The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration completed the removal of all remaining enriched uranium from Venezuela’s RV-1 legacy research reactor, eliminating a decades-old nuclear surplus risk in under six weeks from initial site assessment to material departure.

The RV-1 reactor supported physics and nuclear research until 1991. When operations ceased, its uranium—enriched above the 20 percent threshold that marks the critical boundary for weapons-usable material—remained in place as surplus. Thirty-five years later, 13.5 kilograms of that material has been secured and transported to the United States.