Rokkasho reprocessing plant expects to begin operations in October 2014

On January 7, 2014 Japan Nuclear Fuels Ltd. (JNFL) filed a request for safety screening that, when completed, would permit the plant to begin operations in October 2014. The request appears to follow an approval of the safety standards that the Japan's Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) was expected to complete in December 2013.

According to the current JNFL plan (reported by Nuclear.ru), the plant will reprocess 282 BWR and 73 PWR fuel assemblies (48 MTHM and 32 MTHM respectively) in October 2014-March 2015. In the 2015 fiscal year (April 2015-March 2016) JNFL expects to reprocess 1129 BWR and 291 PWR fuel assemblies (192 MTHM and 128 MTHM respectively).