OREANDA-NEWS. June 06, 2012.   On June 6, 2012 in Moscow at the ATOMEXPO 2012 JSC “Techsnabexport”, subsidiary company of Rosatom State Corporation, and Australian company Rio Tinto signed the contract for a trial delivery to Russia of Australian origin natural uranium. Australian Ambassador to Russia Ms. Margaret Twomey attended the signing ceremony.

The direct contractor from Australian side is ERA (Energy Resources of Australia), belongs to Rio Tinto group.

The delivery is planned for the third quarter this year via Russian sea port Saint-Petersburg. Australian natural uranium is to be reprocessed by the subsidiary of TVEL Fuel Company - JSC "Siberian Chemical Plant" located in the town of Seversk, Tomsk region and then to be exported in the form of low enriched uranium hexafluoride to one of the foreign utilities.

“This is the first Australian uranium delivery in our history intended for further processing by Russian conversion and enrichment facilities. Its practical implementation opens to us a new reliable feed uranium source and increases our contractual flexibilities to be offered to our customers”, - TENEX Director General Alexey Grigoriev noted after the signing ceremony. He also highlighted that the conclusion of this contract was possible after signature in June 2011 by Rosatom State Corporation and Australian Safeguards and Non-Proliferation Office (ASNO) of the Administrative Arrangements to the Australian-Russian Intergovernmental Agreement on the Peaceful Use of Nuclear Energy dated 2007.