Activities in March-May 2005

In coordination with the IAEA, the ABACC continued with the performance of routine and ad hoc inspections at the nuclear facilities in both countries. Between March and May 2005, 12 inspections were carried out in Argentina and 13 inspections in Brazilian facilities, which demanded an effort of 108 inspectors-day in the field and the availability of 224 inspectors-day.

Additionally, two unannounced inspections were performed: one of them at the Isotopic Enrichment Laboratory of the Almirante Álvaro Alberto Unit (LEI), started by the ABACC, and the other at the Industrial Enrichment Demonstration Plant (USIDE) started by the IAEA.

The ABACC’s DMOS surveillance system was installed and set up at the commercial uranium enrichment plant of Indústrias Nucleares do Brasil (INB), after the review procedures were agreed upon with the IAEA, the CNEN and the operators.

During this period, on March 14, a meeting was held in Vienna with the OB 1 Operations Division, in order to analyze the status of the IAEA’s post-inspection activities, using the diskette generated by the SJAR joint auditing software, and to review the implementation of the joint procedure currently in force.

With regard to the implementation of safeguards at the INB’s commercial uranium enrichment plant, before the start of the meeting for the discussion of the safeguards approach, the IAEA and ABACC representatives attended a demonstration on the use of an observation device that allows to analyze the layout of the processing equipment within the panels, while preserving the technical details of the centrifuges. The aforementioned system was proposed by Brazil and, for the purposes of safeguards, it provides data equivalent to the one that would be offered by the provisional surveillance system installed in the upper part. Both agencies consider that the results of the demonstration were highly promising and agreed with the assessment indicating that a combination of both methods (bird’s eyes view and photographs) will allow to optimize the safeguards measures to be applied in module I, in accordance with the alternatives proposed in the February meeting.

Taking into account the promising results obtained from the demonstration of the indirect visual access system, during the meeting, the document proposed by the IAEA was discussed and the general guidelines for the safeguards approach to be applied all over the plant and in the first module were approved with a few particular modifications. This safeguards approach does not require any perimeter control, thus guaranteeing a fast access to the cascade hall and indirect visual access to the configuration of the cascades. Containment and surveillance are applied at the feed and withdrawal station, at the sampling points and in other strategic points. This approach allows for the aleatory control of the mass balance (uranium and U-235 isotope) and of the separation work capacity, in addition to foreseeing the control of nuclear material transfers and the collection of swipe samples inside the cascade hall and in other strategic spots.