The Canadian company that bought the 550 tones of yellowcake uranium from Iraq said Sunday that the U.S. military wanted the deal to be kept a secret.
The yellowcake, which has been described as the last remnant of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's nuclear program, arrived in Montreal by ship Saturday after traveling a clandestine route.
The removal of the seed material for higher-grade nuclear enrichment included a two-week airlift from Baghdad and a voyage across two oceans.
"We were following the request of the U.S. government," said Lyle Krahn, spokesperson of the Saskatoon-based Cameco Corp. on Sunday.
The material is scheduled to be transported by truck to the company's facilities in Ontario where it will be processed for use in energy-producing reactors, Krahn told the Canadian Press.
U.S. and Iraqi forces have guarded the 9,300-hectare yellowcake site since its discovery.
Iraqi government officials sought buyers on the commercial market, where uranium prices spiked at about 120 U.S. dollars per pound last year. It is currently selling for about half that.
The Cameco deal was reached earlier this year and was worth "tens of millions of dollars," Iraqi officials said.
Yellowcake is milled uranium ore and is not considered potent enough for a so-called "dirty bomb," which is a conventional explosive that disperses radioactive material.
Canada is the world's leading uranium producer.
Source:Xinhua
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