United States and India sign an agreement on reprocessing

The United States and India signed an agreement that would allow India to reprocess U.S.-obligated nuclear fuel at its civilian reprocessing facilities. The document is part of the U.S.-India nuclear cooperation agreement and is formally known as the Arrangements and Procedures Pursuant to Article 6(iii) of the Agreement for Cooperation Concerning Peaceful Uses of Nuclear Energy

The agreement allows for India to set at least two, possibly three, or 'more' new safeguarded reprocessing plants:

The Government of the United States of America and the Government of India understand the need for sufficient indigenous Indian capacity to reprocess or otherwise alter in form or content, under IAEA safeguards, U.S.-obligated nuclear material subject to the Agreement for Cooperation. Based on this understanding, the Parties agree to pursue the steps necessary, consistent with their national laws, to permit reprocessing or alteration in form or content of nuclear material subject to the Agreement for Cooperation at one or more new additional national facilities in India, (beyond the two facilities provided for in these Arrangements and Procedures) established by the Government of India and dedicated to the reprocessing and, as required, other alteration in form or content of safeguarded nuclear material under IAEA safeguards. These Arrangements and Procedures shall apply to such facilities upon successful completion of these steps, unless otherwise agreed by the Parties.

India currently has three reprocessing plants: Trombay at Mumbai (50 tonnes of heavy metal per year, commissioned in 1964), REFRE at Tarapur (100 MTHM, 1977), and KARP at Kalpakkam (100 MTHM, 1998).