October 8, 2003, Revised June 11, 2004
Civil highly enriched uranium (HEU) is composed of two overlapping categories. The first category is HEU used in civil nuclear programs. The second category is HEU declared excess to national security requirements in the United States and committed to peaceful purposes. In total, these two categories contained 180-200 tonnes of HEU, as of the end of 2002. The HEU is in the form of both fresh and irradiated material.
Because of a lack of information about HEU stocks in NWS, clearly differentiating these two categories is not possible with currently available information. As a result, the primary focus of this section is the total stock of HEU committed to civil or peaceful purposes rather than only the stock of HEU that has been used in civil nuclear programs. This latter approach has been used previously but is no longer considered sufficient.1
Civil Reactor Programs
HEU has been used in a wide variety of civil nuclear programs to generate electricity, conduct research, and produce radioisotopes for industry, medicine, and research. The use of civil HEU fuel has been diminishing over the last two decades.
The largest potential user of HEU fuel was nuclear power reactors. However, reactors that would have used HEU fuels were not built as expected or such reactors have been converted to other fuels. Currently, two power reactors use HEU fuel, a fast reactor in Russia and another fast reactor in Kazakhstan. The HEU in these reactors is enriched between 20 and 25 percent and would be considerably more difficult to use to make a nuclear explosive than 80-90 percent enriched uranium.
Another major user of HEU has been civil research and test reactors. The use of HEU fuel has diminished as a result of extensive efforts by the US Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactor (RERTR) program in cooperation with many other governments. The RERTR program focuses on developing suitable low enriched uranium (LEU) fuels to replace HEU fuel in these reactors. In addition, many research reactors have been shut down in the last 10-20 years, and few reactors have been built in this period that use HEU fuels.
In the early 1990s, civil research and test reactors worldwide required about 1,050 kilograms of uranium 235 in HEU fuel per year. The current annual requirement is estimated to be less than 650 kilograms of uranium 235 per year. About 210 kilograms of this annual requirement are for two US reactors; other US research reactors require 35 kilograms of uranium 235 per year. Another roughly 150 kilograms are for Russian research reactors. US-supplied research reactors require about 175 kilograms of uranium 235, and Russian-supplied research reactors require up to 50 kilograms of uranium 235 per year. China requires roughly 40 kilograms per year.
The production of key radioisotopes for medicine has required HEU targets. Western reactors in Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, and South Africa have required up to 60-70 kilograms of uranium 235 per year, mostly weapon-grade uranium. The United States is a principal supplier of the weapon-grade uranium, although Britain is also a supplier. In addition, Russian-origin HEU is used for this purpose in former Soviet republics.
The US RERTR program is developing alternative LEU targets that can eliminate the need for HEU targets. However, resistance to conversion has delayed the implementation of this program.
Excess HEU
In late 1994, the United States declared that 174.3 tonnes of HEU were excess to its military requirements. Some HEU that has been used in civil US reactors is a portion of the declared excess, although the fraction is difficult to estimate accurately. One complication is that prior to 1990 the United States reprocessed civil irradiated HEU fuel and allocated the recovered HEU to military programs. In the military programs, however, the recovered HEU formed a small fraction of the total amount of HEU and was not totaled. In addition, the government owned much of the civil fresh and irradiated HEU, and it rarely treated this HEU any differently than other military HEU under its control.
Russia did not declare a portion of its HEU excess in the same manner as the United States. Instead, Russia committed to convert at least 500 tonnes of HEU recovered from nuclear weapons into LEU. It does not provide information about the location of this HEU stock until the material is ready for blending down into LEU. In essence, this declared excess remains part of a military stock until it is blended down into LEU. Thus, in practice, this HEU is considered civil in nature for only a relatively brief time just before it is blended down to LEU. As a result, this excess stock is not added to the civil stock.
Estimating Civil HEU Stocks
Few nations publicly reveal their HEU stocks. International inspection agencies differ on openness. The IAEA publishes the total amount of HEU that it safeguards, but not the average enrichment of this HEU. Euratom, the safeguards agency for countries in the European Union, views the total amount of HEU under its safeguards as secret.
It is possible to develop crude estimates of the total amount of civil HEU. A lower bound on this quantity is the roughly 32 tonnes of HEU that were under IAEA safeguards in 2002.2 Of this amount, about 21.7 tonnes were reported by states with comprehensive safeguards agreements and 0.1 tonnes were declared by states under INFCIRC/66 agreements. Another 10 tonnes were placed under IAEA safeguards by the United States under a voluntary offer in 1994.
