OREANDA-NEWS. October 1, 2009. The Uranium Enrichment Center CJSC is waiting for the decision of its shareholders on the future on the project to create an enrichment facility on the basis of Angarsk Electrolysis Chemical Complex. Sept 29 Director General of the Center Dmitry Ashanin said that July 21 the project was approved by the state examination commission. “Logically, the next step is the Government’s decree to build a new nuclear facility,” Ashanin said. Presently, the shareholders of the Center are negotiating the format and schedule of financing. “We are waiting for them to make all necessary arrangements, particularly, to solve the problem of financing, which is especially important now that we are facing a global crisis,” Ashanin said.

As was reported earlier, the Uranium Enrichment Center’s project will be financed by the shareholders and creditors. The Center has been founded on a parity basis by Techsnabexport OJSC and Kazatomprom (Kazakhstan). The Center will use the last generation of gas centrifuges. The facility to be built on the basis of AECC is supposed to enrich natural uranium and to produce uranium hexafluoride. The capacity of the unit will be 5mln SWU a year.

Initially, the project was supposed to be launched in late 2009-early 2010 and to be completed in 2017. Ashanin said that the deadlines will become known as soon as the shareholders complete their consultations and when the project receives the Government’s approval. The agreement to establish Uranium Enrichment Center was concluded by the Russian Federation and Kazakhstan in July 2006. The constituent documents were singed in Oct 2006. The Center was registered in Feb 2007.