RUSSIA: MAYAK FISSILE MATERIAL FACILITIES

This section provides information on the new Fissile Material Storage Facility as well as information about Plant 20. Fissile Material Facilities Developments are also listed.
 
FISSILE MATERIAL STORAGE FACILITY
 
Russia and the United States are jointly financing the design and construction of a new storage facility at the Mayak Chemical Combine for fissile material from dismantled Russian nuclear weapons. Originally, the storage site was planned as a two-wing facility and was expected to provide secure, centralized storage for fissile material from approximately 12,500 dismantled nuclear warheads in 50,000 containers. According to the original design, the facility would be able to store 50MT of declared excess plutonium.[14,16]  The United States was expected to finance half of the project costs from the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. However, after the 1999 General Accounting Office evaluation of the project, it was noted that due to Russian financial shortfalls the United States would bear the most of the costs, which had increased from $275 million to $413 million. In addition, the construction of the facility over the next two to three years would be limited to only one building to store 25,000 containers, and the necessity and feasibility of the construction of the second wing was questioned.[16]
 
During START negotiations in 1991, it became apparent that Russia had inadequate storage facilities for the amount of fissile material that was to be removed from nuclear weapons according to the treaty.  In response to the problem, on 5 October 1992, the United States signed an agreement with Russia to spend $15 million to design a new storage facility for Russia. That $15-million design contract was awarded to the US Army Corps of Engineers, which then completed a design agreement with a US architecture and engineering firm. This firm used the All-Russian Scientific Research and Design Institute of Energy Technology (VNIPIET) as a subcontractor.[4,5]  The United States later committed another $75 million for the construction and equipping of the facility. The construction of the facility ran into numerous difficulties, however. The original site for the facility was to be at the Siberian Chemical Combine (Tomsk-7), but when Minatom could not aquire the correct construction permits for the Tomsk site, an alternative site at Mayak was chosen.[4]  Additionally, the original Russian plans were to store the fissile material containers horizontally, but in 1994, Russia informed the United States of its new intent to store the containers vertically. This change necessitated extensive modifications in the design.[6]  Finally, in the fall of 1994, construction began on the foundation of the facility.[4] This first phase of the facility's foundation clearing and construction was completed in October 1996 by the Russians.[5] Meanwhile, in March 1996, the US firm Bechtel won a design and construction contract for the Mayak facility. Bechtel's construction of the second phase of the foundation and of the walls was started in October 1996. Originally, the facility was expected to be completed by the third quarter of FY 2000.[1] Considerable difficulties in construction persisted through 1996, but according to the US Department of Defense, by March 1997, construction was proceeding without delay and was in fact "accelerating."[8] At that time, US officials expected fissile material storage at the facility to begin in 1999.[9] However, as of December 1999, the first 25,000-container storage wing was not scheduled to be completed until 2002.[10,14]
 
The United States is also providing funds for the purchase of specific construction equipment and materials, specialized equipment like blast doors, and more generalized equipment like heating, ventilation, and power systems. Specifically, in October 1995, the CTR program awarded a $2 million contract to a US firm to procure cement, rebar, and insulating materials to be used in the facility's construction.  Up to another $75 million is available for other equipment.[5]
 
According to Nezavisimaya Gazeta, as of January 1999 construction of the fissile material storage facility was proceeding. The facility is surrounded by a concrete wall and rows of barbed wire and has three guardhouses.  The walls of the facility itself are said to be eight meters thick, and the roof is covered with almost four meters of concrete, tar, and gravel.  The facility was designed to withstand an earthquake measuring eight on the Richter scale, and to survive a flood or the impact of a jet plane crash.  It is not designed to withstand the effects of a nuclear bomb.[13]
 
As of 8 April 1999, the facility's design was 81 percent complete, equipment procurement was 15 percent complete, and the construction of the first storage wing was 35 percent complete.  The facility design, equipment design, and procurement for the first wing are scheduled to be completed during FY2001.[14] According to a 9 January 2001 ITAR-TASS report, the first wing of the storage will be put into commission in 2002. The installation of equipment for the facility will start as soon as 2001.[15]
 
The annual appropriations for the fissile material storage facility were as follows:
 
FY 1994 $55.0 million
FY 1995  -----
FY 1996 $29.0 million
FY 1997 $66.0 million
FY 1998 $57.7 million
FY 1999 $60.9 million
FY 2000 $64.5 million
[11,16]
 
This CTR project is unique in that half of the funding was supposed to come from Russia and half from the United States. According to former CTR Office Director Laura Holgate, the United States did not anticipate US spending on the facility to exceed $275 million: a figure that was the proposed funding cap of an earlier provision in the House of Representatives.[9] However as of May 1999, the Fissile Material Storage Facility Budget through 2001 stood at $397.6 million.[11,12]  That amount is distributed as follows:
 
Design  $9.1 million
Construction $175.0 million
Equipment Purchases & Installation $171.5 million
Transportation $6.5 million
CLS $2.1 million
Project Support $33.3 million
As noted above, an additional $15 million was spent on the early design of the facility. [11]
 
