Khushab Reactor

Khushab Reactor is located at Khushab, Punjab, Pakistan.

The 50 MWt, heavy water and natural uranium research reactor at Khushab is a central element of Pakistan's program for production of plutonium and tritium for advanced compact warheads. The Khushab facility, like that at Kahuta, is not subject to International Atomic Energy Agency inspections, but the security of the site is professed by the Pakistani government. Khushab, with a capacity variously reported at between 40 MWT to 50 MWT [and as high as 70 MWT] , was "commissioned" in March 1996. Khushab is Pakistan's first indigenous nuclear reactor whose construction was begun in 1986 by the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission chairman Munir Ahmad Khan. The Project-Director for the Khushab reactor was Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood. According to a Pakistani press report ["Pakistan's Indigenous Nuclear Reactor Starts Up," Islamabad The Nation, April 13, 1998] , the Khushab plutonium production reactor had gone critical and began operating in early 1998.