in the northern state of Pará. These raised suspicions over the Air Force's nuclear activities, as the shafts had been possibly designed as testing sites for nuclear explosives. Personnel in charge of the secret nuclear program tried to obtain access to technology and materials in the nuclear bazaar. In the late 1970s, amid a domestic shortage of oil in Brazil, Iraq offered to supply oil at a discounted price in exchange for 80 tons of Brazilian uranium. Oral accounts indicate that Brazil accepted the offer and concluded a deal with Iraq. However, it interrupted the uranium export when the Iran–Iraq War intensified, having provided Iraq with less than a quarter of the quantity agreed. Brazil also reportedly bought highly enriched uranium from China in the 1980s. In December 1982, then-president of CNEN, Rex Nazaré, headed a mission to China with the objective of purchasing enriched uranium from his Chinese counterparts at the China National Nuclear Corporation. Sources have indicated that, a few years later, Brazilian cylinders of hexafluoride were transported to China containing natural uranium. They returned to Brazil in a container that, supposedly, carried porcelain purchased by the First Lady Dulce Figueiredo during the presidential trip. The material was later stored at the IPEN research facility in São Paulo, where the Brazilian Navy was developing technology for uranium enrichment and reactor construction with the ultimate objective of building a nuclear-propelled submarine. Civilian rule was re-established in the country in 1985, and the administration of President José Sarney publicly revealed two years later that Brazil had achieved uranium enrichment capacity through a secret nuclear program. While Sarney made this announcement, there is no indication that he tried to put an end to the nuclear military activities. 1988–2000 In 1988, Nuclebrás was folded into a newly created institution, the Brazilian Nuclear Industries (Indústrias Nucleares do Brasil – INB), which was linked to the structure of CNEN and responsible for uranium extraction, industrial treatment and processing. In that same year, the Experimental Center of Aramar (Centro Experimental Aramar – CEA), was inaugurated in Iperó, São Paulo. Under the purview of the Brazilian Navy, the CEA remains one of the country's main nuclear facilities, where research on the development of a nuclear reactor and pilot-scale uranium enrichment activities are carried out. Angra 1, which had its first nuclear chain reaction in 1982 and went into commercial operation in 1985, faced numerous problems. Between