Russia will ship to the United States half a billion dollars worth of commercial uranium this year under a deal aimed to help Moscow recycle its vast stocks of Cold War-era warheads, a nuclear official said on Thursday.
The official at the Russian Atomic Energy Agency said the 20-year scheme, part of Washington's plan to prevent dangerous nuclear material from falling into extremists' hands, has brought Russia $4 billion in revenues since the mid-1990s.
"The agreement has also helped us maintain a solid position on the global uranium market," he said, on condition of anonymity.
Russia, the world's No 2 nuclear power after the United States, processes about 40 percent of world uranium a year.
Moscow and Washington have a number of costly - and mainly US-sponsored - programmes aimed at protecting and recycling atomic material stored across Russia and elsewhere.
But despite such co-operation, nuclear proliferation remains a thorny issue between the two. Washington opposes Russian plans to build a nuclear reactor in Iran on the grounds Tehran could use the technology to produce bombs. Russia and Iran say the reactor is for civil use.
Under the 20-year scheme, Russia has already recycled about 200 tonnes of weapons-grade uranium from 8,000 nuclear warheads during the period, according to Russian media reports.
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