OREANDA-NEWS. February 01, 2011. The observational visit of the USA Ministry of Electric Power delegation headed by Gregory Dwyer, the specialist in foreign affairs in the field of policy of nuclear non-proliferation to SCC was accomplished.

This mission implied observing the progress of the HEU-LEU program at the combine in the context of Russian-American collaboration.

The representatives of the USA Ministry of Electric Power and the USA National Laboratories monitored the conversion of highly enriched uranium (HEU) into lowly enriched (LEU) on the concerted control points at the Isotope Separation, Sublimation and Chemical and Metallurgical SCC Plants.

During the visit a meeting of Gregory Dwyer and Vladimir Korotkevich, SCC General Director, and Anatoly Kozyrev, Chief Engineer, was held. The head of American mission expressed an opinion that when the HEU-LEU program in 2013, Russian-American collaboration in the sphere of the peaceful atom will proceed in accordance with the transnational Agreement signed by Russia and the USA, and with an account of the positive experience of interrelations accumulated.

Under the Russian-American Agreement on the Use of Highly Enriched Uranium Withdrew from Nuclear Weapon dated by February 18, 1993 (the HEU-LEU Agreement), the enterprises of Rosatom State Corporation recycle weapon uranium considered in the Russian Federation to be abundant into low enriched uranium usable for civil nuclear energy industry and then supply it to the USA. Tekhsnabexport OJSC became the executive agent on the HEU-LEU program of Rosatom State Corporation.

The year 2010 was marked by an important milestone in the HEU-LEU Agreement realization – a border-line of 80% in the program execution was overcome. Since the moment of the first LEU lot dispatch on May, 31 1995 about 11,900 tones of this material produced as a result of 412 tones of LEU recycling – 82% from the total quantity of 500 tones provided by the HEU-LEU Agreement. The currency proceeds for the separation work (SWU) in LEU in 2010 exceeded 600 M USA dollars and were equal to 220 M USA dollars for LEU natural component (natural uranium). The sum of the currency proceeds for the material supplied within all the years of the Agreement fulfillment into the Russian Federation budget exceeds 9.5 B USA dollars. Moreover, LEU natural component which estimated cost is about 3 B USA dollars is returned back to the Russian Federation territory.