A spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), Behrouz Kamalvandi, said the agency is developing nuclear propulsion for marine transportation using the budget allocated to the AEOI following the U.S. government’s passage of the Iran Sanctions Act. Kamalvandi underscored the project’s complexity, noting that research and simulation would take four to five years to complete. Kamalvandi also claimed that Iran would begin to develop its uranium mines on a much larger scale starting in 2018.