LONDON: Saudi Arabia has constructed, with China’s assistance, a facility for the extraction of uranium yellowcake — a potential precursor for a nuclear reactor — in a remote desert location near the small town of Al Ula, the Wall Street Journal has reported.
The news has caused huge concern among Riyadh’s Western allies who think the kingdom may try to expand its atomic programme to keep open its option to build atomic weapons, according to the report. The facility has been kept a secret.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had said in 2018 that “if Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible.”
Yellowcake is processed from naturally occurring uranium ore and can be further enriched to create fuel for nuclear power plants and, at very high levels of enrichment, nuclear weapons.
The Saudi Energy Ministry has “categorically” denied the Wall Street Journal report, but it admitted to contracting with Chinese companies for uranium exploration in Saudi Arabia.
Following the news report, Germany has called on Saudi Arabia “to fully comply” with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).
“The German government’s critical stance on nuclear power is well known. It is of central importance that Saudi Arabia fully complies with its NPT obligations and that its nuclear program is subject to the international verification standards (‘safeguards’) of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),” the Foreign Ministry told media representatives via an e-mail.
According to a report in the Middle East Eye, while Washington had been discussing selling nuclear technology, including reactors, to Saudi Arabia, the Trump administration said that the kingdom must adhere to a “gold standard” of requirements of nuclear oversight, including renouncing the enrichment of uranium.
But Riyadh has refused to agree to standards on reprocessing spent fuel and enriching uranium, two potential paths to making nuclear weapons.
Ollie Heinonen, a senior adviser on science and nonproliferation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the WSJ that “the facility’s construction suggested the Saudis were trying to keep their options open”.