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Plutonium Management

The producers and users of plutonium for civil purposes; the UK, Belgium, China, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, Switzerland, and the United States of America agreed in November 1997 to provide an internationally accepted framework for the management of plutonium. Their agreement was published in the following document:

The main features of the guidelines were:

  • a reaffirmation of existing obligations, commitments and standards in the fields of non-proliferation, safety and physical protection;
  • a renewed commitment to the strategic management of holdings of plutonium, and agreement on a number of factors to be taken into account in formulating national strategies;
  • Provisions on the control of international transfers;
  • a new commitment to transparency. Participants undertook to publish periodic statements explaining their national strategies for nuclear power and the nuclear fuel cycle and, against that background, their general plans for managing national holdings of plutonium. The most recent published statement of Government policy in this respect is the UK Civil Nuclear Policy including Plutonium:
    United Kingdom civil nuclear policy including plutonium Word document (60KB)
    URN 98/1247

Annual Civil Plutonium and Uranium figures for the most recent UK holdings are also available from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE): IAEA Safeguards in the UK webpage.

The nine countries concerned meet annually to see that the information envisaged in the guidelines is published in a timely and efficient manner and to exchange experiences with the workings of the guidelines.

The guidelines include a standard format for provision of information. Individual countries take responsibility for supplying information. The publications area of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) website publishes the information through regular circulars, a number of which have been issued.

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