Assessing Pakistan’s Fissile Material Production

Abstract

Reports suggest that Pakistan’s indigenous, military nuclear program faces a natural uranium shortage, limiting fissile material production. However, Pakistan has recently built three new plutonium-producing reactors and significantly expanded its reprocessing capabilities. The solution to this apparent contradiction could be an optimized fuel cycle, in which reprocessed uranium is reused to produce more fissile material from the same natural uranium stocks. To estimate Pakistan’s highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium production, this article combines a statistical framework with fuel cycle and reactor simulation codes. It explores different scenarios that Pakistan could use to efficiently allocate its limited uranium resources. The results indicate that Pakistan cannot support simultaneous HEU and plutonium production in a once-through fuel cycle, and that HEU production can only be sustained in alternative cycles. Calculations suggest plutonium stockpiles of 370 to 660 kg and, depending on the scenario, HEU stockpiles of 3,090 to 5,540 kg by the end of 2022.