question form at the bottom of the webcast screen and we will be happy to follow-up after this call. If you join the conference call through our website event page, there are slides available, which will be displayed during the call. In addition, for your reference, our quarterly investor handout is available for download in a PDF file on our website at Cameco.com. Today's conference call is open to all members of the investment community, including the media. During the Q&A session, please limit yourself to two questions and then return to the queue. Please note that this conference call will include forward-looking information, which is based on a number of assumptions and actual results could differ materially. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially from these forward-looking statements and we do not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements we make today, except as required by law. Please refer to our most recent annual information form and MD&A, for more information about the factors that, could cause these different results and the assumptions we have made. With that, I will turn it over to Tim.

Tim Gitzel

Analyst · Eight Capital. Please go ahead

Well, thank you, Rachelle, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining us for today's call and a belated Happy New Year. Our fourth quarter conference calls always provide a great opportunity to discuss the past year's developments in the uranium and nuclear fuel markets. It's also a good time to touch on a few annual highlights that demonstrate how well our strategy is performing and to provide some insights into our current expectations for the year ahead. So that's the outline I'll follow today. This past year, we've been consistently talking about the positive market momentum, so I think I can be fairly brief on that side of things. We spent a great deal of time on our calls, in our presentations, and on our webcasts talking about our optimism and positive view of the constructive market conditions we've seen throughout 2023. And we are absolutely maintaining that enthusiasm moving into 2024. Those listening today that tuned in for a few of our calls and presentations prior to 2020, would be very familiar with the phrase positive long-term fundamentals. I say somewhat tongue-in-cheek that we use that message more than just a few times to reinforce our optimism through the lowest points of the market cycle. Back when we initially made that statement, we certainly couldn't forecast the timing of a market transition. But we remained convinced that once the excess uncommitted primary supply and mobile inventories cleared the market, and as demand continued to grow, our industry would recover and our company, would be stronger than ever. So now, as we watch the uranium contracting cycle shift closer to a replacement rate level, I can say with confidence that we have entered the early part of that long-term window, we'd been talking about. And those fundamentals we were…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Ralph Profiti of Eight Capital. Please go ahead.

Ralph Profiti

Analyst · Eight Capital. Please go ahead

Good morning, Cameco team. Thanks for taking my questions. Tim, in the evaluation of MacArthur River up to 25 million pounds, when will this work be completed? Assuming things being taken into consideration include issues from September 2023, including your supply chains, skilled labor, as well as some of the special technical considerations. Do you see a potential scenario where Tier 2, whether it be U.S. ISR or Rabbit Lake, may be more desirable than MacArthur River production? Because those production centers may not be as constrained.

Tim Gitzel

Analyst · Eight Capital. Please go ahead

Yes, morning Ralph. Thanks. Nice to hear from you. We are just starting the MacArthur Key evaluation work now. We are seeing a market that we think might need those pounds going forward. Those are probably the best pounds on the planet that are not in production yet. So, we are starting our work on what we need to do to de-bottleneck at the Key Lake Mill. The mine is running well today and we know it can produce at that level. So, we are starting the work. Obviously, we are not going to produce on spec. Grant has said that a 100 times. We produce in the contracts that we have. So, we will get that work going and like I say, we are going after that before we go after any Tier 2, I think, project that we still have in care and maintenance. But don't rule those out either, Ralph, because those are on our batting lineup further down the list. But first, as we said in our quarter here, we are going to look at de-bottlenecking MacArthur and Key. So, we can get those to '25 and then that extension, don't underweight that extension of Cigar Lake to 2036. That is a huge move and it really sets us up well for the future.

Ralph Profiti

Analyst · Eight Capital. Please go ahead

Okay. Understood. Yes, thanks for that color. I also noticed in the uranium sensitivity table that the leverage to 5% change in uranium to revenue is quite low this year. I am just wondering what is going on with the contract book versus the realized price guidance and why we are seeing that sort of diminished leverage versus previous years. And it seems like this is a function of the contract books, maybe perhaps hitting more of those ceilings, or perhaps even up flexing on the part of customer discretion?

