(December 15, 1995) On December 4, Romania released a barge carrying nuclear fuel from Ukraine to a nuclear plant in Bulgaria, which had been held for five days for apparently lacking transit permits.
(444.4395) WISE-Amsterdam - Romanian shipping authorities had stopped the barge, Pirva Atoma, together with its tug, Nicola Vabtarov, at the Danube port of Cernavoda, about 200 km (125 miles) east of Bucharest, saying it had no permission to use Romania's Danube River waters. The barge was carrying 106 tonnes of uranium U-238 and U-235 nuclear fuel from Ukraine intended for Bulgaria's Kozloduy nuclear plant.
Romania's environment ministry said earlier it had asked for "technical information" on the barge to grant the transit. The ministry had considered the shipment "clandestine" because the cargo had not been properly declared.
The ships and their 12-person crew were held for five days. The captain, Vasil Kabaciev, paid a fine of 700,000 lei ($275).
Romania's arms, explosives and toxic material police department said the barge entered Romanian waters in breach of the international conventions on transport of nuclear material. Bulgaria's National Electricity Company (NEC), which says the shipment was to fuel Kozloduy's number three reactor, declared in a statement that Romania was contravening Danube conventions in stopping the cargo. The Bulgarian Atomic Energy Committee, which claimed that it had been shipping fuel the same way for 20 years, said the latest shipment broke no rules on radioactive cargo.
Source: Reuter, 4 Dec. 1995
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