Russia's Siberian Chemical Combine (SCC) projects a doubling of its net profit by the end of 2016, although proceeds will remain approximately at the level as the previous year. SCC director general Sergey Tochilin told journalists at a public dialogue forum held in Seversk on 24 June that in 2016, SCC's proceeds will increase to RUB14.4bn ($221m) against RUB14.3bn the previous year. Revenues from nuclear product sales will be about RUB9.77bn (RUB9.75bn in 2015) and revenues from general industry operations will amount to RUB4.63bn (RUB4.52bn in 2015).
"We doubled our revenue last year and plan to more than double it this year," Tochilin noted. He said that in 2016 the net profit of SCC is projected at RUB1.683bn against RUB678.1m in 2015. In 2016, investments in the SCC's equity will almost double, from RUB7.1bn to RUB13.4bn. Tochilin explained the main investments would be for implementation of the Proryv (Breakthrough) project. This involves development of a pilot demonstration power generating facility with a BREST-300 lead-cooled fast reactor and on-site nuclear fuel cycle at the SCC site.
SCC was established in 1953 in Tomsk-7 (Seversk) and played an important role in the Soviet nuclear weapons programme producing plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU), and fabricating HEU and plutonium warhead components. It hosted five plutonium production reactors, a reprocessing facility, a uranium enrichment plant, and a chemical and metallurgical weapon-component production plant as well as fissile materials storage facilities.
Since Rosatom consolidated its weapons-related activities, SCC is no longer formally involved in warhead production. HEU production has ceased and the last plutonium production reactor was shut down in 2008. However, SCC remains a major site for the storage and handling of weapon-usable fissile materials and nuclear weapons components. It currently produces uranium feedstock and enriched uranium, converts and stores fissile materials, and produces thermal and electric power for Seversk as well as Tomsk Oblast.
In addition to supplying some of Russia's domestic low enriched uranium fuel needs, SCC enriches reprocessed uranium for foreign customers and it played a key role in the US-Russia HEU-LEU programme converting weapon-grade HEU to uranium oxide and uranium hexafluoride (UF6) which it then downblended. There is also a plutonium storage facility and an MHR high-temperature gas-cooled reactor under development at SCCas part of U.S.-Russian technical cooperation on plutonium disposition. Lab-to-lab work under the Department of Energy's material protection, control, and accounting (MPC&A) Programme has been ongoing since 1996. This work is largely unaffected by sanctions.
