Iran Dismisses Report It Faces Uranium Shortage

The UF6 is derived in a chemical reaction from `yellow cake`, a concentrate obtained from mined uranium ore.

Iran dismissed on Wednesday a British newspaper report that the Islamic Republic was running short of raw uranium for a nuclear programme the West fears has military aims.

The Times said last month Western powers believed Iran was facing a shortfall of raw uranium and were urging producer nations not to sell it to Tehran.

"Such news has been raised by the media with no scientific basis," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi told a news conference when asked about the report. "The news has been the product of a few analyses and guesswork and articles."

Iran says its nuclear work is aimed at generating electricity so that the world's fourth-largest crude producer can export more of its oil and gas, rejecting Western accusations the programme is a cover for making bombs.

The enriched uranium required for use in nuclear reactors or weapons is produced in centrifuges that spin uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6) at high speeds. The UF6 is derived in a chemical reaction from "yellow cake", a concentrate obtained from mined uranium ore.

In its Jan. 24 report, The Times quoted sources as saying Iran had nearly exhausted its stock of yellow cake, of which it had acquired several thousand tonnes from South Africa in the mid-1970s.

The British newspaper said that late last year Britain's Foreign Office ordered its diplomats in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Brazil -- all major uranium producers -- to lobby their governments on the issue.

Iran has a uranium ore processing plant at Isfahan, some 400 km (250 miles) south of Tehran, which has been under regular inspection by the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.