HEU Transparency Program: Monitoring at the U.S. Permanent Presence Office in Russia
In February 1993, the US and the Russian Federation signed an agreement that allows the US to purchase 500 tonnes of Russian low-enriched uranium (LEU) that has been blended down from the high-enriched uranium (HEU) from Russia's dismantled nuclear weapons. The agreement calls for the HEU to be blended down to LEU at Russian facilities and then shipped to the United states to be used for making commercial reactor fuel. This HEU Agreement was crafted to avoid the rigid verification procedures of previous arms control and nonproliferation treaties. In the United States, it is being implemented by the US Department of Energy (DOE) under the HEU Transparency Program. Transparency refers to agreed-upon measures intended to build confidence that the objectives of the HEU Agreement are being met. The objectives of the HEU Transparency Program are to ensure that (a) the HEU subject to the agreement is extracted from Russian nuclear weapons; (b) this same extracted HEU enters an oxidation facility and is oxidized therein; (c) the declared quantity of HEU is blended down to LEU; and (d) the LEU that is delivered to the United states, pursuant to the agreement, is fabricated into fuel for commercial nuclear reactors. The HEU Agreement gives Russian monitors access to the US Enrichment Corporation's Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio, and to the five US fuel fabrication facilities receiving the Russian uranium. In turn, US monitors have access to the four principal Russian plants that convert HEU to LEU. Currently, monitoring at three Russian facilities--the Mayak Production Association near Ozersk, Siberian Chemical Enterprise (SChE) near Tomsk, and Electrochemical Integrated Plant (ECP) near Zelenogorsk--is confined to periodic visits. However, US monitors have continuous access to the Ural Electrochemical Integrated Enterprise (UEIE) in Novouralsk through the US Permanent Presence Office (PPO) located there. This paper summarizes the monitoring activities and challenges involved in managing and coordinating the PPO.
- Research Organization:
- Argonne National Lab., IL (US)
- OSTI ID:
- 20005736
- Journal Information:
- Transactions of the American Nuclear Society, Vol. 81; Conference: American Nuclear Society 1999 Winter Meeting, Long Beach, CA (US), 11/14/1999--11/18/1999; Other Information: PBD: 1999; ISSN 0003-018X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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