The regime plans to use enriched uranium rods to generate 40 megawatts of power at a new heavy water reactor near the north-western city of Arak.
The spent fuel by-product from the plant will contain enough plutonium to build two nuclear warheads a year, the west fears.
A heavy-water reactor is also an easier target for foreign countries to attack hit than the underground sites that house Iran’s uranium-enrichment facilities, according to US and United Nations officials.
The Iranian regime began building the Arak facility in 2004 based on designs provided by Russia, then two years the UN Security Council passed a resolution requiring Tehran to cease construction because of the IAEA’s concerns it was a cover for a nuclear-weapons program.
Tehran was then hit with four rounds of sanctions when it refused to comply, which have contributed to the regime’s current dire economic state.
Defiant ruling Mullahs then told the IAEA in March that they would be producing 55 bundles of uranium fuel rods, made from natural uranium ‘pellets’, to power Arak by August.
Then in June, Tehran announced it installed the reactor’s vessel, which houses the facility’s nuclear fuel load.
The regime has also drastically restricted the IAEA’s ability to inspect the reactor, according to UN officials.
An official at the IAEA’s Vienna headquarters said Arak’s significance had now increased since the regime announced its new time-line, adding: “It really crept up on us.”