From: Bartlett, Matthew 

Sent: Monday, June 28, 2010 1:26 PM 

To: John J. Miller 

Cc: Bartlett, Matthew 

Subject: RE: MC&A Plan - International Isotopes DUF6 de-conversion facility. 

John, 

The MC&A folks provided the following information. 

Good Morning Mr. Miller: 

In response to your June 28, 2010 e-mail NRC staff has prepared the following reply to 

help clarify “foreign obligations” and depleted uranium. 

You presented two scenarios in your e-mail. Your first scenario involves a U.S. 

enrichment plant enriching natural uranium that is not foreign obligated. Your conclusion 

for this case is that there is no foreign obligated depleted uranium produced. NRC staff 

wishes to note that your conclusion is valid for enrichment activities that have occurred 

in the past. However, due to the U.S. nuclear industry importing major pieces of 

enrichment plants many of the new U.S. enrichment plants may be subject to an 

Agreement for Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation and as a result, most or all of the depleted 

uranium that is produced at the new enrichment plants will be foreign obligated, even if 

the natural uranium feed to the plants is not foreign obligated. 

In your second scenario you asked several questions about the use of foreign obligated 

natural uranium and the resulting depleted uranium. NRC staff wish to confirm that use 

of foreign obligated natural uranium feed in an enrichment plant results in the 

corresponding depleted uranium being foreign obligated. 

The NRC staff wish to also inform you that foreign obligated depleted uranium may be 

used, transferred and disposed. The U.S. Government relies on industry to track and 

report to the Nuclear Materials Management and Safeguards System (NMMSS) the 

quantity [and] location of foreign obligated depleted uranium. Once a quantity of 

depleted uranium is identified as foreign obligated the uranium is tracked. If the 

depleted uranium is shipped to a disposal site and buried, then the depleted uranium is 

reported to NMMSS as shipped and buried. The NMMSS database would then be able 

to identify the quantity of foreign obligated depleted uranium buried at the site. As long 

as the depleted uranium is buried at a disposal site, it would be documented in NMMSS 

as foreign obligated. If the foreign obligated depleted uranium was to be extracted from 

the burial site, it would continue to be tracked as foreign obligated. There is no 

automatic removal of the foreign obligation from the depleted uranium. Rather, once 

depleted uranium is identified as foreign obligated, the quantity of depleted uranium 

remains foreign obligated and NMMSS maintains knowledge of the quantity and location 

of the foreign obligated depleted uranium. 

Please contact me if you need further clarification on the topic of foreign obligations and 

depleted uranium. 
Sincerely, 

Matt Bartlett 

Project Manager 

U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission 

NMSS/FCSS/AFCB 

(301)-492-3119 

From: John J. Miller [mailto:jjmiller@intisoid.com] 

Sent: Friday, June 25, 2010 1:42 PM 

To: Horn, Brian 

Cc: Bartlett, Matthew; thomasjh@comcast.net; Pham, Tom 

Subject: MC&A Plan - International Isotopes DUF6 de-conversion facility. 

Brian, 

You may have seen the following Draft RAIs prepared by Tom Pham in response to the license 

application we submitted for our depleted uranium hexafluoride (DUF6) de-conversion facility. 

MCA.1 Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) 40.64 details the requirements for 

reporting to the Nuclear Materials Management and Safeguards System for Part 40 

licensees. Please describe how these requirements will be met and where adherence to 

these requirements will be documented. 

MCA.2 Also, describe how material subject to the requirements of 10 CFR 40.64 will be tracked and 

accounted for in order to provide the reports required under these regulations. 

We did not include the information requested in the Draft RAIs with the license application because we 

do not believe the source material that the proposed de-conversion facility would receive from an fuel 

enrichment facility, process, then subsequently transfer to a disposal facility meets the criteria 

necessitating reporting as described in §40.64. 

The Draft RAIs were discussed in a conference call and the justification provided was that the DUF6 

would likely have foreign obligations. I would like to get more information regarding how and when 

source material is designated as having foreign obligations and how and when a foreign obligation is 

removed. Consider the scenarios below: 

Scenario Number 1: 

A domestic fuel enrichment facility enriches natural uranium hexafluoride with no foreign obligations. 

The fuel enrichment facility would produce enriched uranium hexafluoride, which would clearly be 

subjected to the material control and accountability requirements of Title 10 Part 74. Because there is 

no foreign obligation associated with the natural UF6 that was enriched there would not be any foreign 

obligation with the depleted UF6 tails that result. If this is indeed correct the DUF6 could be transferred 

to a source material licensee for de-conversion and subsequent disposal without recording or reporting 

the material transaction on a DOE/NRC Form 741. 
Scenario Number 2: 

A domestic fuel enrichment facility enriches natural uranium hexafluoride with foreign obligations. 

As in Scenario Number 1, the fuel enrichment facility would produce enriched uranium hexafluoride, 

which would clearly be subjected to the material control and accountability requirements of Title 10 

Part 74. Because there was foreign obligation associated with the natural UF6 that was enriched there 

would be an adjustment to this inventory of 1 kg or more and this adjustment would be reported on the 

Form 741 as required by §40.64. 

So my questions for scenario number 2 are: 

Does the foreign obligation for the natural UF6 transfer to the depleted UF6 if the depleted UF6 is 

intended to be processed for disposal in the US? 

When is a foreign obligation removed? If source material has foreign obligations and the material is then 

disposed how does one remove the foreign obligation? 

When could the foreign obligation be removed? 

Thanks, 

John J. Miller, CHP 

Radiation Safety Officer 

International Isotopes, Inc. 

Ph.: 208.524.5300 

Fax.: 208.524.1411 

Cell.: 208.589.1580 

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Subject: RE: MC&A Plan - International Isotopes DUF6 de-conversion facility. 

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From: Bartlett, Matthew 

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