Fears Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain nuclear facility could have enough uranium for 10 warheads

An Iranian covert facility dug deeper than Fordow could house thousands of centrifuges and 400kg of missing enriched uranium, experts warn.

A covert nuclear facility buried deep under a mountain south of Iran’s destroyed Natanz enrichment plant could house enough uranium for 10 nuclear warheads, experts warn.

The underground nuclear site – thought to be buried more than 100m under the Kolang Gaz La mountain – would be comfortably beyond the range of US bunker busters used in Sunday’s strikes and has the floorspace for centrifuges required for weapons-grade uranium enrichment.

The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed that it had lost track of 408.6gm of 60 per cent enriched uranium, while satellite images appear to show assets being moved outside the Fordow facility in the days leading up to the strikes.

Technical director of SMR Nuclear technology Tony Irwin said if 200 of the estimated 15,000 centrifuges at Natanz plant remained operational, the missing uranium could be enriched to 90 per cent in a matter of weeks – the equivalent of 10 warheads.

“The uranium would have come out of the centrifuge as a gas, uranium hexafluoride, it’s then put into a cylinder … They would have been able to get 400kg in just a few small cylinders,” he said.

“They’re transported worldwide all the time like this, so there’s absolutely no problem getting about four cylinders on the back of a truck and moving it to another location.”

The Australian nuclear engineer said the speed of Iran’s recovery hinged on whether crucial deconversion plants had been terminally damaged during the attacks.

This handout satellite image shows cargo trucks positioned near an underground entrance to Iran's Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant prior to the US strikes. Picture: Maxar Technologies/AFP

This satellite image shows damage at Fordow enrichment facility after strikes in Iran on June 23. Picture: Maxar Technologies via AP

“Certainly it could only take a few months if they have a deconversion plant … but if they’ve got to start constructing that and putting it together, I mean that’s going to take the rest of the year to do that at least,” he said.

The Institute for Science and International Security, which has been monitoring the construction process at Pickaxe Mountain, said it was difficult to discern whether the facility was operational.

“Given that Iran has deployed about 6000 advanced centrifuges at Fordow and the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) over the last year, all produced outside of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) monitoring, Iran appears capable of secretly deploying a few thousand advanced centrifuges,” it said in its most recent update.

Deakin University Global Islamic Politics chair Professor Greg Barton said it was conceivable the missing uranium and a large array of centrifuges had been relocated prior to America’s strikes.

“The hope with the B-2 Fordow strike was that one single strike would cripple Iran’s nuclear weapons production and set it back years,” he said.

“It now looks like that was just wishful thinking and the operation hasn’t set them back that far.

“The hope that military action alone could deal with Iran’s nuclear weapons program was mistaken, it is pretty clear in hindsight that the best method of slowing down Iran’s progress was the JCPLA agreement.”

Iranian technicians work at the Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facilities, 420km south of Tehran. It is conceivable missing uranium and a large array of centrifuges had been relocated from Iran’s nuclear plants prior to America’s strikes. Picture: Behrouz Mehri/AFP

The IAEA, which has not inspected the Pickaxe Mountain site, lost track of a large number of centrifuge components when President Donald Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018.

The Iranian parliament launched preliminary steps to suspend co-operation with the UN’s nuclear watchdog, considering barring inspections and refusing to submit reports.

While the general outline of the bill has been approved, parliament has not yet fully signed off on the move.