The Defense Department plans to request $301.2 million in FY 2000-04 for the facility. This amount will include $172.2 million above and beyond previous plans, which will permit a second storage wing to be constructed. The additional US funding is necessary because of Russia's inability to fulfill its financial responsibility in the project.[12] In FY 2000, however, the US Congress instituted several restrictions on expenditures. The construction of the second wing of the facility was tied to progress on transparency agreement with Russia, detailed cost estimates for the second wing, and certified evidence that the capacity of the first wing is not sufficient for the storage of weapons-origin material.[16]  
 
As of January 1999, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors were to join eight US monitors at the Mayak facility.[13] The US is also providing assistance for the training of personnel who will use the new equipment in the storage facility. Additionally, the US Department of Energy has included the Mayak facility in its MPC&A program for enhancing the physical protection, control, and accounting of nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union. A control and accounting system being developed in Sarov is expected to be installed in the facility in November 2001.[14]
Sources:
[1] Department of Defense, "CTR Update: Russia," 19 September 1996.
[2] "Contract For Fissile Storage Facility In Russia To Be Awarded In February," Post-Soviet Nuclear and Defense Monitor, 31 January 1996,  p. 4.
[3] Sergey Sergeyev, Novosti newscast, 10 May 1996; in "Nuclear Waste Storage Site Under Construction in Urals," FBIS-TEN-96-006.
[4] Graham T. Allison, Avoiding Nuclear Anarchy (Cambridge:MIT Press, 1996), p. 106.
[5] "Background Document: The Cooperative Threat Reduction Assistance to Russia," 16 January 1997, as found on the website of the Stimson Center's Nuclear Roundtable, http://www.stimson.org/rd-table/ctr-russ.htm.
[6] "Russians Fail to Provide Changes in Design of Nuclear Storage Facility," Post-Soviet Nuclear & Defense Monitor, 14 March 1995, p. 7.
[7] Figures provided by CTR Program Office, U.S. Department of Defense, 2 October 1997.
[8] Franklin C. Miller, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy (Acting), Statement for the Record before the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, Senate Armed Services Committee, 5 March 1997.
[9] "Interview: A Look Forward...Cooperative Threat Reduction Director Laura Holgate," Post-Soviet Nuclear & Defense Monitor, 7 April 1997, p. 9.
[10] "Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program," Powerpoint Presentation by the US Department of Defense, 20 January 1999.
[11] "Fissile Material Control," Powerpoint Presentation by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Department of Defense, 3 May 1999.
[12] Expanded Threat Reduction Initiative, US Department of State, March 1999.
[13] Svetlana Dobrynina, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 4 January 1999; in "Ozersk to Host Nuclear Storage Facility, "FBIS-UMA-99-004.  {Updated 5/23/99 PBI}
[14] Thomas Kuenning, Cooperative Threat Reduction Program: Overview & Lessons Learned (Washington, DC: Defense Threat Reduction Agency, December 1999), pp. 16-17. 
[15] Anatoliy Yurkin, ITAR-TASS, 9 January 2001, in "Installation of Mayak storage equipment to start this year," Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe, http://web.lexis-nexis.com.
[16] Russian Nuclear Security and the Clinton Administration's Fiscal Year 2000 Expanded Threat Reduction Initiative: A Summary of Congressional Action, Russian-American Nuclear Security Advisory Council Web Site, http://www.ransac.org, February 2000, p. 17-18.
{Updated 1/24/00 LWB, Updated 2/7/2001 ES}
 
PLANT 20
ACTIVITIES:
Plant 20 received plutonium from Mayak's reprocessing plants, purified it, converted it into metal, and made weapons components out of it.  Plutonium hemispheres for Russia's first nuclear bomb were produced here.  Plutonium pits were still being made at Plant 20 in 1994.
[Thomas B. Cochran, Robert S. Norris, and Oleg A. Bukhkarin, Making the Russian Bomb: From Stalin to Yeltsin (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995),  pp. 91-92.]
 
MAYAK FISSILE MATERIAL STORAGE DEVELOPMENTS:
 