Up to 10 tonnes of this safeguarded HEU appears to be assigned to Kazakhstan's BN-350 fast reactor. This reactor uses HEU, but this HEU is enriched only between 20 and 25 percent. This example points out the need to consider not only the total mass of HEU but also its enrichment. The enrichment of the other 10 tonnes of civil HEU under safeguards is unknown, but it is believed to be significantly greater than that of the BN-350 fuel.
The total amount of civil HEU worldwide is considerably larger than the amount safeguarded by the IAEA. The safeguarded amount includes only a fraction of the total amount of HEU classified as civil in the nuclear weapon states.
Britain, France, and Germany annually declare their civil HEU stock. Table 1 summarizes their declarations to the IAEA.
In 1998, the British government announced that it would annually publish its national holdings of civil HEU. In September 2003, Britain declared that it held 1,579 kilograms of HEU as of the end of 2002. Table 1a shows this declaration in detail. The HEU in Britain is not under IAEA safeguards nor mentioned in the IAEA's annual report on the amount of HEU subject to IAEA safeguards. The United Kingdom reports all its civil nuclear material to the IAEA, but the IAEA had not selected any British facilities with HEU for the application of safeguards.
France's HEU declaration is listed in table 1b. According to IAEA officials, the IAEA also does not safeguard any French HEU, and thus the total safeguarded quantity mentioned above does not include any civil HEU possessed by France. (However, French civil HEU is under Euratom safeguards.) France also holds HEU from several other countries, because it has a fuel fabrication plant and has firm plans to reprocess spent HEU fuel from Australia and Belgium starting in 2003. (It also will reprocess spent HEU fuel from its own reactors.) The recovered HEU will be blended down to LEU. The amount of French owned HEU is estimated at roughly 3-5 tonnes, most of which was imported from the United States for use in critical assemblies, fast reactors, and research reactors.3
Germany's declared stock is detailed in table 1c. Germany has provided fewer entries than the other countries. In addition, there are questions whether some German owned or controlled HEU is in other countries, particularly France. Thus, this declaration may represent only HEU holdings inside Germany and not include German HEU located outside Germany. In any case, all German HEU should be under IAEA safeguards and included in the quantity listed above as under IAEA safeguards at the end of 2002.
As mentioned above, the Department of Energy (DOE) declared 174.3 tonnes of HEU excess to its national security needs in 1994. Of this amount, about 33 tonnes were enriched over 92 percent and 142 tonnes were enriched between 20 and 92 percent. Ten tonnes of the material enriched over 92 percent were placed under IAEA safeguards in 1994. A small fraction of this excess inventory contains HEU used in civil reactor programs. This excess contains roughly 15 tonnes of HEU in spent fuel from domestic and foreign civil reactors. Because the United States has committed to use this excess HEU for peaceful purposes, the entire excess is considered civil HEU.
Since its initial declaration, the United States has blended down some of this HEU to LEU. As of the end of 2002, the amount blended down was about 37-38 tonnes. In addition, this excess is known to have grown by at least several tonnes since 1994. However, the exact increase is not publicly available.
The United States has other civil stocks of HEU. Private and university reactors use HEU fuel. However, this stock is believed to be less than one tonne. Part of the reason for such a small estimate is that the U.S. government has taken ownership of the spent fuel from these reactors.
Russia has also used HEU in civil reactors, although it has not declared any of it excess to military requirements in the same manner as the United States. In addition, Russia has provided little information about its production of HEU, making it harder to estimate the amount of HEU Russia has used in civil reactor programs. Nonetheless, a rough estimate is that Russia has used up to about 20 tonnes of HEU in civil reactors, ignoring any fast reactors that may have used HEU fuel.4 After irradiation, most of this HEU is believed to have been recovered and recycled in a variety of reactors. Russia's current stock of HEU used in civil research and test reactors is estimated to be about 5-10 tonnes. HEU used in Russia's fast reactors would add roughly 10-20 tonnes of HEU to this amount.5 The HEU used in Russia's large fast reactor, the BN-600, is enriched between 20 and 25 percent.
China's civil HEU stock is believed to be small, on the order of one tonne. US officials who have visited China's largest civil research reactor that uses HEU fuel report that the reactor is underutilized.
