COLLABORATION BETWEEN THE SIBERIAN GROUP OF CHEMICAL ENTERPRISES (SGChE) AND THE U.S. NATIONAL LABORATORIES ON PHYSICAL PROTECTION, CONTROL AND ACCOUNTING OF NUCLEAR MATERIALS AT THE CHEMICAL AND METALLURGICAL PLANT OF SGChE

The Siberian Group of Chemical Enterprises (SGChE) is one of the world’s largest nuclear processing enterprises in the world. It has produced and processed dozens of tons of weaponsgrade plutonium during more than fifty years of its existence. In 1995, the Siberian Group of Chemical Enterprises became one of the first industrial enterprises of the Russian nuclear complex to participate in the U.S.-Russian Material Protection, Control and Accounting (MPC&A) program. This year marks the 10th anniversary of cooperation between SGChE and the U.S. national laboratories. It was under the auspices of this collaboration that MPC&A systems were upgraded. The results of early efforts were first reported in 1996 at the Institute for Nuclear Material Management conference. Since then, there has been considerable expansion of collaboration, and an increase in the scale of MPC&A upgrades. More than 80 projects have been carried out at SGChE in all fields of MPC&A. This paper reports on the results of some of the projects over the past ten years, such as, “Portal Monitors and Metal Detectors,” and the recently completed “Pilot Project.” Due to a wellplanned and comprehensive approach; after ten years of collaboration, the level of security of nuclear material throughout the Siberian Group of Chemical Enterprises and at the most important plant site-the Chemical Metallurgical Plant-have been considerably enhanced.