Report on recent status of TENORM in Vietnam

As an implementation of work planned by the FNCA task group on TENORM, a discussion/survey meeting on TENORM was held in Vietnam during August 25-29, 2003. The meeting consisted of the technical discussion on several TENORM topics including technical visit on TENORM sites. This report summarized those activities. The remarkable source of TENORM in Vietnam is scales and sludge from petroleum industry and waste from sand beach processing. Estimated TENORM waste volume generated and stored at Institute for Technology of Radioactive Rare Elements (ITRRE) is about 19-29 t·y-1, which contained 0.02-1% U, not include TENORM waste produced from other mineral industries that did not keep their records. Currently, there is about 130 t of untreated TENORM waste stored at Phung Interim Storage. Typical dose rate in work place ranges from 0.15-90 μSv·hr-1. Annual dose of worker was estimated 6 mSv·y-1 based on the assumption of 2,000 work-hr in a year. There are three regulations concerned to TENORM in Vietnam: Ordinance on Radiation Safety and Control (ORSC) (June 25, 1996), Decree on the Detail Directions for implementing of ORSC (July 16, 1998), and National Standard on Radioactive Waste Management - Classification of RW (TCVN - 6868.2001). (author)