HEU produced for South Africa's nuclear weapons program is included with HEU under safeguards in states with comprehensive safeguards agreements. In 1993, this amount totaled about 800 kilograms. At the end of 2002, this stock was an estimated 615-765 kilograms. About 450-600 kilograms of this HEU was unirradiated, and about 165 kilograms of this HEU were in irradiated form.
Civil HEU values or estimates are summarized in table 2. Many of these aggregate quantities remain highly uncertain.
What is needed is a country-by-country breakdown of civil HEU inventories. Until this becomes available, the picture will remain highly incomplete.
US and Russian HEU Exports to Civil Reactors
The vast bulk of civil HEU used in research and test reactors originated in the United States and Russia. Both countries have established programs to bring back fresh and spent HEU fuels that they exported to these reactors. The United States has also played a major role in financing and organizing shipments of Russian-supplied HEU back to Russia.
Substantially more information is available about US HEU exports than Russian ones. Table 3 summarizes available information about US HEU exports and the fate of this HEU. This table uses information from the Department of Energy, the RERTR program at Argonne National Laboratory, and other public information.
In total, the United States has exported over 25 tonnes of HEU (average enrichment about 70 percent) through the end of 2002. About 13 tonnes of this HEU was enriched to at least 90 percent.
A fraction of this HEU has been returned to the United States. Including returns currently expected, about 12.7 tonnes of US-origin HEU (initial HEU mass) will not have been returned to the United States at the end of this decade.6 Over 10 tonnes of this HEU has been used or irradiated in relatively large reactors and critical facilities in Europe and Japan, and this HEU is not in a form eligible for return to the United States. Table 3 also lists the major reactors that received US-origin HEU and has comments on the fate of this HEU when known. For example, much of the HEU used in the German SNEAK critical facility was likely blended down to LEU. In general, the United States knows little about the use and fate of HEU it exported to Euratom. The reason is that Euratom is not required to reveal national inventories to the United States.
A special category is US-origin HEU that has been irradiated in targets in research reactors to make molybdenum 99 for medical purposes. Most of this HEU remains overseas, including in Canada, and is not scheduled for return. This HEU has been only slightly irradiated. Thus, if it started as weapon-grade uranium, as most of it did, it probably remains weapon-grade uranium.
Russian exports to research reactors are harder to determine. Table 4 provides a summary based on available public information. Excluded here are exports to fast reactors. The amounts exported by Russia are considerably smaller, although the recipients are in countries that have suffered from weak physical security.
1 See for example, David Albright, Frans Berkhout, and William Walker Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1996, World Inventories, Capabilities, and Policies (Oxford: SIPRI and Oxford University Press, 1997), pp.253-254. In addition, the newer approach seeks to include all civil HEU. Earlier efforts excluded HEU used in fast reactors in Russia and Kazakhstan because of the difficulty of determining this amount and the fact that this HEU was enriched to only 20-25 percent. Because so much HEU is used in these reactors, these amounts can also greatly exceed those in other categories, particularly those involving mainly weapon-grade uranium (enriched over 90 percent). Nonetheless, estimated HEU quantities for these fast reactors will be included, but an attempt will be made to clearly identify these quantities included in aggregate estimates. These civil HEU estimates do not include HEU used in Russia's remaining military production reactors. Those quantities will be treated under military HEU stocks.
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2 The amount of HEU under safeguards has steadily increased during the last ten years. In the early 1990s, states reported about 10 to 11 tonnes of HEU to the IAEA. That figure increased by 10 tonnes in 1994 when the United States placed under safeguards about 10 tonnes of HEU released from the US nuclear weapons program. In 2002, the amount under safeguards rose by 10.9 tonnes to 31.8 tonnes. This jump was caused by a change in reporting by one state, believed to be Kazakhstan and involving fuel for the BN-350. The reason for the increase was that this state had previously reported all uranium in a "unified" way, so that it was not possible to determine the precise amount of material on the books (in fuel assemblies) that was HEU compared to LEU. All this material was safeguarded appropriately, but it was only in 2002 that this state differentiated between the material types in their reporting to the IAEA. So the total amount of HEU being safeguarded didn't increase, but the amount on the IAEA's books listed specifically as HEU did increase. Other cases such as this one are not expected, because "unified" reporting by some other States is done in such a way that the IAEA has any HEU properly listed as HEU in its annual reports.
The HEU in fuel in a reactor core is listed as its initial mass amount. For spent fuel discharged from reactor cores, the IAEA's annual report lists the amounts based on what the states have reported to the IAEA. The timing of the state reporting varies; some states or operators report the updated values upon discharging the spent fuel from the core, others report it when the spent fuel is shipped from the facility to another location, and some states report at both times.
