Exclusive: Iran steps up underground uranium enrichment, IAEA report says

Reuters- Aug 30th 2022

by: Francois Murphy

VIENNA, Aug 29 (Reuters) – Iran is pressing ahead with its rollout of an upgrade to its advanced uranium enrichment programme, a report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog seen by Reuters on Monday showed, even as the West awaits Iran’s response on salvaging its 2015 nuclear deal.

The first of three cascades, or clusters, of advanced IR-6 centrifuges recently installed at the underground Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) at Natanz is now enriching, the report said, the latest underground site at which the advanced machines have come onstream.

Diplomats say the IR-6 is its most advanced model, far more efficient than the first-generation IR-1 – the only one the deal lets it enrich with.

For more than a year Iran has been using IR-6 centrifuges to enrich uranium to up to 60% purity, close to weapons-grade, at an above-ground plant at Natanz.

Recently it has expanded its enrichment with IR-6 machines at other sites. Last month a second IR-6 cascade at Fordow, a site buried inside a mountain, started enriching to up to 20%.

In the confidential report to U.N. member states, the watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, wrote: “On 28 August 2022, the Agency verified at FEP that Iran was feeding UF6 enriched up to 2% U-235 into the IR-6 cascade … for the production of UF6 enriched up to 5% U-235.”

Uranium hexafluoride (UF6) is the gas centrifuges enrich.

Of the two other IR-6 cascades installed at the Natanz FEP, one was undergoing passivation with depleted UF6, a process that is carried out before enrichment proper begins, and the other had yet to be fed with any nuclear material, the agency said.

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https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-starts-enriching-uranium-with-advanced-ir-6-machines-underground-natanz-2022-08-29/