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By Scott Parrish May 1997 Attempts by Cuba and Russia since 1995 to revive construction of the Juragua nuclear power plant have generated significant international concern. Critics of the project, especially in the United States, have cited both safety and proliferation considerations in their arguments against it. They contend that the VVER-440-V213 reactors slated for installation at the plant do not meet Western safety standards, and point out that Cuba has still not signed the NPT or ratified the Treaty of Tlatelolco, which establishes a nuclear-weapons free zone in Latin America and the Caribbean. Like the Russian-Iranian project to complete a nuclear power station at Bushehr, in southern Iran, many view the Juragua deal as additional evidence that the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy is willing to take unacceptable safety and proliferation risks in its pursuit of profit. In part because of these concerns, efforts by Moscow and Havana to find international financial support for the project have so far failed, and remarks by Cuba leader Fidel Castro in January 1997 signal that it is unlikely to be completed anytime soon. Russian-Cuban nuclear cooperation traces its roots back to a 1967 agreement between the Soviet and Cuban Academy of Sciences under which Moscow agreed to train Cuban nuclear scientists and supply a small research reactor. By 1974, Cuban and Russian officials were publicly discussing the construction of a nuclear power plant in Cuba. But it was not until April 1976 that the two countries signed a formal agreement to build a nuclear power plant with two VVER-440-V213 pressurized water reactors at Juragua, also known as Cienfuegos, on the south-central coast of Cuba. (1) Progress was slow, however, and construction began only in 1983. The collapse of the USSR and the termination of Soviet economic aid to Cuba, which had helped finance the project, subsequently disrupted work at the site. Nevertheless, in 1992 Russia indicated its willingness to continue work on the plant, provided Cuba paid hard currency for future purchases. A visit to Havana by a Russian delegation in April 1992 produced an accord under which the plant was to be completed by 1994, with Cuba making regular payments for equipment and technical assistance. (2) As the collapse of the Cuban economy accelerated, however, Cuban leader Fidel Castro suspended the plant’s construction in September 1992, saying Havana was unable to meet Russia’s financial demands. (3) Officials in Moscow expressed surprise at Castro’s abrupt decision, which apparently was not coordinated with the Russian government. Yevgeniy Reshetnikov, Russian Deputy Minister of Atomic Energy, for example, complained that suspending construction would make it more difficult to complete the plant at a later date. (4) Following Castro’s decision, the incomplete buildings for the reactors were mothballed. When construction stopped, the facility which would house the Juragua-1 reactor was around 90 percent complete, although only about 37% of the equipment for the reactor itself had been assembled. Work on Juragua-2 was only 20-30% completed. (5) Although some media reports in 1993 and 1994 indicated that Cuba hoped to interest a number of European and Latin American companies in completing the plant, these feelers apparently failed. Cuban-Russian relations, which had soured after the collapse of the USSR, began to warm again in 1995, and that May Russian Foreign Trade Minister Oleg Davydov said Russia would resume assisting Cuba complete the first of the two planned Juragua reactors. (6) A visit to Havana by Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Oleg Soskovets in October 1995 produced an accord under which a joint Cuban-Russian committee would seek to form an international consortium to finance the project. Russia also extended a $30 million credit to Cuba to finance the maintenance of the mothballed plant until construction was resumed. (7) To help allay American concerns about the safety of the plant, the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy said it had opened talks with the German firm Siemens about supplying instrumentation and control systems for the reactors. The use of the Siemens control systems aimed to address safety deficiencies in the VVER-440-V213 design identified by Western nuclear engineers. Siemens representatives indicated, however, that the company would participate in the project only if the international community views it as "politically appropriate." (8) These steps toward finishing the Russian-Cuban project at Juragua revived earlier American concerns about the potential safety and proliferation effects of the deal. Of the two, safety concerns were predominant, since the VVER-440-V213 design does not meet Western standards for control and safety systems or containment dome