Tehsnabexport

Areas of activity

Techsnabexport OJSC (TENEX) is an operator of the global market for nuclear fuel cycle goods and services, providing more than 40% of the needs of foreign Western design nuclear power plants in uranium enrichment services. The company has 47 years of experience in foreign trade. 100% of the Company's shares are owned by JSC Atomenergoprom, a subsidiary of Rosatom State Corporation.

Export of uranium products produced by Russian enterprises of the NTC

Techsnabexport JSC supplies enriched uranium product (PMO), as well as uranium conversion and/or enrichment services produced by nuclear industry enterprises Russia to all key regional segments of the world market.

More than 30 companies from 16 countries of the world are the customers of the products supplied by Techsnabexport JSC. To improve the quality and efficiency of customer service, Tekhsnabexport JSC has formed a network of foreign sales subsidiaries in the target regional markets.

Transportation and Logistics Supply Support

The issues of improving the reliability of supplies, minimizing the delivery time of products to the customer and reducing the cost of their transportation are in the focus of constant attention of Tekhsnabexport JSC.

Shipments for export by sea are carried out mainly through the seaport of St. Petersburg with the involvement of JSC SPb ISOTOP, a subsidiary of JSC Tekhsnabexport, for freight forwarding.

The company is implementing a project to use a new route for transporting uranium products to customers from the Asia-Pacific countries through the Russian Far East: in 2012-2013, Tekhsnabexport JSC successfully delivered deliveries from the port of Vostochny in the Primorsky Territory of Russia to Japan and the Republic of Korea in pilot mode.

Techsnabexport JSC has formed the world's second own fleet of protective covers of the UX-30 model manufactured by Columbiana Hi Tech LLC (344 units) and a fleet of its own containers of type 30B (274 units) manufactured by CIMC (PRC).

The use of own transport equipment minimizes the cost of renting equipment from foreign freight forwarding companies during export-import operations.

History

2023: US continues to buy company fuel due to lack of alternatives

Russian high-grade low-enriched uranium fuel (HALEU) with an isotope of uranium-235 at the level of 20%, which is produced by Rosatom's subsidiary, Tekhsnabexport JSC, under the TENEX trademark, is still being bought by the end of 2023 by the United States. In the United States, there is no capacity to sufficiently generate such fuel, but it is needed in large volumes for the latest nuclear reactors.

2022: Russia's share in uranium conversion services is a third, and in enrichment - 40% of the global market

According to Reuters, citing diplomatic sources, the EU hawks are going to lobby for the introduction of sanctions in the tenth package - restrictions against Rosatom and the leadership of the Russian state corporation. The goal is to curtail EU cooperation with the Russian nuclear industry, the source said.

They want to coincide with the tenth package of sanctions by February 24, 2023, when the SVO in Ukraine began.

Russia is not the largest miner and exporter of uranium, but its share in uranium conversion services is a third, and in enrichment - 40% of the world market. Moreover, nuclear power plant operators in the United States receive 20% of enriched uranium from Russia and have officially opposed any restrictions.

Poland is going to build nuclear power plants with the help of the American Westinghouse. And that, according to the website of export-import operations ImportGenius, and in 2023 continued the purchase of enriched uranium hexafluoride from Tenex, which is a trademark of Tekhsnabexport JSC. On January 1, 2023, an American company received in the United States a cargo of raw materials for the production of fuel assemblies from Russia.

If the topic of "nuclear" sanctions is not discussed in the United States, then in Europe Hungary openly opposes them, where Rosatom will build two power units for the Paks nuclear power plant.

2013: New contract for enrichment of American uranium in Russia

In 2013, they signed a new contract - now for the enrichment of American uranium in Russia. True, there was a legal difficulty: the supply of natural uranium from the United States to Russia was prohibited by American laws. Washington officials found a brilliant solution: they organized the purchase by Rosatom of the Canadian company Uranium One, which developed mines in Australia, Canada, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Tanzania, and the^[1].

As a result, Rosatom has found not only a channel for trade with the United States, bypassing restrictions, but also a huge raw material base.

Since for several decades the lion's share of the needs of American nuclear power plants for uranium enrichment services was provided by Tehsnabexport, the Americans practically lost their respective competencies. And Westinghouse Corporation is forced to fill fuel assemblies for reactors with either European uranium purchased from the British-German-Dutch concern URENCO, or Russian, supplied by Tehsnabexport.

Obviously, in order to switch to full self-sufficiency in nuclear fuel, the States will have to spend a lot of time and money, as well as solve many problems, and not only technical ones.

One, for example, is due to the fact that uranium mining is an extremely non-ecological production using huge volumes of poisonous chemicals. So the implementation of the plans of the US Department of Energy will certainly face protests from the population and green movements.

1994: Agreement with the United States on the processing of weapons-grade uranium into fuel for nuclear power plants

The surplus of Soviet low-enriched uranium quickly ended, but thanks to the reduction in the arsenal of atomic weapons, Russia formed 500 tons of free weapons-grade (highly enriched) uranium extracted from dismantled nuclear weapons. There was an idea to "dilute" it, turning it into fuel for American nuclear power plants.

In 1994, Russia and the United States signed a contract to turn half a thousand tons of weapons-grade uranium into fuel for power plants (the corresponding technology was developed by specialists from the Ural Electrochemical Plant).

1987: Start of U.S. enriched uranium exports

In the 1980s, the US nuclear industry ran into problems. It so happened historically that in the United States uranium was enriched using ineffective and expensive gas diffusion technology, and in the USSR - on centrifuges that required 50 times less electricity.

Therefore, immediately after the end of the Cold War, the Americans switched to Russian enriched uranium - it was 12 times cheaper. Supplies started by the Soviet "Tekhsnabexport" in 1987 were constantly increasing.

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