Name: Abu Sukhayr[1]
Other Names: Abou-Sukhair; Skhair
Address/Location: 25km southwest of Najar
Subordinate to:
Size: The mine's shaft is thought to be 75 meters deep with galleries 150 meters long and ore thickness of 50cm.
Primary Function: Uranium mining

Description:
Prospecting at the Abu Sukhayr carbonate ore mine began in September 1988 and ended at the end of 1990 when it was flooded. Total production during its operations was stated to have been 800 tons of Marley limestone, with an average uranium content of 150 parts per million, which is two to three times higher than that of the ore at Akashat.[2] Baghdad's Geologic Institute was working on a process for uranium recovery at Sukhayr.[3]

Key Sources:
[1] Report on the Seventh IAEA On-Site Inspection in Iraq under Security Council Resolution 687, 14 November 1991, UN Doc S/23215, <http://www.iaea.or.at/worldatom/Programmes/ActionTeam/
reports/S_23215.pdf>.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Report on the 19th IAEA On-Site Inspection in Iraq under Security Council Resolution 687, 21 June 1993, UN Doc S/25982, <http://www.iaea.or.at/worldatom/Programmes/ActionTeam/
reports/s_25982.pdf>.

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Name: Akashat Mine[4]
Other Names: Ukashat
Address/Location: 420km west of Baghdad
Subordinate to: State Enterprise for Phosphate (Government);[5] Petrochemical-3 (PC-3)[6]
Primary Function: Phosphate/uranium mining

Description: Akashat is the main location of Iraq's mining activities. By the mid-1980s Iraq had produced at least 164 tons of yellowcake, the majority of which was mined at Akashat and milled at the Al-Qaim plant.[7] Akashat's open-cast phosphate mine provides phosphate rock deposits that are processed to extract uranium at the facility at Al-Qaim.[8] In the 1990s, Iraq's annual phosphate production at Akashat was estimated at one million tons with 300,000 tons of phosphorus pentoxide (P2O5). In 2001, the production of phosphate rock, beneficiated, P2O5 content, was 100,000 tons.[9]

Key Sources:
[4] IAEA Iraq Action Team, "Fact Sheet: Iraq's Nuclear Weapons Programme," IAEA, 25 April 2002, <http://www.iaea.or/at/worldatom/Programmes/
ActionTeam/nwpz.html>.
[5] Philip M. Mobbs, "The Mineral Industry of Iraq," U.S. Geological Survey Minerals Yearbook, 2001, <http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/
country/2001/izmyb01.pdf>.
[6] PC-3 was a code name for Iraqi nuclear weapons project. It split from the Iraq Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) in the late 1980s and was placed under control of Hussein Kamel, then Minister of Industry and Military Industrialization. As of 1991, PC-3 numbered about 5,000 people, or two and one-half times the size of IAEC. "Iraq Nuclear Weapons," CIA Gulflink Connection, 24 April 1996, <http://www.fas.org/irp/gulf/cia/960424/65819_01.htm>.
[7] Giuseppe Nardulli, "Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East," National Institute of Nuclear Physics, Seminar held on 7-17 September 1998, <www.ba.infn.it/~nardulli/nuke_mo.html>; "Akashat," GlobalSecurity.org, 14 December 2002, <http://globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/akashat.html>.
[8] Report on the Third On-site Inspection in Iraq under Security Council Resolution 687 (1991), UN Doc S/22837, 25 July 1991, <http://www.iaea.or.at/worldatom/Programmes/ActionTeam/
reports/S_22837.pdf>.
[9] Philip M. Mobbs.

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Name: Al-Qaim Uranium Recovery Plant[10]
Other Names: Al Quaim, Al-Qaim Phosphate Plant; Unit 340
Address/Location: 380km west-northwest of Baghdad, southeast of the town of Al-Qaim
Subordinate to: n/a
Size: Designed to produce 103 tons of uranium per year
Primary Function: Phosphate ore concentration, uranium extraction, production of yellowcake

Description:
Al-Qaim reportedly was engaged in the production of yellowcake from 1984 to 1990. The ore supplied to the facility comes from both Iraqi (mainly Akashat mine) and foreign sources.[11]