Tim Gitzel

Analyst · Eight Capital. Please go ahead

Yes, Ralph, Grant is our very best expert on that. So, Grant, do you want to take that?

Grant Isaac

Analyst · Eight Capital. Please go ahead

Yes, I think - it is a great question, Ralph. And let us be really clear that we set a strategy that supports short-term price discovery in order to create long-term value. And what I mean by that, is it is categorically the wrong way to think about a uranium producer, as saving production for the spot market in order, to maximize near-term leverage, to the spot market. And the reason for that, we said over and over again, and people really need to understand this, the spot market is small, it is discretionary, it is non-fundamental, and it is low-quality demand. If Cameco produced and showed up and tried, to sell pounds into the spot market, it would not be discovering higher prices. The opposite would happen. The market would realize that we would be showing up with uncommitted primary production and the market would back up. And do not take my word for it. Look at what happened in the days when Paladin, for example, was a spot market seller or Kazatomprom was a spot market seller. That strategy has been proven to be a colossal failure over and over again. So what matters is the non-discretionary, fundamental, high-quality demand of the term market. But make no mistake, Ralph, we do not miss these market moves. We just capture them and build them into the forward contract book. You have heard me say over and over again, we prefer market-related contracts right now. A move like this in the spot market, which we do not sell into, because we do not want to undermine that move in the spot market, allows us to then price market-related contracts forward on a much more attractive basis than we did before the spot market move. And I will just give you…

Ralph Profiti

Analyst · Eight Capital. Please go ahead

That's helpful, Tim and Grant. Thanks very much. Great context on the strategy. Thanks again.

Tim Gitzel

Analyst · Eight Capital. Please go ahead

Thanks a lot, Ralph.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Andrew Wong of RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Andrew Wong

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Can you just talk about your confidence level on production returning to nameplate in 2024 and just some of the longer-term projects for Cigar and MacArthur? I think previously the messaging was that, those projects may not be looked at until the volumes start getting contracted and the demand was there. So now that work is starting on those projects, does that mean that those volumes are starting to get some contracting activity?

Tim Gitzel

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead

Thanks, Andrew, for the question. Yes, so just how confident are we on production for this year? We put out 18 million pound forecast for each of those sites, and we're very confident that we'll make that. We have got some more operating experience at MacArthur and Key every month that goes by. It gives us another view on how it's going, and I'd say the last two months have been very good. I'm looking at Brian Reilly, our production has been very good, very steady. We're working out some of the bottlenecks or kinks that you have with a restart. So, we're really happy with the way things are going there. Same at Cigar. You know, well-established mine. We've been operating there for years. We moved into that new war zone. We're getting that under control. The mill had some hiccups, and they've got that under control. So yes, we're very confident in our forecast for 2024. And going forward, yes, as I said earlier, we won't produce on spec, but we will get those assets ready to go at MacArthur Key, and once Grant and his team have contracts in front of us that call for that production, we will move those forward. We'll move the production up at MacArthur Key. And so, there's a timing thing and things don't just happen overnight. We want to be ready when that happens, and the contracts we sign, those long-term contracts that Grant was referencing earlier, they don't start deliveries for a number of years. So we've got time to get things ready. We've got dry powder, and when the time comes, we'll be ready to go. So, we really like our positioning.

Andrew Wong

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead

Okay. Great. And maybe for Grant, the contracting strategy makes a lot of sense. Could you maybe just talk about how the contract book and price sensitivity table would look like, beyond the years that are in that table, maybe into like the late 2020s and early 2030s, where you might get more of that leverage, to the rising price environment that we're seeing today?

