Using commercial satellite imagery from March 2013 and December 2013, IPFM says the Khushab III reactor now appears operational due to water vapour rising from its cooling towers, but the Khushab IV reactor is still under construction.
Pakistan’s third plutonium-producing reactor is in service at its Khushab nuclear site and is likely to have already produced fuel, claimed a foreign magazine, quoting the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM).
According to reports, the IPFM, “an independent group of arms-control and non-proliferation experts from both nuclear weapon and non-nuclear weapon states”, has highlighted the latest developments in Pakistan’s plutonium programme in a blog entry.
Using commercial satellite imagery from March 2013 and December 2013, it says the Khushab III reactor now appears operational due to water vapour rising from its cooling towers, but the Khushab IV reactor is still under construction.
It goes on to say, “If Khushab-III began operating in early 2013, the first batch of its spent fuel could have been taken out already, cooled and become available to be reprocessed in 2014 or possibly 2015.”
It bases its assessments on the three operating reactors having a power of 40-50 megawatts, which, operating at 50 percent capacity, could each produce 5.7 to 7.1 kilogrammess of weapon grade plutonium per year. At 80 percent capacity they could each produce 9 to 11.5 kilogrammes of plutonium.
Based on these calculations, IPFM estimates Pakistan has accumulated about 170 kilogrammes of plutonium from the Khushab-I and Khushab-II reactors. It claims this would suffice for approximately 35-40 warheads of four to five kilogrammes of plutonium per warhead.
Royal United Services Institute Analyst Shashank Joshi said he was wary of analysing the figures of production capabilities based on satellite images.
PAKISTAN NUKE PROGRAM PALES IN COMPARISION TO INDIA’S:
Quaid-e-Azam University Department of Defence and Strategic Studies official Mansoor Ahmed, who specialises in Pakistan’s national deterrent and delivery programs, said this fits into a long pattern of reporting that shows Pakistan has a fast-growing arsenal but one he believes still pales in comparison to India’s.
He highlights a number of reports, including from the IPFM itself, that show India “is expanding and adding several un-safeguarded facilities in its military nuclear fuel cycle suitable for producing fissile material,” and has the world’s fastest growing nuclear program.
“These include the rare materials plant centrifuge facility, a second plutonium production reactor and one 500 megawatt electricity experimental fast breeder reactor. In addition, four reprocessing plants of 350 tonnes of heavy metal per year (thm) are in operation, an industrial-scale 500 thm/year reprocessing plant and another large industrial scale centrifuge enrichment plant are in the pipeline along with four additional fast breeder reactors,” he said.
“As of the end of 2013, India’s fissile material stockpiles include 800-1,000 kilogrammes of weapon-grade plutonium from CIRUS and Dhruva-1 production reactors, two tonnes of highly enriched uranium [HEU] from RMP; and 15 tonnes of weapon-usable reactor-grade plutonium from its pressurised heavy water reactors [PHWRs],” said Ahmed.
He says the significance of these cannot be underestimated.
“These stocks are outside (International Atomic Energy Agency) safeguards and are sufficient for producing about 250 warheads from weapon-grade plutonium; 40 warheads from HEU and 1,875 warheads from reactor-grade plutonium, which was used in one of India’s 1998 nuclear tests,” he said.
Additional capabilities will be added within the next three to five years, he said, that could produce another 171 kilogrammes of weapon-grade plutonium.
“These figures would add up with existing capacities and would allow India to produce about 100 warheads from weapon-grade plutonium and HEU each year in addition to 50 warheads from one PHWR run on low-burn up,” he said.
“Even if a fraction of the other seven PHWRs are used to produce fuel for India’s fast breeder reactors as claimed, these can still add another 137 weapons worth of fissile material each year,” he said.
“Compared to this, Pakistan’s total existing and expected annual fissile material production capacity from four Khushab plutonium production reactors is not more than 46 kilogrammes of weapon-grade plutonium and 100-125 kilogrammes of weapon-grade HEU, only sufficient for 17 warheads annually.”
Former air commodore and analyst, Kaiser Tufail believes Pakistan is reasonably secure.