integrity. (9) As Juragua lies only about 180 miles south of Key West, Florida, (about 240 miles south of Miami) any accident there could have a heavy impact on the southeastern United States. Aggravating these worries have been reports of lax construction standards at the site. One former engineer at the plant reported that 15% of welds in the reactor’s steam system were found to be faulty after x-ray examination. Others said inadequate mothballing of the incomplete plant’s facilities left important pieces of equipment vulnerable to corrosion from the salt air at the coastal site. Since Cuba has no other nuclear reactors, American critics have also complained that the Havana government lacks the necessary expertise to license and regulate the plant. (10) The suggestion that Siemens or other Western European firms might help upgrade the plant’s control systems did little to assuage these concerns. In June 1995, the U.S. House of Representatives approved an amendment to a foreign aid bill by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, (R-Florida) which cut $15 million from American aid to Russia, as a "warning" not to proceed with the Juragua project. (11) While conservative members of Congress have been the most outspoken opponents of the power plant, the Clinton Administration also opposes the reactors’ completion, and urges other countries not to assist the Cuban nuclear program except for safety purposes. The U.S. also cites proliferation concerns as motivating its opposition to the Juragua plant. Cuba is not a signatory of the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and it was only in March 1995 that Havana signed the1967 Treaty of Tlatelolco, which establishes a nuclear-weapons free zone in Latin American and the Caribbean. However, Cuba has not yet ratified the Treaty of Tlatelolco, arguing that continued American use of the military base at Guantanamo Bay prevents it from doing so. (12) As a result, Cuba has no full-scope nuclear safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), as is required of non-nuclear weapon states which are full parties to the NPT and/or the Treaty of Tlatelolco. Cuba has concluded individual safeguards agreements with the IAEA covering both Juragua and its other nuclear research facilities, which focus on studying the application of radioactive isotopes in agriculture and medicine. The U.S. State Department regards this as insufficient, however, and argues that no nuclear assistance should be given to Cuba until it has "undertaken a legally binding nonproliferation commitment." (13) A particular proliferation concern has been the disposition of the spent fuel from the Juragua reactor, which could potentially be diverted for weapons purposes. The Soviet Union traditionally insisted that spent reactor fuel be returned to the USSR for reprocessing, but while reiterating that general policy, Soviet officials never gave concrete assurances that such a practice would be followed in the Cuban case. The cost involved in transporting the spent fuel back to the USSR may have led Moscow to consider its long-term storage in Cuba.(14). Changes in Russian legislation since 1992 have raised more doubt as to whether Russia would accept spent fuel from the planned Juragua reactor. A 1992 Russian federal law "On Environmental Protection" prohibits the importation of nuclear waste into Russia for storage or disposal, which led to disruptions in the return to Russia of spent fuel from Soviet-designed reactors in Eastern Europe and other CIS states. A 1995 law "On Nuclear Energy," however, does not classify spent fuel as nuclear waste, and allows its importation "in accordance with international agreements."(15*) Russian officials have insisted, however, that the radioactive waste resulting from the reprocessing of spent fuel should be returned to the country operating the reactor.(16*) As a result, a separate intergovernmental agreement would have to be concluded between Havana and Moscow providing for the return of spent fuel. The issue of who would store the waste resulting from reprocessing the fuel would almost certainly prove contentious. Any Russian-Cuban agreement about disposition of the spent fuel from the Juragua reactor would also raise additional safety questions concerning the transport and storage of high-level radioactive waste. Despite the unresolved questions regarding the spent fuel from the reactor, State Department officials have deliberately refrained from saying that Cuba hopes to develop nuclear weapons, suggesting that they view the proliferation risks associated with the Juragua power station as relatively small. Russian and Cuban spokesmen have rejected both the safety and proliferation concerns of the United States. In August 1995, for example, Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy spokesman Georgiy Kaurov brushed aside American criticism, saying, "the United States always