Iran Plans New Uranium Ore Processing Site

Iran yesterday announced plans to open a new facility for processing uranium ore into yellowcake, the first step in a uranium enrichment process that the United States suspects Tehran of pursuing to develop a key nuclear weapon ingredient, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, April 9).

The new yellowcake production plant at Ardakan in Central Iran is expected to begin operating before the Iranian calendar year ends on March 20, 2009, said Hossein Faghihian, deputy chief of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization.  The site would be able to produce up to 70 tons of uranium ore concentrate each year, he added.

“With the inauguration of the facility, the country’s needs for uranium ore concentrate will be met,” Iranian state media quoted Faghihian as saying.

Iran enriches yellowcake into uranium hexafluoride at its Isfahan uranium conversion plant, and the resulting gas is placed into enrichment centrifuges at its Natanz facility.  Iran says the uranium would only be enriched to the low level necessary for nuclear power plant fuel, but U.S. and Western officials have expressed concerned that Iran could generate highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.

Iran currently produces an undisclosed amount of yellowcake at its Bandar Abbas plant on Iran’s southern coast, but it is expected that the new plant would have a higher production capacity (Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press/Google News, April 9).

Meanwhile, proliferation analysts have said it would take at least four months for Iran to triple the number of centrifuges at its Natanz facility, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday.

On Tuesday, Iran announced plans to place 6,000 new centrifuges at Natanz for a total of about 9,000 machines (see GSN, April 8).  Tehran intends to ultimately run 50,000 centrifuges at the site (see GSN, April 18, 2007).

According to experts, Iran could produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in four months if it ran 9,000 centrifuges at maximum efficiency.  However, the Pakistani P-1 centrifuge model that Iran’s enrichment program largely depends on remains marred by technical glitches, according to one expert.

“The question is whether the P-1 they’re building is better than the P-1 they’ve got already,” said David Albright, head of the Institute for Science and International Security.  “It hasn’t worked well.  It’s pitiful how poorly it’s performed.”

Iran is currently developing the IR-2, a more efficient centrifuge based on a more advanced Pakistani design purportedly obtained through the nuclear smuggling ring once run by former top Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan (see related GSN story, today).

“They’re much better machines,” Albright said of the IR-2 centrifuges.  “They both work better if you know what you’re doing, and they’re easier to make.”

However, the IR-2 technology remains generations behind current centrifuges developed by Western powers, according to nuclear analysts.

The International Atomic Energy Agency continues to send officials to monitor the Natanz enrichment facility, and the U.N. nuclear watchdog is expected to report on new developments at the site during its May governing board meeting (Mostaghim/Daragahi, Los Angeles Times, April 9).

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