Activities in January-February 2005

A meeting concerning the commercial uranium enrichment plant of Indústrias Nucleares do Brasil (INB) was held at the headquarters of the Brazilian National Nuclear Energy Commission (CNEN) on February 1 and 2. In this occasion, the safeguards approach proposed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for the whole plant was discussed, the activities to be performed during the operational testing period were agreed upon, a listing was prepared with the activities to be performed in the following six months and alternatives were discussed concerning the optimization if the safeguards approach projected for the first cascade. The operator promised to advance the tests required for the implementation of the surveillance (bird’s eyes view) system and to analyze the possibility of extending it to the first cascade, so as to provide uniformity to the safeguards actions to be applied in the various operational stages of the first module of the plant.

During January and February 2005, the ABACC, in coordination with the IAEA, continued with its routine and ad hoc inspections in the nuclear facilities of both countries. Two inspections were performed in Argentina and eight inspections in Brazil, which demanded an inspection effort equivalent to 34 inspectors-day in the field and the availability of 80 inspectors-day.

Also during January, the Operations Official position was transferred to Eng. Laura Beatriz Castro.

During this period, work continued in the modification for improvement of the accounting software and the materials were prepared for the training in the software for the joint auditing of records (SJAR) used in the course performed in Vienna, in March, for inspectors and officials of the Training Section of the IAEA’s Safeguards Department.

Support was provided to the IAEA in the installation of four provisional surveillance cameras of the ALIS (All-in-one System) type, during the phase of pre-operational tests, at the INB’s commercial uranium enrichment plant. It was agreed that the ABACC`s Digital Multi Optical System (DMOS) for surveillance will be installed as soon as an agreement is reached on the procedures that are currently under discussion with the IAEA, the CNEN and the Operators.