The Large Hadron Collider set a new world record on Monday, accelerating its twin beams of protons to unprecedented energy levels, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) said on its website.

The record of 1.18 TeV comes 10 days after the LHC was restarted. The previous world record of 0.98 TeV had been held by the U.S. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory's Tevatron collider since 2001, CERN said.

"It marks another important milestone on the road to first physics at the LHC in 2010," the scientific organization said.

The first circulating beam of protons successfully made it through the LHC's entirety on November 20. Last Monday, beams of protons started circulating in both directions around the LHC, and the first proton collisions were produced.

"We are still coming to terms with just how smoothly the LHC commissioning is going," CERN Director General Rolf Heuer said. "It is fantastic. However, we are continuing to take it step by step, and there is still a lot to do before we start physics in 2010. I'm keeping my champagne on ice until then."

He said the next aim would be to produce a concentrated commissioning phase to increase the beam intensity, with more proton-proton collision experiments expected to take place before Christmas.

According to CERN, the first physics at the LHC is scheduled for the first quarter of 2010, at a collision energy of 7 TeV (3.5 TeV per beam).

The international LHC project has involved more than 2,000 physicists from hundreds of universities and laboratories in 34 countries since 1984. Over 700 Russian physicists from 12 research institutes have taken part.

MOSCOW, November 30 (RIA Novosti)