Info Blackout in Bulgaria over Belene as Time Ticks Away

Business » ENERGY | March 30, 2011, Wednesday // 12:11
Bulgaria: Info Blackout in Bulgaria over Belene as Time Ticks Away A file picture dated 03 September 2008 showing workers during the construction of the first 1 000 MW unit of the second nuclear plant of Belene, Bulgaria. Photo by EPA/BGNES

A day ahead of the deadline for Sofia and Moscow to agree on whether to build two 1,000 megawatt nuclear reactors at Belene, in the north, officials refuse to provide any information about how the project will develop.

Representatives of the National Electricity Transmission Company (NEK), the government, the Ministry of Economy and Energy and the Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, which is to build the units, all declined comment after being contacted by Dnevnik daily.

The 11th annex to the main contract between Bulgaria and Russia on the construction of the Belene nuke plant expires on March 31st 2011. Earlier in March Rosatom demanded that the parties sign the next agreement by then.

A the end of last week Prime Minister Boyko Borisov said that the government will delay its decision whether to go ahead with its second nuclear power plant project or not by at least another three months over concerns about safety and costs.

An agreement with Russia on freezing the Belene nuclear power project for three months will be signed in the coming days, he said.

NEK, which is headed by Energy Minister Traicho Traikov, has however denied the information.

"Nobody is going to sign anything and we don't know anything," NEK representatives told Dnevnik daily in a telephone interview.

The press offices of Rosatom and the Bulgarian government also refused to provide information.

Meanwhile it emerged that Minister Traikov will pay a working visit to Moscow on April 6-7 and is scheduled to confer with his Russian counterpart Sergei Shmatko.

Experts have warned that should the need for another notification of the EIA-procedure arises, the delay in launching the project will be up to six months.

Europe's atomic energy anxiety found Bulgaria hesitating over plans to get a second nuclear plant, in Belene, on the Danube.

For a country that has suffered from the Chernobyl disaster and decommissioned several nuclear reactors over safety concerns, Bulgaria's pursuit of atomic energy is controversial at best.

The accident at Japan's Fukushima plant only came to fuel further concerns about nuclear power and increased its unpopularity, at least among ordinary people, while the government is uncertain over the new reactors.

The plant was originally to be built by Russian company Atomstroyexport, a subsidiary of Rosatom, for EUR 4 B. The firm had signed a contract with the previous, Socialist-led government, swept from power by Borisov's conservative GERB party swept in the 2009 elections.

Due to the delays in the launch of the construction works, stalled over price disputes and funding problems, Russia now says the project construction price should be increased to EUR 6.3 B.

Sofia insists it will pay no more than EUR 5 M.

Bulgaria's new center-right government suspended the construction of the nuclear power plant last year until it finds a new investor and funds to complete the project at Belene, on the Danube, 180 kilometres northeast of the capital Sofia.

The Bulgarian Energy Holding picked in November 2010 HSBC, one of UK's biggest banks, for a consultant to help it decide how to proceed and attract new investors for the planned Belene nuclear power plant.

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Tags: Sergei Shmatko, project, plant, power, Russia, Bulgaria, Belene, Moscow, sofia, Belene NPP, Nuclear Power Plant, NPP, Kozloduy NPP, Traicho Traikov, Rosatom, Atomstroyexport, nuclear, reactor, safety, Japan, Earthquake, tsunami, Fukushima, EU, emergency meeting, Kozloduy, Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, National Electricity Transmission Company, NEK, Ministry of Economy and Energy, government

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