Tim Gitzel

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead

Yes, absolutely designed for leverage to that rising price environment. I mean, really important to emphasize, we are still in supply discipline. We are not calling the top of the market. This is not peak demand going on in uranium yet. We're in the early stages of this contracting cycle, early stages that suggests it's the right strategy, to be very disciplined with our supply. We're thinking about moving the Tier 1 to full capacity like Tim talked about, but we haven't made that decision yet with respect to MacArthur Key, and we haven't even started talking about the Tier 2s. And if we put that altogether and said, what would our annual capability be, that's about 38 million pounds of annual production. And you see in our guidance table, 22.4. So Cameco is not calling peak demand here, or peak price discovery in the uranium business. We're still in supply discipline. We're still in supply discipline, because we think when we look at the uncovered requirements wedge, a lot of demand, non-discretionary fundamental demand needs to come to the market. We want to be exposed to that. So it isn't about selling out the volumes. It's about placing volumes under terms and conditions that make sense to us today. So that is that market related exposure that I talked about. That is really dramatically improving floors and ceilings that are both escalated by the way. And of course, a long-term price that's now $72 U.S. per pound. And that itself is base escalated if you agree to any of those contracts. So as you see going forward, we would look to move beyond that contract table, which only accounts for about 20% of our volume. In fact, that committed sales table is less than that. It's only about 13% of our volumes, because it's just the next five years. So we have 80% of those volumes that aren't yet sold yet. It's a good thing. Prices are going up. We want that exposure to future prices. And when you think about our reserves and resources that aren't yet priced, that have that pure exposure to the uranium price, those are reserves and resources that are in the hands of a proven producer. And many of those reserves and resources are adjacent to existing infrastructure, and you can take advantage of all those incumbencies. So this is exactly where a responsible uranium producer wants to be. Should be in a market that is entering a security of supply contracting cycle. So absolutely, we love our position. We love that exposure going forward. It would be foolish to say, well, we should just be trying to jam all of our material through $103 spot market, because the spot market wouldn't be $103 if we tried to do that. That would be a really silly strategy. So that exposure going forward, nobody has a better position than we do.

Andrew Wong

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead

Great. Thank you very much.

Tim Gitzel

Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead

Thanks, Andrew.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Orest Wowkodaw of Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Orest Wowkodaw

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead

Hi, good morning. A couple of questions on my end, if I could. First of all, can you give us an idea of what kind of capital was required to bring MacArthur up to $25 and to extend Cigar?

Tim Gitzel

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead

So Brian, do you want to take that one?

Brian Reilly

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead

Yes, sure. Great question. Certainly Cigar Lake extension. We are well advanced. We completed a pre-feasibility study that verified the economic feasibility of the extension. We've converted resources to reserve, so we're well down the track there. We'll produce a technical report next month, as Tim mentioned, with all the details. But what we have now in terms of our share for capital at Cigar Lake extension, somewhere in the $250 million, $300 million range, to extend it up to 2036. So Cigar Lake extension is in good shape, and we'll produce a technical report with all the details. MacArthur Key Expansion, early days, very early days. As Tim mentioned, we've just commenced the assessment in terms of what's required at the mine and an end-to-end study at the mill. So, I would suggest just hang in there. We'll be better positioned later in the year, but still early days for MacArthur Key Expansion.

Orest Wowkodaw

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead

Okay. But would it be fair to say it's less than $1 billion, like we're talking in the hundreds of millions?

Tim Gitzel

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead

Oh goodness, yes.

Orest Wowkodaw

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead

Perfect. And then a quick question for Grant, if I could. Just on the committed purchases, I guess you've got 4.7 million pounds committed to acquire this year. Can you give us any kind of idea of how the pricing mechanism works on those contracts? Like does it move with market pricing? Is it fixed? How should we think about that?

