The focus of a considerable amount of controversy in the United States, the nuclear facility at Brushehr, Iran is being built under an agreement between the Russian and Iranian governments for $800-million. Although originally intended to be the location of a German-built reactor in the 1970s, the new reactor will be built to Russian designs, though the original reactor buildings exterior appearance will remain essentially the same. There are two reactors at Bushehr, one is in an advanced stage of completion the other has not been worked on for some time and is not currently scheduled to be completed.
Recently acquired high resolution satellite imagery, from the Space Imaging IKONOS satellite, discloses that the external structure of the first reactor unit is substantially complete. In comparison with lower resolution imagery from the late 1990s, it is quite evident that substantial progress has been made in recent years in preparing this unit for the installation of the reactor and associated equipement. There is little evidence of progress towards completion of the second reactor unit.
Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, though it has not ratified two additional protocols to the International Atomic Energy Agency's Program 93 + 2, which is designed to prevent states from developing nuclear weapons covertly despite IAEA inspections as Iraq was able to do prior to the Gulf War. Iran maintains that it will not ratify 93 + 2 due to it being denied civilian nuclear technology for Bushehr, despite its positive record with the IAEA.
Nuclear power industry contacts between Iran and Russia are based on the intergovernmental agreements of 25 August 1992, on cooperation in the civil use of nuclear energy and in the construction of a nuclear power plant in Iran.
On 23 February 1998, the US State Department reaffirmed US opposition to Iran's nuclear program. The United States has argued that Iran has sufficient oil and gas reserves for power generation, and that nuclear reactors are expensive, unnecessary, and could be used for military purposes. The United States strongly opposes the project, which was permitted under the NPT, and has in the past provided Russia with intelligence information pointing to the existence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. Despite this, the Russians appeared to be proceeding with work on Bushehr.
US pressure to prevent the construction of Brushehr has not been limited to Russia. On March 6, 1998, during a visit by US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Ukraine announced that it would not sell turbines for use with reactors at Bushehr. The contract had been worth $45 million. Five days later, Vice President Gore met with Russian Prime Minister Chernomyrdin and discussed, among other things, US concerns over Russian exports of nuclear and missile technology to Iran.
Iran claims that its nuclear power is for peaceful purposes and that it will help free up oil and gas resources for export, thus generating additional hard-currency revenues.
During a March 2001 Moscow summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, Khatami confirmed plans to order a second reactor after the first is delivered, possibly by late 2002. Delays in delivering the first plant — first ordered in the mid-1990s — have been a source of friction between Iran and Russia. The Iranian leader signaled his intention to proceed with a second contract that could be worth up to $1 billion.
Iran has also been considering the construction of three to five additional reactor facilities, which may or may not be located at Bushehr, for an estimated cost of $3.2 billion. A Sept. 5, 2001 Moscow Times report indicates that the Russians will be submitting plans for the construction of additional reactors at Bushehr and that negotiations could begin as soon as December 2001, though the number of reactors being proposed is unclear nor is it apparrent how much the project might cost. It is estimated that the total cost of building the reactor complex at Bushehr may be roughly $4-6 billion since construction began in 1976.
A major question involved with the Brushehr site concerns the degree to which the site is complete and the estimated time until the facility becomes fully operational. The original contract signed by the Russians and the Iranians sets delivery to be no later than March 19, 2004 (or the end of the Iranian year 1382). But whether this target will be met remains uncertain.
In April 2001 an Iranian News Agency report states that the main nuclear reactor had already been completed and was being transported from Russia to Bushehr. The reports also stated that as of April 2001, the first phase of the construction project was 51 percent complete, though it is unclear how many phases are involved in the projects construction.
A June 27, 2001 Interfax report claimed that the Bushehr facility is over 80 percent complete, despite numerous work slowdowns associated with the pouring of additional concrete so that the German building might properly house the Russian system, and it appears that the original blueprints for the facility had to be remade. Additionally, Russian and Iranian officils were as recently as August 2001 quoted as saying that the facility will be completed by the end of 2001. But Leningrad Metallurgy Plant stated in early August 2001 that the assembly of the main components of the 1,000 MW turbine will be complete in December 2001. It is unclear what the status of the rest of the system is, as officials in Tehran were quoted in the May 10, 2001 MEED Quarterly Report - Iran as saying that Bushehr may not come on line for three years.
On 04 September 2001 the Interfax News Agency bulletin quoted Deputy Russian Atomic Energy Minister Yevgeny Reshetnikov as saying that Unit I will not be complete until early 2004, that the actual reactor will be sent to Bushehr in November 2001, and that the Russians have begun to install the main equipment, noting that the project was 55 to 60 percent complete.
Reactor Construction Site - March 2001