9/18/2000: UNITED STATES, RUSSIA, AND IAEA MEET TO DISCUSS PROGRESS ON TRILATERAL INITIATIVE
On 18 September 2000, Russian Minister of Atomic Energy, Yevgeniy Adamov, Director of the US National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) General John Gordon, and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohamed ElBaradei met in Vienna to review progress on the Trilateral Initiative.[1]  The Trilateral Initiative, announced on 17 September 1996, is meant to develop an IAEA verification system for weapons-origin fissile material declared excess by both the United States and Russia and to parallel efforts by the United States and Russia to increase fissile material transparency and arms control efforts.[2]  The idea of weapons-grade fissile material transparency originated in 1993 when US President Clinton offered to make nuclear material declared excess to national security needs available to IAEA inspection.  In April 1996, Russian President Yeltsin pledged to make approximately 50MT of weapons-origin plutonium available for IAEA verification.[3]  Since the Initiative's inception in 1996, the three parties have been working towards completing a Model Verification Agreement that would lay the foundation for bilateral agreements between the IAEA and both countries.[1] During negotiations in 1999, the parties announced the development of new verification equipment and agreed to a plutonium verification process that would include "information barriers."  The "information barriers" are techniques that enable IAEA inspectors to verify that the weapons-origin material is actually what it was declared to be, while maintaining the classified nature of the material.[4]  The Trilateral Initiative is closely related to the bilateral US-Russia monitoring program to be established at the Fissile Material Storage Facility at Mayak Production Association and the K-area material storage (KAMS) facility at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, since IAEA inspectors would conduct their verification work at these two sites.[1,4]  The three principals of the Initiative are expected to meet again in September 2001.[1]
Sources:
[1] "IAEA Verification of Weapon-Origin Fissile Material in the Russian Federation and the United States," IAEA General Conference Press Release 2000/22, 19 September 2000, IAEA Web Site, http://www.iaea.or.at/worldatom/Press/P_release/2000/prn2200.shtml. 
[2] "Trilateral Initiative on Verifying Excess Weapons Origin Fissile Materials," US Department of Energy Press Release, 8 November 1996; in Federation of American Scientists Web Site, http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/usiaea/docs/st961108.html. 
[3] "Trilaterial Initiative," Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation/U.S. Department of Energy Web Site, http://www.nn.doe.gov/trilateral.shtml. 
[4] "Status Report on Nuclear Weapons, Fissile Material, and Export Control.  Nuclear Successor States of the Soviet Union," Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, No. 6, 2001, p. 60. {Entered 4/17/01 GD}
 
4/98: STOP-WORK ORDER ON MAYAK STORAGE FACILITY SITE IS AVERTED
On 27 March 1998, after a full review inspection of the Mayak fissile material storage facility, the Russian State Committee on the Environment ordered that all work at the site would be halted if past-due paperwork was not filed by 15 April. The Committee requested that Mayak and the storage facility contractor (Bechtel National, Inc.) submit a revised environmental impact statement. Officials at Mayak submitted the necessary documentation by 30 March, thereby avoiding interruption of the construction. 
["Russian Stop-Work Order Averted on Mayak Storage Site," Post-Soviet Nuclear & Defense Monitor, Vol. 5, No. 8, 27 April, 1998, p. 2.] {Entered 2/7/2001 ES}
 
4/97: US OFFICIALS TO VISIT FISSILE MATERIAL STORAGE FACILITY CONSTRUCTION SITE
The US-Russian Joint Commission on Economic and Technological Cooperation (Gore-Chernomyrdin Commission) agreed to allow representatives from the US Department of Defense to visit the Mayak fissile material storage facility construction site. In addition, the commission signed an agreement that will exempt US equipment sent to Mayak from taxation. As of April 1997,  Mayak received $100 million worth of technology.  The total cost for the construction of the storage facility is estimated to be $353.7 million.
[Yadernyy kontrol,  No. 28, April 1997,  p. 11.] {Entered 11/21/97 EV}
 
10/96: FISSILE MATERIAL STORAGE FACILITY: FOUNDATION COMPLETED
The foundation slab and walls for the Mayak (Chelyabinsk-65) fissile material storage facility was started in  October 1996, and the facility and equipment design and procurement are scheduled to be completed in FY 1998. The facility, which will house 40 percent of Russia's weapons grade plutonium and will operate under IAEA safeguards, is scheduled to be finished by the third quarter of FY 2000. In March 1996, the US firm Bechtel won the design and construction contract to build the facility at Mayak. Since the project's inception in 1992, $15 million has been spent on its design. and $75 million for construction in 1996-1997. Minatom will approve the equipment, construction, and work force, but did not have any input into the contract selection.
Sources:
[1] Department of Defense, "CTR Update," 19 September 1996.
[2] "Contract For Fissile Storage Facility In Russia To Be Awarded In February," Post-Soviet Nuclear & Defense Monitor, 31 January 1996, p. 4. {entered 10/31/96 mew}
 
9/27/96: GAO REPORT: HOLD FUNDS FOR MAYAK FACILITY UNTIL PROGRESS MADE
The US General Accounting Office suggested in its latest review of the CTR Program that Congress withhold funding for the Mayak nuclear materials storage facility until officials resolve the issues of US access rights to the facility, and US access rights to data on the material contained therein. The facility will house approximately 50,000 containers of fissionable material from dismantled nuclear weapons. Russia has assured the US that only materials derived from dismantled weapons will be stored at Mayak, that those materials will not be re-used for weapons, and that it is prepared to agree to full joint accountability and transparency measures. However, an agreement outlining those measures and their implementation has yet to be concluded.
[GAO, "Weapons of Mass Destruction," GAO/NSIAD-96-222, 27 September 1996.] {Entered 2/11/97 mew}
 
10/94: US REFUSES TO FUND FISSILE STORAGE FACILITY AT MAYAK
Minatom is planning to build a modular storage site at Chelyabinsk-65. Minatom would like the US and Japan to help finance the facility, but thus far, the US Department of Energy has refused to provide funding.
[Mark Hibbs, "Minatom Shifting Gears On Plans To Build Fissile Storage Sites," NuclearFuel, 24 October 1994, p. 14.]