In January 1975, Iraq signed a contract with an unnamed Belgium company[12] to construct a chemical fertilizer plant at Al-Qaim. Construction was complete in the second half of 1982, and the Al-Qaim plant began processing phosphate ore from the Akashat mine, located southwest of Al-Qaim. In 1982, Belgium's Mebshem Company began constructing a uranium extraction facility at Al-Qaim. Mebshem commissioned the facility at the end of 1984. Mebshem also trained Iraqi personnel in operating the uranium extraction unit.[13]

The facility was designed to produce 103 tons of uranium per year (equivalent to 146 tonnes of yellowcake), assuming continuous production of phosphoric acid at 150 m3/hr, and uranium content in the phosphate of 75 parts per million (ppm).[14] However, the Al-Qaim facility never reached maximum production. Through 17 January 1991, when coalition air forces attacked the facility, total production at the site was 170 tons of uranium peroxide, containing 110 tons of uranium, far below total designed capacity of 432 tons of uranium peroxide, at 54 tons per year, estimated for eight years of operation.[15]

The uranium that was produced at the unit was transferred directly to a secret nuclear weapons program in 11 separate shipments. Any unused uranium at the time the Action Team inspections started in 1991 was placed in store at Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center.[16]

On 2 September 2002, journalists were allowed to tour the remains of the Al-Qaim uranium extraction plant, destroyed during the 1991 coalition air strikes. The floor of the facility "was littered with empty and damaged barrels and heaps of twisted iron bars and concrete slabs."[17]

Key Sources:
[10] Joseph Cirincione, "Iraq: Nuclear Infrastructure," The Three Hard Cases (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), 2002), p. 289.
[11] IAEA Iraq Action Team, "Fact Sheet: Iraq's Nuclear Weapons Programme," IAEA, 25 April 2002, <http://www.iaea.or/at/worldatom/Programmes/
ActionTeam/nwpz.html>.
[12] The Belgium company that built Iraq's chemical fertilizer plant at al Qaim was probably Mebshem, because it was Mebshem that later constructed the uranium extraction facility at al Qaim.
[13] David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, "Is the Activity at Al Qaim Related to Nuclear Efforts?" ISIS, 10 September 2002, <http://www.isis-online.org/publications/iraq/alqaim.html>.
[14] "The Components of Iraq's clandestine nuclear programme," Attachment 1 to the Fourth Consolidated Report of the Director General of the IAEA, UN Doc S/1997/779, 8 October 1997, Iraq Watch, <http://www.iraqwatch.org/un/IAEA/
s-1997-779-att-1.htm>.
[15] David Albright and Corey Hinderstein; the IAEA reports estimate the total production to be slightly lower: 109 tonnes of uranium in 168 tonnes of yellowcake. (Yellowcake would be precipitated from uranium peroxide). IAEA Iraq Action Team, "Fact Sheet: Iraq's Nuclear Weapons Programme," IAEA, 25 April 2002, <http://www.iaea.or/at/worldatom/Programmes/ActionTeam/
nwpz.html>.
[16] David Albright and Corey Hinderstein.
[17] "Iraq Opens Reported Weapons Site to Media," Reuters, 2 September 2002, <http://prop1.org/nucnews/2002nn/0209nn/020902nn.htm>.

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Name: Geological Survey Institute
Other Names: General Establishment for Geological Survey and Prospecting
Address/Location: Baghdad
Subordinate to: n/a
Size: Processing capacity of 200kg of ore per hour
Primary Function: Uranium recovery

Description:
The Geological Survey Institute was the location of process development and pilot plant operation intended to recover uranium (as UO4) from carbonate ore from the Abou-Sukhair mine. The pilot plant was completed in June 1990, and the Institute received 20 tons of ore from Abou-Sukhair in July 1990. Ten tons were processed, producing 500 grams of UO4, and the remaining 10 tons was sent back to the mine. At present, the plant is being used for aluminum extraction.[18]

Key Sources:
[18] Report on the 12th IAEA On-Site Inspection in Iraq under Security Council Resolution 687, 2 July 1992, UN Doc S/24223, <http://www.iaea.or.at/worldatom/Programmes/ActionTeam/
reports/s_24223.pdf>.

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	Updated December 2003