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  • Russian uranium will be directly supplied to the United States

    Russian uranium will be directly supplied to the United States

    17:51 | 07/ 05/ 2008


    MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Tatyana Sinitsina) - The
    last day of Vladimir Putin's presidency, May 6, was crowned with an
    impressive achievement - Russia and the United States signed an
    agreement on civilian uses of nuclear energy.

    This is an extraordinary event - the two sides waited for it for over
    18 years. Experts consider this document very important and believe
    that it can take bilateral energy relations from the political to the
    economic sphere.

    The agreement was signed by the head of Rosatom (Russian Federal Atomic
    Energy Agency), Sergei Kiriyenko, on the Russian side, and by the U.S.
    Ambassador to Russia, William Joseph Burns, on the American side. This
    is a framework agreement, which creates a legal foundation for
    normalizing bilateral cooperation in civilian uses of nuclear energy.
    The Russian company Tekhsnabexport will be able to directly supply U.S.
    nuclear power plants with uranium produced from plutonium.

    Few people know that almost half of American nuclear power plants run
    on Russian fuel, and have already become addicted to it because of its
    high quality and cheap price. This practice started in Soviet times,
    during perestroika. Russians were not charging exorbitant prices, which
    was attractive to American nuclear business, but serious trouble
    started in 1991. It was provoked by Russia itself, which supplied a lot
    of uranium to the world market, thereby sharply reducing prices. This
    resulted in an anti-dumping campaign against Russia, which led to trade
    restrictions and a prohibitive 112% tax by the U.S. Department of
    Commerce.

    As a result, Russian uranium is currently being supplied to the United
    States only through the USEC Corporation, an American intermediary.
    Supplies were delivered under the Russian-U.S. HEU agreement, which is
    valid until 2013 (the agreement on the conversion and sale of uranium
    extracted from nuclear weapons). This situation was not good for either
    side - both Americans and Russians understood that it was better to
    deal with each other without intermediary agents.

    Two years ago, Kiriyenko started talks with the Americans in order to
    get direct access to Tekhsnabexport's American partners. At the same
    time, the matter was brought to court, which was a success - uranium
    conversion was recognized as a service rather than product, and could
    not be subject to an anti-dumping investigation. The court ruled that
    the 112% tax would become invalid in 2011. Obeying the verdict, USEC
    cancelled the anti-dumping investigation against Russian uranium
    supplies, which had lasted for 18 years.

    Credit for this goes to the two presidents - Vladimir Putin and George
    W. Bush. Acting in the interests of their countries, they instructed
    their governments after the St. Petersburg summit in 2006 to find a way
    out of this predicament. Yet, the Americans did not hurry too much. The
    way out was found only two years later, on the last day of Putin's
    presidency.

    Vladimir Zhidkikh, a member of the sub commission on nuclear energy of
    the Federation Council Committee on Natural Monopolies, said, "In the
    past, the development of mutually advantageous partnership between the
    United States and Russia in civilian uses of nuclear energy was
    inhibited by political restrictions, but now fears of the Iron Curtain
    no longer restrict their cooperation."

    The world community welcomes any agreement on cooperation between the
    two great powers (which are seen as rivals anyway) because this is a
    gesture in favor of peace. Apart from the pragmatic bilateral
    component, the new agreement has a global achievement - it reduces the
    risk of the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

    The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not
    necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
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