Centrifuge Production Facilities
7th of Tir Industries (Seventh of Tir, Hafte Tir or Haftom e Tir Industries)
7th of Tir Industries (Seventh of Tir, Hafte Tir or Haftom e Tir Industries)
Seventh of Tir Industries is a DIO entity, which prior to the 2003 suspension, had responsibility for manufacturing several critical P1 centrifuge components. IAEA safeguards reports have not referred to this facility by name. The company takes its name from an important date on the Iranian calendar--the 7th of Tir--on which a bomb exploded at the headquarters of Iran’s Islamic Republic Party on June 28, 1981, killing more than seventy officials. A number of Iranian buildings or places now bear the name.
We do not know whether 7th of Tir continues to be involved in the production of centrifuge components. IIran suspended its centrifuge manufacturing efforts for a time between late 2003 (when it signed but did not ratify the Additional Protocol) and early February 2006, when it notified the IAEA that both its voluntary adherence to the Additional Protocol and its suspension of enrichment activity was over. Most information in the public domain regarding Iran’s centrifuge production and manufacturing reflects the period prior to its suspension of centrifuge R&D.
Centrifuge components were manufactured in a relatively small, unidentified facility within 7th of Tir. Under contract, DIO specialists made about twenty critical rotating components of the P1 centrifuge rotor. According to Vienna-based diplomats present at technical briefings by IAEA officials, this facility was originally contracted to make 10,000 sets of these centrifuge components, but had not finished making all of them prior to the suspension. To prevent IAEA monitoring what is a sensitive military site, Iran moved key centrifuge manufacturing equipment and components to Natanz and other AEOI sites.
This site manufactured one of the P1 centrifuge’s most sensitive parts, its bellows—a thin-walled cylindrical part—made from maraging steel. Iran secretly purchased 67 tonnes of this super strong steel in the United Kingdom, enough for approximately 100,000 bellows. Each centrifuge requires three bellows, giving Iran approximately enough steel for some 33,000 centrifuges. Iran may have purchased such a large quantity at one time, fearing that it would become only harder to procure should its centrifuge research and development became public. Apparently Iran was not able to buy the steel in tubes, which is the normal starting point for making a hollow bellows, so it bought metal rods.
Maraging steel is a sensitive commodity, whose purchase is controlled by suppliers. Iran may have found it easier to obtain if asking for rods. But the rod shape complicates the production of bellows. Iranian technicians reportedly had to first use a hot lance to pierce the rod and then cut out the center into a tube. This tube is then thinned to a wall thickness of only one millimeter on a specialized, precision flow-forming machine. Iran obtained this machine from the now defunct German firm Leifeld in 1985 and later obtained several more from this and anther firm. The location of these flow-forming machines is unknown, more than one of which can be used to make bellows.
Annex 1 of UN Security Council Resolution 1747 (2007) states that the facility is controlled by the Ammunition and Metallurgy Industries group (AMIG), which is in turn owned by the Defense Industries Organization (DIO). UN Resolution 1737 (2006) states that 7th of Tir is “widely recognized as being directly involved in the nuclear program.”
A website advertising this firm’s civilian goods can be found here.
Abzar Boresh Kaveh Co
Abzar Boresh Kaveh Co
This firm is named in a UK government list of Iranian individuals and entities subject to financial sanctions, which can be found here. The UK states that the firm is involved in the production of centrifuge components, although ISIS could not identify its location or other possible names, one of which might duplicate another facility in this list. The firm is also named in Annex III of UN Security Council Resolution 1803 (2008).
Defense Industries Organization
Defense Industries Organization
Iran’s state-owned Defense Industries Organization (DIO) is one of the main subsidiaries of Iran’s Ministry of Defense. Its primary responsibility is meeting the requirements of the armed forces of Iran, but it also exports products and engineering services. Through its subsidiaries and contractors, it has played an important role in Iran’s development of its centrifuge manufacturing capabilities. According to IAEA reports, substantial numbers of centrifuge components were manufactured at DIO workshops under contract with the AEOI. Two such workshops controlled by DIO are Khorasan Metallurgy Industries and 7th of Tir, both of which are named in UN Security Council Resolution 1737, Annex A.
According to the June 2004 IAEA report, DIO workshops were involved in the procurement of parts from abroad for the IR-2 (then referred to as the P-2) centrifuge. Initially Iran denied to the IAEA that any components had been procured from abroad. By 2004, Iran “acknowledged that, contrary to these earlier statements, it had imported some magnets relevant to P-2 centrifuges from Asian suppliers, and that the composite rotors that had been manufactured in Iran had in fact been fabricated in another workshop situated on a DIO site.”
The U.S. Department of State designated DIO on March 30, 2007 as an entity engaged in activities that have “materially contributed to the development of Iran’s nuclear and missile programs.”
Farayand Technique
Farayand Technique
According to Iranian statements to the IAEA, Farayand Technique, an important subsidiary of Kalaye Electric, had a number of roles in Iran’s centrifuge enrichment program. The IAEA reports that it was initially intended as a site for centrifuge assembly, but that Iranian officials decided it was too far from Natanz. It has conducted quality control activities for centrifuge components, including rotors, manufactured for the facilities at Natanz It received balancing machines from Kalaye Electric.
