Two newly completed, U.S.-financed factories for disposing of Russian ballistic missile fuel face an uncertain future because Russia has already used most of the fuel to launch commercial satellites, the Wall Street Journal reported today.

The United States spent $26.1 million under the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program to build the fuel disposal facilities in Siberia.  The goal was to convert the highly toxic fuel from dismantled missiles into harmless chemicals that could be sold for civilian purposes, according to the Journal.

Russia supported the project at first but said it took too long, partly due to bureaucratic obstacles and a lack of basic infrastructure at the site.

“We first applied for funding for it in 1993,” said Nikolai Shumkov, a senior official at Russia’s space agency.  “It’s now 2002, and the facility is still not working.  Where were we supposed to store the fuel?”

The Russian military eventually sold most of the fuel to use in launching satellites from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, Shumkov said, but Russian officials did not inform the United States.

“I suppose we should have warned them,” Shumkov said.

As the United States prepares to increase funding for nonproliferation programs in Russia (see GSN, May 24), the fuel incident highlights continuing misunderstanding between the two countries and the difficulties of auditing and monitoring disarmament projects in Russia, according to the Journal (see GSN, April 18).

With little fuel left to convert, the factories’ future is unclear.

“Maybe it’ll have to be dismantled, or mothballed, or adapted to other purposes,” Shumkov said.  “It is U.S. property, and it’s up to them what they do with it” (Guy Chazan, Wall Street Journal, May 29).

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