Grant Isaac

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead

Yes, thanks, Orest. So on Page 51 of the MD&A for folks that are looking, we do have a bit of new disclosure actually on our purchase commitments. In previous markets where the spot was oversupplied and we were in extreme supply discipline. And wanted to be heavily over-contracted. We would put a big purchase number out there, because we wanted the market to know that demand was coming and start cleaning up the front end of the market and discovering better prices. But as we're at this phase of our transition, restoring our Tier 1 cost, bringing production back, we wanted to bring a bit more granularity, between what purchases are we already committed to make, and which ones might we go into the market to buy. And what you see when we cut it that way, is very small exposure to the market. We said up to two million pounds that we might buy in the market, but we might. We don't have to. We have other options in order to source our committed sales. Some of those other options include purchases that we make under a long-term purchase commitment. And I think that's what you're referring to. Generally what happens in those long-term purchase commitments is we'll see a market where we might think the uranium price is low. And when we do, we might find a seller who's willing to fix a price for us, subject to a carry trade for delivery out into the future. But for many of those contracts, we have the ability to take delivery when it makes sense for us. So, we fix the price in a lower pricing environment. We take the delivery when it makes sense to meet our committed sales volumes. It's the best trading margin in the…

Orest Wowkodaw

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead

Thanks, Grant. So ultimately, I think if I understand your new disclosure, there's only up to two million pounds that you're planning to buy from the market at market pricing?

Tim Gitzel

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead

Yes, that's right. We saw that some folks were completely misreading our outlook table in the past. They were taking the overall purchases and they were assuming every one of those was going to be made in the spot market and trying to drive an incorrect narrative about financial distress. And of course, we've never run the company that way. If that were the case, the outlook table would be very different. So, we wanted to put some granularity out there, to lots of sophisticated folks understand what we do, but some don't. And so, we just wanted to make sure we had that granularity and remind folks that actually it's up to two million pounds. We could source it directly in the spot market for immediate delivery. We could draw down our inventory. We could access loans. We could access more of the long term purchases if that made sense for us. We could be engaged in a conversation with a customer to move deliveries around in a year for when production comes in. Ultimately, this is what a responsible uranium producer does.

Orest Wowkodaw

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead

Excellent. Thank you.

Tim Gitzel

Analyst · Scotiabank. Please go ahead

Thank you, Orest.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Greg Barnes of TD Securities. Please go ahead.

Greg Barnes

Analyst · TD Securities. Please go ahead

Yes. Thank you. Just a couple of questions for me and returning back to Cigar Lake extension. Would that be at the 18 million pound per year range or would it decline into 2036? And is there an extension beyond 2036?

Tim Gitzel

Analyst · TD Securities. Please go ahead

Greg, thanks for the question. Our plan would be to remain at 18 million pounds per year to 2036. Is there an extension? We're just working on this one right now. So once we get under there, and you know, we're moving to the west on that. And so as we get out there, who knows? We'll be poking holes and holes all over down there. So, we're hopeful, but we don't have anything to report yet, Greg.

Greg Barnes

Analyst · TD Securities. Please go ahead

Okay. Just on the Westinghouse guidance for CAGR of 6% to 10% a year. Does that only include in terms of the AP1000 sales, the ones that have been under contract or under contract currently? Or do you make a forecast of potential AP1000 sales that build into that number as well?

Tim Gitzel

Analyst · TD Securities. Please go ahead

Yes, Greg, here's the good news. It's just the ones that you know about, the ones that Westinghouse has announced. So more upside to come as they, we believe, might have a huge opportunity in other markets that, are evaluating that stable, proven AP1000 technology. But this is just capturing, the beginnings of the contracts required, to advance AP1000s in the markets that have already announced it.

Greg Barnes

Analyst · TD Securities. Please go ahead

And Grant, quickly on Springfields, any decision on restarting that conversion plant yet or any support from the U.K. government to do that?

Grant Isaac

Analyst · TD Securities. Please go ahead

Well, lots of interest remains in the conversion plant at Springfields for the natural conversion line. But Springfields is also a critical infrastructure, for a lot of other ambitions as well. We're continuing to work through that process. Obviously, very attractive conversion prices right now in the market that, put some wind in the sails for a restart. But it's got to be done responsibly. It's no different than the uranium market. You don't start a conversion plant, and then start knocking on people's doors and asking if they want to buy a conversion service, because you're just going to push the conversion price down. You have to do this responsibly and in a disciplined way. And we're just working through that process now.

