IAEA Uranium Mining and Milling Initiatives

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 UNVIE VIENNA 000496 SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: AROC IAEA ENRG TRGY SUBJECT: IAEA Uranium Mining and Milling Initiatives -------------- Summary -------------- ¶1. (U) With the resurgence of interest in nuclear power there is also a resurgence of interest in uranium mining. The IAEA recently launched an initiative on uranium mining and milling called the Uranium Production Site Appraisal Team (UPSAT) mission. UPSAT missions allow Member States to request a peer review of uranium producing facilities on their territories. This service will work with current IAEA projects, including a TC regional project in Central Asia and several training programs, to help reduce the environmental and public health impact from uranium mining and milling. End Summary. -------------- UPSAT Missions -------------- ¶2. (U) UPSAT missions allow Member States to request a peer review of uranium producing facilities. These reviews would be conducted by an international team of experts with direct experience applicable to the technical areas of evaluation. They would review all aspects of uranium mining and milling, including legislation, regulations, operations and decommissioning. The UPSAT missions are very similar in structure to the OSART (safety assessements) or IRRS (regulatory) reviews currently performed by IAEA. As with other IAEA peer review missions, the UPSAT team is advisory and is not a regulatory inspection, nor is its report a decision document; i.e., it will not be used by IAEA to indicate whether a Member State is allowed to mine uranium or not; the IAEA does not have the authority to enforce any such judgment in any case. ¶3. (U) The IAEA is re-launching this program after it tried unsuccessfully to launch it in 1996. At that time, there was a decline in the activity of the uranium production industry and, consequently, no Member State asked for a review. However, renewed interest in nuclear power has had a positive effect on uranium production and the fate of UPSAT was revisited at the 2008 IAEA General Conference. Prior to that General Conference, several countries had expressed an interest in having this type of program. Ultimately, the UPSAT program is expected to facilitate the exchange of knowledge and experience between team members and industry personnel. This exchange of information should serve to enhance overall safety and efficiency in uranium production in current and planned uranium production endeavors. ¶4. (U) Among the main objectives of these missions are: to provide the requesting Member State or organization an objective assessment of the status of operational safety and practices at the site in the context of generally accepted international practices related to operational safety and performance; and, to provide recommendations and suggestions for improvement in areas where performance falls short of generally accepted practice. ¶5. (U) A request for an UPSAT mission must come formally from a Member State or an organization within the Member State. After the request is made, the IAEA will compose a team of experts from countries other than the country in which the review is performed. The Member State must furnish the team with data on the facility in order to allow the UPSAT team to familiarize itself with relevant background investigation. Once a desk study is complete, the team will conduct the review in the Member State. A mission report will be drafted and transmitted to the Member State. This report will become the property of the Member State or the reviewed organization and will be kept confidential and therefore not released to the public or other Member States by the IAEA or UPSAT team. The costs of the mission will be shared by the IAEA, the reviewed Member State, and Member States providing experts. (This funding structure differs from that for OSARTs or IRRSs, which are paid for solely by the requesting Member State.) Moreover, if the mission is requested by a developing Member State, the cost may be financed through IAEA technical cooperation funds. The U.S. can expect that the IAEA will ask for extra budgetary funds and cost free experts to participate in these missions. -------------- TC Project for Legacy Sites -------------- ¶7. (U) The IAEA is continuing to work through a Technical Cooperation regional project that involved all four Central Asian Member States in the remediation of uranium mining and milling sites in their territories. The Regional Project is called the Safe UNVIE VIEN 00000496 002 OF 002 Management of Residues from Former Uranium Mining and Milling Activities in Central Asia. ¶8. (U) The focus of this program is remediating the situation in some of the Central Asian republics where inappropriate operations of uranium mining and processing for more than 50 years created a situation that poses public health risks and has significant consequences for the environment. The IAEA has organized two international conferences on environmental remediation to discuss these issues. The first was held in 1999 in Arlington, Virginia, the second was May 18-22, 2009 in Astana, Kazakhstan. ¶9. (U) The IAEA's remediation project focused on an area that includes the Ferghana Valley, which is also a focus of assistance activity from other international agencies that are working in the region with projects relating to radioactive waste management and uranium mill tailings remediation. These include the World Bank, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE),The North Atlantic Treat Organization (NATO),the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). ¶10. (U) Further, the IAEA hosted a meeting May 8, 2009, in Vienna with several of these international organizations, including the Eurasian Economic Community, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, European Commission, World Bank, OSCE, and UNDP. Each organization made presentations on its efforts in this region to coordinate efforts and ensure that there is a minimum of overlap between activities and to optimize the combined efforts. -------------- Reducing "Exploitation" -------------- ¶11. (U) Another concern the IAEA is trying to address is the perception on the part of developing countries with uranium deposits that they are being "exploited" by more developed countries that are building nuclear power plants. The IAEA Secretariat notes that many "legacy sites" need remediation today because the host country did not have or enforce the proper legislation, regulations, or contracting knowledge to hold mining companies responsible for the environmental cleanup. Many countries in Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) have continued problems with legacy sites that cost billions to clean up and which, again in the view of Secretariat experts, probably will never be fully resolved because the scale of the problem is so large. The IAEA and many other organizations are helping states develop draft legislation, which if adopted and enacted would help protect each Member State from creating new problems of this type. The IAEA is encouraging these countries to set up a regulator and legal system including contracts that will protect their people and the environment once the companies leave. Finally, the Agency is also developing training programs and informational workshops for Member States to be better prepared to handle requests for licensing new uranium mines. The IAEA believes this type of training and preparation is important so that the world does not end up with more legacy uranium sites to have to remediate in the future. The environmental and financial issues associated with decommissioning should be dealt with before a mine is licensed. -------------- Nothing to get UPSAT about? -------------- ¶12. (SBU) Mission believes the offer of UPSAT missions and commercial incentives concomitant with the upswing in worldwide prospects for nuclear power will make advising on uranium mining/milling an area of expanding IAEA activities for some time. Mission will continue to monitor developments and member state requests on this front. Mission will also continue to sensitize IAEA project officials to the fact that Iran suffers from a dearth of indigenous uranium resources and could be on the prowl for a developing country with reserves Tehran may try to exploit despite the current UNSC prohibition against uranium sales to Iran. DAVIES