New satellite imagery, published by the Institute for Science and International Security, suggests Pakistan may have completed its Chashma reprocessing plant.

Work on the reprocessing plant stated in 1974 when Pakistan signed a contract with the French company Saint-Gobain Techniques Nouvelles (SGN). In 1978, under U.S. pressure, France canceled the contract. But it is believed that significant design information and some technology may have been transferred.

Satellite imagery from 2007 showed that Pakistan had resumed worked on the reprocessing plant at Chashma.

In 2012, a semi-official account of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb, stated that "The commercial-scale reprocessing plant at Chashma is ... nearing completion" (page 395).

The new reprocessing plant, when operating, will add to the capacity now available at the small plants at the New Labs site in Rawalpindi. This may allow Pakistan to reprocess all the fuel from its four plutonium production reactors at Khushab, all of which are now operating.