Farayand is believed to be located in a valley near 7th of Tir Industries, likely in an industrial park. Prior to Iran’s suspension of centrifuge R&D, it had multiple responsibilities, including making and assembling parts of the centrifuge’s bottom bearing. This part of the centrifuge is designed to hold a thin pin with a ball at its end that is attached to the bottom of the rotor assembly. The ball fits inside a cup, which allows the rotor to spin rapidly with little friction. Farayand also performed quality testing on components manufactured in the Esfahan area and had facilities for assembling and testing centrifuges. IAEA inspectors suspected that this site could have been intended as a back-up to the Kalaye Electric facility.
The IAEA has conducted extensive environmental sampling at Farayand because it was a site related to centrifuge manufacturing, assembly, and testing. Environmental samples taken from the balancing machines indicated the presence of enriched uranium which was eventually determined to be the result of cross-contamination of components that originated in Pakistan. The current status of operations at Farayand is unknown, as IAEA inspectors had access to the site only while Iran was adhering voluntarily to the Additional Protocol and the suspension agreements.
Kalaye Electric Company (also known as Kala Electric)
Kalaye Electric Company (Kala Electric)
According to IAEA reports (based on interviews of Iranian officials), Kalaye Electric, located in Tehran, was Iran’s primary centrifuge research, development, and manufacturing site until operations moved to the Natanz site in 2002. The name “Kalaye Electric” means “electric goods,” implying that it kept the name to help disguise the true purpose of the facility.
Iran declared that Kalaye Electric became the primary P-1 centrifuge development and testing site after such work was moved in 1995 from the TNRC. The IAEA has reported that between 1997 and 2002, Iran assembled and tested P1 centrifuges at Kalaye. Iran also admits to introducing UF6 gas into a centrifuge for the first time in 1999 and, in 2002, fed nuclear material into a small, 19-machine cascade. Iran used 1.9 kg of imported, undeclared Chinese UF6 to test centrifuge machines at the Kalaye Electric Company workshop between 1999 and 2002, before dismantling the centrifuge test facility at the end of 2002.
After the pilot fuel enrichment plant (PFEP) at Natanz became the primary centrifuge research and development facility, Kalaye Electric remained a component manufacturing site. Investigation into the site began after the publication of information about possible enrichment activities. The first organization to name the facility publicly was the National Council for Resistance of Iran (NCRI).
Following the public revelation of Kalaye Electric, media reports indicated that U.S. satellite imagery showed considerable activity at the site, suggesting that equipment was removed from the site, raising suspicions that Iran was attempting to hide activities before granting access to the IAEA. The IAEA asked to visit Kalaye in February 2003 and to take environmental samples to determine if any enriched uranium was produced at the site. Iran responded that the facility was a watch factory, but that it also made a few centrifuge components. It initially denied the inspectors’ requests to take environmental samples, claiming that it did not have to allow access until Iran implemented the IAEA additional protocol.
Iran subsequently relented and allowed the IAEA limited access in March 2003 and full access in May, but it refused to permit environmental sampling until August 2003. Iran took extraordinary steps to disguise the past use and purpose of this facility, including removing equipment and moving internal walls. Nonetheless, the IAEA was able to detect enriched uranium at this site, further pressuring Iran to declare fully its activities there and elsewhere
Khorasan Metallurgy Industries
Khorasan Metallurgy Industries
Khorasan is identified in Annex III of UN Security Council Resolution 1803 (2008) as a firm involved in the “production of centrifuge components” and subsidiary of the Ammunition Industries Group (AMIG) and Defense Industries Organization (DIO).
Kaveh Cutting Tools Complex, a part of Khorasan Metallurgy Industries, northeast of Tehran near the city of Mashhad, made the P1 centrifuges scoops, molecular pumps and other components. These are all stationary components in a centrifuge and easier to make than the rotating ones. For other companies involved in manufacturing centrifuge components, see this page.
Kolahdouz
Kolahdouz
Kolahdouz is a military industrial complex located in western Tehran that was initially inspected by the IAEA in 2003 after the National Council of Resistance of Iran identified it as a site of covert development of centrifuges for uranium enrichment. The IAEA’s November 2004 report notes that on a visit “no work was seen at those locations that could be directly linked to uranium enrichment” and that environmental samples did not reveal “any indication of activity involving the use of nuclear material.”
Pars Trash (Tarash)
Pars Trash (Tarash)
Pars Trash, a subsidiary of Kalaye Electric located in Tehran, is another centrifuge site that received equipment from Kalaye Electric in particular for Iran’s P-2/IR-2 centrifuge development effort.
Pars Trash, a small company employing about ten people, is located in Tehran among warehouses and light industrial buildings about a kilometer west of the Kalaye Electric facility. It manufactured the centrifuge’s outer casings. These are the thick aluminum tubes that house the centrifuge rotor assembly and, in the case of an accident, prevent broken pieces of the thin-walled rotor assembly, which can act like shrapnel, from injuring or even killing bystanders. Pars Trash was originally a small private factory involved in making automobile parts. It went bankrupt and was bought by the Kalaye Electric Company, or its subsidiary Farayand, for the three expensive computer-operated machine tools it owned, which could be adapted to the manufacture of centrifuge components.
An engineer married to the plant manager is believed to have been the backbone of the operation. She programmed and set up the machines to make centrifuge components and ensured their quality, before turning the operation over to a technician who subsequently operated the automated machines to produce thousands of components.
The current status of operations at Pars is unknown as IAEA inspectors had access to the site only while Iran was adhering voluntarily to the Additional Protocol.
Sanam Electronic Industry Group
Sanam Electronic Industry Group
Sanam Electronic Industry Group in Tehran was another DIO-associated facility involved in the manufacture of centrifuge components.