The Purchase of Uranium from Dismantled Russian Nuclear Weapons

HEU Meetings

On January 7, 1997, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Project hosted a luncheon meeting to discuss the status of the U.S.-Russian HEU contract to purchase uranium from dismantled Russian nuclear warheads. Under that 20-year pact, signed in February 1993, Russia agreed to downblend 500 metric tons of highly-enriched uranium from dismantled nuclear warheads and sell the resultant low-enriched uranium (LEU) to the United States. The United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC), in turn, would produce nuclear power reactor fuel from the Russian LEU and sell it commercially.

The luncheon featured three speakers: Deputy Secretary of Energy, Charles Curtis; U.S. Enrichment Corporation President, William “Nick” Timbers; and Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary of State, James Timbie.

Documents available on this site include:

a USEC-provided chronology of the deal ,
more USEC information on the Megatons to Megawatts Program,
a USEC progress report,
and Charles Curtis’ prepared remarks

For further information about USEC, see the:

Energy Policy Act of 1992 (P.L. 102-486) which established USEC, the
USEC Privatization Act which outlined U.S. plans to privatize the corporation,
and two studies of USEC privatization,
Congressional Research Service report (December 4, 1996)

Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.

The Purchase of Uranium from Dismantled Russian Nuclear Weapons

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