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3 US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Report to Congress on the Disposition of Highly Enriched Uranium Previously Exported from the United States, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Washington, DC, January 1993. This source estimates that France possessed as of 1992 about 4.1 tonnes of HEU of US origin. Some of this HEU may have belonged to reactors in other countries. France also possesses additional civil HEU it produced in its own enrichment plants or imported from other countries. It is known that France possesses about 3 tonnes of US-origin HEU, which forms a lower bound of civil HEU in France. France also imported as of the end of 1992 about 230-600 kilograms of HEU from Russia. The upper bound reflects that an estimated 1-1.5 tonnes of HEU included in France's declaration are foreign-owned.
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4 Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1996, World Inventories, Capabilities, and Policies, op. cit., pp. 112-3.
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5 Irradiated fuel from those reactors has been reprocessed, although the amount reprocessed is unavailable. After recovery, residual HEU may have been blended down to LEU.
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6 Values in this section are given in terms of initial HEU mass, which is defined as amount of HEU originally provided, and do not reflect reductions in mass because of the irradiation of the HEU. The actual inventory of HEU is therefore less.
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Table 1: Annual Figures for Holdings of Civil Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) for Britain, France, and Germany (end 2002)
| Britain | France | Germany | |||||||||||||||||
|
HEU at fuel fabrication plants or at other processing or reprocessing facilities HEU at civil reactor sites HEU at other locations (e.g. laboratories, research centers) Irradiated HEU at civil reactor sites and other locations Total |
566 kg 0 kg 754 kg 259 kg 1579 kg |
1,411 kg 3,099 kg 460 kg 1,387 kg 6,357 kg |
0 kg 0 kg 70 kga 730 kg 800 kg |
(a) Of this amount 30 kg is indentified by Germany as 'HEU in bulk form'
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Source: Tables 1a, 1b, 1c
Table 1a: Britain's Annual Figures for Holdings of Civil High Enriched Uranium (HEU)
| National Totals |
As of 31 Dec 2002 (Previous year's figures in brackets) | |||
|
1. HEU stored at enrichment plants 2. HEU at fabricating plants or at other reprocessing facilities 3. HEU at civil reactors sites 4. HEU at locations other than civil reactor sites, enrichment Fabricating and reprocessing plants (e.g. laboratories, research centres) 5. Irradiated HEU at civil reactors sites 6. Irradiated HEU at locations other than Total |
0 kg 566 kg 0 kg 754 kg 6 kg 253 kg 1,579 kg |
(0 kg) (569 kg) (0 kg) (742 kg) (8 kg) (276 kg) (1,595 kg) | ||
Source: IAEA Information Circular, Communication received from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Concerning its Policies regarding the Management of Plutonium, Statements on the Management of Plutonium and of Highly Enriched Uranium, INFCIRC/549/Add.8/6 (.pdf), September 15, 2003
Table 1b: France's Annual Figures for Holdings of Civil Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU)
| National Totals |
As of 31 Dec 2002 (Previous year's figures in brackets) | |||
|
HEU stored at enrichment plants HEU in the course of fabrication at enrichment plants HEU at fuel fabrication plants or other processing facilities HEU at civil reactor sites HEU at locations other than civil reactor sites, and at enrichment, fuel fabrication or processing plants (e.g. laboratories, research centers) Irradiated HEU at civil reactor sites Irradiated HEU at locations other than civil reactor sites Total |
0 kg 0 kg 1,411 kg 3,099 kg 460 kg 146 kg 1,241 kg 6,357 kg |
(0 kg) (0 kg) (1,648 kg) (3,096 kg) (450 kg) (200 kg) (1,119 kg) (6,513 kg) |
||
Source: IAEA Information Circular, Communication received from France Concerning its Policies regarding the Management of Plutonium, Statements on the Management of Plutonium and of Highly Enriched Uranium, INFCIRC/549/Add.5/7 (.pdf), 24 October 2003
Table 1c: Germany's Annual Figures for Holdings of Civil Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU)
| National Totals | As of 31 Dec 2002 (Previous year's figures in brackets) | |||
|
