Cameco Corp on Friday reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit, helped by higher prices and its efforts to cut production in an oversupplied market.

Cameco's U.S.-listed shares were up 3 per cent at US$9.20 in premarket trading.

Uranium producers have been struggling for six years now ever since the 2011 tsunami that forced Japan to shut all of its nuclear reactors. Some of those have restarted since, but low demand has resulted in a glut.

Under CEO Tim Gitzel, Saskatchewan-based Cameco has been working to cut its losses with measures such as suspending production from the McArthur River mine in Saskatchewan, the world's biggest uranium mine.

On Friday, the company said its fourth-quarter average realized price for uranium rose 4 per cent to US$39.44 per pound.

The company's net loss narrowed to $62 million (US$49 million), or 16 cents per share, in the quarter ended Dec. 31, from $144 million, or 36 cents per share, a year earlier.

On an adjusted basis, the company earned 46 cents per share. Analysts had expected a profit of 35 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.