Russian state-run nuclear fuel producer TVEL will supply 7 kilograms of low enriched uranium to a research reactor in Ukraine in 2008, the company announced on Thursday.

The nuclear fuel will be delivered under a Russian-U.S. program, Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactors (RERTR), aimed at developing technical methods to convert reactors from the use of highly-enriched uranium (HEU), which can be used in atom bombs, to low enriched uranium (LEU).

The fuel shipment is intended to improve the reactor's safety and reduce the threat of terrorism, the company's press service said.

The LEU will be manufactured at the Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant, a TVEL subsidiary in Siberia.

TVEL previously supplied nuclear fuel for the VR-1 test reactor at the Czech Technical University in Prague, the Tajoura Nuclear Research Center in Libya, and a nuclear research center in Dalat, Vietnam.

SOURCE: RIA Novosti

DATE: November 02, 2007

Topics: NFC, Russia, East Europe, Ukraine