Nuclear fuel from Libya to be processed in Dimitrovgrad

Russia's Atomic Energy Ministry told RIA Novosti today that the shipment of nuclear fuel from Libya that Russia received on Monday was shipped to be processed at a scientific-research institute in Dimitrovgrad, a city in the Ulyanovsk Region (east of Russia's European section).

About 16 kilograms of highly-enriched uranium (HEU) was shipped from Libya in accordance with a joint Russian-U.S. program under the IAEA aegis and within the activities to curtail Libya's weapons of mass destruction development program. The Soviet Union supplied the nuclear fuel to Libya in the 1980s for a nuclear reactor at the Tajura research center near Tripoli.

A representative of the Atomic Energy Ministry, Nikolai Shingarev, told RIA Novosti that the uranium from Libya will be converted to low-enriched fuel in Dimitrovgrad. The low-enriched fuel will be used for the institute's research reactors.

According to the Atomic Energy Ministry's information, this is the third shipment of Russian uranium that has been returned to Russia from abroad. Earlier, nuclear fuel from Serbia and Romania was returned to Russia within the same Russian-U.S. joint program.

Mr. Shingarev explained that Russia had received 88 nuclear fuel assemblies from an IRT-2 reactor from Libya. The uranium-235 rods were 80% enriched, the Atomic Energy Ministry representative said.