New imagery shows N. Korea steps up uranium production

PanARMENIAN.Net - North Korea has been stepping up its capacity to mine and mill uranium, new satellite imagery shows, raising fears that Kim Jong Un’s regime is trying to expand its stockpile of nuclear weapons, the Washington Post says.

The images show that a major mill that turns uranium ore into yellowcake, a first step towards enriching uranium, has recently been refurbished, says Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia non-proliferation program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

“Pyongyang appears to be modernizing a key facility associated with the production of uranium yellowcake,” Lewis wrote in a new report for 38 North, a Web site run by the U.S.-Korea Institute at SAIS. The facility is near a uranium mine outside Pyongsan, in the south of the country near the border with South Korea.

“This suggests that North Korea intends to mine and mill a significant amount of uranium that could serve as fuel for expanding its nuclear weapons stockpile,” Lewis wrote. However, he added that the fuel could also be used in light-water reactors, which generate electricity, which North Korea may be planning.

In a separate report, according to the Washington Post, IHS Jane’s says its analysis of satellite imagery suggests that North Korea is now running a second hall of uranium enrichment centrifuges at its Yongbyon fuel fabrication plant, north of Pyongyang.

After conducting its third nuclear test in February 2013, North Korea rebuilt and restarted its 5 megawatt plutonium-producing reactor at Yongbyon and doubled the size of its known uranium enrichment facility there. Uranium is the essential fuel for nuclear reactors that produce plutonium and can also be enriched to produce nuclear weapons.

While it is difficult to estimate how much uranium has been processed, Lewis was able to conclude that North Korea seems to accelerating uranium production.

“Since 2013, most of the buildings have received new roofs. The terminus of the conveyor belt was demolished and rebuilt,” he wrote in the report. “Other buildings appear to have been gutted and are now in the process of being rebuilt with new roofing. The significant investment in refurbishing the mill suggests that North Korea is expecting to process significant amounts of uranium, either from the Pyongsan mine or other uranium mines.”

Like Lewis, the IHS analysts said North Korea could be processing uranium for electricity production or to produce highly-enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.