Cameco’s president and CEO believes Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has helped expand its nuclear business as countries are increasingly looking elsewhere to conduct their business.

Tim Gitzel told BNN Bloomberg Tuesday that several countries with previous ties to Russia are now coming to his company to address their nuclear needs. 

“Countries around the world are saying: ‘Who do you want to get your nuclear fuel from, Russia or somebody else?’ And a lot of them are coming our way now, so we’ve seen business really take off in the last 18 months,” he said.

Cameco signed a 12-year nuclear supply deal with Ukraine last month and a similar 10-year deal with Bulgaria in April. Gitzel said both contracts would’ve gone to Russian nuclear producers in the past.

“Those Eastern European states were completely dominated by the Russians forever,” he saud. “They built reactors, they fuelled them, they looked after them, and now those countries are turning away.”

Gitzel added that the climate crisis also has countries such as Canada, the United States and France  taking a hard look at increasing their nuclear power intake.

“We’re going to be a big part of the clean electricity infrastructure going forward,” he said.