IAEA report: Iran expanding enrichment at Natanz site

This handout satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies and taken on October 21, 2020 shows an overview of Iran's Natanz nuclear facility, south of the capital Tehran. (SATELLITE IMAGE ©2021 MAXAR TECHNOLOGIES / AFP)

VIENNA – Iran is expanding its ability to enrich uranium with advanced centrifuges at its underground plant at Natanz, a confidential UN nuclear watchdog report seen by Reuters showed on Monday.

While indirect talks between Iran and the United States on reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal have stalled, Tehran has brought onstream a number of advanced centrifuges that would have been banned under the deal.

Iran has also informed the IAEA it plans to add an extra three cascades of IR-2m machines at the FEP, on top of the 12 already announced and now installed. Of those three extra IR-2m cascades, installation has already started on two of them, it added

These machines are far more efficient than the first-generation IR-1, the only centrifuge that the deal lets Iran use to grow its stock of enriched uranium.

The third of three cascades, or clusters, of advanced IR-6 centrifuges recently installed at the underground Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) at Natanz has now come onstream, according the International Atomic Energy Agency report to member states.

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Iran has also quickly completed the installation of seven cascades that were either not finished or at a very early stage of installation on Aug 31, Monday's ad hoc report showed. End-August marked the last visit by inspectors mentioned in the IAEA's most recent quarterly report.

Those seven cascades, one of IR-4 centrifuges and six of IR-2m machines, were fully installed but not yet enriching, according to the report.

Iran has also informed the IAEA it plans to add an extra three cascades of IR-2m machines at the FEP, on top of the 12 already announced and now installed. Of those three extra IR-2m cascades, installation has already started on two of them, it added.

The report also showed that all the centrifuges enriching at Natanz were still producing uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas enriched to up to 5 percent but now they were being fed with natural UF6. That contrasted to the quarterly report issued in September that said on Aug 31 the centrifuges were being fed with UF6 enriched to up to 2 percent. It did not explain the change.

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In 2018, then-President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the Iran deal and re-imposed sanctions against Iran that the deal had lifted.