IAEA seals Russian nuclear fuel bound for Iran

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Friday finished sealing uranium fuel that Russia intends to send to Iran's first atomic power station, Russia's state nuclear fuel producer said.

Now the fuel is sealed, Russia could swiftly ship it to Iran's Bushehr power station, which Russia is helping to build.

Russia has given no date for delivering the fuel, but says it would need to be shipped to Bushehr six months before the plant's repeatedly delayed start-up.

The IAEA team arrived at the plant on Nov 26 and confirmed that the fuel is Uranium-235 enriched to less than 5 percent, state nuclear fuel producer, TVEL, said in a statement.

"The IAEA team together with representatives of the Federal agency for atomic agency, the Iranian customer and the Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrate Plant examined the nuclear fuel and sealed the containers," TVEL said in the statement.

"The containers with the fuel were sealed with special IAEA metal seals with a numbers," it said.

"The IAEA inspectors made no criticisms about the quality of the nuclear fuel and the conditions of its storage," Konstantin Grabelnikov, deputy head of the Novosibirsk Plant, was quoted as saying by TVEL in the statement.

Grabelnikov said the delivery of the fuel "will be made when there is a technological need at the plant and when a corresponding order is made."

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; editing by Myra MacDonald)