Iran announces nuclear advance

Atomic chief says country has produced its first batch of "yellowcake", the raw material used for uranium enrichment.

05 Dec 2010

Iran has produced its first batch of uranium concentrates to be used at a nuclear plant, state media has reported.

Ali Akbar Salehi, the atomic chief, said Iranian experts would use domestically produced yellowcake, the raw material for enrichment, at the Isfahan conversion plant.

"The West had counted on the possibility of us being in trouble over raw material but today we had the first batch of yellowcake from Gachin mine sent to Isfahan [conversion] facility," Salehi said on state television on Sunday.

Analysts believe Iran has nearly exhausted 600 tonnes of yellowcake acquired from South Africa in the 1970s before the Islamic revolution.

Salehi said Iran still cannot meet "the overall need of the Isfahan facility but... will produce a significant part of it" from the Gachin mine near the Gulf port city of Bandar Abbas.

"Iran has become self-sufficient in the entire fuel cycle, starting from [uranium] exploration, mining and then turning it into yellowcake and converting it to UF6 and then turning it into fuel plates or pellets," he said.

He added that Iran would formally notify the International Atomic Energy Agency of its yellowcake production.

Timing significant

The announcement comes just a day before world powers meet with Iranian officials in another attempt to persuade them to give up the technology.

"Iran has had this capability to produce yellowcake for a very long time, but the important thing is the timing of the announcement," Al Jazeera's Alireza Ronaghi, reporting from Tehran, said.

"Iran is trying to send a message ahead of talks that even if you build a wall around Iran, its nuclear program will go ahead.

"Iran has been trying to say that its only a matter of time to become totally self-sufficient in its nuclear program, even with the sanctions."

Enrichment worries the US and some of its allies because the process can also be used for weapons production. Iran insists its nuclear aims are solely peaceful.

The enriched uranium required for use in nuclear reactors or weapons is produced in centrifuges that spin uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6) at high speeds. The UF6 is derived in a reaction from yellowcake, a concentrate processed from mined uranium ore.

Iran has previously used yellowcake bought from South Africa in the 1970s.

Source: al-Jazeera.
Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/12/20101259318679341.html.