Greg Barnes

Analyst · TD Securities. Please go ahead

Thanks, Grant.

Grant Isaac

Analyst · TD Securities. Please go ahead

Thank you, Greg.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Lawson Winder of Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead.

Lawson Winder

Analyst · Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead

Thank you very much, operator. And good morning, Cameco team. Thank you for taking my question. I just wanted to ask about Westinghouse. And it's fantastic to have the detailed disclosure in the notes. The G&A effectively, the marketing administration and general expense is a little bit of a larger number than I thought. Would you be able to provide any detail on what goes into that, or what are some of the large numbers maybe in that or how that breaks down? And then any guidance for that going forward as well? Thank you.

Tim Gitzel

Analyst · Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead

Okay. Grant will answer that.

Grant Isaac

Analyst · Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead

Yes. There are elements of the Westinghouse business that are pretty high touch. When we think about the core of the business, which we define as nuclear fuel and operating plant systems, as well as the new build, there are a lot of offices, a lot of engagement and a pretty high touch that goes on advancing those kind of contracts. And so, right now when they're at the stage of developing new markets like they are for VVER fuel or developing new markets like expanding into BWR fuel or examining LEU+ fuel. And even the question that Greg asked earlier about Springfields, you know, this is all captured in increased activity running through that line. And of course, the support required to advance new builds, whether that's AP1000s, AP300s or eVinci. So, a bit of a higher touch business than what Cameco is accustomed to, but totally appropriate given the position that Westinghouse is in and their ability to capture the tailwinds in the nuclear industry as well.

Lawson Winder

Analyst · Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead

And then just going forward, is that 2023 level that, well, at least for the proportion of '23 that you guys have reported, is that a fair level going forward for '24, '25?

Heidi Shockey

Analyst · Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead

Yes, it's Heidi here. I would say that they're a pretty stable business. And maybe I would just add to what Grant said in terms of the other pieces that that's really recognizing the fixed costs. Like that is all the costs that, aren't directly related to operations. So, it's maybe broader than just kind of G&A.

Lawson Winder

Analyst · Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead

Thank you very much. Now for my follow-up question, I had actually wanted to ask about the conversion market as well. And Grant, you had expressed some review in the investor call in December during the Investor Day that perhaps prices were sort of getting near a top. But I mean, prices have continued to rise since then. I mean, have you changed your view at all? Do you think prices can continue to rise higher, or are in fact we getting to a level where prices are sort of as high as they might go?

Grant Isaac

Analyst · Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead

Yes, well, my comment earlier, Lawson, about Cameco's not calling peak demand, or peak pricing, I was referring to uranium, but perhaps in conversion as well. I mean, this market has not really reckoned yet with a couple of big risks. And one of them is obviously the risk that not only does the legislative efforts to restrict Russian supplies in Western markets, become codified into law, but the risk that there's a Russian retaliation. That would be a very constructive environment for conversion, because remember that Russian enrichment service shows up attached to something. It shows up in a cylinder that already has the uranium, already has the conversion. So that will continue to add pressure, to the conversion side of the business. And then, of course, this market, I don't think really appreciates at how difficult restarting production can be, whether it's a uranium asset, whether it's a conversion asset. I think a lot of folks are just assuming these things are easy and they build in a perfection scenario. So between those two really big risks that, there's a ban on Russian material that the Russians actually react to by saying, okay, well, you can't have it today, as well as the reality that's going to set in, that all these big promises about new supply, whether it's on the uranium side or the conversion side, are just going to take longer. That's further price formation in the industry that needs to come. It's why we don't want to call a top. It's why we don't want to rush and secure all the contracts for conversion that would sell out Port Hope or encourage Westinghouse to do that for Springfield. There's more to come to this market. We've seen this story before. Now's the time to remain patient and let that price discovery unfold.

