3rd International Symposium on Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) Minimization

3rd International Symposium on Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) Minimization

3-rd International Symposium on Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) Minimization initiated its work on June 5 in Oslo, the organizers of which represented the Government of Norway and the International Atomic Energy Agency. The purpose of Symposium is interaction and information exchange between politicians and technical experts in area of modern developments and efforts towards further HEU reduction in civilian sector.

About 100 diplomats, experts and technical specialists from 30 countries participate in Symposium work. Three days’ discussion issues will include HEU-fuel conversion and return, low enriched uranium (LEU) improvement and HEU use reduction in the production of radioisotopes.

Ms Ine Eriksen Søreide, Norway’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, welcomed Symposium participants, noting that HEU use reduction in civilian sector is the important trend of international efforts on nuclear materials proliferation risks reduction, that potentially can be used for WMD production.

Delegation of the National Nuclear Center headed by E.G. Batyrbekov, Director General presents the Republic of Kazakhstan at Symposium.

On day one, during the panel session, dedicated to the issues of HEU-fuel return, Erlan Gadletovich presented comprehensive review on Kazakhstan’s research reactors fuel conversion and return and communicated on the main results achieved and further work plans towards the direction mentioned. It was noted in presentation, that currently conversion and transportation of VVR-K research reactor spent HEU-fuel in the Institute of Nuclear Physics is completed. A large volume of computational-experimental researches in support of IVG.1M and IGR research reactors conversion is carried out in the National Nuclear Center. Two experimental channels with LEU-fuel in IVG.1M reactor are currently under testing, preparation for LEU-fuel tests in IGR reactor is ongoing. Issues on HEU-fuel processing and removal of the mentioned reactors are under consideration in parallel.

During the subsequent discussions the Symposium participants noted information value of the presentation and general progress in activity on research reactors conversion in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The Chairman of the panel session also thanked Kazakhstani specialists for the considerable contribution to preparation of Working Group’s final report on HEU-fuel return within the previous operations performance. Prepared report became the basis for discussion to wide extent on the current state of the international activity towards the direction selected.