Vietnam has sent a shipment of highly enriched uranium used at its Soviet-built Dalat research reactor to Russia as part of a fuel conversion plan agreed with the United States, an official said Monday.
The shipment — of an unspecified size — was sent last week, according to an official at the Vietnamese Atomic Energy Commission, who asked not to be named.
In March, the United States announced a plan to help the communist state switch to the use of non-weapons-grade uranium fuel in the Dalat reactor, located about 250 kilometres (150 miles) northeast of Ho Chi Minh City.
The deal called for a switch from highly enriched to low-enriched uranium fuel at Dalat.
Vietnam would also "move forward with the repatriation of Russian-origin highly enriched uranium fuel" under an agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said a statement issued by the US embassy in March.
In return, Washington was ready to help its former enemy turned trading partner build a nuclear power plant, a Vietnamese diplomat who asked not to named told AFP at the time.
Last week, the two sides signed a cooperation agreement under which the US National Nuclear Security Administration pledged to "help Vietnam to adopt civilian nuclear energy so that it can meet its growing energy demands."
Vietnam — which saw economic growth of more than eight percent last year and where annual energy demand is growing twice as fast — has said it wants to build by 2015 a nuclear power plant that would produce electricity from 2020.
US scientists are expected to work with their Vietnamese counterparts on ensuring reactor security and the treatment of radioactive waste.
Highly enriched uranium can be used to make nuclear weapons, while low-enriched uranium is used in power plants.