HEU contained in research reactors HEU (irradiated) contained in storage HEU in bulk form Total |
40 kg 730 kg 30 kg 80 kg |
(70 kg) (730 kg) (30 kg) (830 kg) |
||
Source: IAEA Information Circular, Communication received from the Federal Republic of Germany Concerning its Policies regarding the Management of Plutonium, Statements on the Management of Plutonium and of Highly Enriched Uranium, INFCIRC/549/Add.2/6 (.pdf), 29 October 2003
Table 2: Civil HEU Stocks, including HEU Dedicated to Civil Reactors and Declared Excess in Nuclear Weapon States, end 2002, in tonnes
| Amount of HEU | |||||||
| Comprehensive Safeguards States and INFCIR/66 States | 21.8 | ||||||
| Nuclear Weapons States | |||||||
| US | 140 | ||||||
| Russia | 15-30 | ||||||
| Britian | 1.6 | ||||||
| France | 3-5 | ||||||
| China | 1 | ||||||
| Total | 180-200* | ||||||
*Rounded
Table 3: Accounting for US Exports of Civil Highly Enriched Uranium, end of 2002
| Amount of US-Origin HEU Exported and Returned in Terms of Initial HEU Mass, in tonnes1 | |||||||||
| HEU | U-235 | Comments | |||||||
| US exports through 1993 | 25.2 | 18.3 | Average enrichment was about 72 percent, but in practice varied widely. | ||||||
| Returns through 1993 | -8.4 | -(6.8 to 7.5)2 | Most reprocessed. Most of the recovered HEU mixed with military HEU and stored or recycled in military production reactors. | ||||||
| Subtotal | 16.8 | 11.153 | |||||||
US exports 1994-20024 | 0.54 | 0.50 | About 280 kilograms blended down to LEU. | ||||||
| Returns 1994-20025 | -1.1 | -0.77 | Stored pending recovery and blend down to LEU. | ||||||
| Returns expected from 2003 through 20096 | -3.5 | -2.55 | Will be stored pending blend down to LEU. | ||||||
| Subtotal | 12.7 | 8.33 | This HEU remains or will remain overseas. An unknown fraction of it has been or will be blended to LEU overseas. | ||||||
US-origin HEU Exported to Programs to Make Molybdenum 99 and Not Returned to the United States | |||||||||
| US Exports, end of 2002 | 1.0 | 0.9 | Rough estimate, slightly irradiated and mostly stored. | ||||||
US Exports to Larger Reactors and Critical Assemblies (through 1993) and Not Eligible for Return to the United States7 | |||||||||
| SNEAK (Germany) | 2.0 | 0.74 | Critical facility, shutdown. Wide variety of enrichments from 20%-93%, with an average of 37 percent. A large portion of this material was recovered and is believed to have been blended down to LEU or used as HEU in other research reactors. | ||||||
| KNK-II (Germany) | 2.5 | 1.35 | Fast reactor, shutdown.8 | ||||||
| Critical facility (France) | 2.45 | 0.73 | |||||||
| Joyo (Japan) | 1.3 | 0.30 | Irradiated fuel, likely stored in Japan. | ||||||
| THTR (Germany) | 1.1 | 1.0 | Shutdown. About 350 kilograms of fresh weapon-grade uranium was sold to research reactor owners. The rest is stored as irradiated fuel. | ||||||
| Rapsodie (France) | 0.66 | 0.47 | Fast reactor, shutdown. Most reprocessed and likely recycled or stored. | ||||||
| UK civil reactors | 0.33 | 0.30 | Likely recycled; remainder likely included in UK civil HEU declaration. | ||||||
| Subtotal | 10.34 | 4.9 | |||||||
Other Not Returned9 | 1.4 | 2.510 | |||||||
Total Not Returned Or Not Eligible for Return | 12.7 | 8.3 | |||||||
1 Defined as the initial mass of uranium before insertion into a reactor and subsequent irradiation which reduces the amount of contained uranium 235. Enrichment levels are average and vary widely in practice.
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2 The upper bound assumes that the HEU was on average about 50% consumed. The lower bound assumes that the HEU in the returns through 1977 was on average about 40% consumed and the HEU in the returns from 1978-1988 was 50% consumed.
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3 This subtotal includes the mid-point of the range of values estimated for uranium 235 returns through 1993.
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4 The United States exported HEU to Canada and the Netherlands during this period. About 150 kg of 93 percent enriched uranium were shipped to Canada during this period, and 110 kg of 93 percent enriched uranium were shipped to the Netherlands from the start of 2000 through 2002. In 1994, the United States exported 280 kilograms of fresh 93 percent enriched uranium leftover after the shutdown of the Ft. St. Vrain power reactor in Colorado to France for processing. After recovery, according to a US official interviewed in 1996, the HEU was blended down to 19 percent enriched uranium.
