MOSCOW, May 29 (RIA Novosti) - Russia plans to complete a program to remove spent nuclear fuel from research reactors in 17 countries by 2012-2013, the state-controlled uranium supplier and provider of uranium enrichment services said Monday.
Techsnabexport deputy head Alexei Lebedev said it would cost about $150-200 million to remove the spent fuel from 20 reactors built in the 1960s and 1970s in the former communist bloc.
He said the company, which provides about 35% of global uranium supplies, had already completed the removal of spent fuel from Uzbekistan via Kazakhstan over the winter and the next countries in line were Latvia, the Czech Republic, Kazakhstan and Serbia.
Work on removing Russian-produced uranium from foreign research reactors is being conducted within the framework of a Russian-U.S. agreement and is financed by the United States.
