Factory suspected of producing 'devil's venom' fuel for North Korean missiles

A synthetic fiber factory in the remote North Korean city of Hamhung may be secretly producing rocket fuel.

North Korea announced in July that it had successfully launched an intercontinental ballistic missile. Photo: KCNA.

The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at Middlebury College believes that North Korea has mastered the production of unsymmetrical dimethyl hydrazine (UDMH) rocket fuel at a factory in Hamhung, making it more difficult for the international community to curb the country's advanced weapons program.

UDMH is now produced mainly by China, some European countries, and Russia, which calls it “devil’s venom” because of its dangerous nature. UDMH was responsible for the worst disaster of the space age in 1960, when scores of Soviet workers and spectators died during a test of one of Moscow’s first intercontinental ballistic missiles. US intelligence also believes that North Korea has the ability to produce UDMH domestically rather than relying on supplies from other countries.

Jeffrey Lewis, who directs the Middlebury Center's East Asia program, initially had difficulty finding signs of North Korean UDMH production, according toNYTimes.

“There is no clear indication because UDMH can be made with common chemicals such as chlorine and ammonia using a variation of a process developed in 1906. India, which quietly developed its missile program in the 1970s, produced UDMH in an old sugar mill,” he said.

The search achieved a breakthrough when his team found and translated a series of technical articles in North Korea's official science journal related to UDMH.

Articles from 2013 to 2016 discussed issues such as the disposal of toxic wastewater—a major problem in UDMH production. One article discussed methods for improving chemical purity, which is important for advanced missile programs.

Unlike other articles in the magazine, these articles do not include contact information or biographies of the authors, suggesting that their work is more sensitive than it appears.

Lewis’s team searched for the authors’ names in all the North Korean chemistry research they could find, until they came across something odd. One of the authors, Cha Seok Bong, had published three papers from a place called the Vinylon 8/2 factory, which makes synthetic fibers, in Hamhung.

Location of Hamhung city. Graphics: BBC.

It was an odd location for a highly trained rocket fuel expert, so Mr. Lewis assumed the plant was actually a UDMH production site.

The remote city of Hamhung is not an ideal location for a sensitive military facility. Located on the country's east coast, it is vulnerable to air strikes. US bombing raids devastated the area during the 1950-53 Korean War.

But Ko Chong-song, a North Korean official who defected in the early 1990s, suggested in a 2001 book that it was a secret military chemical production center. The CIA had also suspected this since at least 1969, when it published an assessment of chemical production in Hamhung.

After reviewing satellite imagery of the Hamhung plant, Lewis’s team found two unusually large wastewater tanks, consistent with standard UDMH production methods. They also discovered that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had visited the plant multiple times, emphasizing its importance.

Satellite image of North Korea's Vinylon 8/2 factory. Photo: NYTimes.

North Korea likely has a large stockpile of UDMH, Lewis noted.

Asked how North Korea was able to develop this fuel without the knowledge of the outside world, Mr. Lewis said analysts often underestimate North Korea, thinking it was backward.

“If you look at satellite photos and read their technical publications, they look like a completely different country,” he said.

According to VNE