Russia's readiness to finance the multi-billion nuclear project in the Bulgarian Danube town of Belene, which has stalled over lack of funding, will top the agenda of the Bulgarian and Russian energy ministers in Sofia.

Russian Minister Sergey Shmatko and the head of the State Atomic Energy Corporation "Rosatom" Sergey Kirienko are arriving in the Bulgarian capital on Friday.

The two ministers will also discuss the South Steam gas pipeline project, which would run from the Black Sea's Northern Caucasus shore to the Bulgarian port city of Varna. The South Stream project is seen as a rival to Nabucco and its commissioning term is also nearly identical to the EU-favoured project.

The meeting comes just two days after the surprising visit of Gazprom CEO, Alexei Miller, who arrived in Sofia on Wednesday at the invitation of of Bulgarian company Bulgargaz and conferred with Prime Minister Boyko Borisov and President Georgi Parvanov. The essence of his visit has been described as “negotiations for the start of negotiations”.

Bulgarian Minister Traikov announced earlier this week that the country is going to seek a loan of about EUR 2 B from the Russian company Rosatom so that the construction works on the site in the Danube town of Belene could continue in 2010 and 2011.

Meanwhile Finance Minister Simeon Djankov said however that he will never allow the provision of any state guarantees for loans.

Russia's state nuclear company Rosatom announced at the end of last year that it is ready to finance the multi-billion nuclear project in the Bulgarian Danube town of Belene, which has stalled over lack of funding.

The tender for a consultant to help the government decide how to proceed and attract new investors for the planned Belene nuclear power plant will be invited by the end of February.

Bulgaria's new centre-right government, which has put the 2,000 megawatt Belene under review due to rising costs, came up with the idea to hire a new consultant after German utility RWE walked out of the project due to funding problems and Sofia decided to redesign it in the next year to attract new investors.

RWE's departure from Bulgaria's new Belene nuclear plant put extra pressure on government to find new shareholders while it redefines the scope of investment it needs.

The new governmen plans to cut its shares in the project from 51% to 20-30%, which will still allow the country to keep its blocking quota.

Belene's reactors are to be of the Russian VVER-1000 class, while the Western companies are providing instrumentation and control systems.

State power utility NEK has a majority stake in the plant.

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