Lawson Winder

Analyst · Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead

Thank you all very much.

Tim Gitzel

Analyst · Bank of America Securities. Please go ahead

Thank you, Lawson.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Alexander Pearce of BMO. Please go ahead.

Alexander Pearce

Analyst · BMO. Please go ahead

Great. Thank you. Good morning all. So I just wondered if you could build on some of the market commentary you've made and in particular just the changes that you've seen so far this year and particularly what's changed in terms of your discussions with utilities since you updated them because that's been from last week.

Grant Isaac

Analyst · BMO. Please go ahead

Yes, we've seen a market that has behaved exactly like we told you it was going to, Alex. When the market begins to enter a security of supply cycle, actually the importance of the spot market goes down and the importance of the term market goes up. And look at the data. The spot market was smaller in 2023 than it was in 2022. So utilities focus less on the spot market. They focus more on the term market. Goes back to my earlier point about why we don't try to sell stuff into the spot market. It's thinly traded. It's non-fundamental discretionary demand. So as utilities are shifting over, we're seeing a market that hit about 160 million pounds of term contracting. It might be easy to conclude we're at replacement rate, Alex, but I would just say we're not quite there yet because there were two very, very big contracts that went through the market. One that Cameco had with Ukraine and one that Kazatomprom had with the Chinese. If you back those out and ask on a distributed basis across all markets, are we at replacement rate? The answer is no. And so the good news is we're in the early innings of a security of supply contracting cycle. We haven't yet hit a distributed replacement rate and we've never been at this stage of the cycle at these prices before, which is why we want to continue to have that exposure going forward. But some of the common characteristics, tenors continue to go up. Utilities coming to the market for security of supply are looking for requirements covered on a longer term basis. Tenors are going out. Volumes are going up, not just because more years are being added, but because utilities are taking a bigger bite out of each of their requirements contracts. And then, of course, time frames are going out. There are utilities who, Alex, are really well covered for the rest of this decade. They're now worried about the next decade and they're starting to look to contract into that window as well. So all of that very constructive for a view that the long term demand is building, not peaking, but building. And that what we want to remain is very disciplined to capture as much of that price discovery as we can.

Alexander Pearce

Analyst · BMO. Please go ahead

Great. Thanks, Grant. And then, Tim, you mentioned in your comments the ability to bring forward some of those purchase agreements if required. Are you able to quantify if indeed that did happen for this year for guidance and how much you've brought forward from future years into this year in these purchases?

Grant Isaac

Analyst · BMO. Please go ahead

It's Grant again. Our plan in the outlook table was the plan all along on that 4.7 million. So we have that as an option to exercise more of those long term purchase requirements if we want. It's why the disclosure on market purchase is up to 2 million pounds. That would be one of the levers why it's not a hard 2 million pounds because we may not buy it in the spot market. We don't have to, but if it makes sense for us, we will.

Alexander Pearce

Analyst · BMO. Please go ahead

Okay. Thank you.

Tim Gitzel

Analyst · BMO. Please go ahead

Thanks, Alex.

Operator

Operator

The next question comes from Brian MacArthur of Raymond James. Please go ahead.

Brian MacArthur

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead

Good morning, and thank you for taking my question. It goes back to the last question. So in this table, and I appreciate now you've given the breakout, two things. Do you assume that you get your Inkai purchases every year? Because again, you also stated right now we're not sure what we're going to get. Again, those are, as you said, profitable pounds once you do the equity component. If not, how do you balance for that? Because again, the question is you could be getting 4 to 5 million profitable pounds from Inkai. And my third question on that is I can't remember, are you getting 50% or 40% of the joint venture now under that agreement? Thanks.

