Review of the Safeguards Criteria for Natural and Review of the Safeguards Criteria for Natural and

Standing Advisory Group for Safeguards Implementation (SAGSI) reviewed the current safeguards criteria upon the request by the Director General of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) between September 2003 and May 2004, primarily focusing on light water reactors, on-load reactors, research reactors and critical assemblies, and storage facilities. Following on this review, SAGSI tasked one of the authors to prepare an input paper for its review of the traditional safeguards criteria as well as the integrated safeguards (IS) approach for depleted, natural and low enriched uranium (DNLEU) conversion and fabrication plants. For the flow verifications in such plants, announced interim inspections have been carried out in many plants as a traditional safeguards approach, covering only 20% of receipts and shipments for verification. As a result, some diversion scenarios are not covered. In all the four Japanese plants, the short notice random inspection (SNRI) scheme has been introduced and conducted successfully since 2000. It allows 100% coverage of flow-items, fully satisfying the safeguards goals. Reflecting these points, authors prepared in September 2004 the required input paper, in consultations with plant operators. As an incentive for adopting the SNRI scheme as their standard safeguards approach, a reduced SNRI frequency was proposed based on a sampling plan analysis, where the time-dependent nature of flow verification is taken into account and demonstration is made on how far it is possible to reduce the frequency of interim inspections. In December 2004, SAGSI, taking into consideration of the input paper, advised the IAEA to adopt the SNRI scheme or its equivalent as a norm for both traditional and integrated safeguards. SNRI frequency is to be determined in consideration of various factors, including facility-specific conditions. The present paper summarizes the outcome of authors’ reviewing activities in Japan as well as the development of integrated safeguards approaches for Japanese fuel fabrication plants.