ISIS has reactivated its work on estimating global inventories of nuclear explosive materials. ISIS’s updated work will appear in installments and will include updated data on fissile material inventories and assessments of secret fissile material production facilities. The last complete set of estimates covers the period through 2003 (see below).

The main nuclear explosive materials are highly enriched uranium (HEU), plutonium, neptunium, and americium. The materials are categorized by country, quantity, origin and use (military or civil). There are more than 3,900 tonnes of fissile materials in the world, enough for over 350,000 nuclear weapons. About 2,000 tones are in weapons usable forms. Understanding the size, status, and production of these materials is essential to preserving international security and reducing the risk of nuclear war, proliferation, and terrorism.

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Featured Reports

Global Stocks of Nuclear Explosive Material – End 2003 (Updated 2005)
January 1, 2005

Unprecedented Projected Nuclear Growth in the Middle East: Now is the Time to Create Effective Barriers to Proliferation
David Albright and Andrea Scheel
November 12, 2008

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