The Executive Director of Bulgaria's nuclear power plant at Kozloduy Ivan Genov announced Sunday that the 440 MW Unit 4 could be turned on in a week as long as the Bulgarian government managed to get a permission from the European Commission.

Genov said the technical procedures for the reboot of Reactor 4 were well under way, and that the Kozloduy NPP was going to start negotiations on Monday with Bulgaria's Nuclear Regulation Agency in order to get a license for the restart of the unit.

"I cannot say that this would happen quickly. The Agency is first going to set certain conditions, and would grant a permission whenever the NPP meets them", Genov said in an interview for the Bulgarian National Radio.

In his words, the Plant had processed nuclear fuel on storage which could feed up one of the 440 MW reactors for up to five months, without having to import additional fresh nuclear fuel.

For such a period, the Kozloduy Plant can produce an additional amount of electricity worth BGN 100 M, or BGN 130 M, if it is sold abroad.

The Bulgarian President and government raised the question about turning on one of the two smaller reactors of the Kozloduy Plant, Units 3 and 4, which were closed down after an agreement with the EU over safety concerns, as soon as the Russia-Ukraine gas pricing dispute put Bulgarian in an energy crisis situation.

According to the Bulgarian authorities, Bulgaria's EU accession treaty allowed the turning on of the two reactors in a case of an emergency situation such as an energy crisis.

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