“Pakistan’s nuclear triad exploits certain peculiar advantages of each delivery system,” he said.
“Ground-based mobile missile systems allow dispersion, reducing the success probability of an enemy’s first strike. Submarine-launched missile systems allow a high degree of survivability and can be credibly used for a second strike.”
He also said that the aircraft delivery method has flexibility beyond that of other systems.
Pakistan's stockpiles of fissile material and nuclear fuel producing facilities or reactors must not be compared with that of India who has 8 reactors which are not under the IAEA safeguards and can be persecuted to be used for making nuclear bombs or devices.India continues to produce fissile material for weapons purposes and refused to cease such production as part of a proposed U.S.-Indian civilian nuclear cooperation deal. New Delhi has approximately 520 kilograms of plutonium available for nuclear weapons – enough for 100 to 130 warheads – and up to another 11.5 metric tons of reactor grade plutonium in spent fuel, which could be reprocessed for weapons use. There is not a single point where Pakistan's fissile material can be compared with that of India's which is on the road of also seeking membership in NSG which would allow it to increase its stockpiles of fissile material at a faster pace.
At the core of the concerns held by Pakistan’s national security managers is a long-running search for strategic parity with India. Pakistan has fallen behind India in producing fissile materials and this fissile material gap must be addressed. Unfortunately, Indo-US nuclear deal has also tilted balance of power in Indian favor. Hence, Pakistan's nuclear program is dependent on indigenous resources as global community has isolated Pakistan from nuclear cartels.
Newspapers are making headlines with this news that Pakistan gets its third nuclear reactor become operational quite pessimistically. We cannot toe India and Pakistan nuclear credentials with same line. The nuclear developments of Pakistan are nothing in front of literally big advancements which India made on daily basis in its nuclear domain. It has number of operational nuclear reactors all over the country. It is enjoying nuclear export in shape of yellow cakes and nuclear deals with other foreign countries. On other hand, Pakistan has ensured comprehensive security and safety framework with much vigilant and efficient nuclear developments. But even than Pakistan can’t meet the speedy speed of its adversary nuclear obsession. World should actually get concerned with India nuclear expeditions and put a halt to them.
Eight of the world's nuclear powers together possessed nearly 19,000 atomic weapons with India expanding their capacities to produce fissile material for military purposes. Much alarm has been raised in the West about Pakistan’s enhancement of its nuclear capability. Western analysts have often depicted this as a mindless, irrational drive motivated by the unbridled ambitions of the nuclear scientific-military lobby. This is far from true. To understand the strategic rationale for Pakistan’s fissile material needs – achieving credible nuclear deterrence at the lowest possible cost and level – the issue must be placed in a proper, broader perspective. It means taking into account the chain of rapid developments that have undermined the region’s strategic equilibrium and affected Pakistan’s nuclear threshold. They include the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal, exemption for India by the Nuclear Supplier’s Group, India’s conventional military and strategic build-up, enunciation of offensive doctrines involving ‘Proactive Operations’ and efforts to develop a missile defence capability.
Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are the only way Pakistan can punch above its weight and remain relevant, insuring that the generals get attention by global powers. Ramping up production, insures that foreign powers deal with the military, that is at the centre of every, global nightmare scenario where Pakistani nukes get compromised. Given the state of the Pakistani economy, the state of its peoples, bomb blasts, mass rallies by banned extremists, a nation disproportianetly affected by climate change, our nukes are the only thing we can gloat about and make ourselves feel important.
There is a deeper assesment in Pakistan with regards to its current policy on fissile materials apart from the Indian argument.
In my view, High tech dual use technology inflow in space program cooperation, sophisticated conventional arms sales worth billion of dollars by major powers, offensive military doctrines, global trends of waning multilateralism and the rise of exceptionalism or the "coalition of the willings" and hostile presence of extra-regional forces in the region are broad parameters which defines Pakistan current posture.
Moreover there is no genuine urge from international powers for complete, nondiscriminatory and verfiable nuclear disarmament. If that would have been the case then P-5, particularly US, must have supported issues of existing stock piles at CD. So i think the issue of stock piles must be seen in a broader spectrum.
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