Value Consultant

Never thought I would be spending part of my weekend going over bridge related data in Saskatchewan, yet here we are. The location of this here bridge (or what is left of it) is pretty important, as you may image as otherwise they wouldn't be issuing a seperate alert on it. The collapsed bridge sits north of Beauval and just south of Pinehouse, and the village of Pinehouse itself has lost its road access to the south. The alternative routes traffic over Highway 914 with carrying limits that are not suitable for a 24/7 industrial supply operation. Saskatchewan replaced two other bridges on Highway 165 over the Beaver River near Beauval last year at a cost of about $11.1 million (which on a relative basis is not a lot, especially for a company like Cameco, but this is more about time rather than price as you can imagine and there is a striking irony there when considering the overlay with uranium supply), and those were planned, scheduled jobs in dry conditions. I looked for information on this so you don't have to and it took them several months to construct these bridges. The Beauval project was a full construction season job rather than a quick fix, that much is clear. The Saskatchewan Ministry of Highways posted its NWA notice for the bridge replacement on the 1st of May, active construction ran through the summer, and the September 2025 Orange Zone update said work was expected to finish by the end of October. So roughly like five to six months of active construction season work, on a planned project with engineering, permitting, and contractor mobilization already done in advance. Again, all done in dry conditions and planned ahead of time. No two bridges are the same, but this is good for perspective. This one is going to have to be an emergency rebuild during active spring melt with ice still moving through the channel, and from what I can tell, the proverbial best case looks like a temporary or ice-road style bypass within weeks, with a proper bridge replacement taking many months, and that assumes flood levels actually peak rather than throwing up another washout downstream. There is an alternative roadway, which sounds reassuring until you read between the lines and notice that restrictions are in place on the use of that secondary route, which is essentially the same as saying that heavy trucks loaded with diesel, ammonium nitrate, sulfuric acid, lime, and the rest of the consumables a high-grade uranium operation chews through cannot get to site in anything like the volumes they need without a proper alternative to the bridge. No it won't be a ‘we go to the moon scenario’, otherwise this analysis would be worded a lot differently, but as I noted above it's worth spending a bit of time on. I will be watching developments closely to see how the company is going to be dealing with this, but we will cross that bridge when we get to it (bad pun, sorry). Hope this context helps.