Russia currently exports uranium fuel to the U.S. via a monopoly mediator, the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC), a special intermediary agent, under a conversion program called HEU-LEU.
The HEU-LEU contract, also known as the Megatons to Megawatts agreement, was signed in February 1993 and expires in 2013. It aims to convert 500 metric tons of high-enriched uranium (HEU), the equivalent of approximately 20,000 nuclear warheads, from dismantled Russian nuclear weapons into low-enriched uranium (LEU), which is then converted into nuclear fuel for use in U.S. commercial reactors.
The U.S. International Trade Commission voted last July to keep a 116% import duty on Russian uranium products traded via any other U.S. company but USEC, claiming that the lifting of the anti-dumping restrictions would seriously harm the American economy.
Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the Russian Federal Agency for Nuclear Power, also said Thursday during his visit with President Vladimir Putin to Kazakhstan that Moscow and Washington were preparing a framework agreement on cooperation in civilian nuclear research. Putin's visit to uranium-rich Kazakhstan also produced a bilateral agreement to set up an international uranium enrichment center in Siberia.
As for nuclear cooperation with other countries, Kiriyenko said China was expected to commission the second power unit of the Tianwan nuclear power plant built with Russia's assistance in the country's east.
Russia's nuclear chief also said he was going to Australia, the world leader in uranium production, in September, and said he hoped to strike several deals on cooperation in this sector. Russian state-owned uranium producer and trader Techsnabexport, or Tenex, said in December it intended to take part in developing the world's largest copper and uranium deposit, Olympic Dam in Australia, with reserves that could last 70 years.
