Cameco soars on partnership with US government and Brookfield to deploy new nuclear reactors stateside

Shares of Cameco Corp. are surging in premarket trading after the Canada-based uranium company announced that it and Brookfield Asset Management have signed a binding term sheet with the US government to build nuclear reactors in the US via their jointly owned Westinghouse Electric business.

(Brookfield and Cameco acquired 51% and 49% of Westinghouse Electric, respectively, in a 2023 deal.)

As a uranium provider to nuclear power plants, Cameco has the opportunity to benefit not just through its Westinghouse exposure, but also by having a bigger market to supply.

Shares of no-revenue nuclear company Oklo as well as Nuscale both popped on this news, but since pared gains.

The aggregate investment value of these new projects is “at least” $80 billion, per the press release. The US government will take care of arranging financing, permitting, and approvals, and Westinghouse will construct nuclear facilities which “are expected to generate reliable and secure power for the American grid, including powering significant data center and compute capacity to drive growth in artificial intelligence in the United States.”

The agreement will see the US government get a 20% share of any cash distributions tied to this project in excess of $17.5 billion. If that milestone has been hit on or prior to January 2029 and the valuation of Westinghouse is expected to be $30 billion or higher, the US government can demand an IPO of this division and the ability to accumulate a 20% stake in this entity.