By Guy Faulconbridge
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia and the United States will sign along awaited civilian nuclear cooperation pact on Tuesday thatwill allow firms from the world's two biggest atomic powers toexpand bilateral nuclear trade significantly.
The deal will be signed in Moscow on the last full day ofVladimir Putin's presidency, a Russian official said oncondition his name was not used.
The deal will open up the booming U.S. nuclear market andRussia's vast uranium fields to firms from both countries.Without a deal cooperation was severely limited and requiredofficial consent.
"The potential value of this agreement is the value of allthe contracts which could be signed between the two countries'firms in the nuclear sphere, which is obviously billions ofdollars," a Russian source said.
At the 2006 Group of Eight summit in St Petersburg, U.S.President George W. Bush and Putin asked their governments tomove forward on the deal but it has faced opposition from someU.S. congressmen because of Russia's cooperation with Iran.
"It is symbolic that it will be signed on the last day ofVladimir Putin's presidential term," the Russian official said.
The Russian source said the deal would be signed by SergeiKiriyenko, chief of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom,and U.S. Ambassador to Russia William Burns, who is leavingMoscow to take up the No. 3 post in the State Department.
NUCLEAR GIANTS
A 123 agreement, so-called because it falls under section123 of the Atomic Energy Act, is required before countries cancooperate on nuclear materials.
Some U.S. politicians have said nuclear cooperation withRussia should be shunned because Russia is helping Iran buildan atomic power station in Iran, but the Bush administration iskeen to have the pact approved this year.
Once the agreement is signed Bush will have to send it toCongress, which has 90 days to act. If Congress does nothing,the agreement goes into effect. If lawmakers want to block it,they must pass a resolution of disapproval.
Russia's parliament, which is controlled by Putin's party,must also ratify the Treaty.
Russia, one of the world's biggest sellers of enrichmentservices, has been trying to break into the prosperous nuclearmarkets of the United States and European Union.
Tuesday's deal creates a legal base that will allowcompanies to make agreements themselves on trade in nuclearmaterials.
"You cannot overestimate the importance of this agreementbecause it opens up the giant north American market for nuclearmaterials to Russian companies," Vladimir Yevseyev, a seniorresearcher at the Moscow Centre For International Security.
Putin, who steps down on Wednesday, has reformed Russia'snuclear sector to boost competition and open it up to worldatomic firms such as Japan's Toshiba Corp, which ownsU.S.-based Westinghouse Electric.
Russia has crafted a nuclear behemoth called Atomenergoprom-- which officials say is an atomic version of Russian gasgiant Gazprom -- to compete with the biggest nuclear companieson the world market.
Competitors include the partnership between France's Arevaand Germany's Siemens AG; Japan's Toshiba; and GE Hitachi, thenuclear venture of General Electric and Japan's Hitachi.
Russia has about 870,000 tonnes of uranium in reserves andmore than 1 million tonnes if joint ventures abroad areincluded. That excludes a strategic reserve of highly enricheduranium and plutonium whose size is a state secret.
Russia already sells to the United States only uranium fromdismantled Russian nuclear weapons under a programme known asmegatons to megawatts. Sales are made through USEC Inc..
(Editing by Christian Lowe and Charles Dick)
