US Secretary Of Energy Spencer Abraham To Hold Talks In Moscow

A meeting between Russian Power Minister Igor Yusufov with US Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham is slated to be held at the Power Ministry on Wednesday. The Ministers will discuss bilateral cooperation in the fuel and energy sphere. The question of US oil and gas companies' operation on the Russian market and of Russian oil companies' presence on the US market will also be touched upon. Yusufov and Abraham may also discuss the aftermath of the fall of the world oil prices and in this connection will consider a possibility of taking joint measures to stabilize the world oil markets. On that same day the US Secretary of Energy will meet with Russia's Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev. As RIA Novosti knows from a source in the Atomic Energy Ministry, the sides are expected to touch on development prospects for the two countries' nuclear power industry and business cooperation, among them reduction of strategic offensive arms, utilization of weapon-grade uranium, and export control. Apart from that, the sides will discuss deliveries to the USA of highly enriched uranium extracted during the dismantling of nuclear ammunition and converted to lowly enriched uranium which can be used for peaceful purposes, for instance, as fuel elements for nuclear power plants. As much as 30 tons of such uranium worth 550 million dollars were delivered to the USA in 2000. Now the matter may concern analogous supplies for the next twenty years, the source noted. He said that these supplies will be carried out in line with a related Russia-USA agreements.