MOSCOW, September 22 (RIA Novosti) - A batch of low-enriched uranium was shipped to the United States on Tuesday, bringing to 11,000 tons the total exported under a 1993 bilateral agreement, civil nuclear-power corporation Atomenergoprom said on Tuesday.

"This shipment has become an important landmark in implementing the agreement. Since the first LEU shipment to the U.S. made on May 31, 1995, nearly 11,000 metric tons of this material down-blended from 375 metric tons of HEU has been delivered to the U.S. - 75% of the total amount of 500 metric tons envisaged by the agreement," the statement said.

"Thus the Megatons to Megawatts Program has entered its final stage. Hard currency proceeds received by Russia for the delivered material exceed $8.5 billion," it added.

Russia and the United States are cooperating in the nuclear sphere on the HEU-LEU project. 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.