Iran to submit uranium enrichment plan to IAEA in 3 months

  10 August 2015    Read: 1043
Iran to submit uranium enrichment plan to IAEA in 3 months
Iran will submit its uranium enrichment plant to the International Atomic Energy Agency in two to three months.
Deputy Foreign Minister and top nuclear negotiator Seyyed Abbas Araqchi said that Iran will not install any IR6 and IR8 centrifuges in the next eight years, while production of these type of progressive centrifuges on an industrial scale takes about two to three years, then we will not active these type of centrifuges in a decade, ISNA reported August10.

He said that uranium enrichment restrictions for Iran is 8-year, based on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), achieved on July 14 and would be implemented in the next several months.

"Iran`s long term plan includes certain agreed limitations on all uranium enrichment and uranium enrichment-related activities including certain limitations on specific research and development (R&D) activities for the first eight years, to be followed by gradual evolution, at a reasonable pace, to the next stage of its enrichment activities for exclusively peaceful purposes," JCPOA says.

"Iran will begin phasing out its IR-1 centrifuges in 10 years... It will continue to conduct enrichment R&D in a manner that does not accumulate enriched uranium. Iran`s enrichment R&D with uranium for 10 years will only include IR-4, IR-5, IR-6 and IR-8 centrifuges and Iran will not engage in other isotope separation technologies for enrichment of uranium as specified in Annex I. Iran will continue testing IR-6 and IR-8 centrifuges, and will commence testing of up to 30 IR-6 and IR-8 centrifuges after eight and a half years," according to the nuclear agreement between Iran and P5+1, including United States, Britain, France, Russia and China plus Germany.

Araqchi said Iran would introduce its 15-year plan to have a one million SWU capacity of uranium enrichment, while 190,000 SWU is enough for supporting a 1000-MW nuclear reactor`s fuel annually.

The head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization Ali Akbar Salehi said on November 20, 2014 that Iran would need 190,000 SWU (separative work units) in eight years. IR1 centrifuge capacity for uranium enrichment is 0.8-1.2 SWU, IR2 - 4-5 SWU. There are also more powerful centrifuges, for example, IR5 capacity is 24 SWU.

Iran planned to build 20 nuclear reactors in the future on the scale of Bushehr power plant with 1000 MW power generation capacity.

Currently, Iran possesses 19,000 IR1 and 1,000 IR2 centrifuges and only 9,000 of them are operational. But, Iran obliged to keep only 5060 IR-1 centrifuges active in the next eight years.

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