Production of UF6 Reaches 300 Tons

Deputy Director of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Javad Vaeedi said today that Iran has produced 300 tons of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas used for uranium enrichment in the Isfahan nuclear facility.

Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF) converts the raw uranium that has been mined and milled at Ardakan (referred to as “yellowcake”) into uranium hexafluoride (UF6), a gas feed for the enrichment process.

During the enrichment process at Natanz, UF6 produced at Isfahan facilities can be enriched either to contain around 5% uranium-235, low enriched uranium (LEU) for use as nuclear power reactor fuel, or to above 80% uranium-235, producing high enriched uranium (HEU). The HEU could be transformed into a metallic form called uranium metal, the core ingredient of a nuclear warhead.

The Isfahan facility also produces UO2 (uranium dioxide) as fuel to the Heavy Water Reactor under construction at Arak.

Iran suspended all its activities at Isfahan UCF in November 2004 after signing the Paris Accord with EU-3 and the facility was brought under IAEA seals. In August 2005, however, Iran resumed UF6 production at Isfahan.