complains whenever we begin to realize such a project." He also suggested that if Washington wanted to assure itself about the safety of the plant, it could allow American firms to participate in the international consortium being formed to finish it. (17) Russian Deputy Minister of Atomic Energy Yevgeniy Reshetnikov said in February 1997 that American criticism of the Juragua power plant is motivated "solely by commercial reasons," suggesting the U.S. wants to eliminate Russia as a competitor on the world market for nuclear power plants. He also accused the U.S. of usurping the oversight functions of the IAEA by publicly attacking the Juragua plant as unsafe. (18) On other occasions, Russian and Cuban officials have stressed that the plant’s design meets internationally accepted safety standards, and have underlined that it will be subject to IAEA inspection and safeguards. In fact, according to a 1997 GAO report, the IAEA has ongoing technical assistance programs which aim to help Cuba mothball the site while construction is suspended and to develop the ability to evaluate the safety of the reactor. (19) Cuban officials have also repeatedly denied having any nuclear weapons ambitions. According to media reports, In mid-1995, a joint feasibility study conducted by the Italian firm Ansaldo, Minatom, and the Brazilian company Empresa Brasileira de Engenharia indicated that about $750 million would be required to complete Juragua-1. Russia would contribute $349 million, Cuba $208 million, and the remainder would come from partners in the proposed international consortium. (20) Since Soskovets’ October 1995 visit, other Russian officials have continued to state publicly that Russia intends to push ahead with the plant. Foreign Minister Yevgeniy Primakov said in October 1996 that Moscow would "fulfil all its obligations towards Cuba," including completing the Juragua plant. (21) In January 1997, Russian Minister of Atomic Energy Viktor Mikhailov listed the Juragua plant among the foreign trade deals that would help his ministry boost its exports to $3.5 billion annually by 2000.(22) Despite high-level rhetorical backing, however, Cuban-Russian efforts to find international financial support for the project since 1995 have produced no tangible results. One major factor which contributed to this outcome was the February 1996 incident in which a Cuban air force MiG-29 shot down two U.S. light civilian aircraft piloted by Cuban exiles. The March 1996 Helms-Burton law which tightened U.S. economic sanctions against Cuba in response to the incident declared that the United States would regard the completion of the Juragua plant "as an act of aggression which will be met with an appropriate response." Helms-Burton also requires the reduction of American governmental assistance to any country which aids Cuba in building the Juragua plant, although several categories of aid, including humanitarian assistance, aid for democratic political reform, and money allocated under the Cooperative Threat Reduction Act of 1993 (Nunn-Lugar), were exempted from this requirement. (23) While many countries around the world have protested against aspects of the Helms-Burton legislation, these provisions and the general deterioration in Cuban-American relations almost certainly helped undermine the chance that any Western European firms might show interest in the already economically questionable Juragua project. At the moment, then, completion of the Juragua power station remains unlikely. After months of unsuccessful attempts to find international backing for the project, Castro announced its "indefinite postponement" on 17 January 1997. He declared "there is no hope for now" of finding the necessary financing to complete it. Instead, he said Cuba would invest its limited funds in modernizing and increasing the efficiency of its oil-burning electric power plants. (24) Despite Castro’s statement, in April 1997, the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy repeated that it was continuing to look for foreign partners, adding that if none were found, Russia and Cuba would proceed alone. Russian Deputy Minister of Atomic Energy Yevgeniy Reshetnikov claimed the cost of the plant could then be recouped from its earnings within eight years. (25) But considering Cuba’s economic difficulties, this plan seems problematic at best, since it is not clear how the future plant’s Cuban customers would pay their bills. Nor is it clear where the cash-strapped Russian government would find the several hundred million dollars needed to finance its portion of the construction, absent foreign financial backing. So even if the specter of the Juragua plant is likely to haunt the region for sometime to come, its realization now seems increasingly unlikely.
Comments or questions? E-mail Cristina Chuen at MIIS CNS: Cristina.ChuenATmiis.edu
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