NORTHEAST ASIA PEACE AND SECURITY NETWORK ***** SPECIAL REPORT ***** "North Korea's Uranium Exports: Much Ado About Something" By Peter Hayes May 25, 2004 A world wide web version of this report can be found at: http://www.nautilus.org/DPRKbriefingbook/nuclearweapons/DPRKUraniumExportDocs.html Nautilus invites your contributions to this forum, including any responses to this essay. Copyright (c) 2004 Nautilus of America / The Nautilus Institute -------- In this special report, Peter Hayes provides basic information on North Korea's uranium industry. He concludes that the main significance of the reported export of North Korean uranium to Libya is not that the DPRK exported uranium, a material that is available from many suppliers around the world, but rather, the fact that it has already developed an important prerequisite for enriching its own uranium. This special report is accompanied by three documents that provide new insight into the support for North Korea's uranium mining industry from the IAEA and western companies. IAEA Report to the DPRK Government on Uranium Prospecting - 1987 Mission (11 pages) http://www.nautilus.org/DPRKbriefingbook/nuclearweapons/DPRKUraniumProspectingMission- 1987.pdf IAEA Report to the DPRK Government on Uranium Prospecting - 1990 Mission (3 pages) http://www.nautilus.org/DPRKbriefingbook/nuclearweapons/DPRKUraniumProspectingMission- 1990.pdf E Merck End User Export Document to DPRK http://www.nautilus.org/DPRKbriefingbook/nuclearweapons/EMerckPurchaseOrder-1992.pdf -------- "North Korea's Uranium Exports: Much Ado About Something" By Peter Hayes, Executive Director, Nautilus Institute Uranium mining is the basis of the independent DPRK nuclear program. North Korea has used natural uranium mined, processed, and fabricated into reactor fuel in that country, to make plutonium, a fissile material suitable for making nuclear weapons. Enriched, uranium offers a second track to obtaining nuclear weapons based on uranium-235. The DPRK's pursuit of this second route was the basis for the October 2002 confrontation between the United States and the DPRK that led to the unraveling of the 1994 Agreed Framework. It is also the basis for the recent report that the DPRK exported uranium to Libya (see May 24, NAPSNet Daily Report http://www.nautilus.org/napsnet/dr/0405/MAY24-04.html#item1) What is not well understood in the public discussion is that the DPRK has substantial uranium deposits and has long aspired to operate a closed fuel cycle that is completely self-reliant-- the same dream held by nuclear advocates in South Korea and many other countries. Nor has the DPRK kept secret its interest in uranium enrichment. Indeed, in an interview with myself in October, 1991, Kim Chol Ki, director of the Science and Technology Bureau, Ministry of Atomic Energy Industry, told me about the DPRK's active interest in uranium mining and enrichment. Director Kim had visited Australia three years earlier and had gone to the Jabiru mine and yellowcake extraction plant. At that time, they had already contracted with the Soviet Union to buy four 400-megawatt reactors that would have used enriched uranium. Similarly, the International Atomic Energy Agency has known about their active interest in the front and back end of the fuel cycle all along. The North Koreans were not hiding their interest in uranium. In the 1980s, the International Atomic Energy Agency provided technical assistance to the DPRK to operate a medical isotopes program; and separately, to develop its uranium mining industry. The documents released today are the IAEA uranium mission reports from 1987 and 1989 and a corporate supply end user contract with the DPRK for chemicals used in uranium exploration. The DPRK reportedly has 4.5 million tonnes of uranium ore, a figure that appears to have been circulated by Joseph Bermudez and has become conventional wisdom [see: http://www.nti.org/db/profiles/dprk/nuc/fac/minemill/NKN_F_pyongs_GO.html] However, this figure is dubious, as it appears to refer to uranium resources, not economically justified or "usable" reserves. The DPRK has not supplied uranium reserve information to the OECD - IAEA Uranium Group which publishes official data on world uranium resources, production and demand. Uranium experts with access to Russians who have visited North Korean uranium facilities state that according to an analysis conducted in the 1960s, North Korea possessed natural uranium resources amounting to about 200,000 metric tonnes of uranium ore. More detailed exploration activities in the 1970s, later increased the uranium resource estimate to 300,000 metric tonnes of uranium ore. The deposits are uraniferous black shale occurrences (perhaps similar to that at Ok´chon in South Korea) occurring at a depth about 200 meters. The ore grades are about 0.2%. Some ore bodies have been mined by low-cost open pit techniques. There are five known mines in DPRK: (1) the "Sunchon-Wolbingson" mine; (2) Kusong; (3) Pyongsan; (4) Sunchon, and (5) Unggi. Unfortunately, no data is available on the production cost for the uranium. A Russian expert who has visited the mines estimates that the DPRK's mining and milling capabilities currently support a production level of 2000 tonnes of natural uranium per annum. This is roughly the same level of uranium production as the United States (1810 tonnes of natural uranium) or Uzbekistan (1926 tonnes of natural uranium) in 1998. It has been argued, that the existence of these uranium deposits is the reason why the DPRK pursued a low-cost, dual-use graphite reactor design in the 1960s which operated using natural uranium fuel." Nonetheless, it is important to recognize that the IAEA and western companies have played a significant role in developing the early DPRK uranium program. As no less a critic than Jesse Helms has argued [see: http://www.gao.gov/archive/1997/rc97192.pdf], the DPRK uranium mining capacity was given substantial assistance by the IAEA before the program was terminated in 1994. Also, western companies such as E. Merck in Germany provided uranium exploration- related chemical supplies as late as 1992, as shown in the document released today by Nautilus Institute [see: http://www.nautilus.org/DPRKbriefingbook/nuclearweapons/EMerckPurchaseOrder- 1992.pdf]. Here, the relevant DPRK official commits North Korea to observe German export conditions that include no-use for "any military applications, arms or ammunition," "no nuclear purposes/nuclear technology whatsoever," nor for "goods or technology of strategic importance." German export authorities may have some questions now for Mr. Kim given his government's declarations that it has developed a nuclear deterrent. What remains unclear is whether the reported export of two tonnes of uranium to Libya was in the form of raw uranium yellowcake; or was processed into gaseous uranium hexafluoride known as UF6-the chemical form required for uranium enrichment based on cascades that the DPRK reportedly imported from Pakistan in the late 1990s [see http://www.nautilus.org/fora/security/Doc021117/Doc021117.html for a description of this process.] This process uses tributyl phosphate which the DPRK reportedly sought to obtain from China. There is no innocent explanation for the DPRK enrichment program and hardware acquisition around the world and therefore, for related fuel developments at the front or "uranium" end. There is no economic rationale for an independent enrichment program in a small country like the DPRK with plans for only one or two light water reactors before KEDO postponed the project. If the DPRK has already achieved UF6 production capacity, then the main significance of the reported export of North Korean uranium to Libya is not that the DPRK exported uranium, a material that is available from many suppliers around the world, but rather, the fact that it has already developed an important prerequisite for enriching its own uranium.