OREANDA-NEWS. On October 25, 2007 Ivanov watched how AECC separated isotopes, saw the plant’s products, its containers for storage and transportation of enriched uranium hexafluoride and met with the managers of the plant, reported the press-centre of AECC.

Ivanov was accompanied by the head of Rosatom Sergey Kiriyenko, the governor of Irkutsk region Alexander Tikhanin, the deputy minister for regional development Kamil Iskhakov, the director general of Techsnabexport Aleksey Grigoryev, the director general of AECC Viktor Shopen.

Below is the text of Ivanov’s opening statement at the conference at AECC.

Dear colleagues!
Today nuclear energy is experiencing global renaissance. And this is not a coincidence.
First, the reserves of oil and gas are not endless. We can’t say for sure – in 60–70 years or in 500–700 years – but they will end some day.

Besides, the supplies of oil and gas are strongly dependent on the political or military-political situation in the oil and gas extracting regions – and, as you may know, this situation is not simple and will hardly improve in the near future.

So, it is quite natural that lots of states have begun to revise their energy programs and to increase the share of nuclear energy. Russia is among them. In 2012 we will start launching two new nuclear power units a year and by 2030 the share of nuclear power plants in the total electricity generation in the country will be increased to 25%-27%.

But to build and equip a nuclear power plant is not enough. It is necessary to supply it with fuel.
Here, we have quite good prospects. Russia is still the biggest producer of reactors, turbines, pumps and, certainly – and primarily — nuclear fuel.

Almost 40% of the world uranium enrichment capacities are concentrated in Russia. Low enriched uranium is a product with high added value and we can sell it at good profit on the international markets. 

This problem has not only commercial but also foreign political aspect.

In an ordinary situation, fuel for nuclear power plant is a market product and any IAEA member and Nonproliferation Treaty signatory can buy it at the world price on the international market. Unfortunately, this is a pure theory yet. And there are real apprehensions that one or another country can be denied access to low enriched uranium for one or another political reason.

Russia’s initiative for establishing international uranium enrichment centers under IAEA’s aegis has made such a scenario almost impossible. 

Such centers will give a guaranteed access to uranium enrichment services and will store enriched uranium in an amount sufficient for fueling two 1,000,000 KW reactors. Naturally, this reserve will be controlled by IAEA.

In case of a political force majeures not related to violation of the non-proliferation regime, this approach will allow any IAEA state to get sufficient amount of low enriched uranium for building and operating nuclear power plants for decades. We have big potential here. Today, I have seen your centrifuge cascades.

One of such centers is being established here at Angarsk Electrolytic Chemical Combine. We are paying special attention to this project.

Here, we are already cooperating with the Kazakhs. We have set up an International Center for Enrichment of Uranium open joint stock company, formed its board and appointed its director general. 

We are acting in line with the relevant Russian-Kazakh inter-governmental agreement. This agreement and the charter of the company say that any concerned state can join the center.

We are just at the beginning of the road and I am sure that many other countries will join us soon.

Today, we are going to discuss our problems and plans. We will give special attention to the ecological safety of the project and the plant – to everything that will help us to keep the high safety level of AECC.