With 434 nuclear reactors in operation worldwide and another 30 plus under construction, this is a good time to be in the nuclear business.
Tim Gitzel is happy to be in the middle of the action – serving as chief operating officer at Cameco Corporation in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan.
Gitzel’s journey down the nuclear road began almost 30 years ago. Born and raised in Saskatchewan, he spent summers working at Cluff Lake for Cogema Resources (now AREVA).
“That is where I first met Bernard Michel who was instrumental in my career,” said Gitzel. “He sent me to France twice and really whetted my appetite for the uranium business, which I could see was going to be a good business for Saskatchewan.”
Bernard Michel, now retired, would go on to become CEO of Cameco Corporation. Gitzel would go on to law school, then practice briefly before returning to the uranium business.
“From 2001 to 2004, I was president of AREVA Canada and in June, 2004, I went to France to manage AREVA’s worldwide mining business unit,” said Gitzel. “We had uranium interests in Saskatchewan, Wyoming, Niger, Africa, and Kazakhstan and gold in the Ivory Coast, Sudan and Australia. So it was a bit of a hectic schedule but I had a very good run with AREVA. They treated me very well.”
When Jerry Grandey, the current CEO of Cameco, called to offer Gitzel a position back in Saskatoon, he and his family faced a tough decision.
“We weighed our options and decided to go,” he said. “There were people who asked me whether I had bumped my head on the Eiffel Tower but that wasn’t the case. Saskatchewan is home. We love Saskatoon. We love the province and the opportunity from a professional point of view was excellent.”
Now Gitzel, his wife Bonnie, and their seven- and nine-year-old youngsters are finding themselves back into the usual activities. The children figure skate, play hockey, and in summer will be getting back into soccer and baseball. Gitzel is also returning to some traditional Canadian activities – like playing hockey with the Innovation Honda team during the winter months.
Still, life is not all play and no work for Gitzel.
With uranium prices and world demand skyrocketing, the COO has a big chair to fill. In Saskatchewan, he is responsible for Cameco’s operations at McArthur River, Key Lake, Rabbit Lake and the Cigar Lake project. He also has responsibility for mines in Wyoming and Nebraska and for the fuel services division in Ontario, which includes a refinery at Blind River, a conversion plant at Port Hope, and Zircatec in Cobourg, as well as Port Hope, which fabricates fuel bundles for Candu reactors. Gitzel also oversees Cameco’s Inkai project in Kazakhstan, which is just finishing construction.
“With our Kazak partners, we have been running a pilot plant, getting just under a million pounds a year,” he said. “That will be ramping up to five million pounds of production in the next few years.”
Although the Kazakhstan uranium is a significantly lower grade than Saskatchewan uranium, it can be mined more economically. It also provides a diverse source of supply in case of political or regulatory changes.
“The nuclear renaissance isn’t a myth or something that might happen in the future,” Gitzel concluded. “It is here. We need to produce uranium to be able to feed the reactors that exist today and that are coming. We have a big challenge in front of us but we are up to it because we have world-class assets and world-class people. That’s a good combination.”