Grant Isaac

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead

Brian, let's just start with yes, the table assumes that the volumes expected from Inkai in 2024 arrive. But of course, as we saw in 2023, there can be sometimes timing differences. We got about two-thirds of Inkai's 2023 volumes in 2023, the remainder early 2024. This is something we can deal with as Cameco because we have other sources of supply. We have other mines. We have our inventory. We have all of the levers we've already been talking about. This is actually a much, much bigger problem for the front end of the nuclear fuel cycle because it's close to 50% of the global production of uranium that isn't arriving when it needs to arrive at Western markets. So for Cameco, it's something we can plan for, something we can deal with. We eventually get those pounds and we can deal with the time issue associated with them. The overarching assumption is yes, we're going to receive them. If we don't, we'll manage.

Tim Gitzel

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead

Grant, I'd just add to that that the sharing is 60-40 once you reach the nameplate capacity of 4,000 tonnes per year, which is just over 10 million pounds. We've never hit that peak yet. Over the last number of years, we've basically received as a share of production what we would get at 40% of 10 million, so around 3.2 million pound.

Brian MacArthur

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead

Great. Thanks. Just so I can be really clear, you also, as you mentioned, got last year's shipments from Inkai. You presumably have those pounds in inventory and the other ones in the Canadian port. So would you not feel pretty comfortable that you're going to have a lot of Inkai pounds to sell this year because they've already arrived and that's embedded in those numbers?

Grant Isaac

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead

Yes. Sorry. I hope my comments weren't viewed as being unconfident. We're very confident that that supply is going to show up. And if there are timing challenges, we deal with it within our inventory, within our other sources of supply. So extreme confidence.

Brian MacArthur

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead

Great. That's helpful. It's just these pounds are very profitable. So the fact is the finances depending on when they come in.

Grant Isaac

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead

Indeed.

Brian MacArthur

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead

Okay. Thank you very much. And one quick last question. CRA, I don't want to go back to this at all because I sort of figured it's hopefully dealt with, but I do see you have to put some more money aside again. So we've done 2017. Does that mean they can do '18 and '19? You might have to put money aside this year? Or a letter of credit aside?

Tim Gitzel

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead

I was going to say thanks for the question, Brian. But I'm sure - No, Brian, I'll pass it over to Sean. Sean?

Sean Quinn

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead

Sure. We did have the reassessments in 2017 and we put I think $70 million aside, which we expect we'll have to post in the form of a letter of credit. The problem does diminish. The problem with the CRA continues, but the size of the problem diminishes over 2018, 2019, 2020 as the pounds that were sold through our offshore trading structure diminished. So I don't have the exact size of the diminishment in front of me, but it does get smaller as we look forward.

Brian MacArthur

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead

That's very helpful. Thanks, Sean.

Tim Gitzel

Analyst · Raymond James. Please go ahead

Thank you, Brian.

Operator

Operator

This concludes the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Tim Gitzel for any closing remarks.

Tim Gitzel

Analyst · Eight Capital. Please go ahead

Well, thank you, operator, and thank you to everyone who joined today. As Rachelle noted, if you have detailed follow-up questions related to the 2023 results or any questions that we didn't get to today, please send those in to us and we're happy to address them directly. We continue to believe that Cameco remains the best way to invest in the recovery of the nuclear fuel cycle and positive momentum behind nuclear energy. With 35 years of experience in this market, we've built a strong reputation as a proven and reliable supplier with a diversified production portfolio, a portfolio that provides us with the flexibility to work with our customers to ensure they maintain access to our reliable supplies to satisfy their ongoing fuel requirements. The world has put a priority on achieving net zero carbon emissions in the decades to come, and it's become clear that there's no net zero without nuclear. And I would go a step further and say, in fact, there's no nuclear without Cameco and Westinghouse. So it's also becoming clear that there's no net zero without Cameco. We believe we have the right strategy to achieve our vision of energizing the clean air world and we'll do so in a manner that reflects our values. So thanks, everyone, again, for joining us today. Stay safe and stay healthy in 2024. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.