Eliminating Stockpiles of Highly Enriched Uranium - Pugwash ...

HEU elimination practices. As such, it should neither interfere with this cooperation,
or directly influence HEU markets or market prices.
The proposed scheme demands further in-depth consideration of several aspects
including: (a) Technical issues concerning the HEU elimination, including
transparency and verification requirements, down-blending capacities, and HEU
logistics, as well as (b) various political, financial and legal requirements that will
have to be taken into account in the process. These issues will be briefly considered
below – after a presentation of the Russian nuclear (HEU) infrastructure.
Russian HEU infrastructure
All Russian facilities that produced HEU for nuclear weapons are located in Russia's
closed nuclear cities. For an overview of HEU operations outside nuclear weapons
production see table 2.
Facility: Activity:
1: Plant Electrokhimpribor HEU extraction from weapons,
(Sverdlovsk-45) storage of weapons components
2: Electromechanical Plant HEU extraction from weapons,
“Avangard” (Arzamas-16) storage of weapons components
3: Institute of Techical Physics nuclear weapons R&D,
(Chelyabinsk-70) HEU research reactors
4: Industrial Association “Mayak” storage of HEU components,
(Chelyabinsk-65) metal-to-oxide conversion,
reprocessing of HEU fuel,
operation of tritium reactors,
storage and use of HEU fuel
5: Siberian Chemical Combine storage of HEU components,
(Tomsk-7) metal-to-oxide conversion,
HEU down-blending,
operation of plutonium reactors,
storage and use of HEU fuel,
6: Mining and Chemical operation of plutonium reactors,
Combine (Krasnoyarsk-26) HEU storage
7: Ural Electrochemistry HEU storage
Combine (Sverdlovsk-44)
8: Electrochemistry Plant HEU down-blending
(Krasnoyarsk-45)
9: Machine-Building Plant naval fuel fabrication
(Electrostal)
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