Sergei Kiriyenko, who heads the Russian Federal Agency for Nuclear Power, said cooperation between Russian firm and the Kyrgyz Kara-Baltinsky Mining Combine should be economically effective if it is to be long-term.
An earlier plan to restore the Kyrgyz uranium processing facility had included Russia, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan, he said.
Under the plan, uranium ore was to be processed at the large Zarechny deposit in Southern Kazakhstan and then reprocessed at the Kara-Baltinsky Mining Combine in Kyrgyzstan before being shipped to Russia.
Since the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the Kara-Baltinsky combine, a leading uranium concentrate producer in the Soviet era with capacity of up to 2,000 tons of uranium ore a year, has been sitting idle. During the Soviet era, Kyrgyzstan had substantial uranium production facilities, which were subsequently mothballed.
Most of the nuclear power infrastructure of the former Ministry of Medium Machine Building - the ministry that handled the Soviet nuclear program - fell to Russian hands after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, but some facilities are located in other former Soviet states. Uranium is mined in Kazakhstan, while Ukraine produces turbines.
