Bulgaria's only operating nuclear power plant at Kozloduy announced completion of its output plan, three weeks before the end of year.

Tuesday afternoon the planned production capacity of 18,158,264,200 kWh was reached, the nuke's press office said.

It means that until the rest of the period, end-December, with four fully operable units Kozloduy will produce another 1.2 billion kWh, which will round the annual output to 19.5 billion kWh.

The EU has insisted its members shut down all their Soviet-design VVER 230 reactors for safety reasons, since they lack a containment structure for preventing radioactive leaks.

Bulgaria agreed to mothball two of the six VVER reactors at Kozloduy in the northwest of the country in 2002. It will shut down a further two later this year in return for the EU agreeing in principle to let Sofia join the EU 25 next January.

The European Union has to pay EUR 210 M to compensate the closedown.

It was agreed that Kozloduy's reactors five and six, which are of a more modern design, would remain in service.

Kozloduy currently supplies around 42% of Bulgaria's electricity. It has also helped ensure the country is the main energy exporter in the Balkans. However, with closedown enforced in less than a month, Bulgaria will cease exporting and Kozloduy will work to meet domestic supplies alone, experts said.

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