Russia is not for the time being planning to raise the price at which it sells uranium to the United States under a 20-year contract.

Russia will continue to supply the uranium, which is derived from dismantled nuclear warheads, at the world price, Vladimir Vinogradov, a deputy minister of atomic energy, told Interfax. "Some people in our parliament think we are losing money by selling the uranium at a low price. But they are forgetting that Russia does not exercise a monopoly on this market and cannot therefore dictate its terms to others," Vinogradov said. At present, Russia is selling the uranium at $29 per kilogram, which is a little above the world price. It is against this background that leading western uranium companies like Cogema of France and Cameco of Canada are lowering their own prices for uranium. Russia will supply the United States with 30 tonnes of uranium this year, about as much as in 1999, and is likely to sustain that sort of amount in the years to come, Vinogradov said. Russia will earn something like $550 million from the uranium deal in 2000. The deal, signed in 1993, involves extracting 500 tonnes of high-enriched or weapons-grade uranium from dismantled warheads, and diluting it into low-enriched uranium suitable for nuclear fuel. The contract is worth $12 billion. The Russian atomic ministry has said the United States has received 45 tonnes of uranium in the last six years. This is a tenth of the planned total. Russia has received about $1 billion in return.