U.S. diplomat to attend nuclear fuel bank agreement signing ceremony in Kazakhstan
ASTANA. Aug 13 (Interfax) - The United States Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Countryman is to lead a U.S. delegation at the ceremony of signing an agreement to create an international bank for low-enriched uranium (LEU) in Kazakhstan, said Nisha Desai Biswal, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs.
During a telephone press conference at the U.S. Embassy in Astana, the Kazakh capital, Biswal said the U.S. State Department is very pleased with the opening and launch of the LEU bank. She said the U.S. is sending to the ceremony a high-level delegation led by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Countryman. Countryman is in charge of U.S. efforts on nuclear security and non-proliferation of nuclear weapon, she said.
It was reported that the agreement is due to be signed between Kazakhstan and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Kazakhstan on August 27.
The signing ceremony is due to be attended by foreign ministers from the project's donor nations, senior officials from an international fund for nuclear threat reduction, as well as the foreign ministers from the five nuclear states: the U.S., Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France.
The LEU bank will be created at the facilities of the Ulbinsk Metallurgical Plant in Ust-Kamenogorsk.
The bank will have a physical stock of up to 90 tonnes of LEU, enough to operate a 1,000-megawatt light-water reactor.
The bank is financed fully by volunteer contributions and does not affect the IAEA budget. Donor contributions amount to around $150 million, enough to run the bank for at least a decade. The donors are the Nuclear Threat Initiative ($50 million), the United States ($49.54 million), the United Arab Emirates ($10 million), Kuwait ($10 million), Norway ($5 million) and the European Union (up to 25 million euros).
Kazakhstan proposed hosting an international nuclear fuel bank under the IAEA aegis in 2009.
The Ulbinsk Metallurgical Plant, which is part of Kazatomprom, the national nuclear-power company, makes pellet fuels for nuclear power plants.
