Publication Laka-library:
Underfeeding at Urenco`s Gronau uranium enrichment plant results in reasons for tails export to Russia becoming obsolate
| Author | Peter Diehl, Wise uranium |
 | - |
| Date | February 2007 |
| Classification | 2.01.8.50/08 (GERMANY - GRONAU) |
From the publication:
Underfeeding at Urenco‘s Gronau uranium enrichment plant results in reasons for tails exports to Russia becoming obsolete by Peter Diehl Abstract Urenco Deutschland GmbH has disclosed that it is underfeeding its Gronau (Germany) uranium enrichmentplant since 2004: while from 1991 to 2002, the natural uranium feed consumption of the plant virtually followed the continuous capacity increase of the plant, the feed consumption no longer followed the capacity increase from 2004 - it even began to decline. Urenco explains this with changes in product and/or tails assays, without giving any details. Given the rapid increase of the price of fresh uranium, underfeeding may make sense, since it allows to reduce natural uranium consumption at the expense of increased separation work. A closer analysis shows that the observed decline in feed consumption must be mainly caused from a reduced tails assay. As most of Urenco‘s depleted uranium tails are exported to Russia for re-enrichment, a reduced assay of the tails exported has serious consequences on the viability of any re-enrichment of these tails. It turns out that the assay of the tails delivered to Russia comes close to the assay that Urenco most likely has contracted with Russia for re-enrichment on Urenco‘s behalf. Therefore, unless the contractual arrangements have been changed, almost nothing remains to be re-enriched in Russia on these tails on Urenco‘s behalf, and the amountof recovered natural uranium sent back to Urenco tends towards zero. This means that the official justification for sending the tails to Russia (recovery of usable uranium from the tails) has become obsolete. Since the transfer of tails to Russia rather continues, this can be seen as a further hint on the true reason for these exports: to provide a cheap tails disposition route to Urenco.
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