At the moment of contract making and up to 2007 the Russian
legislation forbade nuclear materials import for storage from
abroad. According to the point 3 of the article 50 of the federal
law «About protection of natural environment», «radioactive waste
and nuclear materials* import to the Russian Federation from the
foreign states with a view of their storage or a burial place is
forbidden».
By the Green Peace expert estimations, during the last 15 years
AREVA and the West European company URENCO have sent about 140
thousand tons of uranium "tails" to Russia. In November, 2009 it
became known that URENCO company stops import of a waste of the
uranium concentrating industry to Russia. This decision was the
result of the long-term work of the Green Peace and the other
public organizations, directed on refusal of import of a foreign
radioactive waste in our country. However contract with AREVA will
operate at least till the 2014. Thus, on the Russia territory
thousand tons of uranium "tails" can be imported.
The management of the state corporation Rosatom asserts that the
radioactive wastes are valuable power resources and imported into
Russia for the reenrichment after which they will be imported back
to the supplier. However in the country of origin WUH comes back
only 10 % from all imported raw materials, and 98 % remains in
Russia for the eternal storage **.
The Rosatom buys up "the most valuable" power raw materials with
the price of a toilet paper - 60 cents for 1 kg, while a market
price for 1 kg of uranium - no less than 150-200 dollars. Experts
consider that such obviously unprofitable contracts work only
because it is a question of radioactive waste trade, instead of raw
materials for the nuclear industry.
*According to the Russian statutory acts, nuclear materials are
meant as the materials containing or capable to reproduce dividing
nuclear substances. The depleted uranium is a nuclear material as
contains dividing substance - uranium-235. Besides, WUH contains
the uranium-238 making the basic part of WUH, is a material,
capable to reproduce other dividing substance - plutonium.
** For example, according to the contract №60111 with company
Eurodif (France) 13887 tons of WUH with enrichment of 0,3 % (41,6
tons of uranium-235) have been delivered to Russia. After
reenrichment 228,8 tons of uranium with natural enrichment of 0,711
% (1,6 tons of uranium-235) have been returned the
company-supplier.
Remained 3658,2 tons (on uranium) of WUH with enrichment of 0,29
% (40 tons of uranium-235) has been left on storage. As a result in
the Russian Federation 98 % from initially imported WUH of a
foreign origin have been stored.