Russia’s International Uranium Enrichment Center and Ukraine’s Nuclear Fuel state company have signed a new contract on the deliveries of uranium raw materials from Ukraine to Russia in 2016, Enrichment Center Commercial Director Gleb Yefremov has said.
Ukraine delivers its uranium to Russia for enrichment and the subsequent fabrication of nuclear fuel for its nuclear power plants. The Russian fuel company TVEL is the basic supplier of fuel for Ukrainian NPPs.
“The contract was approved by a shareholders’ meeting that was held on July 31. Thus it has cone into effect”, the commercial director said, responding to the relevant question.
“Now we are moving to the phase of the contract fulfillment and are expecting our Ukrainian partners to notify us of the dispatch of the raw material concentrate to us”, he said.
The timeframe of further fabrication and the date of shipping the product enriched at the International Uranium Enrichment Center will depend on the actual date of natural uranium delivery from Ukraine, which has not yet been clearly defined but which should take place in the fourth quarter of this year under the terms of the contract, he said.
The annual volume of enriched uranium deliveries to Ukraine has remained unchanged at 60,000 SWUs (separate work units).
The core shareholder in the International Uranium Enrichment Center is the Russian civilian nuclear power state corporation Rosatom, which holds a 70% stake. The other shareholders include Kazakhstan’s national atomic company Kazatomprom (10% of the shares), the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant Company (10%) and Ukraine’s Nuclear Fuel state company (10%).
The participating states have the uranium enrichment quotas proportionate to their holdings in the authorized capital of the International Uranium Enrichment Center.
Ukraine made use of this possibility for the first time for the needs of its nuclear power plants in 2012. The annual volume of enriched uranium deliveries to Ukraine equals 60,000 SWUs. (TASS/Business World Magazine)