Russia, US Complete Warheads-for-Fuel Program

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RIA Novosti, PUBLISHED 13.04.2014

The United States has completed payments under a historic agreement providing for the import of Russian highly-enriched uranium for electricity production, Russia’s state-owned uranium producer and trader Techsnabexport said Monday.

“We received the final payment from the United States Enrichment Corporation in March,” the company said, adding that its obligations under a contract for low-enriched uranium ended late last year.

The last shipment of Russian uranium from nuclear warheads converted to reactor fuel arrived in Baltimore by sea in early December, ending a program that has provided 10 percent of all US electricity over the past 15 years.

The Megatons to Megawatts agreement (also known as the HEU-LEU agreement) aimed to convert 500 metric tons of highly-enriched uranium (HEU) – the equivalent of approximately 20,000 nuclear warheads – from dismantled Russian nuclear weapons into low-enriched uranium (LEU), which was then converted into fuel for use in US nuclear power plants.

The Russian supplies have produced 7 trillion kilowatts of energy in the United States since the first shipments arrived in 1998.

Russia earned $17 billion under the program, which provided power for one out of ten light bulbs in the United States.

Topics: Russia, USA, NFC

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