Platts - Monday, April 24, 2006 http://www.platts.com ------------ Rule on source tracking sent to NRC commissioners Washington (Platts)--21Apr2006 A final rulemaking on national source tracking has been sent to the NRC commissioners. In a paper posted on NRC's web site yesterday, the staff asked the commissioners to approve its notice of final rulemaking for publication in the Federal Register. The rule would establish a national source tracking system that would require licensees to report transactions involving the manufacture, transfer, receipt, disassembly and disposal of high-risk Category 1 or 2 sources. Such categories are assigned based on quantities of radioactive material in the sources. The tracking system addresses revisions in the IAEA Code of Conduct on the Safety and Security of Radioactive Sources. The staff paper is at: www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/commission/secys/2006/secy2006-0080/20 06-0080scy.pdf. ------------ Geopolitics adding at least $10/bbl to oil prices: Qatar Doha (Platts)--21Apr2006 World oil prices have not risen to record levels because of supply and demand fundamentals, and are currently inflated by at least $10/barrel by geopolitical concerns, Qatari Oil Minister Abdullah al-Attiyah said Friday. Oil prices have hit record levels in London and New York this week, buoyed in part by the escalating stand-off between Iran and the West over Tehran's nuclear program. Unrest in Nigeria has also played a part in the price rise, with more than 500,000 b/d of the country's production currently shut in as a result of violence in the Niger Delta region. "It is not a problem of supply of oil. There is no shortage of supply, the problem is the geopolitics," Attiyah told reporters in Doha. "It is not precisely Iran. We have other things, we have Nigeria, it's the geopolitics...it has added more than $10 in my opinion," he said. Attiyah's counterpart from the UAE, Mohammed bin Dhaen al-Hamli, said OPEC ministers meeting informally in Doha in the next four days were unlikely to take a decision on the group's crude output level, and would instead wait until an official OPEC meeting June 1 in Caracas, the official UAE news agency WAM reported. "The meeting is to discuss with ministers the exceptional situation the market is going through with prices at $74/barrel," Hamli said ahead of the 10th International Economic Forum being held in the Qatari capital. OPEC is doing everything it can to supply the international markets with crude, Hamli said, adding there was no imbalance between supply and demand in the market. "OPEC always tries to find a solution," the minister told reporters in Doha. For more information, take a trial to Platts Oilgram News at http://oilgramnews.platts.com. ------------ Tokyo Electric idles 1.1 GW Fukushima-2 nuclear power plant Tokyo (Platts)--21Apr2006 Tokyo Electric Power Co idled the 1.1 gigawatt No 1 reactor at its Fukushima-2 nuclear power plant in northeastern Japan Thursday for a 75-day maintenance program, a company spokesman said Friday. Sources estimated a 30-day shutdown of the 1.1 GW nuclear unit could cost Tepco 174,000 kl (163,386 mt, 1.09 million barrels) in additional crude and fuel oil consumption. TEPCO normally makes up for a shortfall in nuclear power generation with thermal power generation using low sulfur fuel oil, crude, LNG and coal. Following the shutdown of the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa reactor, Tepco will have 11 nuclear units with a total capacity of 11.340 GW or 65.5% of its total nuclear power generation capacity of 17.308 GW over 17 units across Japan. For more information, take a trial to Platts Nucleonics Week at http://nucweek.platts.com. ------------ Spent HEU fuel returned to Russia from Uzbekistan London (Platts)--21Apr2006 Spent HEU fuel has returned to Russia from Uzbekistan in an operation completed yesterday, the IAEA said today. Sixty-three kilograms of irradiated, highly enriched uranium (HEU) fuel -- enough to make two atomic bombs -- was transported from a 10-MW research reactor at the Institute of Nuclear Physics of Uzbekistan to the Mayak reprocessing facility in Russia in four shipments over 16 days. The IAEA said that it is "now helping to convert the reactor to run on fuel that cannot be used to make a nuclear weapon" and "is developing lessons learned from this shipment to provide a basis for guidelines for future spent fuel shipments." The operation, which had been planned for six years, was a joint undertaking by the IAEA, the US, Uzbekistan, Russia, and Kazakhstan as part of the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, the IAEA said. For more news, request a free trial to Platts Nucleonics Week at http://www.platts.com/Request%20More%20Information/ ------------ DOE's Spurgeon sees himself as nuclear energy's 'chief salesman' Washington (Platts)--20Apr2006 The US nuclear industry has "atrophied a bit" and the Department of Energy needs to work more with nuclear utilities and the industry to reinvigorate it, Dennis Spurgeon, DOE's new assistant secretary for nuclear energy, said during a meeting today with reporters. "If we're successful, we have a pretty good opportunity to finish what they started," Spurgeon said, pointing out the conference room mural showing President Dwight Eisenhower delivering his 1953 "Atoms for Peace" speech at the United Nations. "I believe that we have a historic opportunity to pursue the nuclear dream that was once there and make it a reality," he said. Spurgeon said he viewed himself as "the chief salesman for nuclear energy" and called an order for a new power reactor in the US his top priority. Spurgeon added that he believed US is "fairly close" to seeing that happen. No new reactors have been ordered and built in the US since the 1970s. For more information, take a trial to Platts Nucleonics Week at http://nucweek.platts.com. ------------ NRC team to investigate workers' radiation exposures at Palisades Washington (Platts)--20Apr2006 NRC said it sent a special inspection team to Palisades after plant workers received unintended radiation exposures early yesterday. Six workers were manipulating an instrument storage container underwater in the refueling area when part of the container briefly rose to the surface, exposing the workers to radiation from "the highly radioactive equipment inside," NRC's Region III office said today. Radiation levels inside containment reached more than 100 times above normal levels "for a few seconds," according to an event report submitted by Nuclear Management Co. According to radiation detectors worn by the workers, the maximum radiation exposure was less than 50 millirems, the NRC said. The annual federal limit for radiation workers is 5,000 mrem. "No adverse health effects would be expected from such radiation exposures, and no medical treatment was necessary," NRC said. The inspection team's work will include reviewing what actions the workers were performing at the time of the incident. A report will be issued within 30 days of the inspection's completion, NRC said. Palisades' refueling outage began April 1. NMC communications director Arline Datu told Platts today that she "really couldn't say" whether the incident "will affect the ultimate end date of the outage." Datu said that "the safety of our employees, and the health and safety of the public, are our primary concern." ------------