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5 The spent fuel returned to the United States is part of the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Spent Nuclear Fuel Acceptance Program that accepts aluminum-based and Triga fuel. The spent fuel contains about 0.45 tonnes of uranium 235, representing a uranium 235 consumption of 40 percent.
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6 The RERTR program at Argonne National Laboratory estimated that 4.6 tonnes of HEU (initial mass) would be returned to the United States during the period when the Spent Nuclear Fuel Acceptance program exists. It covers fuel irradiated through 2006 and returned through 2009. The uranium 235 amount is estimated. A February 2004 General Accounting report, Recovery of Highly Enriched Uranium Provided to Foreign Countries, claims that only about 2.6 tonnes of HEU will be sent to the United States. Partially mitigating this conclusion is that U.S.-origin HEU in Australia, Belgium, and France will be sent to France for reprocessing and blend down to LEU.
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7 All these exports involved HEU in oxide or other types of fuel not eligible to be returned to the United States under the DOE's Spent Nuclear Fuel Acceptance Program.
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8 KNK-2 used a wide variety of uranium enrichments between 20% and 93%, with an average enrichment of 54%. A significant portion of the irradiated fuel from KNK-2 was reprocessed in France. This HEU may have been recycled, blended down, or stored. The last core was not irradiated and the HEU was subsequently recovered. Some fraction of this HEU, particularly that enriched over 70%, was sold to other research reactors. Another fraction may have been blended down to LEU.
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9 This catch-all category, or "remainder," is estimated by subtracting the last two categories (HEU exports to larger reactors and to make molybdenum targets) from the value of 12.7 tonnes, or the inventory of HEU outside the United States after all expected HEU returns. The resulting amount includes HEU used in a collection of small reactors that have not used aluminum-based or Triga fuels and HEU leftover in scrap or waste after processing. It also includes about a quarter tonne of HEU sent overseas for fabrication into fuel for US reactors and subsequently returned to those reactors.
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10 This value for the amount of uranium 235 in the "other" listing is inconsistent with the associated value for HEU. This inconsistency may reflect uncertainties in estimating the amount of uranium 235 in returns and other amounts.
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Table 4: Accounting for Russian-Origin HEU Exported to Research Reactors, end of 2002, in tonnes1 (in terms of initial HEU mass2)
| HEU | |||
| 1) | Former Soviet states | ||
| (Belarus,Georgia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan) | |||
| Exports to research reactors, critical (>1 MWth)3 | 0.4-0.9 | ||
| Exports to other reactors, critical facilities, and fuel fabrication facilities | 1.0 | ||
| Returns to Russia (through about 1990)4 | -0.4-0.8 | ||
| Transfer from Kazakstan to the US 5 | -0.5 | ||
| Transfer from Georgia to the UK | -0.005 | ||
| Subtotal | 0.5-0.6 | ||
| 2) | Other Countries with Russian supplied research reactors 6 | ||
| Exports | 1.5-2.07 | ||
| Returns to Russia 8 | -0.1 | ||
| Subtotal | 1.4-1.9 | ||
| 3) | Exports to France9 | 0.23-0.6 | |
| 4) | Exports to Germany10 | 0.4 | |
| Total outside Russia | 2.5-3.5 | ||
1 Excludes exports to the BN-350 fast reactor in Kazakhstan.
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2 Defined as the initial mass of uranium before insertion into a reactor and subequent irradiation. Enrichment levels are average.
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3 On average about 50 percent uranium 235.
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4 Most of the returns were in the form of irradiated fuel that was reprocessed in Russia.
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5 Project Sapphire, HEU being blended down into LEU.
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6 Bulgaria, China, Czech Republic, DPRK, Egypt, Germany, Hungary, Libya, Poland, Romania, Vietnam, and Yugoslavia.
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7 Roughly half of this HEU was 36% enriched.
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8 Russia has taken spent and fresh Russian-origin HEU from Iraq and Yugoslavia. Russia also took fresh and slightly irradiated French-origin HEU from Iraq (not included above).
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9 This is a recent HEU export (enriched over 90%) which is for use in French civil research reactors.
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10 This is a recent HEU export (enriched over 90%). Germany imported this HEU for use in the FRM-2 reactor near Munich. It represents a ten-year fuel supply. This reactor also acquired about 100 kilograms of fresh weapon-grade uranium of US-origin in Europe.
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