Year
1998
Abstract
The United States and Russia are cooperating to enhance nuclear materials production, control and accounting in Russia. As part of this cooperation, Gosatomnadzor (GAN) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) are working to develop and strengthen Russian nuclear regulatory structure and to improve MPC&A systems at some civilian nuclear installations operating with direct-use nuclear materials. On June 30, 1995, GAN and the DOE signed the Agreement between the Department of Energy of the United States and the Federal Nuclear Radiation Safety Authority of the Russian Federation to Cooperate on the National Protection, Control, and Accounting of Nuclear Materials. under this agreement, GAN and the DOE have developed and drafted several regulatory documents that are incorporated to the Material Protection, Control, and Accounting (MPC&A) legislation for establishing Russian Federation Federal Material Protection, Control, and Accounting System regulations. These regulatory effects are currently awaiting adoption by the Russian legislative process. In addition, other DOE-GAN efforts provided inspection equipment for GAN inspectors, and developed and operated a prototype of the GAN information system. Cooperative work includes also development and operation of a core computerized inspection information system to all GAN regions containing direct-use nuclear materials, and providing modern inspection equipment by GAN inspectors in the field. An integrated part of the U.S.-Russian cooperation in the MPC&A area is the NRC-GAN cooperation program (Priority 6) within the Lisbon protocol signed in 1994 aiming scientific and technical support to and strengthening the role of the NIS regulatory authorities as well as the NRC-GAN collaboration coordinated through the CTR program. This paper will provide an overview of the DOE-GAN MPC&A program from GAN's perspective summarizing two year accomplishments since the 37th INMM Annual Meeting(1), and prospective for future anticipated cooperation.