Vietnam pays nuclear fuel to Russia

According to the Ministry of Science and Technology, Vietnam has just finished putting the last 11kg of highly enriched uranium from the Da Lat Nuclear Research Institute to Russia.

Yesterday, Russian Airline transport aircraft left Vietnam and transported 106 spent high-enrichment fuel packs, which contained about 11kg of high enrichment from the research reactor. rescue Dalat to Russia.

To complete this shipment, Vietnam received the help of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the US National Nuclear Security Agency (NNSA) and the State Atomic Energy Group. Russian Federation (ROSATOM).

Control room of Da Lat nuclear reactor.(Photo: Baolamdong)

With the above event, Vietnam has fulfilled its commitments in the Joint Declaration in November 2006, in Hanoi the agreement on Vietnam to join the Fuel Conversion Program for research response, from using fuel High enriched uranium (HEU) to low enriched uranium fuel (LEU).

This event also reflects Vietnam's consistent policy of peaceful use of nuclear energy, safety and security, marking an important milestone for Vietnam's commitment to implement Tuyen. General announcement of the 2nd Nuclear Security Summit in March 2012 in Seoul, South Korea.

Following the IAEA's recommendations, and under the agreement of the US and Russia, research reactors using uranium fuel with a 20% or more U-235 richness must convert to LEU fuel (under 20% U-235), because LEU fuel cannot be used to make nuclear weapons.

The Da Lat research reactor is among more than 20 research reactors of 17 countries that use HEU fuel supplied by the former Soviet Union so it is necessary to convert to LEU fuel. Since 2007, the Ministry of Science and Technology has cooperated closely with IAEA, NNSA, and ROSATOM to implement this program.

In November 2011, Da Lat Nuclear Research Institute successfully replaced and transformed the Da Lat research reactor to fully operate with LEU fuel.