KA5.01/98 -Towards an enhancement of safeguards at the ULBA fabrication plant, the Mangyshalk Fast Breeder Reactor, the Almaty VVR & the Kurchatov reactors in Kazakhstan

Background

The ULBA Low Enriched Uranium Conversion and Fuel Fabrication Plant (or ULBA Metallurgy Plant - UMP) is located at Ust-Kamenogorsk on the river Ulba in North Kazakhstan. The plant was one of the largest nuclear fuel manufacturers in the world and produced fuel pellets for Russian designed RBMK and VVER reactors as well as for the world market.

The plant converted uranium hexafluoride and uranium nitrate received from Russia into uranium dioxide and sintered the material into pellets to be sold back to Russia where they were used for the manufacture of fuel rods. UMP also sold some intermediate products (like UO2 powder) to Western companies. Production capacity was 2000 t/y of pellets. The units relevant for this project were:

• a chemical processing unit, to convert UF6 to UO2 powder;
• a metallurgical unit, for fabrication of pellets from the powder.

The design of the installations achieved good operational performance and criticality safety, but nuclear material accountancy within the production lines was not adequately incorporated.

After its independence in December 1991, Kazakhstan formally acceded to the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1994 and the Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA entered into force in 1995. Obligations to be fulfilled included the introduction of instrumentation for accurate Mass/Volume determinations and for necessary Containment/Surveillance devices. The measuring systems required to establish a material control had to be such that the Material Unaccounted For (MUF) would be in the range of the International Target Values (

Objectives

The specific objectives of the contract were:

• To complete the measurement facility with the instrumentation needed for enhancing Safeguards in the Mass/Volume determinations of liquids in the large number of tanks. This comprises Level Measurement Units of different types: Multi-tank Scanning Measurement System (MULTAS), Portable Pressure Measurement Device (PPMD) and Unattended Volume Measurement System (UVMS).
• To complete the installation of the necessary Containment/Surveillance devices and Surveillance Techniques and to extend the system to application at other equivalent sites (facilities of the National Nuclear Centre – NNC).
• To verify and maintain the equipment installed on site via training of local personnel.
• To extend procedures for calibration and solution monitoring with adequate data evaluation on all tanks involved.
• To provide the appropriate software to enable the Kazakhstan Atomic Energy Committee (KAEC) – responsible for the supervision of nuclear related activities, licensing and inspections - and the IAEA to take a snapshot of the inventory over the whole ULBA plant at any time. (Near Real Time Accountancy).
• To validate the software installed on site.
• To train the local operators on the methodology and the use of the software for calibration, solution monitoring, data evaluation and physical inventory verification.

The work of the Contractor included needs analysis, feasibility study and functional analyses regarding an improved measurement system, including the required software and hardware requirements, development of the system and supply of the related equipment and software.