WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — A new low enriched uranium storage (LEU) facility in Kazakhstan will open on August 29, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Yukiya Amano said at a governors board meeting on Monday.
"Construction of the LEU Storage Facility by Kazakhstan is proceeding on schedule," Amano stated.
The facility will give countries interested in nuclear power confidence that they can obtain LEU for nuclear power plants in case of an interruption to their own supplies, the IAEA said.
Kazakhstan has an estimated 12 percent of the world's uranium sources and became the world's leading uranium producer in 2012, reaching 39 percent of worldwide production in 2016, according to the World Nuclear Association.
In May, the US Department of Energy opened a nuclear training center in Kazakhstan to train people from local and regional nuclear facilities on security and other best practices.
