Axpo Board Decides To Halt Russian Uranium For Beznau

Posted by NucNet on 31 January 2014 in NucNet

Tagged with: Beznau, Uranium.

The board of directors of the Swiss company Axpo Holding AG, owner of the two-unit Beznau nuclear plant, has decided to discontinue uranium deliveries for the production of fuel elements from the Russian production association Mayak, Axpo has said in a statement.

The decision is based on surveys carried out on behalf of Axpo in Russia into the environmental impact of production methods used at the Mayak facility.

In 2011, Axpo suspended uranium deliveries from Mayak until new measurements could be carried out to create transparency on the facility’s environmental impact.

The surveys, carried out in 2012 and 2013, did not produce any clear-cut indications on whether current production methods violate environmental limits or not, the Axpo statement said.

As a result, the board of directors concluded that its 2011 decision was justified and the conditions for the procurement contract were not fulfilled. The decision can only be reconsidered “if the facility operator can provide clear proof that the conditions set down by Axpo are completely fulfilled,” Axpo said.

The Mayak facility, near the city of Chelyabinsk about 1,500 kilometres east of Moscow, is Russia’s main spent nuclear fuel reprocessing facility.