Iran's Radioactive Russian Invoices

Iran's Radioactive Russian Invoices
By Pavel Romanov
Jul. 16, 2007
EnergyTribune.com

Iran’s nuclear aspirations may not end with a bang or even a whimper. Instead, their demise may be due to a stack of unpaid invoices. By the end of May, the Iranian government owed Russia’s RosAtom more than $100 million for work done on the Bushehr nuclear power plant. And the Iranians have no apparent desire to pay their bills. In late May, a RosAtom official said that “it seems that the Iranians have lost interest” in the Bushehr plant, continuing that the “project has become unprofitable for us.”

There have been ongoing squabbles over payment. Under the contract terms, Iran is supposed to pay RosAtom about $25 million a month. In late 2006 after months of non-payment, Iran resumed payments and assured that it would stay current. RosAtom resumed construction at Bushehr, sending 2,000 Russian workers on-site. But the money problems continue. Sergey Kirilenko, the head of RosAtom, has said that the Bushehr plant could be finished within a few months, provided that Iran pays its bills.