AEOI mulling Europeans' demands for Iran’s heavy water

Deputy Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Asghar Zarean made the remarks on the sidelines of the 37th exhibition of Iran’s nuclear achievements which opened to the public on Saturday at University of Tehran.

“Following the exports of about 70 tons of heavy water to the US, a number of European countries have begun asking for the purchase of Iran’s heavy water,” he said, adding the AEOI is currently probing into the requests.

After the implementation of Iran’s nuclear deal, the purity of our heavy water has reached 99.99 per cent, which is the highest level of purity in the world, he added.

Zarean further noted the unveiling and delivering of the first type of centrifuge as requested by the Research Institute of Petroleum Industry on 9 April 2017, saying the machine is the first of its kind to have been built with all cutting-edge features currently produced in the world.

“In addition to these achievements, the Russians are about to bring on stream two 1000 megawatt power plants in Bushehr,” he said, adding “costs of the project amount to over $10 billion, which is the biggest contract to be implemented in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

He also maintained that the injection of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) into IR-8 centrifuges is currently underway and will continue until the desired stability is achieved. According to him, the project of building IR-8 centrifuge machine was started three years ago. Each IR-8 centrifuge is equivalent to 24 IR-1 centrifuges.

“The 1000-megawatt power plant requires 27 tons of uranium per year which cannot be supplied by IR-1 machines,” he said, adding “that is why we began a project on building IR-8 centrifuges which has succeeded in achieving our intended results.”

He further announced that the AEOI is next looking to provide the nuclear needs in the agriculture and medicine sectors.

The 37th specialized exhibition of Iran’s nuclear industry achievements will be open to the public at University of Tehran from 18 February to 22 February 2017. 

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