There have been two offers from private investors interested in the construction of the Belene nuclear power plant (NPP), Bulatom, a non-profit representing nuclear energy businesses and experts, has said.

"We have heard... of a proposal from an American financial consortium," Stanislav Georgiev, Executive Secretary at Bulatom, has told the Bulgarian National Radio.

He has also made a reference to comments by Rumen Ovcharov, a former energy minister and until recently the state's representative at Lukoil Bulgaria, who said on Sunday there was a Western company showing interest in the construction.

Georgiev has named EDF, France's public electricity company, as the investor whose name was not disclosed by Ovcharov.

He has also described the electric utility company as a "more acceptable" option, with the entity in question being the equivalent of the National Electricity Company (NEK) of Bulgaria.

"This is an investor with long-twrm funding options. This is an excellent option, so long as it is reality!"

Georgiev has noted that, while a private investor would find a solution to political turbulence generated by the project, it would take up to to years to restart it.

Belene NPP was abandoned earlier in the 2010s, with Russia's Atomstroyexport having remained the sole foreign company involved at the time.

However, as Bulgaria is left with a freshly-made nuclear reactor handed by Atomstroyexport and produced for Belene, the country ponders options to build the plant with other investors.

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